ChrisBcritter

Sounds good. I've got a red one in nice shape; what color is yours - red, light tan or metallic beige?

Re the steering wheel: AMT used some sort of powerful liquid cement to attach the steering wheel, which blends with the opening, giving the appearance of a one-piece unit. The dashboard was attached to the interior the same way. Don't know what type they used, but standard cement won't affect their promo plastic. One caveat here: I've had this happen on a couple AMT promos - '62 T-bird and '66 Galaxie; that plastic can be brittle. The T-bird was a junker I parted out to get the wheels for my '61; when I was removing them the front of the chassis broke into pieces, and one of the chassis screw posts snapped off when I was unscrewing. On the '66 - my recent acquisition - the chassis screws came out OK and I was careful to thread them in on reassembly, but even so I heard the posts cracking - so that one is back together for good.

How does the Parts Pack engine compare with the one in the '59 Cadillac kits? I understand the '59 has a Hydramatic, but does the '59 need any external mods to represent an earlier engine? I have a couple of them on hand already.

True - best I could do was measure the length from the rocker panel seam to the door jamb and size both photos so that length matched. One more: Now, who has the Revell and Jo-Han '62 Chryslers and a set of calipers?

Food for thought: Camera angles may cause some variation, but this might help.

What did I get today? Pull up a chair... Did anyone else here go to Hobby Heaven today for the annual sale? I took a nice drive up there with fellow forum members Tom and Jon, and Hobby Heaven is an apt name. For the price of one current kit at HL (without the coupon), I got this (plus three big bags of assorted parts not shown): Tan coupe is a very clean stock build, duplicating the one I built when I was seven (except for the "clean" part). Green one is a mild custom with a Buick nailhead and Riviera wire wheels. Black one is a collection of parts (needs hood, interior and glass) from the big bags. Pickup is a mild custom, original issue. "I wanted a '60 Ford wagon in the worst way!" And that's just what I got. Roof cut off to make a sort-of-Ranchero (can fix); interior broken at the back seat (ditto) and the tailgate glass is missing (anyone parting a Deora?). The roofless '57 Country Squire may donate its innards to a Jimmy Flintstone body. Didn't realize this was the Aurora kit until I got it home. Looks complete or nearly so. And finally the '59 Shortenental. Windshield, wheelcovers and front bumper/grill are savable. Rear end treatment is a '59 Pontiac rear bumper mounted upside down with a lot of putty around it. Plus a lot of wheelcovers, a couple sets of AMT compact tires, a bunch of chrome (including the rear grille for my '61 Continental sedan) and a Revell gluebomb '55 Chevy stakebed that will yield the rest of the parts I need for my 1/48 school bus conversion. Good day all around.

I built the Bed Bug (van) version of this kit; I recall the multi-piece body was complex but it fit together very well. I'd take a shot at building that bus! That ITC Mercedes, however...

Just got an NOS-looking '62 Falcon Futura interior, with the buckets and console - nice factory upgrade for the '60 sedan I have in the works. (Maybe I should make a mold and cast an extra set of buckets for the Ranchero as well?)

That's generally been my philosophy when I lived in L.A. for things like the Rose Parade and the 1992 riots.

Flickr is really pretty easy. Quickie tutorial for inserting Flickr images: Now come back to the forum, click the "Image" icon on your message form, and paste the URL in. Click "OK" and there you go: Hope this helps.

Baby got back (lights): '66 Galaxie taillights for my recently acquired promo. Cut down the lenses to fit the bezels, glued the lenses with Bondic and popped the lights in with a little CA. Thanks to gardnerpag44!

It was worth it!

Found something useful at my local Goodwill: a couple 1/4" scale furniture/room design templates for 50¢ each. Lots of holes in various shapes that should be good for marking out small pieces on sheet plastic for cutting. There's even one hole in the shape of a grand piano, in case you have a 1/48 scale Austin Marina.

Trouble is, they usually use good cars for these customs to save time to meet show deadlines, right?

I'd drive the wheels off, too (with an impact wrench, and put them on Craigslist )... Looks more like a '55 Chevy from the front:

Hope you don't mind me fixing the links. Nice job!

A photo would help here, if you can post one. I fixed a windshield frame on a '59 Edsel that had the same issue by first drilling tiny vertical holes down through the frame into the A-pillars, then cutting the top halves of the frame off of the A-pillars with a photoetch saw, drilling holes in either side of the break to insert a pin, and VERY carefully gluing it back together on a flat surface. Once that was dry I inserted pins in the holes in the A-pillars and glued the repaired top section over the pins and onto the pillars. That was the only way I could think of to fix it and get rid of the sag in the middle. Good luck.

...did somebody say movie police car?

Mine was May 15th as well - looks like my '56 Plymouth will have its interior soon, and my '61 T-bird promo will be complete. Watching the mailbox...

It came today. A bit of Dremel work and a couple of plugs in the hole to move the rear axle down 3/32", and... No more taildragger. A thorough washing and some flash removal helped too. Got a lead on the taillights as well...

I've only seen one up close - and it was the ute version; it was in L.A. in the mid-80s. Red with a flat black hood, chrome aftermarket wheels and license plates from El Salvador. Nice looking little truck; might be a good thing to do to this kit:

I guess it would be better to wait a while before ordering until all this settles down? I do need a couple hard-to-match colors (Mocha Frost - the darker early version - and Doeskin Tan) for a '57 Ford; I can keep it on the back burner for a while.

Only if you backed it all the way into the room first to get a running start at the pool. Nice model nonetheless! What's the diameter of the wheel rims?

I'll add the '32 and '40 Fords to that list (2018 and 2019 release?). It'd be cool if they made early-'60s style box art for the '53 Ford (and even better if they tooled up a bunch of vintage custom parts!).