1989 Ford IMSA Mustang

[Reeves Racing]

Revell kit. 
Pretty much out of the box with the addition of tire decals and plug wires.
Duplicolor  color and clear
29 year old kit decals that broke apart once they slid off the backing paper. The worst one was the hood decal. I ending up losing a section of the red stripe the size of a jelly bean. You can see where I brush touched it up and sanded it down before clearing. I also had to paint in one of the very thin black lines on the roof too. Not perfect but better than a big chunks missing.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Reeves Racing

[Rich Chernosky]

Nice job on that. You can't even see where you touched it up so if you didn't mention it no one would know.  I did all of these and this was my favorite one. 

[vamach1]

Nice job on a kit that is tough even just building box stock.  Decals can certainly be a nemesis on older kits with no aftermarket replacements available.  Indycals has the #4 JPS decals probably because the kit ones probably look yellow on a black car and a set for the Lyn St James Secret livery.

Edited September 21, 2020 by vamach1

[cobraman]

Looks darn good to me.

[majel]

I've always liked the IMSA models, they are sharp looking cars.  Too bad about the decals, that can be very frustrating!  That turned out really good, it's a nice clean build.

[Dave Van]

You did well.....I like those kits! 

Small correction is that Mustang is a SCCA Trans Am racer.....IMSA cars are a little different...both same type racer. 

[afx]

Nice.

[Reeves Racing]

5 hours ago, Dave Van said:

You did well.....I like those kits! 

Small correction is that Mustang is a SCCA Trans Am racer.....IMSA cars are a little different...both same type racer. 

Yeah, I had IMSA on my brain when I posted this one. Trans Am or GTO is probably the more correct designation.

[RancheroSteve]

4 hours ago, Reeves Racing said:

Yeah, I had IMSA on my brain when I posted this one. Trans Am or GTO is probably the more correct designation.

GTO was the IMSA class designation. 

Regardless, it's good to see one of these built!

[Mattilacken]

Looks epic! Love that style of race car!

[stinkybritches]

Looks great. I've been working on this kit off and on for the last couple of months. 

[Reeves Racing]

 

[vamach1]

Here is the kit decal sheet if anyone has not seen one.

[Dave Van]

A IMSA Mustang GTO and a SCCA Trans Am class Mustang can look alike outside. When Jack Roush was running both series in Motorcraft sponsorship it may be confusing.  But under the skin, which was different too, there were lots of differences. So we are not rivet counting....just noting the difference. The Revell kit was a IMSA kit first.....they then tooled SCCA Trans Am body for the kit but left the chassis as a IMSA spec......again all this is FYI. 

The fact Mitch was able to make it look this good with old kit decals is a big win!  

[RancheroSteve]

2 hours ago, Reeves Racing said:

 

 

Some of those shots are of cars a couple of years before your model. The big difference (visually, at least) during this period is that the IMSA cars were allowed to run wings, while the SCCA Trans Am cars used "blade" type spoilers. There were other differences under the skin - most of which escape my memory now, but the IMSA cars were  little more sophisticated. The Roush IMSA GTO cars often ran turbo four cylinder engines, and depending on the year, Mustang, Cougar, or Merkur bodywork. I once spent a couple of minutes with Dorsey Schroeder in the pits at Long Beach and he told me that the IMSA car was a little faster and easier to drive.

Not trying to rivet count or split hairs here, either - just trying to clarify for those that don't know and might care.

[Reeves Racing]

I was just having some fun with the screen shot post,  ?. I was gonna say you-all missed that I only have 35 rivets in the fuel cell top instead of the 36 it really needs but you beat me to it with your "Not trying to rivet count or split hairs here" comment Steve. 

Thanks for the nice comment on the build Dan.

I'm sure you guys are right.

Except for an SCCA sticker instead of an IMSA sticker they all look pretty much like the same car to me. I guess Revell thought so too since all of the releases of those kits share the same chassis, including the Camaro Hot Wheels version which had the unchromed Ford valve covers I used on this build  included in the kit lol. 

Its a fun kit. I haven't been at the bench for a year or so and I am building some out of the box to get my mojo back.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Reeves Racing

[Dave Van]

The chassis on the Revell SCCA Trans Am versions is imcorrect.....but as Bob Johnson told me it was a fight to get the IMSA cars made and he only got the SCCA Trans Am version done if he reused the IMSA parts. 

No shame...... I produced a Roush Merkur trans kit years ago to make the IMSA and Trans Am version.....I only made one body and changed the decals and spoilers to make IMSA or T/A cars.....so I did the same thing Revell did!!! 

Someday I'll tell you how we almost got a Roush Cougar kit!!!

Resin Merkur

 

[RancheroSteve]

3 hours ago, Dave Van said:

Someday I'll tell you how we almost got a Roush Cougar kit!!!

I'd like to hear that story, Dave.

Just to be clear, Mitch - I really dig your build! I've got a real soft spot for this kit - the Motorcraft version was the first kit I built when I got back into model building in the late 80s, inspired by a trip to the IMSA race at Del Mar. Sitting here at my bench, I can see three Mustang and two Camaro versions new in the boxes on the shelf; one of them has a resin body and decals to build a mid-90s Valvoline Trans Am Mustang. One day, maybe!

Edited September 22, 2020 by RancheroSteve

[Reeves Racing]

47 minutes ago, RancheroSteve said:

I'd like to hear that story, Dave.

Just to be clear, Mitch - I really dig your build! I've got a real soft spot for this kit - the Motorcraft version is the first kit I built when I got back into model building in the late 80s, inspired by a trip to the IMSA race at Del Mar. Sitting here at my bench, I can see three Mustang and two Camaro versions versions new in the boxes on the shelf; one of them has a resin body and decals to build a mid-90s Valvoline Trans Am Mustang. One day, maybe!

I had been reluctant to do this one because of all the fine brush detail painting it needs to look good. But did the Monogram Mustang GTP kit a couple of weeks ago and it was fun so I dove into this one. I  had to engineer a couple of posts on the front to hold the nose on nice and tight but otherwise it was a straight forward build.

[slusher]

Looks great!

[ChrisR]

Very nice!

[randyc]

On 9/21/2020 at 10:40 PM, Dave Van said:

Someday I'll tell you how we almost got a Roush Cougar kit!!!

Resin Merkur

 

 

That's one I woulda bought for sure.  I tried to modify a street body.  Before internet.  Photos were scarce for me.  But I was trying.  I still run across it occasionally.  Would love to hear that story.,

[PappyD340]

Looks great, well done!

[ZTony8]

Quite a while ago i started in on the the Hot Wheels Camaro. I have a magazine from that era with an article about the car and the article shows some pictures of the engine out of the car. The kit engine is VERY dissimilar to the real car's engine because the kit's engine is still mostly Ford. So back into the stash went the kit.

 

[dust collectors]

This looks great! I've been sitting on one of these kits for a while.