1957 Chevy 60's Street Custom

[TransAmMike]

Adding the "tips" on the fins Dennis definately gave it a different and better look.  Keep up the good work.

[bisc63]

36 minutes ago, TransAmMike said:

Adding the "tips" on the fins Dennis definately gave it a different and better look.  Keep up the good work.

Agreed! That small detail lifts the rear visually, whereas before your eye fell immediately to the bottom of the tear drop shape. That small refinement paid large dividends! Are you going custom on the interior as well?

[James2]

WoW! That's all I got, WOW...

[Steve H]

Dennis!!  Very nice mods to “modernize” the 60’s custom treatment. I have this kit and have pondered which route to take, custom, or classic, you’ve made that decision easy. This looks really cool and super smooth with the tweaks you made. Can’t wait to see it in paint, speaking of which....colour? Great to see you tackle something from the 50’s, how about something from the 60’s next? Pleeeeeease.

Cheers, Steve

[Steve H]

Forgot to mention the front grill is perfect. I never liked the kits custom grill options either. Your version looks spot on to me. 

[Dennis Lacy]

5 hours ago, TransAmMike said:

Adding the "tips" on the fins Dennis definately gave it a different and better look.  Keep up the good work.

You mean I converted you? LOL! 

[Dennis Lacy]

4 hours ago, bisc63 said:

Agreed! That small detail lifts the rear visually, whereas before your eye fell immediately to the bottom of the tear drop shape. That small refinement paid large dividends! Are you going custom on the interior as well?

I am going to use the kits optional bucket seats and roll bar with a few kit bashed items like steering wheel and, shifter, etc. Lots of detail painting. 

[Dennis Lacy]

34 minutes ago, Steve H said:

Dennis!!  Very nice mods to “modernize” the 60’s custom treatment. I have this kit and have pondered which route to take, custom, or classic, you’ve made that decision easy. This looks really cool and super smooth with the tweaks you made. Can’t wait to see it in paint, speaking of which....colour? Great to see you tackle something from the 50’s, how about something from the 60’s next? Pleeeeeease.

Cheers, Steve

Thanks so much, Steve! I’m really surprised by the overwhelmingly positive response to this project because I really don’t know these 50’s cars. And you might see me do a 60’s car one of these days...

Paint is going to be Tamiya Champagne Gold. 

[espo]

I think the custom touches on this are very tastefully done. When this kit was first released it contained complete front and rear custom body parts as well as directions and additional parts for a chopped top. I like the way you're doing the grill and tail lights as they are somewhat like the original parts but your work looks much smoother. I think the engine your building looks more realistic than the kits super charger version. The chrome rims with the narrow white walls fit the time period perfectly. 

[Dennis Lacy]

On 4/26/2021 at 8:22 PM, espo said:

I think the custom touches on this are very tastefully done. When this kit was first released it contained complete front and rear custom body parts as well as directions and additional parts for a chopped top. I like the way you're doing the grill and tail lights as they are somewhat like the original parts but your work looks much smoother. I think the engine your building looks more realistic than the kits super charger version. The chrome rims with the narrow white walls fit the time period perfectly. 

Thanks! I had a full set of those original issue custom parts at one time. I like the look of them but don't like that they stack onto body making it ridiculously LONG. Somewhere I saw where a builder had grafted them INTO the body rather than ONTO the ends so the body wasn't any longer than stock. It looked fantastic. But, yes, if you squint you can kind of see a hint of that custom rear clip. Probably because the lenses I used are the only thing left in the kit of those original parts. I've always like the kits supercharged "409" but it gets used a lot when people build these so I wanted my "409" setup to be different.

[oldscool]

I love the front end and custom grill.To me it still says "Chevy" but much cleaner than stock.

[slusher]

Love the custom tail lights.   

[Dennis Lacy]

Thanks again for all your interests and comments on this project!

UPDATE!

Had another good day at the workbench with this one. Just moments after sitting down I was handling the body and one of the chrome grill bullets fell to the garage floor and went who knows where (and is still MIA!) This is my only AMT '57 kit so I don't have anymore to replace it. After some frustration and thought I got the idea to glue some material to the ends of the bar to lengthen it. I'm so glad now that I lost the bullet because I like this SO MUCH BETTER! To be honest I wasn't in love with the bullets. They seemed a little cheap and gimmicky, like something out of an old JC Whitney catalog. I think the full width bar looks much more refined and "finished".

Out back I did some final refinements to the taillight areas by filling in the little areas between the half round beads just above the lenses. I also wrapped a piece of 400 grit paper around my knife handle and ever so slightly made an inside radius on the little tips. Lastly I recessed a license plate frame into the trunk lid.

Underneath the "chassis" will be full "curbside" style. Out back I glued a length of 1/8" Evergreen tube across the frame rails and then glued .060" rod into the wheel backs which stub into the tube. I had to relieve the wheel wells a little and also the inside corners of the slicks to get them fully tucked up tight. Up front I filed out the area the kits metal axle normally passes through and glued in pieces of 1/8" tube and put stubs in the wheel backs just like the rear. Since there will be a detailed engine and the upper A-arms will show under the hood I tweaked them to fit over the tubes.

I cleaned up the heavy mold seams on the sides of the kits optional bucket seats and also also added 3/16" to the legs of the kits optional roll bar to put the top of it at a proper height because as it came it was barely higher than the head rests. I also inserted alignment pins into the bottoms to give it a positive location and glue joint at final assembly.

At this point there's not much left to do and one more day at the workbench should get the final details wrapped up. With that, here are the final mock ups and the actual stance of the car. For my first customized 50's car I'm very happy with where it's at. Let me know what you all think!

[Pat Minarick]

I like the new grill bar much better , alot cleaner looking. Love the stance! Is the taillight area going to molded in and painted body color or have chrome bezels?

[oldscool]

Looking good! Very clever work on the front suspension and the grille bar does look better now. IMO the rear would look better with a little bit removed from the bottom of the quarter panels behind the rear wheel openings. I think it looks a little heavy in that area. I know this would require some major reworking of the rear but....just saying.

[Hoffman]

Looks excellent, Dennis! Reminds me of a Steve Stanford rendering. Very cool.

[espo]

I agree with your solution for the grill. As mentioned by others it does give it a more finished look. The only thing I might suggest considering, and this is just a personal touch, think about how the hood would look with the front edges of the hood where it meets the grill and front fender being rounded.  

[alan barton]

Wow, Dennis, this is ticking a lot of boxes for me. My second ever 1/25th scale kit, way back in 1969, was the AMT 57 Chevy.  It is one of only a handful of models of mine that have, over the years, disappeared with almost no trace.  I think I just customised the poor thing to death. Amazingly I never used the full custom front and rear ends and still have them to this day.  I have a very rough body that someone drilled out all of the trim holes and then painted in brown hammertone - it is as bad as it sounds but perfect for exactly what you are doing here.  A good mate of mine, 59Buick, has one underway and he has, like you suggested, shortened the trunk to reduce the overhang.  He is committed to the long front as he has the original long hood but I don't have that part so will be shortening the front before grafting the custom front clip on.

I cant believe that I looked at your earlier taillight shots and thought - would look better with radiused edges -and then next photo, there's the Evergreen rod right where it belongs! And add me to the list of people who love that modified grille bar. That is such an elegant solution.

Cheers

Alan

[BIGTRUCK]

Really cool custom, the addition of the rear tail light fins at the top looks alot better , it looked a little flat before from a side view. Its really a nice project.

[Scalper]

looking pretty slick so far 

[OldNYJim]

I really like those bucket seats!

Funny thing - I just picked up this kit and had casually looked it over, then saw this build thread and thought "Ohhhh, those seats are COOL!"

Looked in my kit...it doesn't have them ??.  Guess they weren't in every reissue..

Anyhoo, kit's looking great!  Enjoying watching this one come together!

[Mr. Metallic]

22 hours ago, CabDriver said:

I really like those bucket seats!

Funny thing - I just picked up this kit and had casually looked it over, then saw this build thread and thought "Ohhhh, those seats are COOL!"

Looked in my kit...it doesn't have them ??.  Guess they weren't in every reissue..

Anyhoo, kit's looking great!  Enjoying watching this one come together!

If you bought the one that's currently on the market (I think the box art model is blue) Round2 took all the non-stock parts out of this version

[OldNYJim]

1 hour ago, Mr. Metallic said:

If you bought the one that's currently on the market (I think the box art model is blue) Round2 took all the non-stock parts out of this version

Ahhh, that figures!  I seemed to remember these having some kind of cat or gopher or stuffed bear or something too that wasn't in mine either.  That would explain it!

[Joe Handley]

1 hour ago, Mr. Metallic said:

If you bought the one that's currently on the market (I think the box art model is blue) Round2 took all the non-stock parts out of this version

They had the full version out for a while, not sure why they even bother with the blue one vs the full version though.

[Dennis Lacy]

6 hours ago, CabDriver said:

Ahhh, that figures!  I seemed to remember these having some kind of cat or gopher or stuffed bear or something too that wasn't in mine either.  That would explain it!

It was an alligator and if you look at my last pics again you will see it perched on the rear seat package shelf where he will be when the model is finished.