ChrisBcritter

from Reddy Kilowatt

and chastity belts

They may have caught wind of Ford's FWD Cardinal project, later shelved for the USA but built as the Taunus 12-M in Germany.

My late father's favorite car, ever since he saw one in Paducah, KY as a boy. He built the Monogram kit back in the '60s which I still have. After all these years, I never noticed the lack of windows in the doors! Beautiful job, Jürgen. Real ventilation holes; they line up with holes on the wheels.

ANY color besides what's on there would be an improvement! I picked up a chrome tree for this kit last year to get the wire wheels; let me know if you need any bits and I'll check it.

Amazing job - I'll be taking notes on your engine wiring. How did you attach the roof? Did you use the Chevy cowl, and did you have much trouble fitting the glass?

Somebody had a body for a '61-'63 two-door wagon displayed in the Primer class at NNL Milwaukee last weekend - looked pretty good so far.

Quite doable if you lengthened the roof in the right place; I remember the Modelhaus (and possibly another caster) made a beautiful conversion body for the '50 Crestliner two-door sedan. I had a conversion started for the Turnupseed '50 coupe and can at least say everything lined up.

Yep!

Nope - think early '70s.

It was the first thing I asked Ed Sexton - it's not going to happen due to expense. I also asked if there could be a redo of the '40 Ford Pickup with custom and stock parts returned - again, nope. One ray of hope: He confirmed that YES, Atlantis got the surviving '62 Mopar molds - however incomplete they may be. I overheard him discussing the Model A hot rods but didn't hear an outcome.

"We got a little accident... would you send a tow truck please to, uh, 618 Elm Street... hold on... It's the uh, third floor, apartment 304." Hint: Starred a Popi and a Sonny.

Thanks again guys - Jeff, check out the thread under Shows; Tom P. and I had the only Caddies in the Factory Stock section - pretty much the only Caddies period.

Right up till noon Sunday, and it was "Jingle bells, jingle bells, how many days till Christmas?" again. Had a great time eyeballing hundreds of fabulous models, and even displayed one of mine for a change: Tom Piagari's two Fiats on the upper right were photographed for the other magazine; this shot includes some more of his cherry Factory Stocks:

Went to the NNL meet last weekend - first time I'd taken a model to a show since the '70s. At the swap meet next day I picked up a couple Jimmy Flintstone bodies; '58 Chevy sedan delivery and '60 Chevy wagon, plus a few good bits for other projects: '57 T-bird and Fairlane Styline front ends, '63 Plymouth rear bumper and a '61 Dodge custom grille which will most likely be going into my '53/'56 F-100 conversion (it's a rare thing: a Jo-Han custom part that's an improvement on the original )

One detail I didn't mention which might be useful if you're building any of these ''63-'64 Caddys: The taillights in the bumper are molded in; they should be sort of translucent from being ribbed on both sides. To get clear lenses, I poured a rubber mold over the bumper. When it cured, I removed the bumper, carved the molded lenses out, then put it back in the mold making sure it fit tightly. I then poured a little UV-cured clear resin into the openings and hit it with the UV light until it solidified. When I pulled it out of the mold, it had nice clear lenses that fit perfectly; I painted them white on the backsides and scraped horizontal lines through the paint to give it the factory look: Argh - crummy photo but you get the idea. More importantly, note this trick also works well for grilles with molded-in headlights. It's a bit more work but, again, the lenses will fit perfectly - just add reflectors.

Thank you guys so much!

So many well-executed details everywhere you look! An inspiration to us all, Kurt!

Body/chassis are AMT '36 Ford; note how the builder used the roadster cowl/door tops AND the coupe roof to get the unusual hardtop look. Very impressive!

A fine if somewhat fiddly kit - what markings were you thinking about? If you want something different, I have shots of some of the last survivors being used as target tugs at Las Vegas AAF during the war.

Oh, Fred, that's hilarious! That's how I got two AMT '58 Ford convertibles at the same time, minus the cocktail. Are any of your fezzes from the Medinah Temple Al-Malaikah in Chicago? I have a near-mint parade costume from there, but no fez...

A few stills from the movie:

The chassis got some simple improvements; I opened up the molded-in trailing arms, added exhaust pipes from the manifolds to the chassis and tips to the tailpipes, and extended the A-arms to add ball joints and cover the front axle (Note the A-arms aren't correct for a Caddy; wish I had an original issue chassis with the correct setup and steerable wheels, but...). Track was widened 5/16"; I used blackwall tires from the Revell '65 Impala. Finally I added 1964 Illinois plates with the correct number, a Chicago Motor Club sticker to the rear bumper, and the American flag to the back window (thanks again Tom!) Hope you guys like it. Now on to the next one...

(Sorry to break this up but I get 404 errors if I don't do it fast enough) I kept the Jo-Han engine but reshaped the valve covers, added plug wires, water pump crossover pipe, upper radiator hose and an alternator bracket, and moved the battery to the correct position. I also corrected the hood opening to match the real thing by cutting it down the middle of the front edge (used a junk hood to make the bottom part).

It started out as a kit I built in the '70s out of the box with a candy blue paint job. I carefully dismantled it and rebuilt it to match the movie car, converting the convertible interior to the coupe version by removing the top bolsters, filling in the rear seat speaker and adding a front bench seat I cast from a '64 convertible promo. I added the pedals, gearshift and turn signal levers, dome lights and door lock buttons, and used some vintage '60s AMT carpeting.