Snake45

I'm not generally a fan of convertibles, but this is nice work, and it's interesting to watch. Drive on!

Thanks! I don't do freakbook but you or Dave are welcome to pick up a couple of these pics and post them there.

This was a full-detail kit, full engine and underhood detail (for its day) but 1-piece chassis. Interestingly the chassis on the '66 fastback kit has the single exhaust. I guess they must have gone to the dual exhausts at some point in the reissues, but I don't know when. Wright's Silver Cream is in the housecleaning products aisle at Walmart. It's a silver polish but is water-based (no petro-chemicals) so safe on paints and plastics. I've also seen it at drugstores and other places home cleaning stuff is sold. Here's what it looks like:

Pretty sharp looking! Well done and model on!

I just restored two AMT '66 Mustang fastback survivors and didn't really need another one, but when I happened across this one on eBay, it got to me. It looked exceptionally clean and complete, and had an opening bid of $65 with a Buy It Now price of $95. I watch-listed it, and then forgot to bid on it until about 15 minutes after deadline. Amazingly, it went off with no bids. The seller relisted it a couple days later at the same prices. Unbelievably, at closing time, I was the only bidder. If anything, it was even cleaner and more impressive in person than in the pictures. Somebody did a NICE job with it. I WISH I had been able to build this kit this well back in 1966. Paint appears to be a Pactra metallic light blue/turquoise metallic. The only flaw in it is a bit of a run or metallic blotch at the rear end of the left side of the body. I couldn't think of any way to fix it that didn't risk making it worse, so I left it alone. The chassis had been painted flat black, and some of the body trim (including the troublesome F O R D on the hood) had been carefully brush painted Silver, but oddly, not the window trim. That was the only paint on the whole model. I didn't even try to give the paint my usual “light polish.” Heck, I didn't even wash the body in soap and water, that's how clean the whole thing was. The unpainted interior was likewise clean and pristine. I left it alone aside from trimming some molding flash off the steering wheel with an Xacto knife. The glass had a couple minor scratches and scuffs that I polished out with Wright's Silver Cream. The GT stripe decals on the rocker panels weren't in great shape, but I just left them alone. Someday if I run across a nice set of originals, I might replace them, but I'll just leave these here for now. As to the rest of it, I hate to call what I did a “restoration” (it was already in great original condition) or a “rescue” (which usually involves obvious visible improvement in sit/stance, wheels/tires, paint polishing or fixing, etc.). What I did might be called a “completion,” as I just added a few finishing touches. In fact, it was similar to my usual diecast Snake-Fu routine: sand the tire treads, detail the wheel covers (flat aluminum and dark metallic gray paint), detail the grille, and hit the window trim with my beloved Silver Sharpie. That's pretty much all it took to put a great survivor on my shelf. And BTW, whether by plan or coincidence, the OB had managed to make a pretty decent model of the box's end panel art, which is pretty cool. Thanks for looking, and as always, comments welcome.

Beautiful! Nice overall and great color. Good detailing on the wheels. One of the better builds I've seen in a while. Well done and model on!

Gnarly, dude! Well done and model on!

Would the engine from the Monogram '69 GTO or '70 Trans Am be a better starting point?

Very nice! Fathom Green is one of the better '69 Chevy colors IMHO. Nice detailing on the wheels. Well done and model on!

New page, time for an update: ROUND 8 : FINISH DATE SEPTEMBER 30, 2020 Tom Geiger: Jeepster Disconovaman: '65 Mustang convertible Spottedlaurel: '65 Corvette Straightliner59: Peterbilt truck Misha: Tall T coupe TimJ: '99 Mustang Cobra Oldscool: '66 Impala vamach1: Mystic Chrome Cobra SuperbirdMcMonte: '70 Superbird Snake45: '66 Mustang My last four completed projects have been AMT '66 Mustangs, (three survivor restorations and one new-build AWB street freak), so I'm kind of in the mood to stay in that lane. So I'm declaring this one, a started kit I bought at the local toy show in 2015 already painted fairly cleanly. I did some work on it at the time but like most of my junk, it got set aside. The plan is to complete it as a "high school hot rod" circa very early '70s, since the paint doesn't match a factory color but would make a good "Earl Schieb" or school auto shop paint job. It will take a quick but tasteful drive through the J.C. Whitney catalog. I have another '66 fastback to restore, too, which I might also sneak in if I can find all the parts and pieces. (Started the rebuild on it many, many years ago, but that's another story.)

At one point in the film HFII is looking out a window with Shelby and tells him, "During World War II, two [or was it three] out of every five American bombers came out of that building," or something to that effect. He's apparently talking about Ford's famous Willow Run plant, one of the largest (if not THE largest) aircraft factories at that time. HFII's numbers are way off, though. Ford built roughly 25% of the 18,000+ B-24s, but the B-24 was just one of three US heavy bombers, along with the B-17 and B-29. Many thousands of those were built, too, none of them by Ford. And that doesn't even count the medium bombers, the B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder, which were also built in large numbers.

What do I care? It's not my phone. And I TOLD her to stop doing that and put the stupid thing away.

Or Mike Wolfe!

Was that from their album Got Nothing to Do with the Topic at Hand?

Oops, looks like it's an Imperial. Shows you how much attention I paid to the car.

Oh I am totally down for that Gangbusters Lincoln, but only for the figures, guns, motorcycle, and other goodies. I'll probably trade the car itself off.

Yeah, but look where I'm looking. (It ain't at her stupid phone.)

Finished the "restoration" of that super-nice survivor AMT '66 Mustang fastback I got the other day. This is my fourth AMT '66 Mustang fastback in a row--3 restos and a new-build AWB street freak.

Finally got around to seeing the sci-fi movie Ad Astra last night. About 20 minutes in, I thought, "This looks like 2001 meets Apocalypse Now." That idea only grew stronger through the rest of the movie. (Looked like a little homage to Mad Max in there, too, at one point.) So this morning I decided to google to see if anyone else thought so, too. I only had to type in "ad astra a" before google auto-completed to "ad astra apolcalypse now." Yup. (Reminded me of a few years back when I googled "born this way respect yourself"--yup again.) The director himself said the same thing, according to one article: If there’s one thing that director James Gray regrets about his new movie, Ad Astra, it’s when he first described it to the press. “I said it’s a mash-up of Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey , which it sort of is but isn’t.” This is nothing really new, of course. Outland is really just High Noon in Space, and the wonderful Firefly franchise is really The Outlaw Josie Wales in Space. I kind of enjoy these things.

Hey, why not put this project in the Bring Out Your Dead build? It certainly qualifies, and it looks like you'll be able to GITTER DONE by September 30. We'd be proud to have you on board!

I didn't think it was possible to make that car uglier. I was wrong.

Scored a "Tom Daniel California Vette." Seems to be complete and fairly cleanly built. I bought one of these missing a few parts and with some glue damage at the local toy show last year. Hoping I'll now have enough stuff to get one together absolutely OOB, and one with a few mods to put my own "flava" on it (i.e., un-Daniel it a little bit).

Agree completely with the others. The only time I turn my airbrush up to 40 is blasting thinner through it for cleaning.