Motor City

My red '57 has very minimal warp and the same tool marks as the red one pictured above. For anyone looking to buy a two-seat Thunderbird promo, look for waviness along the side character line, distortion above the grille and rear bumper and on the dashboard.

That is quite true since the red car has a bit of warp and thinking about it, I doubt if Ford would have approved a veeded rear. The red and pink cars are both promos, and you can't see any tooling marks on the back of the pink one, so it appears to be a different tooling. Maybe the first set of tooling, which is presumably the pink car, wore out? It might have been in Tim Boyd's book that a former AMT employee stated the '57 Thunderbird was their highest volume promo model. It looks like the red car was the basis for the kit based on the similarity in the tooling marks as you pointed out. Too bad there aren't any AMT employees from that era who participate on this forum.

the bottom of the trunk lid on the blue car is a horizontal line; the bottom of the trunk lid on the red car is veeded

That's a nice straight promo. I have one in the same color combination. I understand the black promo is very rare for '57.

How would you remove the cement without damaging the body or breaking small pieces such as headlight lenses and engine parts?

What could you salvage off of that mess with cement used on probably everything?

I remember seeing that prom picture. That's a cool story. To still have the original top is just amazing. It looks like you have a couple of other Mopar projects well underway. I wish I had kept my first car, a loaded '71 Eldorado coupe, but it just had too much rust and was worn out. I couldn't justify storing it elsewhere after the shed it was in started to collapse. I didn't buy a house for several more years, so that would have been a lot of money out of my pocket. At least I've kept the first vehicle I ordered and purchased, a new El Camino. The Eldorado was a hand-me-down from my grandmother.

Thanks, Craig, a person can sure learn something every day. I knew people with '67, '68 and '70 Coronet 500s years ago and never knew that about the convertibles. I really like your '68. It's a great color combination! Best wishes on its completion.

thanks, guys; it's an optical illusion; it didn't make sense to me why there would be two different rear window treatments!

The Super Bee has a straight rear window bottom. I'm not sure why Dodge would have used different rear windows for the intermediates.

I never noticed that on the '68 or '69 Coronet before. Maybe Dodge made a last-minute change.

probably this:

GM offered them on the full-size models and the Riviera starting with the 1963 model year. I'm not sure if it was available on the Corvette that year. Then stereo was optional on the 1965 big Chevy, Chevelle and Corvette. Cadillac came out with stereo for 1966, followed by the other three divisions in 1967. FoMoCo had AM-FM by 1965, but I'm not sure when it was first available. I'm not sure about Chrysler or Rambler/AMC vehicles. My '68 Eldorado has the optional AM-FM stereo radio but doesn't have the under-dash 8-track player which was a dealer-installed option starting in May of 1968. The choices then were AM, AM-FM and AM-FM stereo. That seems so absurd now, but FM wasn't really a popular option until the early 1970s. Dad only ordered an AM-FM on his '73 Caprice since the stereo in my grandmother's '71 Eldorado sounded awful. That Eldorado had an integrated 8-track player. You pushed the tape through the radio dial to activate the tape. I still have the radio from it, but the car ended up in a demolition derby at the Washtenaw County fairgrounds outside of Ann Arbor.

except FM radio has been around since before WWII ?

The headlight area on the '68 Impala grille was a poor fit. There was a gap between the top of the headlights and the header panel above it. I filled the gap with Elmer's white glue, which dried clear. Other than that, the kit had good details.

I built this before I ever heard of Bare Metal Foil. The wheels were out of MPC's 1976 Corvette convertible kit (yes, I know there was never a '76 Corvette convertible, but MPC produced a kit anyway). The standard wheel covers just didn't seem right for such a sporty model. I used a photo in the brochure that showed this color combination. Years later I found out that some of the pleating in the upholstery was supposed to be a darker red for a two-tone effect. Oh, well.

A lot of aluminum body parts were used (front fenders, hood, inner front fenders, bumpers). The '63 "Swiss Cheese" lightweight also had holes drilled in the frame to make it even lighter. I read before that maybe 12 were made before GM shut the program down. This Rare Pontiac Catalina Super Duty Lightweight Is Selling On Ebay (motorious.com)

16 GPs were built in '62 with the 421 Super Duty engine.

No argument from me regarding the dealers with their take-it-or-leave-it attitudes, shoddy vehicle service from most dealers and price boosting on hot vehicles. The automakers always used the excuse that dealers were private enterprises that were free to charge what they wanted "but we strongly discourage that." I found that I was usually WAY better informed on option packages and powertrain combinations than the sales staffs. I'm sure others on this forum have complaints about most of the automakers and many dealers as well.

Why is that?

My sister bought a silver '76 Nova coupe that was on the lot at the end of the model year. It had a red bench seat interior, 305, automatic. One time the car wouldn't move and the next-door neighbor asked if the emergency brake was on. It turned out that it was and there was no warning light for that! It was a good handling car and had a nice ride. The only thing I didn't like was the thin cloth upholstery.

Thank you for all of that information, Bill!

I bought the real car in 2000, black with a light tan interior. The Sun Star model came in black with a black interior. Now Sun Star makes a blue version with the correct tan interior. I emailed the company to see about buying just an interior but never got a reply. I've searched eBay but all of the new ones seem to cost around $100 including shipping from Europe. Are there any large diecast dealers that sell parts cars to restore models? Thanks.

My guess is they didn't have the money to invest in new tooling equipment. It takes a sizable investment to go from one type of technology to another.

Yes, that's so true, Rob. GM got carried away with their downsizing efforts starting in 1977 with the 'B' (Impala/Caprice, etc.) and 'C' bodies (DeVille, Electra 225, 98). Then in 1978 the 'A' body (so-called intermediates) were smaller than their compact 'X' models! Then the smaller 'E' bodies (Eldorado, Riviera, Toronado) came out for 1979, followed by the FWD 'X' models for 1980 (Citation, etc.). They downsized the intermediates again for 1982 (Somerset Regal, Cutlass Calais, etc.) and many people refused to buy them because they were so small. My '77 Eldorado is one of the last really big cars GM made. I didn't realize the Nova and Cougar kits came out that long ago. Thanks for the insight!