MitchP

Ron is right - "a little candle power LOL". My first couple of tries bent so quickly the styrene just slurred off like an old McD's straw lit with a lighter. It bends quick for me so I guess I keep getting too close. However, after a couple of tries with some old stock, I figured it out. Ron's the man for these cages. Mine wasn't perfect the 1st time but I got close.

Thanks Billy! There are a few builds on here courtesy of Tyrone and Clay (I believe) that demonstrate the possibilities and step by step a build normal build process naming suppliers of parts like Scott @ Futurattractions and Dirt Modeler. I'm not saying it's a snap-kit for someone like me LOL, but when folks like you guys do these works of art, it gives us kit bashers a bar to aim for in the future. Thanks and I know I'll be following your progress!

Loving that cage work from page 2 bro! Looks like you've started tossing in a little more support here and there too. I got a feeling you've been looking at a TDR chassis and taking notes... Looking excellent!

Billy: I've seen the chassis alone for something like $20-25 at Teds Modeling. You've got a great start so far IMO. In your opinion, do you think this chassis is too tightly coupled to the TDR body or could another (plastic) body like a Revell fit? I'm only asking because am73grand turned me onto the trick of using a '55 Chevy top sportsman chassis from Revell for other bodies quite easily (or pretty close). As I looked at some of your pics where you fashioned the floor/tubs, darned if it didn't look a lot like the Revell (except for about a 100 other frame pieces!). Just thinking about a $25 frame investment and waiting for a suitable donor body... Thanks and good luck!

Thanks Dyno! That's one clean build. I've been into drag racing since I was a kid, so when I decided to take up modeling last year after being "retired" because of disability, I had to have something to do other than crank up the guitar. I have built an AMT '66 Nova, which I really didn't like since I started extra detailing right away and then went through 3 bodies until I could get the 4th one to work! After that, it was the Iaconia T-Bird prostock which I customized into Billy Glidden's p/s dream car, then Connie Kalitta's reissue as my own "Nitro Mare" funny car and the Revell '55 Chevy pro sportsman. I've put a pro mod engine in the McEwen '57 funny car which just needs decals and I'm doing a crazy pro mod rebuild of the Hays T-bird street rod with the twin blowers. Let's just say I've got pro mod on the brain for now!

That truly is a work of art. I'd love to see under the hood too. Anything treated so authentically outside should be equally nice inside!

Wow! Pardon my confusion, but is the "grabber green" AMX a build or the real thing? That's immaculate, right down to the red lined tires. The one I saw (for sure an AMX now) was a shade lighter green, like looking at one of those paint mixing cards. I'm a yellow freak and the yellow AMX with matching bumpers is my favorite. Such a beautiful ride. And the days when you could pick options individually, or at least reasonably so in race type packages is so far from the one size fits all stuff sitting in showrooms nowaways. And we still have to bail-out car manufacturers! I just want to know where my dividend checks are now some of them are showing a profit LOL!

This a cool part of the site I never thought I'd find. My brief time modeling has been spent trying to get up to speed on hi-tech detailing of funny cars, pro mods and top sportsman builds. But muscle cars are where my youth was wrapped around. I "thought" I knew muscle cars but I was way wrong! I hope to find more threads like this as it temps me to go buy a late 60's GTX/Road Runner and build it stock with factory details. Just a nice 440 with a single 4 bbl and some really neat & clean detail under the hood.

Thanks for the ideas folks. Odd thing though, the reason I mentioned re-issue is that I picked it up at a local hobby store and I've seen kits with the same artwork in other local stores recently. I know I heard Polar Lights was doing a 2nd release, but when I look at their strange parts tree illustrations on the bottom of the kit, it darn sure looks like the frame is split into two sides! Oh well, I've got lots in the queue before I get there, so maybe more experience will help by then.

Yep, that 343 was a weird bore. I didn't realize they had so many options. As for the car shopping, there were so many available to choose from, but the one I wanted was a 70 1/2 Camaro 350 4-speed (the one with the split front bumper and egg crate grill, whatever year that 1/2 year thing happened). My dad wouldn't budge on that. The Barracuda was the older version; The fastback had that huge rear window. Mine was the coupe with only single exhaust and a 727 I believe in the console. Amazing so many variety of muscle cars were under $1500. Going back, I would have taken the powder blue Mustang or the Orange Camaro, considering how cheap it would have been to freshen up a Pglide. It had twin black stripes running front to rear and must have been a fresh paint job. The lines looked straight and it had a black vinyl top and nice buckets up front. Ahhhh, the good old days.

DynoMight: I could be wrong or forgetting, but I thought AMC also had a 340 ci as an option in either or both of these cars. I always thought it strange because my Duster (1st car owned) was a 318, three on the tree. I was such a fool. My folks too me shopping in Manassas, VA at just about every used car dealership. Not only did I turn down that cherry 289 Mustang coupe, but an early 70's 302 fastback Mustang because it was single exhaust; a "Hurst Under Glass" era pale yellow 'Cuda coupe with a white vinyl top with a 318 console auto and a 1968 RS Camaro painted bright orange with black stripes and those rectangular injected look panels on the hood. It had a two-speed auto that slipped and a 327 (again if memory serves me correct)/ 305 hp. I thought a 'glide tranny was a joke and kept looking. The Duster was my dad's last offer and it was a bondo nightmare. I lent it to a friend one day who promptly rolled it off the road and sideswiped a tree about 8-10 ft. off the ground. Needless to say, the insurance company got my aftermarket wheels, traction bars and custom stereo. After that lesson, I always had a mechanic friend into racing accompany me on purchases.

Austin: FWIW: I found this on the 'net, listed as a Javelin, although not indicative of a factory release : Most of the pics were of the later year models with the trans-am type fender flares. As for the AMX release, I'd have to say from my vantage point it was representative of this beauty:

Austin: Maybe it was a Javelin and not an AMX. I gotta check out Google and compare some pics. If there are rules that say I shouldn't have an opinion about noise control outside my own house because of illegal exhaust modifications to Hondas, turbo diesels, sports bikes or even the non-existent exhaust on Harleys, please point them out to me. I left a site because there were so many rules just in the builds and contests alone it was staggering. I hope a simple observation of noise pollution isn't a lack of freedom of speech here. I looked at the forums and chose where I thought my observation was appropriate. I am 57, and now 5 years into an unexpected series of disabilities. I didn't like noisy or dangerous drivers before then though. I don't favor "the Don" advertising Dynomax mufflers (or Dynoflow) on the tube honking on it while towing a trailer. Heck, my hero John Force knows better than that and he's 65! I guess I would have expected a reply or replies on the subject of seeing the classics around town or on the road, not a spanking on how I'm ignorant to the changing times. Let's just let it go. If you'd like, I'll ask the moderator to pull the thread entirely. Peace.

Mr. O: Oh yeah, the high school days.,. My folks were paranoid they'd let me drive my Goat to and from work (and pay $100 r&b every month), but I could never drive my beloved car to school. The school rich boy had a red '68 Vette 'vert and he'd light up the parking lot regularly with his posi. How badly I wanted to shut him down with my bored out 421, big cam and huge bogging secondaries, but I never got the chance. Go thing too, because he was tearing up the lot one day and scattered that 10 bolt from here to never-never land I guess I have my folks to thank after all for the restraint I learned. My last car worthy of racing was a '93 Mustang, 5.0 with heads, cam, intake and a centrifugal blower. It ran a best of 10.80 at 128 on an uphill track where the owner couldn't spell VHT, much less use it. That was granny shifting the stock T-5. My original post wasn't about so much the style of cars or what's available (Lord knows those TV auction houses took a licking when the Hemi Cuda's devalued by 20-30%), it's about the attitude, the "F-you" - 10-15 mph over the posted limit isn't fast enough for me tactics that's killed people on this interstate that runs through my rural town. Even children aren't protected, as demonstrated by the crosses and teddy bears by the side of intersections. Commuters to and from D.C. blow through our 45 mph limit on this section of highway with driveways and the horns blast as you try to gauge their oncoming speed. Local sheriffs always have an excuse as to why they can't monitor this area, even though the nationwide decibel limit is 93 (as set by CARB limits to my knowledge). Austin's post insinuated my life was bad or something and the link was clearly off-topic. I thought sharing a simple opinion about the nature of a solitary AMX standing the test of time was o.k. but I guess not? Anyway, I'll stick to modeling and skip the free-thinking part of this site.

Austin, I appreciate your opinions. When my hot rodding days were long over, I flopped a townhouse just before the great mortgage scam and bought a spanking new Suby STI. That was about $38k invested right there. Being in a position much different from my youthful days of scraping up for a set of long tube headers, I had the capitol to ignorantly turn my car over to a hi-po company near my home who blew $8k doing everything wrong and missing the promised target hp/tq, even though they had a blank check! I had to tow the car over two hours away to another shop which used the computer skills I wanted and did precisely what garnered the end results I wanted. Sadly, my disabilities appeared at the peak of my job and I was "retired" under a handicap (they wouldn't accept telecommuting) and I was forced to sell my car. I now drive a sedate 12 year old Jeep and enjoy a new sport of wintertime driving in the snow with actual ground clearance. You make valid points. I was lucky enough to be in H.S. in the 70's when muscle cars were still a dime a dozen and my '66 Goat was only $800, my '68 Olds was less than that, and my '68 Road Runner was only $250 fix 'er up. I still kick myself for turning down my folks offer of accepting a '64 1/2 Mustang coupe 289, C6 because it was baby blue with a white vinyl top. (BTW, a beautiful black stock appearing early '70's Chevelle just went by, just a simple humble sound, no showing off). Hmmmmm. BUT, my friends and I (including such rarities as a what was a 340 six pack 'Cuda if my aging memory serves me) never raced from light to light in broad daylight. Several of us worked at the same burger joint and after closing (midnight), we'd head down a double lane interstate past car dealers and businesses and race a roughly measured quarter mile, risking only ourselves and no traffic whatsoever. Unlike the days of old where there was a respect for machinery, today there is an arrogance among "ricer" youth to the point where laws are now having to be enforced for the immigrant aspect who choose to wear pants nearly around their knees, proudly displaying boxers for the world. Call me racist if you will, but a Brylcreem hairstyle, stiff denims, even long hair or a mullet are nowhere as "F-U" (as you put it) as the world we live in now. I haven't grown old. Thanks to several of the builders here recognized as top notch, I'm pursuing pro mod adaptations of scratch builds using plain jane Revell kits. I'm not looking for a fight, so I don't know why I'm being enlightened on today's culture and why I should embrace it as a 2nd coming of hot rodding. It isn't. We knew that MSD, Accel and Summit decals didn't add 5 hp, we were never naive enough to believe that an electric fan stuffed in front of an MAF (they didn't even exist on my cars) would be called a "turbo" when in reality the drag on the electric system actually reduces any possible hp gains and we sure knew that an aluminum or fiberglass hood had a purpose to lighten a car, not just look cool and eventually fade like these knock-off asian carbon-fiber debacles. Cutting springs to lower a car with no knowledge of how it affects handling is just plain silly. It took a long time for drag racers to realize that long smoky trips down the 1320 weren't conducive to e.t.'s. It took a while in the early to mid 70's to realize fire burnouts were pretty and pretty dangerous. My life is challenged Austin. I won't cry on your shoulder, but I suffer from a broken tailbone which can't be removed and degenerative disc disease which is inoperable as well. I'm on the FDA controlled max of 120mgs of opiate a day for pain relief and it still doesn't help. After 5 years, it's only turned me into a junkie. However, I hate to think of how I'd be without it. God is good to me and my family. As roughly quoted from Romans: "Suffering brings perseverance, perseverance brings hope". I believe that. My post was saying that in spite of the unwelcome noise from those who believe their behavior on the highways is warranted, sometimes the classics and the beauty of those who acknowledge the fragile beauty of a car (much like a butterfly) should be treasured and tested only in the confines and safety of a sanctioned area. I apologize if my post angered you in any way.

Living here in Berryville VA, right off four-land Rt. 7, can be a good or bad experienced. Bad in that being in a very rural area, there are a combination of asian rockets with bumble-bee coffee can exhaust tips, or double turbo diesel pick-up trucks spouting plumes of smoke as they bellow from the traffic light for no particular reason and even Saleen Mustangs joining the fray. On the other hand, right across the street a road leading to Summit Point, a road race course of no particular notoriety which however offers Porsche and Ferrari weekends throughout the summer. From my vantage point in the living room, I can take in the latest Corvette, classic red Ferrari and Porsche of just about any year. This morning and just a while ago, I spotted a unique car which was quite visible. An old American Motors AMX in Chrysler's old bright lime color (the name escapes me although I had a '71 Duster of the same shade) with original wheels and twin wide white stripes from front hood to rear trunklid. That's the good part of living here; you never can tell when a late '60s muscle car will see a sunny day's opportunity to cruise the highway, even an odd pro street or two from diehard ex-mechanics still plying their trade to keep the dream alive. I guess I can live with the noise and pollution as long as the classics still drop by for a visit...

Nice job Andre! I can't pull off paint jobs like that for sure. I still shoot from cans and my tape jobs don't cut it. Here's a few build pics of my version; hope you like! http://public.fotki.com/Mitchp/ford-drag-racing/billy-glidden-chass.html http://public.fotki.com/Mitchp/ford-drag-racing/billy-glidden-prostock.html http://public.fotki.com/Mitchp/ford-drag-racing/billy-glidden-prostock-1.html http://public.fotki.com/Mitchp/ford-drag-racing/front-driver-view.html http://public.fotki.com/Mitchp/ford-drag-racing/fords-on-display.html My kit was really old and the decals were kinda shot, so I had some custom ones made up like it was Billy Glidden's p/s ride. I should have waited and taken all the pics when I had gathered some SLIXX decals to match the era of the original Iaconia p/s, but the last shot shows the car on my shelf alongside my version of the Kalitta re-issue flopper I called "Nitro-Mare". I have some build pictures of that on Fotki too. I hope these links work out as I've not had much luck posting pictures.

Familiar looking slicks, Ron Never could figure out why this year/body became so popular with radial drag racers and turbo classes. It doesn't look too areo, but must have some good f/r balance. Props on using an "outlaw" type hood as it looks really nice. I'd almost swear that chassis paint is Tamiya #42, light gun metal! Looking great bro!

Well, the green paint and the "Hulk" theme are gone. Since I already posted detailed interior pics, I'll just put a couple of the car's latest incarnation (no pun). I followed Brett's post and went back to the 1:1 theme, stripping off the green and applying Model Master's Ferrari Red. Due to can painting and my first try at something other than metallic (hides a LOT of mistakes), there are a few places hardly noticeable around the wheelwells. It won't be in a competition just my own collection so I'm o.k. with that. The funny look on the front bumpers is where I taped them and the rear before shooting so I could apply alum on the finished primer. One thing though: when I carefully peeled away the Tamiya paint tape, little flecks of some base coat chipped off. Not a project killer, but should I have cleared it first? Normally, due to the metallics I've shot on my first three models, I either haven't cleared at all or used the floor cleaning/coating solution. I had a perfectly good can of clear sputter and ruin a paint job which had to be ponded. The red paint sat for 2 or more weeks before I pulled the tape. Should I paint the bumpers and try a matching clear solution again? Thanks! http://public.fotki.com/Mitchp/chevy-drag-racing/tom-mcewen-57-promo.html

Thanks Ace and ESPECIALLY am73grand! I was in a building funk until Ron graciously shared some of his many tricks to making the difficult achievable with practice (like his awesome cages and multiple uses for Revell chassis). Same with Brett. I've found a modeling home here where it's the "Wiki" of modeling!

Ace: Nice photo & ride bro! Question: is your pic from Fotki or one of the other online pic storage places? If so, how did you get in in your post so big and clear without having to post the link to the data storage? Tks.

O.K., for as much as I've learned about Fotki, the Chevy album should be public. I've got a bunch of Fords to load, but no time right now.

O.K. one more time. I've registered to Fotki and here's the location of the '55 chevy pics. Pls. post if you can see them! Thanks. http://public.fotki.com/Mitchp/chevy-drag-racing/

I hate posting pics sooooo bad... So much for the thumbnails I used to do so well. You get the idea anyway.