John Goschke

Really nice restoration on a great looking car!

It was probably the fall of 1956 and I wasn't quite four years old but was already nuts about cars, laying on the living room floor playing with my Tootsietoy cars while my Dad and Mom and Sister were watching the Lawrence Welk "Champage Music" Show in black and white. At the time, Mr. Welk's show was sponsored by Dodge. "A word from our sponsor," with Welk introducing the pitchman the new 1957 Dodge, and my impressionable little mind was blown! All the cars before it were immediately old (especially "Hank," our '54 Ford Customline Ranch Wagon) and, later, all the cars would be judged, stylewise, against it! http://youtu.be/cm05NKd1GhM

I'm forever awestruck by how crisp and clean your work is, Shawn. Very inspiring!

Pretty cool idea! Love the little touches like the '60 Plymouth steering wheel and the nicely detailed 45rpm record player (Wish I had $10 for every one of those I've pried out of the interior of a rare restorable Johan model!) Great paint too. What pearl did you use on the Ala Kart section?

Thanks for the comments, guys! Nothing at the moment, José. Been trying to concentrate on finishing up the little details, then paint, on the '59 Sunliner. If I can get enough time at the bench I want to refine the fit of the front bumper on this '58 and work on a pretty firm idea for the taillights. Got too many projects started!

Steve, the interior would probably have been "Iris." Chrysler's interiors in this period and in all series (except 300) were keyed to several exterior colors, repeating them on the dash and metal surfaces, and on the upholstery using metallic vinyls and shiny brocade fabrics. Here's an Iris New Yorker wagon showing an Iris interior. Iris is an interesting color in that appears quite grey in low light. Also shown is another New Yorker with a "Bluegrass" interior. Other interior colors were keyed to "Polar Blue," "Ivy Green," "Sheffield Silver," and "Terra Cotta." and possibly one or two others. These colors were all metallics.

The dash is pretty cool for a low-priced car - definitely better than the '60 Ford. That steering wheel is without doubt one of the best ever! Who needs form following function when it can follow fantasy!

Awhile back I picked up this restorable AMT '58 Ford that was mercifully free of the dreaded "skirt rash" but, as it turned out, does have some nasty, but repairable, scratches from overzealous decal removal by a previous owner. Not quite knowing what to do with it, I kept it by the chair where I watch TV so I could do some moldline cleanup and reshaping of the windshield and rear window moldings during the commercials. While scraping on the body a few nights ago I remembered an idea that I had to see through to some conclusion. Sometime ago I had picked up a replated '57 Chrysler promo front bumper just to see what it would look like on another '58 Ford, but wound up going a different direction on that one. Now I had another deserving guinea pig! So, out came the razor saw and the other surgical implements along with cement and ABS plastic and here you have the result! I kinda like it. The '57 Desoto bumper was done on a number of '57 and '58 Fords back in the day, but I don't recall seeing this combo, seems like a natural, though. Has some flavor of the original Ford design, but is a bit cleaner and perhaps lighter. Ultimately I think it needs to be tucked back a bit more and some work at the transition into the wheel opening. As usual with the '58 Ford kit, I swapped in the much better AMT '59 Ford chassis, along with 1960 AMT wheels and Lancer caps and '61-vintage tires.

Little bit of progress on my Sunliner custom, adding some replica stock details to the interior. Scratch shift lever and turn signal lever from two different size dressmaker's pins with turned styrene rod handles and shifter base. The column is from the AMT '57 Fairlane and the wheel is from the Revell '59 Ford. Also scribed the openings for the glove box and ashtray since AMT did them as raised lines. What's slowed this project down was my decision to upgrade the highly visible interior with the better side panels from a Revell '59 Skyliner. Once they were installed I couldn't get past the fact the rear window cranks wouldn't have been able to turn without hitting the housings for the top arms. So I decided to remove the cranks and scratch some FoMoCo power window switches, which have a round chrome escutcheon with an ivory plastic toggle switch. The single switches were carved into the end of small sections of styrene rod, the driver's master switch was made from a bit of shaped styrene stock with thin strip glued to the face which was then notched into four sections. Now that this done I'm making wipers, an inside rear view mirror, and if I can't find the originals, a set of sun visors!

That'll be a fantastic combo! The '60 Chrysler brochure showed a Windsor two-door hardtop in Iris. Always wanted one just like it!

Very nice, Steve!

That looks like a later wheel, or at least the later, wide trim ring fitted to that '60. From '60 through '62 and possibly '63 they used a narrow polished stainless trim ring. The eight-lugs available in '60 were mostly seen on425A-equipped Super Stock drag cars and were mega-rare on the street. Here's Arnie Beswick's '60... For what it's worth, though, Trumpeter's version of this wheel is even more awful than the rest of their kit. Dave Metzner and Co. already said they're going to try to address the issues with the wheels. Let's give them a chance.

Terrific job! Has to be the best "box-art" build of that kit yet!

Another great dash that fascinated me when I was a little kid attracted to shiny objects was the one in my Grandad's '57 Olds 88 four-door sedan. The car looked a stripped down fleet car on the outside but the blue, white and chrome interior was beautiful place to be!

I've owned a lot of cars, but my favorite dash was the one in my '60 Chrysler Windsor. That big "gumball" with the tiered gauges and the radial speedo dial with the glowing green numerals as the centerpiece, with arrays of chrome pushbuttons with backlit transparent green centers was a sight to behold! They used this design from '60 through '62.

Right, and if I remember correctly those moldings are stainless, not chrome, on the real car, so you're better off foiling them anyway. Then just foil the plated front fender leading edge moldings to match!

Really beautiful color combo, Rich. Nice foil work, too!

Beautiful model from every angle!

Looks really sharp, Steve!

There we go! Those're the shots we needed! Looks great, Dave! Please take a well-deserved rest from the carping from us Nervous Nellies of the modeling community!

AMT '58 Ford!

Whoa. Help me, I've fallen and I can't up... that is just amazing. Glad it's not an XKSS or my head would've exploded!

I might be wrong but I think that sort of fine engraving is frequently left off till later in the kit's development cycle.

Dave, between this thread and the I-hobby thread we've seen three pics of the model with admittedly distorted perspective at wacky angles, so, yes, not a lot of info to go on. Since you're saying it looks right "in-hand," speaking for myself, I'm good with that. I'll reserve further comment till we've got more info. Again, thanks for taking another look at the base of the C-pillar. As it stands now your rendition of this roof looks better than the five previous replicas I can think of. Get that little detail right and it's golden! Just hope it's not so accurate to my old 1/1 Catalina that it develops a crack there when the rear body mounts rot out! As for the wheels, believe me I don't want one piece wheels with the trim ring and and hubcap molded on like the AMT piece! Thanks.

Thanks, Dave & Co. for the care and attention you've given to this great subject. Sounds like you've gone above and beyond at this point addressing our concerns about the body proportions, admittedly, in my case anyway, based on less than conclusive info from three photos displaying distorted perspective. If the measurements are right along with the proportions and reference point relationships then I'm sure it's fine. Thanks also for considering the C-pillar fix and taking another look at the wheels. From what little I can see the kit seems to already be head and shoulders above AMT's rendition of the '62 Catalina and an improvement over the original '61 Bonneville annual kit. For what it's worth here's a scan of an original AMT '61 kit wheel (these were the "custom" option in that kit over the "stock" full wheel covers) on an apparently lopsided kit tire. It's pretty clear that they've sacrificed details of the rim's bolting flange to get the proportions right. Those and other compromises aside, these wheels capture quite well the character of the real item. The unfortunate thing is they are a real pain to detail, being all one piece. If Moebius can improve the appearance of their clever wheel assembly to more faithfully replicate the original 1/1 wheel, I could certainly see myself (and more than a few other guys) begging leftover sets from other builders and buying additional kits to retrofit my '59, '60, and '61 and '62 Bonnevilles! Dave, I really hope that this comes across less as nit-picking and more as constructive criticism. Thanks for everything you folks are doing to truly raise the bar in the 1/25th scale world!