John Goschke

Really fine modelling there! So many great cars in those races; enough for a lifetime of model subjects!

The gold-chainer who buys that needs to give their next two million to a worthwhile charity.

Outstanding workmanship and use of materials on this cool hot rod!

Beautiful car! One of the coolest wagons ever.

Without doubt this is my favorite of all the builds you've shown. Really captures the character of the car. The wire wheels are brilliant.

Nice looking chop! Looks great with the paint on. Just an FYI, technically, the chop makes it a full custom, rather than simply "mild."

Very impressive! Looking forward to the finish. I'm assuming the angle of the engine, with the upward tilt at the front, is because we're looking at a mockup and it'll fit straighter at final assembly. Am I correct?

Good start! If anybody can make something cool out of this turkey of a kit, you can!

One of the kits that's driven several generations of modelers insane with its fit, symmetry, and accuracy issues is the AMT '36 Ford roadster, 3-window, and 5-window coupe series. When originally released in 1961 it could be built as a chopped 3-window or, by changing out the cowl door and top section, as a roadster. What AMT conveniently chose to ignore was that the roadsters have significantly shorter doors than the 3W! Nevertheless, if you want a '36 Ford in 1/25th scale, this kit is still the only game in town. And I've always wanted to do a '36 roadster with a chopped top in scale, so ignoring the 20 other projects I've got started, and this week I decided to fix the doors and chop the top on the '36 using bits from a couple junk original issue kits, and yellow and grey parts from a couple later issues. The result looks a little like a crazy quilt at the moment but here it is in mockup stage. The windshield is chopped three scale inches. The top was chopped by eye by shortening it lengthwise in front of the middle bow while the sail panels were piecut so the rear window could be leaned forward, keeping the stock window height. The side opening was reprofiled to echo the curve of the fenders and rear deck. To keep the flow going along the lower body I made a set of skirts with a curved lower edge that follows the curve of the bottom edge the running board. The lower trailing edge of the rear fenders were modified to follow the same curve.

Thanks Jon, I'll have to see if I have that Collectible Auto. Interesting if true. The '58 Edsel Citation and Corsair were built on the Merc chassis and body shell and were the only Edsels to use the MEL engine. '59 Edsels used the FE.

Really nice build!

Wow! That is beautiful!

Nice work on this one! Was the Lincoln 430 really an option on the '59 Ford? I know it was available (though relatively rare) on the Thunderbird, but have never seen any documentation that it was a factory option in the Ford.

Wow! That is cool! Love the aggressive look it's acquired with the chop and the slope of the front roof section.

Very, very impressive! That interior is just stunning!

Thanks, guys! Yeah, Bill, I don't think there are that many hardtop kits out there that don't need some kind of weatherstripping detail added! Good luck with the Impala. Roger, your point about that rear door line was a good (and scary) one, so since Google is my friend, I did an image search to check it. Here's a pretty good side view showing that apparently it does have that slight angle! Seems amazing somehow that AMT picked up that subtle detail! Would not have wanted to rescribe that one. However, since I've already decided not to correct the interior to a true hardtop configuration, I'd have probably just left it. Does look like I need to thin down my vent window frame a bit (Like I said, needs refinement.) Ken, thanks, I'll check that gap. I did do a fair bit of blocking and rescribing there, particularly at the top where it meets the A pillar. Looks goofy with the skirts!...

Very cool! Looks like practical daily transportation to me!

One of the things that bugs me about many old annual kits is the out-of-scale and, more often than not, inaccurate shape of the vent windows. It might seem like nit-picking but fixing these issues goes a long way to enhancing the appearance of a model and making a funky old kit look better than it really is. In the case of a kit where the shape of the opening is right (AMT "old tool '57 Chevy, for example), all that needs to be done is to cut a new window glass out of some clear packaging material, acetate, or styrene that’s has a more correct scale thickness, outline it with a BMF “frame” after removing the ridge the kit maker used to represent the frame for the vent window glass and gluing some sheet styrene inside the opening for the new window fit against. The new window is installed from the outside. In some cases, such as AMT's '59 and '60 T-birds, the shape of the existing frame and opening may need to be corrected with some careful knife and file work. Sometimes it's easier to cut the frame out to reshape it, then reinstall. In some cases the frame is best replaced entirely. All of AMT’s 3-in-1 annual Ford Galaxie hardtop and convertible kits from ’60 through ’62 (and Mercury, ’61 and ’62) suffer from an inaccurate vent window shape that’s too triangular, too “pointy” at the top, and too thick overall. On the real car, the vent window frame and glass have a small flat section at the top and the rear vent frame and window channel, rather than being vertical, is angled back a bit at the top. Additionally, none of the hardtop kits have any representation of weatherstripping or window channel for the rear quarter window. On my rebuild of this original ’61 Starliner I decided to make new scratch vent window frames and add some strip styrene to represent weatherstripping and the channel for the rear quarter glass. Using available photo reference and a pattern taken from the model after the old vent window was carefully cut out, a new frame was cut out of some sheet styrene and carved, filled and sanded to shape. The ridge inside the frame was made by cementing thin sheet styrene to the back of the frame and cutting out the opening, leaving the thin ridge for the glass to sit on. The rear vent window channel is a separate piece. Some refinement is needed, but here’s the driver’s side thus far. I'll try to add more pics of the process when I work on the passenger's side and finish up the driver's side.

Pretty cool! Great stance and some nice details. Good job on the chop, too.

Nice work! This is one of the few builds of this kit I've seen where the front bumper appears to fit properly. Did you shorten the brackets and splash pan to bring the bumper closer to the body? Or what?

Beautiful model! Your careful detailing takes what's basically an out-of-the-box build to the next level.

Nice job. Looks great in black.

Well done!

Great project! I really like where you're going with it. Even the original build looks pretty cool, with the f.i. Corvette motor and the larger wheels and tires. Nice work reconstructing the windshield frame!

Outstanding model! This is the way every hard-to-find old kit should be done!