Donnie Allison's Hawaiian Tropic Monte Carlo

[Merkur XR4Ti]

Built from the new Salvino's kit. Rustoleum Colonial red paint.

[Scalper]

Nice .. Great looking stocker. nice work .

[afx]

Very nice Steve, what is your impression of the Salvino kits?

[Merkur XR4Ti]

21 minutes ago, afx said:

Very nice Steve, what is your impression of the Salvino kits?

 

I think they're very nice for the subjects they offer. They look good on my shelf. Having Powerslide decals included in the kit is a HUGE plus. These are basically limited-run kits; I wasn't expecting a Revell-style breakdown of parts and it's different than kits I've built before.

The chassis is a little simplified and perhaps a little generic, but (and this is strictly a personal preference) I don't really care as the model looks right to my eye. The chassis was a bit finicky to build but this was my first Salvino kit and I was learning along the way. My first Revell stocker was much the same, honestly.

The kit required a bit of fiddling to look right but I was expecting that and frankly I was fine with it.

I would encourage everyone to buy one and check it out. The Olds is up next for me.

[Dave Van]

1 hour ago, afx said:

Very nice Steve, what is your impression of the Salvino kits?

I want to add to the comments on the Salvinos kits.  The Monte Carlo addressed the issue of the OLDS having the wrong front and rear suspension. They tooled new rear suspension.....only issue is it is wrong! They did truck trailing arms.....but they are about 1/32 scale and not near correct. I call it growing pain's when you bring kits to market to fast without enough R&D done. I hope they will get it right as they go....but doubt they will ever correct the rear suspension.....so live with it.....

The bodies on both the OLDS and MC need some work to get them to look more like race cars than they do box stock.....but if you want to see what they need there is ton of info on Randy Ayers NASCAR forum on how o. 

[Dave Van]

I did mean to say Steve did a great job as always....making that kit look as good as it can. 

Here is one issue I have.......

 

AMT 1/25 scale rear trailing arms on the left....Salvinos model of the exact same parts on the right. 

No big deal???? If Revell did it to a Camaro kit there would be a 25 page post on how bad Revell is.....recall the 1990 Mustang LX thread. 

Not try to beat up Salvinos.......I am happy someone is making new kits. But they have been offered LOTS of free help in making things right and everyone was told to 'start your own model company'....oh well...

Edited April 17, 2019 by Dave Van

[Merkur XR4Ti]

These are all fair points, Dave. However, I think it's worth re-stating that my personal preference is to build cars that look nice on the shelf. The chassis details don't interest me all that much. I believe that the Monte Carlo fulfills that requirement for me. I understand if others feel differently, but for me the kit is nice. I would never have been able to build a MC race car otherwise (nor an Olds), and they look darn close to the real thing. I am not in the habit of turning my models upside down, and I don't build for contests any more (I enter them sometimes, but I only build for me).

Frankly, the Olds might be a better build for me precisely because of the incorrect rear suspension in it. The assembly will be simpler, and thus a more solid, easier build, which makes me happy. I've always had trouble with rear suspensions on my Nascar kits; a simpler assembly pleases me. I will learn from this build, and apply those lessons to the Olds and see how that turns out.

I don't see the problems you see with the bodies; to me they look like the pics of the real cars I examined. Again, this is just me. I am just about the furthest thing from a rivet counter one can imagine. It's hardly a Palmer, ya know? The pic is here up thread for everyone to see and judge for themselves if the kit looks close enough to the real thing for them. For me, it does.

Final note: Revell would get beat up for such a thing because they are a long-established company making millions of mainstream models. Salvino's is a start up company making niche models. I think it's not fair to have the same standards applied. I am thoroughly impressed that they put out this kit and I was able to build what you see here today. if they were offered help and it was refused, all one can do is look at the final product and decide if it's worth personally buying. For me, it was.

I can't wait to build the Olds. I can't wait to see what they do with the old Revell Buick tool. I can't wait for their Pontiac 2+2. I can't wait to see what their Charger will look like.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Merkur XR4Ti

[Dave Van]

I don't dis-agree with what you say. I tried to give them a break as a start up.......but as stated they want no help in improving. Had the Monte Carlo been more to my standards I'd bought 12 of them....SO many famous cars to do. But the long list of things I feel the need to fix makes made me buy two kits....and that was to support them, hoping future offerings are better. 

One question on your build. Did you address the wide gap between the chassis and body?? In playing with mine it looked like 1/8 to 1/4" gap that needs to be filled.  Once I get back to building (after 1/1 car season) I will build a MC and show what I feel is needed........and yours may still look better a 3 feet!!! thx

[james460]

I bought one. Paid about 35.00 at the local hobby shop. I buy most of my kit at my local hobby shop, his prices are a little out of line but I support him when ever I can, been dealing with him for 50 yrs. It's not a bad kit. Like Dave said the Rear trailing arms are a little small. If you want to correct those you could probably use one of the AMT Nascar kits. I have not tried that but I'm sure it can be done.  I wish it had a different seat. Also wish they had include a  front grille that would fit with the stacked head lights. Stacked head light front is included. But the thing that really bothers me, and I know this is petty, is all the ejector pin marks on the chassis. As someone has already said its not a Monogram kit and doesn't just fall together, but the subjects are interesting and it seems everyone drove a Chevy MC sometime in the 70's. Lots of options. If further subjects interests me I'll buy more.

[Merkur XR4Ti]

7 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

I don't dis-agree with what you say. I tried to give them a break as a start up.......but as stated they want no help in improving. Had the Monte Carlo been more to my standards I'd bought 12 of them....SO many famous cars to do. But the long list of things I feel the need to fix makes made me buy two kits....and that was to support them, hoping future offerings are better. 

One question on your build. Did you address the wide gap between the chassis and body?? In playing with mine it looked like 1/8 to 1/4" gap that needs to be filled.  Once I get back to building (after 1/1 car season) I will build a MC and show what I feel is needed........and yours may still look better a 3 feet!!! thx

 

I did not fix anything regarding the gap. This model is box stock. With the body on and sitting on my shelf, I can't see any body gap anyway. The body sits firmly on the chassis; I can pick it up and not worry about the chassis falling out. This is not like a typical MPC kit that would fall apart when picked up. It's very solid.

 

One thing I did do was to sand the front valance down a little bit to raise the bumper up a touch. Just wanted to move the bumper further up into the headlight piece. That improves the appearance a lot. But that's about all I did.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Merkur XR4Ti

[Merkur XR4Ti]

5 minutes ago, james460 said:

I bought one. Paid about 35.00 at the local hobby shop. I buy most of my kit at my local hobby shop, his prices are a little out of line but I support him when ever I can, been dealing with him for 50 yrs. It's not a bad kit. Like Dave said the Rear trailing arms are a little small. If you want to correct those you could probably use one of the AMT Nascar kits. I have not tried that but I'm sure it can be done.  I wish it had a different seat. Also wish they had include a  front grille that would fit with the stacked head lights. Stacked head light front is included. But the thing that really bothers me, and I know this is petty, is all the ejector pin marks on the chassis. As someone has already said its not a Monogram kit and doesn't just fall together, but the subjects are interesting and it seems everyone drove a Chevy MC sometime in the 70's. Lots of options. If further subjects interests me I'll buy more.

 

From what I understand, this kit was not meant to offer 2 options for a build, only one. Some kits did go out with both sets of grilles, but that was apparently a mistake. Perhaps they'll change that in the future?

Ejector pin marks are there, no doubt. They're on the bottom. I didn't worry about them. Painted and decaled up, and on my shelf, I can't see 'em.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Merkur XR4Ti

[Dave Van]

43 minutes ago, Merkur XR4Ti said:

 

One thing I did do was to sand the front valance down a little bit to raise the bumper up a touch. Just wanted to move the bumper further up into the headlight piece. That improves the appearance a lot. But that's about all I did.

That is one mod everyone that did a build on Randy's did.....it does help a lot......made your build look better in a subtle way. 

[Dave Van]

49 minutes ago, james460 said:

I bought one. Paid about 35.00 at the local hobby shop. I buy most of my kit at my local hobby shop, his prices are a little out of line but I support him when ever I can, been dealing with him for 50 yrs. It's not a bad kit. Like Dave said the Rear trailing arms are a little small. If you want to correct those you could probably use one of the AMT Nascar kits. I have not tried that but I'm sure it can be done.  I wish it had a different seat. Also wish they had include a  front grille that would fit with the stacked head lights. Stacked head light front is included. But the thing that really bothers me, and I know this is petty, is all the ejector pin marks on the chassis. As someone has already said its not a Monogram kit and doesn't just fall together, but the subjects are interesting and it seems everyone drove a Chevy MC sometime in the 70's. Lots of options. If further subjects interests me I'll buy more.

The AMT trailing unit shown in my photo is from my Salvinos OLDS build.....it is not real hard to mod and make it work. 

[Jim N]

1 hour ago, Merkur XR4Ti said:

These are all fair points, Dave. However, I think it's worth re-stating that my personal preference is to build cars that look nice on the shelf. The chassis details don't interest me all that much. I believe that the Monte Carlo fulfills that requirement for me. I understand if others feel differently, but for me the kit is nice. I would never have been able to build a MC race car otherwise (nor an Olds), and they look darn close to the real thing. I am not in the habit of turning my models upside down, and I don't build for contests any more (I enter them sometimes, but I only build for me).

Frankly, the Olds might be a better build for me precisely because of the incorrect rear suspension in it. The assembly will be simpler, and thus a more solid, easier build, which makes me happy. I've always had trouble with rear suspensions on my Nascar kits; a simpler assembly pleases me. I will learn from this build, and apply those lessons to the Olds and see how that turns out.

I don't see the problems you see with the bodies; to me they look like the pics of the real cars I examined. Again, this is just me. I am just about the furthest thing from a rivet counter one can imagine. It's hardly a Palmer, ya know? The pic is here up thread for everyone to see and judge for themselves if the kit looks close enough to the real thing for them. For me, it does.

Final note: Revell would get beat up for such a thing because they are a long-established company making millions of mainstream models. Salvino's is a start up company making niche models. I think it's not fair to have the same standards applied. I am thoroughly impressed that they put out this kit and I was able to build what you see here today. if they were offered help and it was refused, all one can do is look at the final product and decide if it's worth personally buying. For me, it was.

I can't wait to build the Olds. I can't wait to see what they do with the old Revell Buick tool. I can't wait for their Pontiac 2+2. I can't wait to see what their Charger will look like.

Great job Steve with the build, and very well said.

[MarkJ]

Very nice job , Steve.  I'm glad you aren't picky about correctness. Like you say , who looks at the bottom of the finished model and gets out reference books to see if the suspension is right or not. I was going to do a quick version of a 76 ford but the naysayers  made me give in and put the trailing arm suspension on it instead of leaf springs. Nobody is going to know or care when I post the finished model whether its correct or not. The front suspension is wrong too but i'm not changing that.

[bbowser]

Great looking model!  I'm with the OP, if it looks good on the shelf, I really don't care what's underneath.  I've got both a Monte and an Olds in the pile to build.

[Old Coyote]

Very nice build sir, you do beautiful work.

[Dragonhawk1066]

Looks good to me! Nice work!