'37 Chevy Salt Flats Coupe Tribute Build

[Bernard Kron]

Based on the AMT ’37 Chevy gasser coupe kit, I’m building this as a Bonneville salt lake car. The class and period are largely determined by the original kit. When I first started to build model cars again in the fall of 2007 I sent a PM out to Don Banes about his sweet “Lady Luck†32 Ford 5-window he had posted. He replied and in the ensuing e-mail interchange he eventually landed up sending me a care package of parts and kits since I had virtually no stash at the time. Amazingly generous of him, I thought at the time. But I was to learn that such generosity is typical of our wonderful hobby.

I'm building this as a tribute/thank you to Don. It's important that I use as much of the kit as possible - a kind of Modified Out-Of-The-Box build. And yet I wanted it to be something different than the kit. The decal scheme is sort of a greeting card to Don. Thanx again, Don, I hope you like it!

Obviously I want this to be a surprise for Don (I hope he sees it!) so I’m posting the whole W.I.P. at once. If you can follow along through the whole thing, thanx in advance for lookin’!!!

It's obviously a C Supercharged Coupe of some sort and, judging from the roll bar and various other details, it's early to mid 60's, just like the kit... In my mind's eye I imagined an East Coast gasser (again, like the kit) converted to salt lakes duty for the trek west to the holy site.

The body has had all the trim and extraneous details removed (running boards, headlights, drip rails, windshield wipers, vent windows, etc.). I’m using the blank grille panel from the kit and the clear “custom†hood which I’ll paint. The aluminum Moon discs are from The Parts Box in Australia and the tires are sanded out AMT tires that Raul Perez gave me a last year. Power is from the blown Chevy from the kit.

After removing all the trim I assembled the chassis and body with the stock suspension to check out the modifications I’ll need to do to the stance. Here are views of the stock mock up:

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Using Photoshop I lowered the nose a lot and the rear end a bit less to get the stance I want:

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Then I mocked up the two-tone orange and cream paint scheme I want to use to emphasize the car’s “streamline†body design. I’ll add decals with race numbers, sponsor, equipment decals, etc. at the end.

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Next I got most of the interior bits and engine done. But, as you can see, the chassis still needs more adjusting. It sits low enough but the front axle is too far forward and the rear axle is too far back! As result the front fenders don’t settle down onto the frame rails properly. Paint is Tamiya TS56 Bright Orange over Duplicolor white primer, some Pactra gold trim tape, and the whole thing buried under Duplicolor clear (two coats so far, with at least two more to go). More work on the chassis and, the weather gods permitting, more clear. I still have to design decals for it, so that’s why there are some shots of the bare body. I generally will Photoshop some decal schemes onto some body shots like this to test out my ideas.

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Edited April 23, 2009 by gbk1

[Bernard Kron]

With the suspension modified and the stance and wheel location corrected and the interior completed, the decals have been designed and are ready to print. They were designed by working directly in Photoshop, designing them and then mocking them up on pictures of the car. Below you’ll see a couple of those mockup pictures along with a copy of the decal sheet art. I usually make multiples of each decal to allow for the inevitable screw ups. The engine is nearly complete, as well, but I can’t work with the big gasser headers from the kit until near final assembly to check for ground clearance, etc.

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[Bernard Kron]

On the home stretch, I crashed and burned last Friday night as I attempted to blast my way through the decals, only to realize I had nowhere near enough setting solution to tackle this huge job. Not only did I not have enough setting solution but my printer driver decided to bug out on me so that I couldn’t have printed more decals if I wanted to. I was attempting to get the build done in time for the Pacific Northwest Model Fest and NNL in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, April 18th. Silly wabbitt… Things never go right when you rush them!

So the '37 went South to the PNW NNL as a W.I.P. sans engine or decals. After getting the printer up and running and securing an ample supply of magic liquids I was able to wrap this baby up. Not surprisingly, the real battle was with the decals. When you make your own not only do you have to print them properly and treat them with the right thickness of decal film liquid, but you have to watch out for a myriad of other things that can go wrong, such as making sure you application brushes for the decal film and decal set are scrupulously clean, checking to make sure that your decals are scaled correctly for the car, checking to see that placement is not only true and square, but the same on both sides of the car, etc. While many of these things are common to pre-made decals, there’s something about having designed and made your own that makes these issues even more important. I think I probably went through the equivalent of two sets of decals before everything was right, making mistakes in everything from size to print quality, to application screw ups before getting everything on!

Even though the body design masks it somewhat, the car sits very low to the ground so that the exhaust manifolds needed to be reworked , having been originally designed for the nose-up gasser version of this model. The windows are all covered in yellow tinted plexiglass, made from Plastruct fluorescent yellow sheet.

In the chassis shot, the dark surface is Revell Gunmetal Metallizer applied with a brush. It makes a very convincing undercoating. The shot with the digger represents the two models I’ve been able to build from the care package that Don Banes sent me a year ago. I still have the AMT Parts Pack he sent me which should be good for at least 3-5 more builds I’m sure.

Here’s a link to the Under Glass post of the completed model: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.p...c=19749&hl=

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