Snake45

That car or one similar got a good amount of screen time in last night's episode.

I don't like Panther Pink. And I don't like big goofy wheels and rubber band tires. But for some strange reason, I LIKE this build. I don't know why, but it all works. Go figger. Well done and model on!

Some of us like to try to make things look right, or at least not obviously ridiculous or wrong. Others don't seem to be so concerned. It's a big hobby, and there's room for everyone.

That's because I haven't moved the edges yet. I decided it would be easier to do it this way. I'll be moving the edges forward to reduce the angle of the backslant in profile, but I won't take them to vertical. One of these days I'm gonna take a picture of the annual AMT '67 body, the annual MPC '68 body, the "new" AMT '67-'68 body, the Revell '68 Firebird body, and this one (unmodified) stacked up. I believe it will be REAL easy to play "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others" with that pic.

But look on the left side. They're nowhere near parallel. That's because the edge is broader at the bottom than the top. On the right, the taper is canceling out the back-angle due to the angle of the photo. (And it's doubled on the left for the same reason.)

I'd never seen one before the toy show where I bought it. They guy must have been a RX-7 fan as he had three of them in different colors (or maybe he bought a 6- or 12- model lot of them), and they were the only 1/24 diecasts he had (he was mostly into Hot Wheels and old toys). One was a beautiful shade of a deep candy apple blue, and I would have bought it except the paint had some subtle runs and defects that would have been difficult to fix. (And if it had the same flaw in the spoiler as this one it would have been impossible to match.) I forget whether the third one was black, white, or silver, but I'm very happy I got this red one.

Yup. Bought two of them at Ollies's for $8 each and considered it a great deal on a "parts pack."

Bought this last year at the local toy show for $5, used. Mine doesn't have a maker's name on the chassis but a net search shows it now available under the Motor Max name. It seems to be about a 2002 or 2003 model year. This one had a bad mold misalignment or something on the left side (vertical) of the rear spoiler that had to be dealt with, which is what took me so long to get to. I filed that whole side of the spoiler back to smooth bare metal, then masked off the rest of the car, primed and airbrushed it with Testor #3 Red which is a near perfect match. If I didn't mention it, you'd never notice it. Sanded the the tire treads. Drilled out the exhaust pipes. Brush-painted the flat black on the side window frames, and had to pop the backlight out of its frame and brush-paint its edge, too, as a bright line of clear plastic was clearly visible. Removed the front parking/turn light covers, trimmed the sprue nubs, and edged them in black, and painted the area behind them Tamiya Metallic Gray (it was silver there) to match reference photos on the net. Hand-brushed three coats of Tamiya Smoke on the whole taillight lens. The flash washes this out on the near side in the photos, but it all looks dark like the far side in 3D. This is a pretty cool looking little car. I'd have never spent $30-$40 on a kit of one, nor the 40 or so hours it would have taken me to put it together, prep it, paint it, polish it out, etc, but for $5 and maybe 4-5 hours of work (much of which was involved in filing, smoothing, masking, and repainting the spoiler defect), I think it look GREAT on the shelf! As always, comments welcome.

It's a parts mine, but unless they've made major fixes to the molds, the body is a mess.

I haven't trimmed back the sides/rim of the rear yet. I'll trim it back a little, but not all the way to vertical. The lip forms sort of a little "hood" over the rear panel. But look at some more pictures showing the rear panel itself, not just the quarter panels. It's vertical or darn close to it. That's why I'm building this one as a custom, and a test/experiment to see what's necessary to get this body into righteous shape. Anything I get wrong on this one, I can always say, "Hey, it's a custom, dude, of course it looks different from stock."

I'm actually thinking of cutting off most of its whole sides and grafting them onto the Modified Stocker body and building a period '60s custom.

No "research time" at all. I was pretty sure I'd seen that kit built at least once on that site, only took me a minute or two to track them down. Glad to hear they were helpful.

Last toy show, I picked up a '65 El Camino body for $1 with just such a thing in mind.

Great color and finish! Well done and model on!

Very nice! You've really cleaned up the look of the '58 by losing a bunch of the gingerbread. You're inspiring me to try to do something like this. Model on!

Different and therefore interesting. Well done!

Working on correcting the body. First task: Straighten out that rear panel and get it vertical instead of leaning back. Fortunately, there's enough meat in the styrene that this can be done with shaving and filing. My dial caliper says I've moved the top edge of the panel forward somewhere between .050" and .060".

VERY nice and interesting build of that old crock!

Very interesting! I'm tending to think that's aftermarket. You used to see a LOT of those add-on strips back in the day. Not all of them were as neatly applied or as straight as this one, though some were.

I can't recall anyone finding anything to complain about from the pics that have been posted. But too many of us have seen Revell snatch Heartbreak from the jaws of Magnificence too often to NOT express concerns.

I see your problem immediately. No vintage American muscle/iron, no drag cars, no hot rods! Luckily for you, it looks like you have a good deal of "swap fodder" than you can trade for some REAL American steel (and fiberglass)!

Okay, hold the body up pointing toward you. Sight down the right (passenger) side and notice the line of the top of the front fender and the door. Now do the same thing with the left (driver) side. Doesn't look the same, does it? There's a hump in that line that shouldn't be there--it rises and then falls back. That line wants to be straight, or darn close to it. It's not too difficult to iron it out with a file. The affected area is highlighted by the red line in this picture: And then, the line that runs down the middle of the body--where the white line is in the above pic--looks like a piece of chrome trim. It's not. It's actually two VERY fine lines that are meant to represent pinstripes. When the body is molded in white, and you paint it, you can carefully sand or polish the paint in this area and leave two perfect white pinstripes showing. I'm going to try dry-brushing them with white paint on my polished green one for the same effect. DON'T paint this line "chrome" or try to foil it, as the real ones didn't have such a chrome trim strip.

Fabulous! Email me SnakeACP45 at AOL dot com and let me know what you're looking for in trade. (The PM system here isn't working for me for some reason.) Thanks!

It'll never be reissued. It was updated to the '67, which became the AWB funny car, which is still around. That's as close as you'll get (unless Moebius or Trumpeter or someone does an all new one). Last year I came across a cheap, very restorable glue bomb '67 with a hole in the hood, one missing bucket seat, and the center insert part missing from the grille. Was able to snag a replacement grille from Modelhaus on their final day sale, and it comes with the insert already installed, so I got that covered. I can fix the hole in the hood. I guess I'll have to sacrifice the seats from a "new" one to get it on the shelf. And so it goes. (Why bother? Because the original body is shaped so much better than the new one.)

Isn't the AMT Bel Air 2DS kit due to be rereleased soon?