'70 Grande

I'd have to add forum-member Steve Prideaux, (from California), to that same list of great traders who ask for nothing in return! He's helped me out with several of my parts-needs recently, but never asked for anything in return! Extra-good guy, for certain!

That's a nice "motherload" of kits you've discovered; sure wish I could have the same thing happen at my house!

Your start on this build looks excellent; I'll be watching as it progresses. Doesn't this kit come with separate, opening doors? Did you glue the doors shut and do some work on their door-opening seams? If so, what'd you do; cuz it looks good!

I've got 170,000+ miles on my 2000 Mazda MPV minivan; alittle rust is starting to show around the rear wheel wells, but mechanically, it's rock-solid!

Beautiful build! Your paint and detail work both look excellent! Tell me how you achieved that paint finish on the mufflers; it looks great!

The story that I remember hearing regarding the intended-reissue, (back in 2004), of the 1/25 MPC 1970/71 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler factory-stock kit was that they had found molds marked-up as being for that Cyclone kit, but when they poured molten-styrene into those molds, the Hemi Dart came out! That Cyclone kit is one of my few, never-obtained "holy-grail" kits... I've pretty much given-up on ever seeing it get reissued.

Would the wire wheels found inside the AMT/Ertl 1965 Buick Riveria work to replicate these wheels?

I agree; a really nice build of a significant Mercury! Your modifications look excellent to me!

Really nice build; the best build that I can remember seeing of this vintage kit!

Agreed; stunning! We must remember that color-popularity was much different in the late-1950's thru early-1960's then it is now. During that same timeframe, my mother had a Turquoise-colored refrigerator in our kitchen. I'm sure many of you could share a similar story! A beautiful build!

Wow, that is a creative spot with outstanding animation! Love the sequence where the hands twist the throttle on the motorcycles! Really cool!

Really nice diorama... made me belly-laugh when I first looked at it; its great!

I always liked the "mod, 1970's" decals in this kit; I wish somebody would reissue/reprint the decal sheet for my build using the reissued Tweety Pie. Nice. nice build!

Beautiful build! Stunning paint and detail work!

Beautiful, beautiful build! The lowering that you did to this build really sets it apart from most Nascar Kulwicki T-Birds; makes it really look good and race-worthy.

Wow, Carl, this is a really good one! Nice, super-clean build!

To me, visually, there is an excellent visual-relationship between the curved-shape of the nose and the curve of the side-window opening, (especially at its rear). This is an excellent model and very well done. I think the nose actually "feels" better on this '71 body style then it did on the 1970. Your model shows "...what could have been" very, very well!

This is a great topic for the forum; the different stories so "different", yet, many still the same! My story: I always loved cars as a youngster, was born that way! When Matchbox cars were introduced in 1964(?), I was 5 years old, and started my collection of them quickly... (okay, so I only had 4 or 5 of 'em, but it was my collection). Hot Wheels followed in about 1967 or '68, and I had a few more of those. At 8 or 9 years old, when at the local Woolworth's store with my mother looking at the Hot Wheels, across the aisle were some model car kits. I promised to mow our lawn all summer long if she'd spend the $1.79 to buy one for me, (wish I could remember which kit it was). I built it poorly, but was very proud of it. I got my two school buddies to build models, too, (one of them loved the Tom Daniel kits and built everyone of them). We always had work sessions on my parent's kitchen table, (mom was never too happy about the puddles of paint and globs of glue we left behind)! I built car and a few WW2 aircraft models until I was a junior in high school, then quit because of a job and girls. I've tried writing down a list of every model kit that I built as a youngster, and think it's pretty-much complete, (try it sometime, you'll be amazed at what you'll remember and how many kits you built back then). I came back to the hobby in 1989 at the age of 30, when my interest in Nascar was at it's peak; so I wanted to build "just one" Nascar model. My interest in Nascar died about 10 years ago, but that, "just one" has turned into over 150 different car kits in my collection, and I still keep buying.

Nice build of this vintage, (and one of my favorite), kits. You don't see this one built-up as a custom to frequently anymore, but your build proves that it builds up into a very nice one! Your paint color choices are excellent as well; nice job!

Beautiful build of my favorite Nascar driver's car; always thought that Ricky Rudd deserved more credit than he got during his racing career.

One thing that always surprised me was the overall "size" of the Coyote... it was a really long and extremely-wide car built on top of a relatively small VW chassis platform! The B&W photo of the 1:1 really emphasizes the car's size to me; Hardcastle inside the cockpit looks tiny to my eye! I've always thought this car would have made a fantastic, phantom race car build as well, (but at 3/4's of its actual size)! I'll be watching this build, too. You're off to a great start!

Excellent paint and body-work! By painting that revised body in Gloss Black, it meant that your body-work had to be stellar, and obviously, it is! Nice job!

I don't have any Pacer memories myself, but this one brought back a few similar memories of my own! Those are the kind of posts that really make me smile!

Doesn't it have a Catalytic Convertor molded into the chassis' exhaust system too?

This announced reissue caught me by surprise! I can't remember if this kit had separate pieces for it's front and rear suspensions or not; anybody remember? (Or did it have no real front suspension pieces other than the wheels-mounting-pins, and a 1-piece/separate rear suspension/axle/springs piece with the driveshaft molded-directly into the main chassis piece)?