Jump to content
Model Cars Magazine Forum

1953 AMT Studebaker restoration


CabDriver

Recommended Posts

Great project!  When I was born, my first ride home from the hospital was in a Studebaker.  My father loved the '53 coupe, and doing the best he could, acquired a '54 4 door sedan. When I was around three he and his buddies painted the car metallic green.  I saw it and exclaimed, "Daddy's new car!" and touched the door, leaving my little hand print.  Yea, my mother loved to tell that story.

He traded in the '54 on a new '62 Lark.  Man could those cars rust!  He got rid of it in 1966 because it had visible rust on it!  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/23/2019 at 1:11 PM, CabDriver said:

Huh, fascinating!  I wondered what they could be for - thanks for the info!  Makes sense!

Funnily enough, my wife's Aunt who sent me these kits lives in Valparaiso, and these kits came from the Grandpa's garage in Munster!  Throw in that the Studebaker factory was in South Bend and my wife is a Hoosier and we've got a lot of Indiana connections on this build!

Jim I attached a picture of my dad back in 53 when he bought his new.  I believe he worked for Studebaker at that time.   Love watching this build.   

1953 Studebaker.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for all the nice replies everyone!  Cool story Tom - do you have a pic of the car in the green?  That would make a fun replica - little hand print and all ?

David - great photo, thanks for sharing!  I loved seeing it!

Got a little more done on this one...started the foiling on the body (4 hours in and counting...):

924D48F6-355B-456B-A2E9-97F5A1170961.thumb.jpeg.a75169e0336547d3353a90a557a486cf.jpeg
FDC034E2-8AFF-409C-B0CB-9D27B254133E.thumb.jpeg.bb84468a000a7ef79b304ef161577215.jpeg

Plus a little chrome on the interior tub - it won’t be very visible anyway when the car’s done but I can see it NOW so I spent some time on getting that decent at least:

B3DFCE8B-CD62-4172-A6FF-0D56FB4BD121.thumb.jpeg.302181eb15f36a79b368e8a3c9771f89.jpeg

And then today I spent some time on the seats, adding some pastels to give the leather a little age and depth, some more BMF on that little ashtray in the center of the rear bench and some lapbelts made with medical tape:

2E19D40E-DDDC-446D-BF98-631BC1A2537F.thumb.jpeg.c72fb9d316f318ed9e6ddcb0b2ca6286.jpeg
C7A71590-EBDD-4DEC-A1D1-DC6654B077CC.thumb.jpeg.b9deaeaad27694164b8f75c56ede3714.jpeg

423FB1ED-9068-407A-B455-A93464AA4D1F.thumb.jpeg.5e3051a6c44d259e85554da5d6e7d51c.jpeg

As far as I can tell these cars didn’t come with lapbelts (I think?), but also the door panels don’t look anything like any of the reference photos I’ve found online for 53 year cars either, so my “factory stock ish” take on this car still holds together ok ?

More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, CabDriver said:

  Cool story Tom - do you have a pic of the car in the green?  That would make a fun replica - little hand print and all ?

As far as I can tell these cars didn’t come with lapbelts (I think?),

I don't have a photo, but I believe some do exist.  My father was a photographer, but most of his stuff was on slides.  I have several huge boxes stored, but haven't dug into that Pandora's box of my life just yet!    

Lap belts did exist in the 1950s.  Ford offered a safety theme in 1956 that included lap belts, padded dash and safety dash. It was lost on car buyers back then!  My father was a US Army officer and the army had put safety first a long time ago and he believed in seat belts.  All of our cars that I remember had them,  beginning with the '62 Lark!  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Love seeing this coming together.   Great build.  I actually saw a 53 or 54 Saturday heading to a car show.  It was dark brown with modern wheels etc but what a nice looking body.  

Edited by drodg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds cool Tom!  I’d love to see them if you ever them converted to digital - I’m starting to take a real liking to these cars after working on this one!  
 

Thanks for your nice comments too David - I did wonder how this thing would look with a nice dark brown interior...but I’m trying to build the kit as my wife’s Grandpa had built it so I went with the red in the end.  Speaking of which, I masked the tub today ready for painting sections black ready for ‘carpeting’...

E9F66C22-208C-4F0F-B812-F46EE8B127BA.thumb.jpeg.8ed32914d83c5ce823a8cbcb215dba92.jpeg

The middle section that I masked is to make sure I end up with a nice secure place to glue the seats - I hate trying to glue to a lumpy surface ?‍♂️?

I used some Elmers and some dark grey embossing powder for this build - I found reference pictures of these cars with red OR black interiors but I figured it had enough red already...

9062DC4A-C4B5-4F2B-8DD9-1E54F99D8221.thumb.jpeg.4438e4dff1d7f45ac714a3bfa179ed2e.jpeg

Et voila!  I’m pleased with how that looks - just need to add some PE door handles and window cranks and then I can start on the dash 

74F6AC56-B4F4-4450-867F-EEA630BADB47.thumb.jpeg.37903e4f685daec02d14043f11769272.jpeg

3DAEE3ED-F1B0-4A8C-80A4-8D9A4CBD970D.thumb.jpeg.a67b0fa4ab606f04cb3754d148607ea7.jpeg

More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It WAS anyway...

DDE3EBF1-26F5-4DB2-80E3-9BF1088E53EF.thumb.jpeg.e4a619fe696ab33a596157f4bf89ca23.jpeg

I tested this clear with this base on spoons before using it for real...laid on two nice light coats ten minutes apart and then one more heavy coat 15 minutes later - worked PERFECT!  Shiniest spoons I ever painted! Wasn’t so lucky on the body though...time to go find somewhere that sells Purple Power ??

In good news my Detail Master door handles arrived! ??‍♂️

2883948C-A6ED-4B34-A7C0-53F00FAC245E.thumb.jpeg.5b567bcd7a6ab39ee8208d74a553f6ef.jpeg
 

More soon, after I go for a nice relaxing walk somewhere ??

Edited by CabDriver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got a couple more little bits done on this whilst the body’s Purple-Ponding - added window cranks and door handles:

568672B7-52A5-429C-A343-2D7682EFBC62.thumb.jpeg.9a6976f098b44b8514fb9f1bb324c220.jpeg

Added some photo-etch pedals:

0E3E5736-E658-409E-A104-4C13F104F57D.thumb.jpeg.9642983faf0f852452059bd720de5cfe.jpeg

And did a little work on the frame - I didn’t like the kit rear shocks so I remade them from some aluminum sheet, aluminum tube and photo etch bolt heads: 

9D382387-BC3F-4A27-9EF7-BCA750748FC9.thumb.jpeg.30d7de76568dc83f960add5304938455.jpeg

Oh, and got the chrome part of the dash chromed so I can get that done and the interior wrapped up:

ECFEE187-9235-48A6-92A8-E4400A7B573F.thumb.jpeg.f08d1c1ed956bae25e8654584f021b09.jpeg

More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting project. I enjoyed seeing the cutter at work. My agency had a small sign shop and did a lot of cut vinyl graphics. It was a large cutter and could only cut letters down to about 1/4 inch but I still made a few model decals for my projects and for my late father's RC airplanes. Keep us posted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks everyone!  I sent the body to the purple pond for a few days to think about what it had done, and it’s back in primer ready for another try:

6FEAD672-F228-45C1-98E6-DE35880C6F33.thumb.jpeg.2e442efa4299c50be45fbdc018419ab8.jpeg

In the meantime, I kept myself busy by designing some custom floor mats as a little added interior detail:

DB57A90E-BC50-444C-92C6-E52E08525D1F.thumb.jpeg.2bc796e3982a5aec9bc2cc500a97b7ba.jpeg

I used my vinyl cutter to score styrene sheet - once on a higher blade setting to do the stripes and the lettering and a second time on a lower blade setting to cut through the material.  Worked great!  
 

I shot them with some Tamiya Nato Black (thinned down as much as I dared so the paint thickness didn’t hide any detail) and I’m pretty pleased with how they look!

97868D8B-7CAE-46C1-937E-726A9C54A6E5.thumb.jpeg.a15af4f9bc069695a7c5b267b7c83e8f.jpeg

I’ll give them another coat of paint in the morning and they’ll be ready to install!  I’ve also spent a few hours cleaning up a bunch of fairly uninteresting parts so I can get the chassis together and start dropping components in for good.  
 

More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A little update...got the floor mats painted and installed - just a subtle detail but I’m happy with how they came out! 
 

A8425357-D90E-4B23-904E-B3054BB40E08.thumb.jpeg.66a44eb532d4c4b05879f27ddbb5b0a7.jpeg

I got the suspension pieces for the front end painted and assembled - they took a little fanangling to get them to fit together nicely but I got them there...I also swapped the kit plastic springs for metal ones:

E2917462-407B-4046-8486-72F6423DBAF5.thumb.jpeg.93289704d6b5e110ee9d885fb50a4ff0.jpeg

And we’ve got a roller finally! 
 

FC3C85BA-3C04-45CE-98E0-7064AD862E13.thumb.jpeg.f80470b6049c0b9d51535a0812957005.jpeg

I need to get the driveshaft cleaned up and painted today so I can install the engine, and then get that body back in paint and foil.  More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

 

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...