Snake45

Aw, we're just kidding. Anyway, the finish looks excellent! Drive on!

Thanks for the link. Never seen that before--you have some nice stuff! I might be ordering your '65 Mustang wagon (would save me a lot of work making my own) and several transmissions.

A while back I wanted to do a '65 or '66 Chevy Biscayne 2DS. I bought a Revell convertible kit with the idea of modifying the up-top into that roof. It looks do-able. And I think it might be even closer to the 4-door shape than your GTO roof, but I'd have to do a lot more research to say for sure. Funny we can't get an accurate roof on a '64-'65 GM A-body kit today. Back in the day, AMT did the '64 Tempest convertible and '64 GTO hardtop; these molds became the '65 GTO kit (still available) with separate roof. They did a '64 F-85/Cutlass, which became a topless AWB funny car. And they did the '64 Chevelle, which became the '65, which became an AWB funny car, which finally ended up as the modified dirt tracker. So they did that roof right four times, and all we have available today is the '65 GTO separate top and the modified dirt tracker top. It is so very sad.

You'll want two different colors/finishes between the steel wheels themselves (argent paint) and the trim rings. I've seen trim rings in both brushed finish and full shiny chrome, but you definitely want a different look between the two. Molotow on the center caps is a good idea. And then you can do the black grooves in the caps with a water-based black paint when the Molotow is good and dry.

PREACH IT, BROTHER STEVE! Can I get a AY-men from the choir?

Here's what might work: 1. File off the drip rail where it comes down the C-pillar. 2. Glue a piece of maybe .030" styrene to the forward edge of the C-pillar, standing a little proud. This would bring the C-pillar a little forward, and make a new drip rail at the same time. To see what I'm talking about, find my post down in Diecast on the Welly '65 GTO--I did the same thing there (after filing the C-pillar slant to a sharper angle, which won't be needed here). 3. Now cut the rear panel of the roof, across the top and down the sides of the C-pillars, with a razor saw. DO NOT separate it at the bottom. With the cut made, open it up at the top to a wedge/pie cut. Maybe 1/16" at the top would do it, tapering to nothing at the bottom. Might need more, might need less. Now you can bend the top of the back panel forward and glue it back in place, giving you more angle to the whole rear of the roof. This will also bring the height of the rear of the roof down a little, which will help. In fact, it might not hurt to cut the roof rear panel slightly, too, right through the window. The width of a razor saw cut (the "kerf") might be enough to work. 4. Remove the upper side parts of the drip rails, sand a little arc in the top edge of the window, then replace the drip rail with Evergreen strip plastic. There's another way to accomplish all this, much easier: 1. Saw off whole roof, replace it with roof from reissued AMT '65 GTO. (Might be possible to use the roof from the dirt track "modfied stocker" version of the AMT '65 Chevelle, too, if you just happen to have one of those laying around.)

I know I've cleaned paintbrushes of both Tamiya and Testor acrylics with lacquer thinner with no problems. It works much better than water, which I used before, and does kinda-sorta work, but not as well as lac thinner.

I believe it's available in red--I could have ordered one, but it would have cost me more than the $10 Rite-Aid one.

They're available in the oft-reissued MPC '69 Barracuda kit, which isn't hard to find nor expensive.

FABULOUS discussion, everyone! This is EXACTLY why I took and posted these pics! Keep it up! You've all made excellent and valid points. I see what you're talking about! None of these things really bothers me as much as the roof, or the Z16-specific rear panel, but now that you've pointed them out, they're all areas that I'd take a closer look at--and I think I could fix them without too much trouble. How I wish some resin caster would offer a corrected roof and common Malibu or Malibu SS rear panel for this kit. I'd build a dozen of them if such were available! Again, thanks everyone!

Dunno what prices are like for them in Golf World, but here's a shooting supply place I've bought from in the past--great prices and great service. Here's what they show at the moment: https://outdoors.natchezss.com/products/optics-rangefinders-laser-rangefinders

You might also want to call/talk to gun/hunting shops in your area, see what's popular, what works, what's a good price. Laser rangefinders are hot in that market too, and it's possible you could find a better deal since it might be more competitive. Just a thought, worth exactly what you paid for it.

They're not difficult for a modeler to make:

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll look for one in my travels. Might find one at the local toy show I'll be going to Sunday.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! I was going to say he needed to pump up his air shocks in the back.

Yes, one of those trucks would make a cool rod, with a V8 mounted midships.

Different and therefore interesting. Also, pretty cool and badass! Well done and model on!

I have one I've been playing with off and on for years. Like you, I don't particularly want to do the ZZ car. So I'm un-'80s-ing it. I filled the vents in the hood sides, but the putty warped the plastic, so I'll either make new ones out of sheet styrene or just leave them off. I'll be changing out the wheels, possibly for the mags from the Mongram '70 GTX. And I'm painting it Something Else. I started painting it Testor Mythic Maroon, a nice easy color, but have decided that it's too close to ZZ Red so will probably repaint it with their Root Beer metalflake. And that's pretty much it. I should get back on that thing and drag it across the finish line. Maybe I'll do it if we have a Round 3 of the Great BOYD Gitter Done Build.

You GO, BOYEEEE! GITTER DONE!

Yes, the last line of my review says use the grille and headlights from the Camino or station wagon, but when I tried to add that (about the 7th edit), I got a 404 error and then was locked out of the whole site for a couple hours. And it just refused again to let me add that last sentence. Ah shucks oh well.

Bear with a few minutes, folks. I wrote this up last night but got repeated 404 errors when I tried to post. Same thing this morning. So I'll be trying to do it one section and one pic at a time. The whole story will be five paragraphs and four pictures. Hang on. Finally managed to lay hands on one of my remaining “holy grails,” an AMT '65 Chevelle Craftsman kit (used, but still nice). The body is primed (gray body in the pics below) but all the detail, such as the rear fender emblems, is still very sharp. Thought it would be interesting to compare it to the Revell. The Revell (white body) is a nice kit, and many nice models have been built from it, but it's got a couple problems. The first is that the roof's not right. It's a bit subtle—I didn't notice it on my own, but once Ron Hamilton pointed it out, I see it clearly and can't un-see it. It's just not right. The drip molding is much too straight—it should have more arch in it. Similarly, the whole roof is a bit too flat. And the C-pillars are just a tiny bit too thin (just the opposite of the problem with the Polar Lights '64 GTO), and a little bit too upright. It looks like an 80-20 mashup of the roof shapes of the Malibu hardtop and the 300 2-door sedan. The rest of the body is fairly nice. There's a little difference in the wheel opening shapes, but it's not horrible. The second problem with the Revell Chevelle is that it's a rare Z16 SS396. Only 201 of these were built, and in only three colors. The Z16s had a unique rear panel trim treatment not shared by either the Malibu or the 300, and it would be extremely difficult to either scratchbuild the rear panel or convert it from what Revell gives you to work with, if you want to build a far more common Malibu or Malibu SS hardtop (or convertible, for that matter). The AMT has the common Malibu rear panel right. Another difference is that the Revell Z16 body is missing the Malibu nameplate on the rear fenders (it's on the front fenders on Z16s), although the emblem is included as a decal in some issues of the Revell kit (the “Revelle Muscle” issue, for one). The good news is that AMT kept both the rear fender emblems and the rear panel trim when they converted the Craftsman kit to the altered wheelbase funny car, so if you have one of those, or have the chance to acquire a built one at reasonable cost, it would be a fairly easy job to convert this body back to stock just by moving the rear wheel openings back where they belong. (This is NOT true of the dirt-track modified reissue, which has all the stock trim gone forever.) This could be done by using lower body panels from the Revell kit. If doing that, you'd almost certainly want to go ahead and use the Revell kit's better chassis and interior as well. You also might want to use the Revell kit's grille with separate headlights (the AWB funny body has the lenses replaced with metal covers). Well, sadly, this isn't a drop-in fit. The bodies are very close in width, but the Revell is about .025” slimmer in the front than the AMT, which means you'd have to do some tweaking on the body or the grille or both to get them together.

Very nice! Model on!

Very impressive looking! Well done and model on!

Thanks for the additional info! I just built an orange '69 Charger 500 last year, but I don't have enough polished orange plastic in my collection so might have to get this one too. Can it be built factory stock--that is, without the front bumper ram, or does leaving that off leave holes or something? I can come up with Magnum 500 wheels from somewhere if they're not in the kit. Thanks!

No problem. I misunderstood your original post, thought you were completing a stalled project for your club show entry. We might be doing this again--it there's enough interest, we might be doing them quarterly. We'll see at the end of March if there's any interest in continuing this series. Good luck with your project and with your show!