Snake45

And remember, half the people you know, half the people you work with, half the people you see every day, are below average.

Yup. It's meant to be a "period piece," a high school hot rod of the late '60s-early '70s. The story line is that a kid inherited a nice, clean, garage-kept but high mileage '57 from his grandparents, and then swapped in the engine, tranny, and wheels from a wrecked '68 or '69 Chevelle, Nova, or Camaro. I think the Rally wheels are from the AMT '69 Chevelle and the front tires are a couple of original AMT Firestone Supreme redlines I had left over from back in the day. So, yes, redlines.

Honduras Maroon is a brick-red maroon that isn't very close to Burgundy at all. '64 Ford Vintage Burgundy is listed as "poly," which means metallic in car-paint-speak. http://www.autocolorlibrary.com/aclchip.aspx?image=1964-Ford-pg01.jpg Here's what Model Master Burgundy looks like, more or less.

Because IMHO that's the best looking trim on a '56. That's what I put on my first one.

Testor Model Master has a Burgundy enamel in spray cans, or at least they used to. It should be close. I can tell you that you can "influence" the color of it depending on the primer you use--white, black, red, or some shade of gray. Plastic spoon experiments would be indicated here.

What's wrong with the 210 trim? That's the best looking IMHO.

I'm not a big truck fan, but that's pretty cool!

Now that's an interesting idea! Do keep us posted on how that works out!

What do you mean by "to my knowledge"? Do you mean "as far as I know," or do you mean "I was familiar with this car from day one and to my certain knowledge it always had a turquoise engine"? 11 years is plenty of time for someone to swap in an earlier engine. Or a rebuilt engine painted the earlier color. Or to have the original engine rebuilt and painted the earlier color. It's also possible Pontiac put a pre-66 engine in the car, something they happened to find a bunch of in a warehouse or something. Or maybe the engine paint shop used the wrong color that day. Or, as someone suggested, maybe a particular plant was still using the earlier color. Maybe Canada? At any rate, I have an original '67 Pontiac showroom brochure. The back cover shows all the different engines, and they are all the light metallic blue, even the OHC 6s. I believe some of the Buick and Olds brochures of the time I have show a couple different color engines, but the '67 Ponchos are all the same. (And I can't recall having ANY Chevy literature that has all the engines shown on the same page like that.)

How are you NOT working in PR for some politician somewhere?

Very nice! You had better luck with that candy red than I ever have.

Fantastic save! One would never know that you didn't build this from a mint kit. And quite well, too! Well done and model on!

It might have been. It's a common term over in Model Airplane World (often used in jest against one's self) but I just realize I've never seen it here, so it might have seemed "harsh" to anyone who's never heard it before. To those so offended, I apologize.

'67 Pontiac engines were a light metallic blue, or as you called it, "silver blue." Before 1966 they were a light nonmetallic blue. I don't know when they switched to something else but in '67 they were definitely the light metallic blue, as seem in your first picture.

And shiny! Wow, the finish looks a foot deep!

Come back in a week or two, and the whole first page of Under Glass will be "I Love Me" threads. Happens every year.

I might end up doing that. For the moment, I'm enjoying uploading pics direct to this site. But of course that doesn't help me much when I want to post pics to a model airplane or gun site.

You finished something this year? Now, THAT I gotta click on!

Don't worry about it. "Build" is a perfectly acceptable and commonly used noun in Model Airplane World, in Real Car World, and in Gun World, not just here in Model Car World. This was just a pet peeve of Harry's but I can assure you, he was in the minority on that.

I built the '56 in high school and didn't have any insurmountable problems with it. In the '80s or '90s I wanted to do another one, and bought a reissue (Hot Rod box). The body was warped so badly the glass wouldn't come close to fitting. So I bought another one, same thing. Have heard the same thing from many others. Some time ago I found a glue bomb '56 with a straight body that I thought would make a good basis for a build, with parts from the two "new" ones. And then Revell came out with the beautiful Del Ray post coupe, rendering the whole project moot. So that's the deal with me and the Revell '56. As to the Revell '57, our own Tim Boyd build all four (AMT, MPC, Revell, Monogram) kits in SAE back in the '80s and IIRC the Revell came in dead last for buildability/ease of assembly. That pretty much cured me of any desire to build THAT one. I do really like the more recent Revell snapper. I've had one ready for paint for well over a year now. I REALLY should dig that thing up and drag it across the finish line.

That's better than $399.99 but still about 50% too high. And even at $25-$29 per year, I don't want to see ANY ads, of the kind that made using PB a nightmare so often in its last year of "normal" operation.

Yeah, lotta that going on, too, and not just in Review threads.

I seem to be in the minority on this.

Got this diecast '69 Firebird/Trans Am cheap at the local toy show. Looking to do something interesting with it. If you've been around model cars a while, you recognize the shape as a direct copy of the backbirth MPC kit, blown up a little bit to 1/24 scale. First thing that has to go is those goofy donkey wheels and their stupid rubber band tires. It might be a job finding something that will nicely fill the slightly oversized wheel openings. I've got a couple different possibilities for the back, a set of huge slicks and a set of equally huge (pro street?) treaded tires. Just need to find some appropriate looking wheels. Would love to go Pro Touring with it but might have to go more like Pro Street or maybe a sort of "Street Outlaws" vibe. Gonna have to paint it. I don't like the color but don't hate it, but the paint's not very good on the thing, plus I MUST correct the tops of the rear fenders, just as I do when I build one of the old MPC '69 Camaro or Firebird kits. Thing is, I DO NOT want to polish this body shape, so I either have to find a paint that gives a nice gloss right out of the can, or do it in a flat/satin/matte. It would look good in satin black but I already have a number of other satin black cars, so that's a last resort. I haven't decided on a color yet, so suggestions are welcome. I guess I'm looking at one of the Testor One-Coat lacquers, as they dry with a reasonably good shine. Maybe the maroon, or the very dark blue? How about their graphite gray, or whatever they call it? Also under consideration at this point would be a flat olive drab, a la Hot Rod magazine's F-Bomb 2nd gen Camaro. I could call the backbirth "Warbird." This color would also have the benefit of being in the same ballpark as the iconic '68-'69 Pontiac Verdoro Green. Ideas and suggestions welcome. Please, no "Set it on fire" or "Toss that turd in the trash." I'm looking forward to the challenge of making SOMETHING not-horrible out of it.

Funny you should mention that. I'd never noticed it before, but last night when I posted the pics of my '57 above, I thought, "Man, something doesn't look right about that side trim." Thanks for outlining exactly what the problem is. The side trim on the old MPC flip-front '57 is wrong, too, which has kept me from building it all these years until I can figger out how to fix it. I've considered grafting on the rear fender sides from a Revell '57 kit (the old one), which I understand is pretty much unbuildable.