customline

Yup. It seems GM was not taking any chances with new styling trends. ? I'm not alone in this particular tail light swap.

I've been thinking about what to do with my '58 kit for years. Now, armed with the knowledge that you have provided, it's time to move on it. GREAT STUFF HERE, RUSTY! After seeing all the inaccuracies of this kit, I will now be more aware and looking for them on future builds.

May I suggest this trim scheme? If you don't , then I guess I'll have to ☺️ l think it's a Savoy. I really like it ?. The single spear seems to add length. Simple and effective.

As you know, the tail lights on a '39 Chevy look like an afterthought. That situation needed to be addressed. All I could think of was this. Ta Daaah....'59 Corvette tail lights! A little Bondo was used to match the contour of the body to that of the light bezel. Also, I added back the drip rails. Further work will be needed on both areas. Stay tuned ?

May I suggest the addition of a satellite radio antenna? ?

Faced with this situation, I think I would have kept the seats and thrown the rest in my scrap bin. I applaud your perseverance. You did a really nice job with it, whatever it is ?.

Thanks for your interest! You should know that the ideas for this build are not mine alone. Y'all helped! (That way, if it goes belly-up, I won't feel so bad ?.)

Update: Thanks to lobo2me (Steve) for putting me on to Plastruct diamond plate, HO scale, sheet styrene. It's perfect for this application. I think it adds another dimension of realism and detail. I love it!. All I have for this update is the interior construction. The original "tub" had a jump seat molded in and that had to be removed and replaced with sheet stock. Then I went crazy with my new favorite scratch-building material. Sprayed it with rare and precious Model Master Aluminum Plate (buffing) Metalizer. I don't know what I'll do when I run out of it. ?. I installed the bomber seats that I borrowed from my new '30 coupe kit and added the modified roll bar from a Revell '68 Dart kit. The rest is just fabbed up stuff, nothing fancy. The dash still needs some details and then I have more body work to do. Thanks for looking ?!

Thanks for the kind words,Bill. My 1:1 Desoto was just a really nice car. After it's untimely demise, I found a decent '55 Dodge Coronet sedan for daily transportation. Great cars.

As far as first hand knowledge goes, it was so long ago my knowledge of that car was almost useless. I had to use reference photos off the web. My emotional attachment to that car helped a lot and it explains why I did it. Thanks for your interest!

Yup, I'm OK with personalization, and vulgar is not an overstatement ?. Personally, I don't like bumpers, period. If you need bumpers, you probably shouldn't be driving ?

My eyes, now, are telling me the bumper ends are not identical ( it could be my eyes ? ) but you may be able to make a fairly close replica using the both bumpers. Those Chryslers had some ugly --- bumpers ?.

Nope, I'm wrong, Rusty. The bumpers are not the same but you may be able to "marry" the Plymouth with the 300B using those massive ends and then create that little thing over the license plate and then do an Allclad II job ?. Simple.?

That's the St. Regis. Very sporty.. You may find a promo, but if you modify a 300 B , there will be some side trim work along with the obvious grille but you'll have a roller instead of a curbside promo. Oh, and the front bumper. It looks like the bumper on a '58 Plymouth. A dead ringer. The 300B is different. I guess they had a bunch of these bumbers left over and dumped them on the Plymouth division. Crazy, huh? If you have the 300B kit and the '58 Belvedere kit, you can check the bumper situation for fit. Wow, you got me going now. I have both kits. Hmmmm......

Thanks, Bob. I really love doing this kind of work, but it can get expensive. I like to use what's "in stock" but if it's really special you don't have that luxury. It takes what it takes and I just can't do much of that sort of bashing. I had to destroy a nice promo to build it, but it was that special to me. I'm trying to figure out what to do about building a '39 Plymouth P7 coupe powered by a 330 Olds w/ Jetaway. ?

Having spent much of my youth in junkyards, I must agree with you. The 1:1 I owned only made one trip to the junkyard and, after arriving, thats probably how it looked ?. Those cars were big, roomy, beautiful riding cars. I had a buddy drive it once with me in the back seat to experience it first hand. You could be quite comfortable back there with miles of foot room and the cushy ride. I bought that Desoto from a friend of a friend for $175.00 around 1974. The body was showing a little rust in the usual places and the bottom was, a dirty, greasy mess like any 18 year old car. The interior was in nice shape, it had been well treated by its first owner. Anyway, the New Yorkers differ from the 300B and there are 2 distinct versions. Is it the Saint Regis or the regular NY you want to build?

That convertible body you have looks like a top of the line Fireflite. You can use the Chrysler kit for the chassis and engine but your rocker covers will say "Chrysler Fire Power" . Not a big deal. The interior will be where the fun is, ? especially the dash. The DeSoto dash is totally different. There are some really good photos on the web to use as reference and you want the Fireflite version. The body differences are subtle, it's all in the trim and that includes the interior. My interior won't help you much, being a low end model. I liked the Moebius kit so much I bought another one to build as a Chrysler! It's a really nice kit. I would be very interested in seeing that build you are planning, Tom. If you want to step up to an Adventurer, that would be awesome. See below:

I Added a little rust for authenticity and there she is ?the end.

Metallic gray and white was on my 1:1 so I used Krylon gloss white and Duplicolor "Precision Gray", (a Nissan color.)

I won't bore you with all the minutiae, the body work was just the usual - lots of CA and Bondo Pro. glazing putty. Filing, sanding, etc. Tail lights were transferred to the Chrysler and trim was modified.

The AMT '53 F100 kit provided the DeSoto Firedome engine which was "weathered", as was the undercarriage.

The interior from the Chrysler was used and painted like a DeSoto. The dash had to be re-made to look like the DeSoto.

This project is actually finished but I think it's important to point out that if you reeeeeeeealy want a scale model of your favorite 1:1, and neither a resin nor a styrene kit exist ☹️, you might still be able to have it. Such was my situation. Back in the early '70s my personal transportation was a '56 DeSoto Firedome Seville 2 door hardtop. I loved it. It was a pretty cool ride for a car nut like me. It came to a violent end! ?. Some idiot stoner ? rear-ended the Gray Ghost at a red light. Split the trunk wide open and bent the frame.? After searching many sources, I could only find a promo on Ebay and I won it for $70. But it was a four door. I figured I could settle for that. Years went by and it sat in its box while I built other projects. Then, one day, I discovered Moebius had re-tooled their '55 Chrysler 300 into a '56 300B. I bought one figuring it was the same body as the DeSoto with different side trim, tail lights, and grille. The engine was found in the AMT '53 F- 100 kit -the only source of a DeSoto Firedome engine. All I had to do was a little kit bashing! So, here we go....it occurred to me that the easiest way to accomplish this was to convert the Chrysler body by swapping the nose and tail lights and modify the side trim. Also, the trunk letters and chevron would need to be transferred. Just a cut and paste operation.

Yup, I saw that. Reeeeeeealy tasteful color scheme. I have a hardtop kit waiting for me. These ford's look great in two-tone. Can't wait to start it. Thanks Bob. ?

Thanks, Crazy Jim (I wish I'd thought of that handle). That SHINE is not clear of any sort. I just use the "Lone Wolf" method I learned from his DVD. The only drawback of this method, if you go without clear (like I do most of the time), is that there must be enough paint on the model because you're going to remove some and how much you remove depends on the severity of the "orange peel." ? I'm not a really good at paint work and they don't all turn out as good as this one ?, but I'm OK with that. My paint work is done under some "unhelpful" conditions. I do the best I can. ? Testor's paint is really good stuff (well, it was, but I don't know about now). It's a shame the parent company shut down Model Master.