37 Chevy Gasser - Hand Painted Artwork

[62 Parts]

This was my first time to try hand-painting letters and artwork directly on the body of a model car, which turns out, is a whole lot harder than drawing on a piece of paper laying flat on the table, but it was a fun experiment! I’m gonna be trying more of this on more projects soon! This is my tribute to those crazy fellas from the 50’s and 60’s who lived to drag race with whatever they could get their hands on….probably built in their Dad’s garage…the big blown souped-up motor was the most important thing. Winning on Saturday night was all they could think about all week long. And maybe safety wasn’t exactly first on their mind--just winning with the craziest fastest car out there! This is the excellent 1/25 AMT ’37 Chevy kit that comes with the option to build one of three ways, and I chose to build a mad gasser in honor of those drag racing pioneers. The body was primed with Krylon Gray Ultra-Flat primer and allowed to dry outside for about an hour while I took my oil pastel sticks and scraped 5 colors into powder with an Xacto on a piece of wax paper…Orange Rust, Yellow, Light Blue and Brown. I used cotton swabs to mix those powder colors together a bit, and then rubbed the body down to appear severely weathered, like it was finally rescued from the junkyard. I sprayed Testor’s Dullcote over the body to protect all that weathering work, and to prep for the task of hand-painting the lettering and ball-and-chain artwork -- the lettering was done with acrylic paint markers, and the ball & chain was done with the edge corners of the pastel sticks that I made the powders from earlier. Then a second coat of the dulcote to protect the artwork. The chassis was painted Krylon Red Oxide and set aside. I added a few of my own touches to the beastly 427 powerplant -- like the MOROSO valve covers, some CRAZY PIPES from a Miss Deal funny car kit, velocity stacks made from Evergreen Styrene tube, a parts-box blower, and I made the fuel pump tubing from some clear plastic bead string stuff I found at Michael’s that I painted with Tamiya Clear Yellow acrylic to appear full of gasoline - then hooked up to the kit-supplied fuel pump. The rear tires are the most excellent pad-printed M&H dragmaster piecrust slicks from AMT parts pack--the Cragars are lightly coated with Tamiya Light Gunmetal to bring the kit chrome shine down a bit. Seatbelts were made from masking tape painted the same Light Gunmetal, and P/E buckle hardware was added. Finally, I used Tamiya Weathermaster Orange rust to give the door handles and headlight bezels that neglected look like it was just dug out from years in the junkyard. I also increased the ride height in front and rear from kit specs by adding cut / stacked & painted pieces of balsa wood blocks. This was a BLAST to build! Thank you AMT.

Edited July 7, 2016 by 62 Parts

[frozono]

Love it.....

[modelfink]

Love the spirit of this build. Very nice weathering. My only suggestion for a future build would be to detail those velocity stacks a bit by adding the injectors at the base with fuel lines. I'm not an expert on these engines but something seems a little off about that stack/scoop set up.

Overall it looks very cool.

Edited July 7, 2016 by modelfink

[bobthehobbyguy]

Nice job on the artwork.  The eeathering looks great. Love the concept.

Edited July 7, 2016 by bobthehobbyguy

[Jantrix]

 That '37 is an excellent kit and you knocked it out of the ballpark. The graphics look great.

[62 Parts]

I hear ya Travis - good point....matter of fact I can re-work this one I think.  Thank you sir!

[modelfink]

I hear ya Travis - good point....matter of fact I can re-work this one I think.  Thank you sir!

The scoop my not reach above the hood, which always looks cool, but the motor would need to be raised to achieve that i'm afraid. Super tall stacks with out a scoop would look awesome too

[bismarck]

That's COOL!!!  Love those crazy headers.

[cobraman]

I really like what you did with this kit.

[62 Parts]

Thank you, brothers!  When I dug thru my parts box for headers and saw those, I knew I had to make them fit no matter what!

[62 Parts]

I dig your humor, Rob!   The Gashopper is badass..

[High octane]

Very nice gasser build on that "bowtie" Bob and I just love your lettering job also. I may have a set of those headers in my stash, hmmmm.

[futurattraction]

Very nice build all the way around.  You did a super job on your weathering and your hand lettering turned out really good, too.  It's got it all!

[bob29579]

Outstanding.  I really like this one.

[Marlowe]

It's got the perfect backyard look.  Your description is spot on!  Well done!  

[slusher]

Real nice art work and neat weathered gasser...

[DumpyDan]

Nicely done, looks a lot better then what mine turned out

[62 Parts]

Thank you fellas - I've got a second identical kit of this car I'm gonna be doin' up with good paint and Slixx decals to go with the kit decals ...and I'm gonna dig all the way through my parts boxes and find some more goodies for this one too.

[Snake45]

Very, very nice indeed! Your hand artwork is outstanding, and you did a good job capturing the look and feel of the era. Well done and model on!

[62 Parts]

Thank you Snake!  ...may I call you Snake?  Ha!

[mredjr]

Great job! It does have the shade tree look.

[Yenkocamaro]

Nice work, Bob. You captured the Look of a period piece Reminds me of a backyard garage built, low budget, in your face, Drag car!

 

Cheers,

Lance

[62 Parts]

Hey Lance - thank you man - I've got 4 more cars to do for my tribute to those early drag racers --- Stay tuned...........

[supersport]

Very nice I have this kit which I haven't opened yet.Did those headers come with the kit?

[62 Parts]

Hey Steve - headers do come with the kit, but not those. - What you see are from a Miss Deal funny car kit.