ChrisBcritter

Is "Polycast" the correct term for those wheels? I thought those were the wheels introduced in '73 with the front of the wheel made of cast plastic molded on top of a steel backing. Thirty years ago I had a '72 Chevelle SS that had the five-spoke wheels and I thought they were just called "SS mags" or "SS rims". They didn't have any plastic in them that I could tell.

Thanks to Vince (vintagedragcrazy), got the front suspension from the Little Red Wagon kit - which gives me a beefy straight axle with steerable wheels for my '58 Ford. Even better, it looks like the springs line right up with the frame - this might be a good combo to keep in mind if you're building a gasser/street freak '57 (I'm using the AMT '57 Fairlane chassis).

'58 with that rear bumper, if it hasn't been swapped...

Aren't most lowriders built with nearly stock bodies, though? A stock '48 or '49 Caddy with a lowrider version (like Revell/Monogram did with the '59-'60 Impalas) could be successful.

If you really want it for the wheels, you may want to hold off - as I mentioned in the other thread, something went wrong and the centers are pebbly/lumpy - they should be polished: Anyone have an original set to compare?

And some of the parts bidders can get overexcited - I recently saw the tires and wheels (stock and custom) from the new '36 Ford kit bid up to over $20 - from a kit that's just been double marked down for clearance at HL for $8.38. Knew I shoulda' bought both instead of just one...

Picked up the Surf Woody this evening; show car kits don't do much for me but this machine is the exception. I love the new slicks and all the goodies that are back in the kit. The chrome Falcon lower suspension arms are sharp, too - could dress up the Ranchero's chassis with those. I don't love the broken rack and pinion/tie rod, and why are the mags all pebbly/lumpy? Looks like the remasterer missed a final step smoothing them. At least I can fix the tie rod (I drilled and repaired a Jo-Han Marlin tie rod once, and I've nearly recovered from the experience ).

I'm almost positive this house in Baldwin Park, CA was a gas station long ago; I used to live a couple blocks east of it:

With apologies to Robert Williams.

Golf balls?

Going back to the original question: some of us did not manage to survive - but they're not here to tell the story; among them my great-uncle and my mother's high school boyfriend.

Great start! It will be nice to see a '61 with all the current detail available under the skin. Interesting to note the width issues with both the Buick and Pontiac bodies using the Chevy roof. My solution was keeping the top edge of the body between the A and C pillars attached to the Chevy roof and cutting away the same area of the Pontiac body until I had a close fit; that way I still had enough material to sculpt the kick-up at the rear. Fitting the glass has been a royal pain, however - took a lot of reshaping to make it line up and if I had to do it again, I'd get vacuformed glass - you may want to look into that when Modelhaus reopens.

If you managed to get all the delicate, brittle parts off the trees without breaking any, you were halfway home! Too bad we didn't have photoetched saws back then. Funny thing is that I remember the Stone/Woods/Cook Willys as being much better engineered in parts fit and alignment than many of the other Revell drag kits that followed it.

Generally I use either Flickr, Flickr or Flickr. Still have a lot of shots in Photobungle Photobucket but I got tired of the notices a week before the end of the month shutting my images down for bandwidth use.

Thanks Ray - looks just as you described. (Why do so many straight axle setups in models lack any vestige of spindle detail??) Still might be useful for something, maybe under the '50 Olds coupe?

I've inherited some and picked up others for cheap from flea markets and estate auctions - best deals were the '58 Packard Hawk and the '53 Buick woody for about $20 each in a lot with a few others. Really hope they don't start crumbling away on me... I wonder if someday there'll be a cottage industry making resin replacement bodies for these Franklin/Danbury cars to replace failed metal ones?

Hi Brad, Nice score! I have the rear wheel openings I cut from the quarter panels of the '65 Nova Rat Packer; if I can dig 'em up would they help you fix the damage?

Saw one of these at the last DuPage show and I was stunned by the quality and price. Now if they do a Century two-door hardtop... well, I'll have to slap a For Sale sign on something to get it...

I have a '59/'60 chrome tree I bought to get the detail bits for my '59 Bonneville - you can have the vent if you need it. -CB

Mine is molded in solid red but there's one on eBay now that was molded in metallic red. Also the drag version's spoked mags were changed at some point to slotted or Halibrand mags. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1960S-IMC-VOLKSWAGEN-VW-GASSER-2-IN-1-MODEL-KIT-WITH-BOX-/131760060467?hash=item1ead82f833:g:aukAAOSwvFZW8VKl

Went to my LHS and picked up some Tamiya Aluminum acrylic, thanks to the little discussion on the silver paint thread, plus Ford Blue acrylic for the SOHC engine I got last week for the '58 Fairlane. (That engine turned out to be a mess when it arrived - it was glued to the '68 Cobra chassis using two other cylinder heads as engine mounts - but I got it dismantled, repaired it, and found a low-rise dual quad manifold in my stash of incomplete SOHC engines.)

Looks nice for a quick 'n' easy! Is this the new reissue, and if so, could you post a photo or two of the straight axle setup?

There's also the old trick of removing every other horizontal bar for an eggcrate look.

Was that released before the AMT '49 Ford promos?

AMT also made a four-door '60 Falcon promo in RHD for the Australian market; unfortunately they were also acetate and would warp/shrink just as bad as their American counterpart.