Snake45

Very interesting! I already have three Welly Porsches, so will have to be on the lookout for these. Ain't it funny how some collections just kinda happen?

And USAF never operated F-5As in silver finish in Nam. USAF evaluated the F-5A/C briefly in Vietnam around 1966, then turned them over to the VNAF, who used them extensively right up to the end. The USAF F-5s were camoed, as were all the VNAF F-5s from that point on. The movie leased silver-painted F-5As from Philippines Air Force, and slapped some bogus USAF markings on them for filming. Again, pretty cool looking, but not remotely close to historically accurate.

Through The Magic of Editing, I have made your comment a brief review of the entire move. It is kinda cool, though, except the Redux version, which is nearly unwatchable, and almost ruined the whole movie for me. If you haven't seen the Redux version, DON'T.

Very nice! I might have to look for one of these.

Sweet haul, ewetwo, especially that Falcon!

Doesn't look bad at all in this pic. Glad it all worked out for you, and you gained some valuable experience for next time. Model on!

Looks like you've got substantial parts of an AMT Meyers Tow'd there (the green stuff at upper left). Think you've got enough of it to get it together? I went looking for the instructions for it but couldn't find them. Found some box images here: https://www.modelroundup.com/product-p/amt-t-300.htm

And aren't most if not all of them 4-doors? That cuts the appeal even more for many of us. Still, if they'd reissue one or more in metalflake, I'd be tempted to buy one just to see if I could make it work. But y'all know me, I'm a little "off."

Resin 2DW bodies are available, and of course you can always do your own conversion on the kit 4D body.

Best car silver paint job I've ever done (on a Porsche 911) was Model Master NON-Buffing Aluminum, topped with their Metalizer Sealer (polished out, of course). It's amazing.

For every one of these kits built as Garlits' over the years, probably six to ten of them have been built as generic or phantom mid-'60s dragsters. You can always spot these builds because of the distinctive roll cage, which is longer and laid back at more of an angle than the typical dragsters of the day.

I might be doing that very thing sometime in the near future.

To the typical hot rod/musclecar/sports car/exotic car modeler, a '65 Chevelle wagon at first glance looks like a BORING subject. But give it a little thought and there are many, many interesting possibilities you can do with it: *Bone-stock "mainstreamer," either showroom fresh or weathered to one degree or another. *Race car tow/support car. *Surf wagon, either '60s or current day. *Commercial/company vehicle of some sort, including taxicab. *'70s or '80s winter beater or daily driver--practice your weathering! *Vintage Junior Stock or Modified Production drag car. *Current day "no prep" street racer monster. * Jacked-up 4X4 or Monster truck. I did one as a late '60s/early '70s family grocery getter turned Modified Production econoracer, and I'd like to build two or three more of them.

The very common Revell '65 Chevelle Z16, or the equally common Revell '66 Chevelle Wagon or El Camino would work fine. All these cars had the same chassis.

Somebody who wants to go to Hell and doesn't want to wait in line.

I just thought to check and discovered that both the Vega and the '68-'70 AMX had 97" wheelbase. I suspect that the funny chassis--at least its shorty main rails--originated in the JoHan/AMT annual AMX kits, which included a full funny car option.

He also played Richard Nixon in some movie or TV movie, which is always how I think of him first.

Very sweet find, congratulations! The glass from a common reissue '69 kit might fit.

"Aces and Eights" is known as "The Dead Man's Hand" because supposedly that's what Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was shot in the head. I can't quite figure out why that would be a good thing as regards a model car. Does the expression mean something else in Canada?

I don't dislike it. I bought one and built it several months ago. But what could I possibly do with a second or third one?

WOW, I think I’ve seen more new builds of the old AMT ’65 Riviera on here in the last month than I’ve seen in the previous ten years I’ve been on here. Here’s mine. In 1966 or ’67 I bought and built AMT’s 65 Riviera. Details are hazy, but I think maybe I displayed it in unpainted white plastic for a while, with the interior brush-painted Pactra Leaf Green. Evidently I decided to paint it at some point, because the body and hood were lost in a fire in our basement in December 1968 that wiped out my whole workbench. All other parts—chassis, engine, interior, grille, glass, and front and rear bumpers—survived somehow, probably upstairs in my room. So last May at the local toy show, my favorite glue bomb vendor had a big new box full of random bodies—no complete models, just bodies, most of them junk—that included an intact ’65 Riv in day-glo green. My first thought was that I could cobble together enough leftover custom pieces from a new kit to build it into something, and then I remembered I had a complete set of stock(-ish) parts from my original. I could hardly pay the $2 asking price fast enough. Took me several days to round up all my original 50+ year old parts, and I found everything but the hood—that must have been downstairs with the body in 1968. (The wheels and tires were also missing—I must have recycled the wheels into another project at some point.) Only damage to the “new” body seemed to be one missing vent window frame, a cracked/bent right A-pillar, and some scratching on the roof. But after stripping, the roof damage was much more apparent: It looks like someone started to try taking the paint off with a chisel, or a small axe, or machete, or some evil implement of that kind. This required extensive filling and recontouring—not difficult, just time-consuming. The gray primer under the day-glo green didn’t come off in the Purple Pond and turned out to be quite rough and “pebbly,” so every square millimeter of the body had to be hand sanded. Almost mercifully, someone had previously sanded off most of the body emblems and nameplates, so I wasn’t even tempted to try to save them; I went straight for a “day two” or mild custom job. I was working on cutting down a spare hood from a ’66 Wildcat when SuperbirdMcMonte molded me a resin replacement that was absolutely magnificent—as good as any resin part I’ve ever seen. BIG hat tip to SMcM! I wanted to use my original 50+ year old interior, with its original hand-brushed Pactra Leaf Green paint, just for nostalgia. The paint had some bare spots and thin spots that would need some touching up. I found a jar of hardware-store Pactra Odd’N’Ends Hunter Green (at least 15 years old) that turned out to be a near-perfect match for the Leaf Green. Miraculously, the stuff was still quite workable and usable; didn’t even need any extra thinning or mixing. After touching up the interior where necessary, I hit it with a couple coats of Krylon Satin Matte clear to tone down the high gloss of the enamel. The green guts severely limited my choices for external paint. My choices seemed to be white, black, silver/gray, or some shade of green. I gave some consideration to Pearl White but decided to go green instead. I have a can of Duplicolor Honda Hampstead green that would have gone well with the dark green interior, but unfortunately it turns out to be a pretty close match to 1965 Buick Seafoam Green, and I didn’t want this model to be taken for a stocker. So I went with Testor One Shot Lime Ice, which definitley says This Ain't Your Grandad's '65 Riviera. Final paint is one coat of Rustoleum red oxide primer, sanded with #800 WetOrDry, followed by three coats of the Lime Ice (each 24 hours apart), followed by three coats of Wet Look Clear (again, 24 hours apart), which was then color-sanded with #1000 WetOrDry and polished out with Wright’s Silver Cream. Today’s retro rod & custom magazines are full of 1st Gen Rivs with some degree of customizing, quite a few of them in some shade of green, but, they’re invariably seen wearing wire wheels, polished Astro Supremes, or sombrero-ish wheel covers, on whitewall tires, and usually lowered to a gravel-scraping stance, if not a straight-up lowrider. I wanted to try something more like a musclecar/NASCAR-badassitude stance, just for a change. Big 'n' bigger tires went on the chrome dish wheels from an AMT '62 Corvette for a timeless look. I don't believe I've ever seen another Riv set up quite like this, real or model; I think The Green Phoenix would make a fun cruiser. And here it is next to a stock Welly '65 Riv diecast that I Snake-Fu'ed last year, just to show how Not Stock it is . As always, comments welcome, and thanks for looking!

GREAT Riv, Tim! Don't even THINK of changing the wheels/tires. What you've got on there now is a completely timeless look. If you want a different look, build another one! Well done and model on!

Very cool, very nice work!

Very nice work!

Yes, looking good. Sounds like a perfect candidate for the Bring Out Your Dead Completion Build. You could be the first one finished this round! All you have to do is officially register.