Stuntman Mike

Hey there I´m interested in seeing your builds of American compact cars. Most of them are ugly, but due to their small size they are highly interesting subjects to build. Restoring an old Pinto gluebomb has made me curious about these little cars. I also have an old Chevette kit called "Bear Bait" from MPC which looks like it will be a blast to build. This definately has potential to become a new field of interest for me. Here´s a preview of my rebuilt Pinto. More pics to come as soon as it is finished: Ok, now it´s your turn to show some small sized car models. Pintos, Gremlins, Pacers, Vegas, Comets, Mavericks, Chevettes and stuff like that. Stock, modified, banger or beater, they are all welcome!!!

I´m using Decal-Soft from Revell and it is great to work with. It is not agressive and effective. I did these white stripes with it: The area around the hot air outlet on the Shelby´s hood was the trickiest part. I had to apply the stuff severeal times to make the decal fully align to the curves. The Revell Decal Soft is the only stuff I use to apply decals. And some clear coat, of course.

Sanding each layer of primer and paint will bring better results as you get a much smoother surface in the end. But it is also dangerously as you have to be ultra careful not to ruin your previous paintwork on the model. Car bodies have lots of tricky spots where you can easily and accidently sand through to the bare plastic. Which to me means stripping and starting all over again. I wet-sand each coat before the next one will be applied. Micro-Mesh in 3200, 6000 and 12000 grit is what I'm using. My paintjobs became much better since I started to work this way.

Beautiful Roadrunner, Joe. It came out great. Looks like you have used the Jo-Han body aswell. And a GTX chassis. Great build and thanks for the info on the decals. What kind of wheels did you use on your build, Joe?

Yes, Keith Marks is where I wanted to order my decals from. Has anyone used these decals on his A-12 build? I´m wondering if the decals´ colors will cover on the black hood.

Hey guys As the steel-wheels are often mentioned, here´s what I´ve planned to use. Tires from an old Pro-Modeler Charger and steelies from the current ´68 Charger. @Bill: Yes, it´s a modified hood from the Jo-Han kit. And the scoop is indeed the one that is known from the Landy kit. It was cut into pieces, resized and glued back together. And finally some sheet to get it all into shape. Still need to add some putty to the top side and then rebuild the characteristic fiberglass-structures on the underside to finish it off. I am aware of the various A12 parts that are available from different resin casters. Due to a limited budget, there won´t be any additional aftermarket parts on this build. I´ll only use what I have on hand, which is just some PE detailing stuff for the engine compartment and lots of sheet. I´d still appreciate some close-up pics of the resin bench seats, though.

@John and Casey: I´m using a Jo-Han Roadrunner body for this build. The Charger was chosen as parts donor because it has the most details underneath and it includes some other small pieces to help make the result more accurate. The interior will probably be built from scratch. Here´s some pics:

Thanks John, that´s good to know. Some work to do since the donor kit has disc brakes, of course...

A few weeks ago I have bought a set of redlines from them through evilbay and this is great stuff. It is a matter of less than two minutes to finish off 4 tires. And it looks really nice considering they are stickers.

Thanks guys. The Dana and the naked steelies are already onboard as I am using Revell's '68 Charger as a parts donor for chassis and engine compartment. Engine is from AMT's '69 GTX. Torque boxes, frame connectors, bench seat, a column shifted 3-speed automatic and other stuff is already on my list. How about having no power brakes while having front disc brakes? Was that configuration available back then?

Hey folks I'm currently building a bone stock '69 1/2 Roadrunner and while having a good amount of reference pics, there are still some details I'm not sure about. Right now I'm wondering about what exhaust tips to use on my build. Can I use the tips from AMT's '69 GTX or were the A12 cars fitted with different parts? Did they have exhaust tips at all? I'd like to go as detailed and accurate as possible. But being from Germany I'm not too familiar with them Detroit Irons. Any advice is much appreciated. I'm interested in everything. Input to the exhaust tips or other stuff that is important but often overlooked. And if you have a cool story about your personal experience with one of these cars, feel free to share these stories aswell. Cheers PS: More questions as the build progresses.

Try Keith Marks Decals. His ´71 GTX decal sheet for example looks quite close as far as one can tell from the small picture. It does have a grey background though. I´m sure you can find something in his assortment, there´s a lot of Mopar stuff: http://public.fotki.com/mofobow/

Thanks again! The paintjob was not difficult to do. The Tamiya spray cans are very good to work with and the results are pretty impressive. I have sprayed two coats of white primer and three coats of black over the body. Each layer was wet sanded completely smooth with micro mesh. The last coat was not sanded or polished, that´s the regular rattle can finish.

Thanks for the kind words guys!!! The issues with the heater hoses are already on my list. I realized it after the build was finished. I´ve used just the single pic from the magazine as a reference. Due to a bad angle photography I connected one of the hoses to wrong spot of the engine. The issues with the body is a sad thing for sure. But it still is a very nice new tool kit. And this model in particular provides one of the biggest varieties from mild to wild for the scale modeling folks. So it should just be enjoyed as it is. Not perfect but a blast to build.

BTW, the car as seen in the movie was indeed supposed to be showroom fresh. There were scenes filmed that were cut out shortly before the movie was released. The first scene is Will Smith jumping the car through the window of a Ford dealer´s showroom. The second scene shows the car jumping over something in the streets. Here´s a short clip that was filmed by a spectator when the second scenes were shot: It was probably wise to cut these scenes out. It is pretty obvious that Smith´s caracter can drive any car he wants and he probably won´t risk to get injured by imitating Evel Knievel in the streets of New York.

Thanks again guys!!! @Jason: Tell me more about that window sticker, please. Seems like I´ve overseen it.

Thanks for the kid feedback guys, it is much appreciated. Here´s some more pictures and information about the scratchbuilt stuff on this model. The cage was very important for me and I´ve spent hours to figure out the layout, numbers and angles of the tubes. The dashboard is also scratchbuilt. It is actually part of the rollcage and it covers the stock dash. Steerable front wheels and cut-down and removed inner fenders as seen in my reference pics: A photo-etched grille from ModelCarGarage was added. It is only available for the AMT kit, but as you can see it also fits great to the Revell kit. The coolest detail on the whole build, the crude tractor seat. Epic scene in the movie, it never gets old for me... The hood ornament was handed over to me by a fellow modeler. I think it is indeed a recast from the Convoy truck model by AMT. After cleaning it up I added a new socket for the duck to sit on. This also helped for easy assembly as I only needed to drill a socket-sized hole into the hood. And as you can see there is still a duck sitting around and waiting for me to build him a Charger. Interior side panels are scratchbuilt aswell. Later I´ve added the strange closing mechanism but forgot to take pictures. Sadly they are impossible for me to photograph while the model is assembled... Drilling these holes by hand was the part of the build where I was definately not having fun. It took me about a freakin´ week of drilling holes to get one "ok" looking clear piece to work with. The tail lights were modified to look like ´71 ones: The skull logo is actually white primer. It was masked and then airbrushed. I used a template from the internet, printed it out and cut some masking tape. Greetings from Germany

Hey guys, thanks a lot for the kind words. @James: Yes, the tires are not overwhelming in the latest Revell kits. I think the biggest issue is that there is no more lettering on the tires. That makes the sidewalls look even more wrong. I have also realized that the tires of other kits are changing. The 69 Charger from Revell for example was released in the Pro Modeler series back then and included some nice tires with fine lettering and pre painted redlines. The tires in the currently available kits are modified. There is no more lettering and by the shape of the sidewall you can clearly see that the mold has been changed. Why would Revell do that? License issues or stuff like that?

Hi This Chevy Nova is my most sophisticated build so far. It took me about three years to finish it. To get it as accurate as possible I used the movie and loads of pictures of the real movie car as reference. This build is full of scratchbuilt and modified parts, it´s too much to list. Feel free to ask any questions. Here´s some pics: This build was as entertaining as it was driving me crazy. It was a lot more work than expected and it took me a long time to hunt down all the parts that I wanted to include to this build. I´ve learned a lot during this build, the biggest lesson was patience for sure. Hope you like it and feel free to leave a comment or some critics. Cheers, Kevin

Hi This model was built to look like a dirty swamper that was owned by some redneck type of guy. The roof was replaced by a roll-cage with a camouflaged cover and the whole thing was covered in mud and dirt. The lifted suspension was sratchbuilt with sheet and is fully working on this off-roader. Here´s some pics: The rocks in front of the model came down just before the pic was taken. That was a close call... This build was completely brush painted with Revell enamels. The mud (putty) was added after the model fell from the desk. It was just done to hide all the repairs. Comments and critics are welcome. Thanks for looking, Kevin

Hi This is my replica build of the Shelby that was driven by Will Smith in the opening scene of "I Am Legend". Except for a slight lowering of the chassis and two tiny wires on the engine´s intake, this was completely built out of box. The stripes and even the correct movie license plate were included on the kit´s decal sheet. Here´s some pics: The paintjob was done with Ferrari-red and clear over the decals, both Revell enamels. It´s a great detailed kit and was a pleasure to build. Critics and comments are welcome. Thanks for looking, Kevin

Hi This is my ´69 Yenko Nova from Revell. It was built like a ride that I´ve seen in a car magazine. To match the reference, I added parts from the other Revell Nova kits. The cowl hood is from the SS kit, the grille and rear panel/bumper came from the COPO kit and the stripes on the hood are from the Yenko Camaro kit. The rims were from a Revell ´69 Corvette IIRC. Here´s some pics: The paintjob was done with Ferrari-red and clear enamels from Revell. The model was not weathered as the reference car came along in a top notch concours condition. Comments and critics are welcome. Thanks for looking, Kevin

Thanks for the nice comments mates. @CrazyGirl: The resin carbs are Holley Dominators from SMBC. Scroll down in the link and you´ll find them: http://www.scalemodelingbychris.com/smbc_partsp1.htm Cheers, Kevin

Hi I´d like to share some pics of my modified AMT ´72 Chevelle. This build was inspired by the Chevelle that was driven by the bad guys in the movie "Transit". I really like the look of this car. Great color, great stance, bad to the bone... The cowl hood is scratchbuilt, the crude side window trim was rebuilt with sheet, the engine was upgraded with spare parts, a Nascar exhaust was added and a set of wheels was robbed from the parts box. There´s still some stuff in the engine compartment missing as I have some further plans for the badly molded front end. The missing parts will attached when everything else is done. Ok, here´s some pics: The paintjob was done with tamiya semi gloss black from the spray can. It was a fun and simple build, hope you guys like it. Critics and comments are welcome. Cheers