Snake45

Finished up my quickie overhaul of the glue bomb '65 Mustang. Full details and more pics up in Under Glass. Thanks for looking.

This is not my normal “rescue” or restoration or rebuild. This was a quick, easy “let’s see if I can fix it up a little” job. It was inspired by the Lee Iacocca Memorial build down in the CB section. I realized that I’d recently acquired a black original AMT ’65 Mustang HT that might make a good candidate for this community build. Far and away the “gluiest” and “bombiest” glue bomb I've ever done a “rescue” on, the model has what I call “good bones” for a complete rebuild, which means all the major parts are here and intact, no major glue or paint damage, no emblems removed or other body alterations. It’ll make a beautiful rebuild job someday, but wasn’t in the mood to do that at this particular time. I disassembled the thing and was delighted to discover that most of the glue didn’t penetrate very far; a good deal of it could be picked off with a fingernail or the tip of an Xacto. A two-day swim in Lake Purple removed 99% of the gold paint from the interior parts, and I was able to carefully pick and scrape the last bits of it off with the Xacto. I painted the carpet black, along with the dash pad and dashboard details and let the rest of the natural white plastic stand in all its naked glory. It’ll make a great base for the eventual full rebuild. My usual “rescue” job involves polishing out and touching up paint that’s in fairly decent shape, but that wasn’t the case here. Not sure what this black is, but it overall looked horrible—not suitable for rubbing out. I just touched up the flaked-off areas and sharp edges with black Sharpies and a black paint pen. It still looks horrible (even worse than it appears in the pictures), although at least now it’s all black. The rest was standard Snake-Fu, much of it involving my beloved Silver Sharpie. I polished out the glass, hit the never-painted chassis underside with Walmart Flat Black Primer, and trimmed and rebuilt the taillights. Also hit the grille and wheel covers with a black wash. Someday I’ll do a nice full rebuild on this one. In the meantime, it’s on my shelf representing a Cleaned-Up Barn Find, or mid-'70s Winter Beater, or something. Here's a Sneak Preview of Coming Attractions of it with what will probably be my next full, serious Rescue project, an original AMT '66 Mustang GT fastback I just got. As always, comments welcome.

I recently researched this and the real Vega and the AMX had exactly the same wheelbase, IIRC 97". I speculated that this frame was originally used in the JoHan '68-'69 AMX funny car kits, but Mark seemed to think not. BTW, to the best of my knowledge there were NO serious mid-'70s funny cars with wheelbases this short.

So does yours. "There are many paths to the top of the mountain."

I did mine slightly different. I put the foil on bare plastic, and I didn't bother to trim around every letter, just trimmed the letters on the ends and then straight across the top and bottom. I then painted with one coat of Walmart Black Primer, three coats of Testor One Coat Firey Orange, and three coats of Model Master Clear Top Coat enamel, airbrushed. At polishing time, I wet-sanded the whole rear panel until I got down to the black primer on the letters, and then I polished everything out as normal with Wright's Silver Cream. There's no border visible to my foil, but then my paint might be thicker than Mr. O's. Not saying one way is better than the other; it's just two slightly different ways to do the same thing and both results are quite acceptable.

Spectacular! You really captured the look and feel of the era. I especially like your injector tubes. I"m gonna have to go back to your WIP thread and see how you did those. Well done and model on!

Very sharp. We don't see enough builds of this kit. Well done and model on!

Very clean builds, all of them. Well done and model on!

Absolutely magnificent, but then we've come to expect no less from you. Glad to see the foil-under-paint technique worked for you. I did exactly the same thing on the rear CORVETTE emblem on the Revell '68 I did last year, and it worked fabulously! (I used kitchen foil instead of BMF, but it worked just as well and of course the principle is exactly the same.) I too will be using that trick quite a bit in the future. Well done and model on!

Have you left room for the dashboard?

Very clean build!

Well, it's sitting nicely under stock hood on the model now. Of course, as I said, the carbs are missing. Maybe that's why. Hmmmmm.

Sharp, clean work! Well done and model on!

Received a very cleanly built and complete original AMT '66 Mustang GT fastback, far too nice to be called a "glue bomb." I'd planned it for a rebuilder, but it's in such good shape that I might do a quickie "rescue" resto on it and put it on the shelf for a while before I give it the full treatment. Not wild about the light gray color, but it's a survivor, and it is what it is. Under the hood I was surprised to find what looks like a period AMT 390/427 Ford engine, with a very odd chrome cross-ram 2x4 manifold on it (no carbs). Looking at the Drastic Plastic site instruction sheets, it might be from an AMT '66 or '67 Fairlane kit. The engine might end up in my Paul Sable "Henry the 8th" '65 Mustang drag car that I recently restored, as it would seem to be a natural fit there. Hmmmm.....

Sounds like the '57 Vette gasser that took me 15 years (including paint that took forever to dry) to finish just in time to make the BOYD Round 2 deadline. Courage, my friend, and drive on!

Cool find, congratulations!

It came on it. I didn't do a thing to the paint on the Welly diecast. I've now seen them in silver, blue, gold, and bright red. I like this blue one the best.

Why? Chevy blatantly stole from the design in the '66-'67 Nova, the '67 Impala, and the '68-'72 Novas, all of which were great looking cars!

I wonder what Jay Leno will find to stuff it in....

I THOUGHT it looked improved in that area! Really makes a difference, doesn't it?

Indeed--the no-chrome, monochromatic look.

The "other mag" recently reviewed MCW's similar '65 442 kit and I seem to recall they had some very minor fitting problems using the Lindberg kit as a donor. The AMT '66 might work, too. Might work better. Since you're building a MP drag car, you might not be interested in an Olds engine. This would open up a lot of possible chassis donors--the Revell '65-'67 Chevelles and '66 GTO and AMT '67 Chevelle, right off the top of my head.

Absolutely magnificent work. Well done and model on!

Yes, very close to factory Rally Green, just a bit more sparkly. Nice work, model on!

You never know what's gonna happen on The Bay. Last night I just happened across a fairly nice AMT '67 Impala original promo offered at a very reasonable starting price, NO BIDS, ending this morning. I knew it would probably go for big bucks, and further knew I was gonna be away from any computer at "closing time" so didn't get too excited about it. This morning before I left for work it still had no bids, so just to say I did, I launched a "fire and forget" bid about $10 over the opening. Expected to come home to find it had sold for big bucks, or probably $1 more than I'd bid (which happened to me on a '65 Mustang the other night), but to my surprise and delight, I was evidently the only bidder and got it for openers. So, GOOD things happen sometimes, too.