Jump to content
Model Cars Magazine Forum

1968 Shelby Green Hornet-----Update! 8/4/18


MrObsessive

Recommended Posts

My enthusiasm is on high tilt today as this is a car that I've been wanting to redo for a VERY long time! Since I'm off today, I figured I better get started as who knows how I'll be feeling later in the week once I get back to work. 

I normally don't repeat models so close together because it was just late last year that I finished up the '67 Mustang GT. Well, this car I've simply loved for quite a few years as I originally built one back in 1996. While that model was OK as far as it goes, I was never quite happy with the overall body shape of it. Not till years later did I figure out what the problem was------the roof looked like it just "sat" on the '68 fastback's body, and just seemed off to me. 

After some brainstorming, I figured out that the best way to get a much more accurate body of the 1967-68 two door hardtop, was to combine more aspects of the '66 Mustang into the '68 Shelby kit's lower body. 

The car that I'm replicating has a very interesting history which can be read about here.

This will be a loooooong project as there's quite a bit of bodywork to be done to make it the way I want, not to mention the independent rear will have to be totally fabricated from scratch. The only working features I'm going to have on this one will be opening doors and trunk. I was going to do more, but I'm at a point in modeling where the other working features are nice such as windows and whatnot, but with my eyesight not as in tune as it used to be, and the time factor, I may leave those type features to larger scales in the future.

OK! On to some pics!

As you all seen on my last completed BMW thread, here are both the '66 and '68 bodies again before anything was done.

54:494726514604
P9055602.jpg

This is the area where builders in the past including myself have made a big error in trying to make a '67-'68 two door hardtop. On the '68 body (white) there's a much taller "hip" area just behind the doors. Correct for a fastback which also had "swoopier" rear fenders to my view and were a bit lower at the very end. One can't just cut off the top on the '66 and plop it on top of the fastback's body. So some slicing and dicing were done on my part..............

P9055603.JPG

 Using my Trumpeter's scribing tool I began to slice along where I made the original line with the magic marker.

P9055604.jpg

It took a bit, but I got the roof, top of the quarters, and rear deck free.

P9055605.jpg

I did the same to the '68's body............

P9055606.jpg
P9055607.JPG

OK! Here's a very preliminary mock-up of what I have so far! Looks MUCH better already then simply sticking the roof on the '68's rear "hips" unchanged.

When it's all said and done, I want my model to look like this one..........

F25.jpg
15_83590.jpg

Still MUCH more work to do to fill in the gaps and get everything looking the way it should. This went much easier than I thought as this section is nearly a drop-in to what I cut off. I'll tweak the A pillars somewhat as they're a bit too thick per the 1:1, and of course match up the front header of the '66 roof to better suit the '68 body's windshield frame.

Thanks for checkin' this one out folks! Comments welcome, and I'm not sure when the next update will be. I'll fiddle with this some more today, and when I get more pics together I'll post 'em.

Edited by MrObsessive
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bill, that is the simplest solution I've ever seen! Yeah, there's going to be some bodywork involved, but it'll be much better looking than just swapping out the roof for sure!

What's nice Mike is that I'm finding out that there aren't any huge differences in the widths of the bodies. Not always the case even with the same manufacturer of what's supposed to be "1/25th" scale. ;)

EDIT: BTW, I originally was going to use the cowl off the '66 and graft it onto the '68's body as the A pillars look better to me on the '66. However, the two aren't quite the same between the model years, so that's why I went with what I did. I'll just refashion the '68's A pillars a bit to look more in scale. I'll also make new vent windows/posts as the ones molded on the '68's body aren't quite right either.

Edited by MrObsessive
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great project, one of those that you wonder why you haven't seen it done before. I read that the original form of the car had a prototypical independent rear suspension, later replaced with a regular 9 inch. Are you planning the IRS version?

Yup! I sure am! I got tons of pics off the 'net of the IRS as it appears in the car today, and I may be using brass for some of the bits and pieces.

A little more about this WIP------AMT's '67 Shelby kit will provide the basic chassis and parts of the interior. It looks like I'll be using the '67's seats and modifying those into a '68 pattern as the '68 Shelby's kit pieces are IMO woefully inadequate. I have a junker Revell '69 Shelby kit which will provide the engine, and I'll have to make the electronic fuel injection setup out of my own mind as I don't know what could be close to that. I did a similar setup to the build I did back in '96, but I want this to be better than that one was then.

I've had for years now a set of GMP's now OOP '68 Shelby 10 spoke wheels. Those are the most accurate to date, and came with a set of RWL tires mounted on them. Keith Marks makes the stripes and badging and I already got a set from him. 

As far as color---------it looks like I'll have to be mixing my own green with a gold metallic in it to get close to the color that was on the 1:1. I read that the car was initially painted a light metallic green from the factory when it was originally a California Special. The car was painted in sort of a candy green with a mica gold cleacoat over the green to give it a somewhat pearlescent appearance. I'm not sure if I can pull all of that off with the paint, but I'm sure I can come up with a reasonable facsimile. 

Looks like I've got my bodywork cut out for me. IMO, the whole front end of the car namely the grille will need to be reworked. The '68 Shelby kit body as it was out of the box the grille is too upright, while on the 1:1 the shape is more trapezoidal. This on top of opening up the doors and trunk!

So needless to say, I can see just the bodywork alone taking the better part of the month to get done! :blink: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice start Bill. I'll be curious to see how you tackle the rear window. 

I've been thinking about doing a '67 road racer coupe for a while but that back window issue is a bit more than I'd want to take on right now and all the resin bodies I've seen have the '65/'66 rear window area.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great project, one of those that you wonder why you haven't seen it done before

I want to add that the 1967-68 two door hardtop Mustang was another one of those cars on that NNL East "Wish List". Now that I'm doing this car with all this work, watch a kit come out of the '67-'68 two door hardtop! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice start Bill. I'll be curious to see how you tackle the rear window. 

I've been thinking about doing a '67 road racer coupe for a while but that back window issue is a bit more than I'd want to take on right now and all the resin bodies I've seen have the '65/'66 rear window area.

Steve, I've got plans for the back window as I did this before on the old one from 20 years ago (I'll have to take up to date pics of that one). 

As you know, the '67-'68 two door hardtops have somewhat of a "tunneled" back window. I'll have to make some slight extensions as the C pillar is a bit broader than the '65-'66 models. Not to mention, getting rid of that ridge that's on top of the trailing edge of the '66 roof. There is a subtle crease that runs somewhat parallel on the '68's C pillar, and it'll be just a matter of filing/sanding that one in.

It'll be a little while though!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very ambitious project Bill!

A small tip for you, when I cut seams for joining large parts of a car body I use a Dremel diamond wheel, then I file the joint with a bevel so when you put the two together they fit without hardly a seam. Not criticizing (at all) just trying to help make your life a little easier on the bodywork end.

I will definitely be watching this!

Edited by Kennyboy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A small tip for you, when I cut seams for joining large parts of a car body I use a Dremel diamond wheel, then I file the joint with a bevel so when you put the two together they fit without hardly a seam.

Ken, I have a Dremel Moto-Tool with the diamond wheel, but I was reluctant to use it due to the width of the wheel itself. I wanted a thinner slice to cut through the plastic as there's those scoop contours behind the trailing edge of the doors. The wheel may have ground into that, and then there's the hassle of trying to get the original contours again. On cars that have flatter panels (and larger scales) yeah, that's a good idea to use it. 

The way I did it takes longer, but in the long run I avoid grinding into an unwanted area and of course, I try to use as much plastic as possible to fill in any gaps. I don't want a repeat of what happened to my '55 Ford Victoria using just pure putty. :o

I did use the Dremel to grind away at the inside to separate the body section where I was making the cuts as the plastic is somewhat thick in spots. 

Today I managed to get the driver's door cut out, and the Dremel came in handy for that as you can grind away at the shut lines where you're cutting-----makes things go a little faster in popping those panels out. As of now, I'll be building up the door jamb for the door, make a support structure for the door hinges, clean up that side of the bodywork a bit more, and then follow up with the other side. 

As I get a sufficient number of pics to post, I'll show more of what's going on. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a small update this time around as I'm still dealing with bodywork and will for some time yet. 

I managed to get the driver's door cut out as this'll make getting the rear part of the bodywork done that much easier. I was a little overzealous in trying to get things smoothed out when I sanded an unwanted trough just above the rear wheelwells. I had used a sanding block to try and get this smoothed and still managed to get a trough. One of the reasons that I might have got this is that while the different bodies mated up fairly well, the '66's upper fenders are not quite as beefy as the '67-'68's. This led to me trying to even things up and that led to a trough. On the actual cars, I'm sure they're about identical, but in the model world with two different cars tooled up at different times, things will change in the interpretation.

Nevertheless, it's body putty to the rescue, and I've dug out my old tried and true Dynatron Putty-Cote and filled in those troughs as best I could.

I've found that this putty will work fine over bare plastic, but I had already primed the area to see how much of a trough was done. This will work over primed areas as well, but I like to let things sit overnight to fully cure. 

It probably doesn't need to sit that long, but I can do other things awhile. Note that I got the windshield header cleaned up where the new roof mated. I'll have to raise the upper windshield/trim up just a bit as it appears too low to my eyes.

24:495237624257
18:495237618843

The trailing edge of the inner fenders will need to be thinned out to allow the doors to turn inwards as they pivot instead of swinging on gooseneck hinges. So I'll break out the Dremel Moto-Tool in this instance, and grind away. 

21:495237621413

The doors themselves are awfully thick (as well they should be for manufacturing purposes), but in the 1:1 world real doors are nowhere near this thick when viewed from the trailing edge. I'll thin this area out too as well and add plastic around the perimeter to tighten up the shut lines when the doors are closed.

I'm leaning very heavily to building this model with roll up windows. I'm planning in my mind and doodling on a 3x5 card how I might want to go about this. For the front side glass, I'm debating whether or not to go with the watch gear method, or the simpler "pulley" method such as how I showed in an article I wrote years ago in MCM on a '55 Chevy.

I'm leaning more towards the latter as this will provide more "turns" than the watch gears.............we'll have to see. :)

26:495237626756

The rear windows will definitely be of the watch gear mechanism type, and I'll have to brainstorm that one as that type of geometry and movement I've not had to deal with before. In a video I downloaded the other day in how to install the rear window regulator in a '66 Mustang, they appear to go pretty much straight up and down. However as we all know in model land, things in 1:1 don't always translate obviously to 1:25. I'll try to figure out something as to how to miniaturize this into something that's not "gimmicky". 

It's on to cleaning up more on the body, and then building up the door jamb on the body and then on the door. BTW, I'm a BIG believer in only cutting out one side at a time. I need as much strength as possible as the rocker panel area is a bit thin. Once this side is done with the jamb, then I'll cut out the other side and do the same. 

Thanks for lookin!

Edited by MrObsessive
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...