'70 Grande

Myself, (plus another 100 or so forum members), will be watching your build as it progresses! So far, your paint and foil work look excellent!

Great looking combo; they both look very "era-correct". Your paint and foil work are excellent too! Looks to me like if the sedan dropped a valve on its 1st run of the day, those rear slicks could be loaded onto that Nomad and it could win a few runs down the 1320 on its own!

Copperhead... that's a winner! Casey, thanks so much for triggering my memory!

No, it wasn't the Groovy Grader as I remember that kit as well. It looked very much like the Sand Dragon; just no paddle-tires and no rear fender piece.

Regarding that Sand Dragon kit; I seem to remember building a 1/25 kit back-in-the-day that was very similar, and was molded in Yellow styrene. But, I think it had smooth, Goodyear (regular, drag-strip-style) rear slicks in it instead of the paddle-wheel style of rear tires shown on this Sand Dragon's box art. Am I confused? Was there a kit like this issued, (early-to-mid-1970's), that was more like a drag car instead of a sand/off-road car?

Both builds look excellent! What kit did you use for the race car and other than your excellent paint scheme, what modifications did you make to the race car?

If it were me, I'd try to build this kit by adding a factory-stock 390 V8 underneath that hood.

Looks like a really interesting kit that could be built into a really unique model! I wonder why they chose to mold 5 hubcaps on that chrome tree!

Excellent build! Looks like that 356 motor was a tight-fit into the VW's engine space. I really like the details and "character" that you added to this build!

Wow! That is a beautiful build! Your images could easily be mistaken for a 1:1! Your paint and detail work is outstanding!

Really like this build! Your engine work and added details look good. Sure would like to see a pic or two with the flip-front closed, too!

I'd hafta agree with Snake; the 3 best years for Impalas, and all of these builds look outstanding, but that '66 stands-out from the rest! Wow!

All I can say is, "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and finally, beautiful!

I'm a Dolphins-fan and a Ford guy and I still like it! Nice build!

Both of these are very nice builds. Your paint and detail work is outstanding! I'm somewhat surprised by the size-relationship of these two builds next to each other; the Chevy seems a bit oversized and "dumpy" next to the Olds. I'm guessing that is due to the different eras when these two kits were issued as that Chevy kit is about 30 years older than the Olds kit is, I think.

All beautiful builds! Speaking of those Turquoise paint colors, can you inform us which paint brands and colors are used on each? I'm especially interested in finding out what that color is on the '55! thanks!

Really nice conversion and build! A great era in Nascar!

Really nice build! I had no idea a street-version of these little-monsters ever existed; bet it'd get some attention at the local drive-in!

Wow! I have yet to see a '49 Ford done in Pro-street style, and the results look awesome! There are so many things that I like about this build! I had the same '49 Ford kit a short while ago, and couldn't figure out how I wanted to build it, so I traded it off. I'm regretting that now! Nice job on this monster!

If needed, I could write a new post about the time that I was nearly attacked by a 200lb. Illinois Aardvark; man... that was a scary moment!

Oh yeah, just to add my 2¢ worth, I can't wait for this Cyclone kit to hit the shelves! The good crew at Moebius certainly knows how to produce excellent subject matter!

Living in Illinois, I've only had the chance to see one of these once, probably 15 or 20 years ago! It was much like spotting "Bigfoot", as this Illinois elephant is know for its elusiveness and remote habitat, and I saw one for a few, mere seconds from a distance of 100 yards or so, and then, he was gone! Without my Pentax in hand, he remains just a visual-memory for me, but, as quoted above, his pile of dung remained, and was unmistakeable! Just trying to lightened the mood around here a bit! LOL

I'll be watching your progress. Your work looks great so far!

A few more pics: My chassis also has a fair amount of weathering done to it. I wanted to build my Charger as a early-mid-1970's street machine, hence the shortened exhaust system. Here's the main reason why I stopped on this build. I was pleased with everything until I went too heavy with the paint on the body, and got a bit of orange-peel. I started to polish most of it out, but then got tired of working on it so it went back into its box. This photo also gives you a better idea of my intended early-mid-1970's street-machine finish.

Snake, Here's my work-in-progress; I don't think I've worked on this one for about 4 years now. I think/hope this thread will inspire me to get it finished. This interior shows my first attempt at using embossing powder for the carpet; I am still pretty pleased with how that came out. One thing I never did like about this kit was the piece on the chrome tree that was to be installed in the dash for the gauges; it seems really soft on detail, and just sorta "clumsy" to me. So I designed my own dash gauge's artwork and printed it onto semi-gloss photo paper to replace that chrome gauges piece. I used the kit supplied 426 Hemi, but added some parts box pieces to it. I also weathered my engine compartment pretty heavily as I prefer to build what I consider to be "daily-drivers".