'70 Grande

A couple of more pics:

My first completed build for 2021. Some of you may have seen some of my previous posts of this build in the WIP Nascar section awhile ago. It was intended to be a fictitious, circa 1965 USAC Race car, but my USAC decals fell-apart in the application-process, so I used Nascar decals instead. Here's the back-story: "A moderate-sized Chevrolet dealership in the Midwest had two mechanics, (Bert & Frank), on-staff that owned and raced a dirt track jalopy on the regional, 1/4-mile dirt tracks, with some reasonable success. Knowing of their local racing successes, and wanting to take the dealership into a more racing/performance image, the dealership owner offered a car for them to transform into a race car and take out on the Nascar race circuit for a few races each year. In the early-summer of 1961, this Chevrolet Impala was pulled-off the dealer lot, and went into the Service/Repair Dept. to be torn-down and transformed into a Nascar race car. Bert & Frank, (working late-nights after the dealership had closed), did most of the work, with help from others in that Service/Repair Dept. By mid-August, 1961, the car was ready to attempt to qualify for the Grand National, (Nascar) 200-lap, 1/4-mile dirt track race held Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds in Spartanburg, S. Carolina, with Bert behind the wheel. Bert qualified the car to start 20th on the grid, and he worked his way all the way up to 7th place before falling back in finish 14th at the checkered flag. The car took a few dents and dings, but held-up well throughout the event. The car was patched-up and ran three more short-track, Grand National races to finish its 1961 season. When the 1962 Grand National, (Nascar) season started, hopes were high and the dealership owner found more funding to support this newfound, but limited racing effort. Bert drove the car in 18 Grand National races in 1962, with a best finish of 9th place and 5 DNF's. There wasn't a lot of money won, but the dealership owner was willing to run a limited 1963 season with this same car and Bert behind the wheel. Bert drove the car in 20 Grand National races in 1963, with a best finish of 7th place and 6 DNF's. The plans were to continue on with virtually the same effort for the 1964 season, but when the first two races ended in DNF's and the best finish of the first 10 races run that year was a 17th, the dealership owner's hopes began to quickly fade. By mid-summer, the owner announced to Bert and Frank that this would be their last year of racing this now-old 1961 Impala in Grand National races. It finished 1964 running in 16 races, with 7 DNF's. There was no funding left for replacing bent-up fenders and freshening-up the paintwork; the car was to be run with just the necessary mechanical work completed, and little else." So I present to you the #31, 1961 Chevrolet Impala Grand National, (Nascar), Race Car at the end of the 1964 racing season, with a 58-race career under its belt.

Yes, this is looking good so far! These Polar Lights Nascar Ford kits can be tricky to build, especially if you are putting that 429 motor under the hood. The following website-link is from a modeler who has some excellent build-suggestions to get things to fit together better on these kits; check it out: http://www.mnacreations.com/Models/ Look under his "TIPS" tab on that website page.

Couple of more pics...

Got her up-on-all-4's. Now onto the final decal, weathering and finish work... comments and/or suggestions always welcome!

Wow! The nicest looking build that I have ever seen of this vintage kit... phenomenal!

Those two kits would be great, but these are higher on my "Want" list.

Looks like an excellent build to me. Black paint is one of the most-challenging and yours looks great; decal work as well! Nice job!

Wow... the creativity overflows from each of these builds!

Back on this project; added battle-damage to the body and have it in its final coat of paint. Next will be the final weathering to the inner-body areas that show, then putting the sub-assemblies together and installing the wheels/tires and bumpers, then decals and final-weathering. Comments and/or suggestions always welcome!

All fantastic looking builds! Sure would like to see some additional side-view pics of the builds not seen from the side yet! What is the paint color on that '67 Olds 442 and where did you get the dogdish wheel covers on that '67 Mercury Cyclone?

I think I counted 55+ builds here; all very well done... quite impressive!

Great looking build! Your wheel's choice and overall stance is excellent! Some paint questions for you: how did you achieve that finish on the rim of the steering wheel and also on those exhaust manifolds; both look so realistic!

A great-looking build! As I am currently-in-the-middle of building this kit, I will refer back to your post often! Mine is drowning in the purple pond right now; my Deep Red paint on the body was applied in too cold of conditions and looked terrible!

The same goes for me Mike... thanks again for the trade. I'm still wondering how many times my shipment to you traveled up-and-down the East Coast... LOL!

Really like this build! Can you provide more info on how you converted that body to a two-door and where you sourced that roof from?

I'm sure looking forward to this "... walk-back in time!"

This is an outstanding build in a number of different ways... really like this one!

Great news Tim! Thank you for the update on this long-awaited kit! Not wanting to start a rumor here, but I wonder if the part that needed "refinement" was the interior tub and along with getting it to better-fit the newly-tooled body they will be enhancing the inner door panel detail as well... I can hope can't I?!?!?

Great looking build! I have a question regarding this recently issued kit; weren't the early/mid-1980's 1:1 Nascar race cars the first examples of the "downsized" era in 1:1 Nascar race cars? If the answer to that question is "Yes", then aren't these kits a bit "off" in their dimensions since they're produced to fit onto later/bigger-car era Monogram Nascar chassis' and components?

Really nice build! Tell us more about the parts you had to 3D-print to create this conversion.

Really looks good to my eye! Your opening doors and trunk look to be exceptionally well done too! Not something that'd I'd ever try!

Bet everyone of us could pick-out more than a dozen of these kits that we'd like to see reissued once again... thanks for posting this "walk-back-in-time" website link!

A stunning build! I'm curious what those Florescent Red decals were for on the nose, front bumper and hood of the car. Were the one's on the front bumper indicating a jack-position for getting the front end of the car up off the ground?