Snake45

Aldo Nova's "Fantasy" got some airplay down here in the early '80s. The next time I heard his name was in conjunction with American Idol--I think he wrote some of the winners' songs, or something like that. The only "non US-famous" Canadian band I have any familiarity with is Odds, out of Vancouver BC. They toured with Warren Zevon as his backing band in 1991-92. I've heard bootlegs of maybe half a dozen of these shows and they're among the very best full-band work Zevon ever did. They did my favorite version of his song "Model Citizen" and covered Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" and Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan." Fabulous stuff! Eventually I ran across one of Odds' CDs, Bedbugs, in a record shop and bought it. Was pleasantly surprised to find that Zevon guested on the song "Jack Hammer."

Very cool! I've had one of these in the stash since 1969. I swiped the engine out of it to put in a '66 Skylark back in the day, I think all the rest is still there. Not long ago I was able to lend the radiator wall to someone--was it ChrisBCritter?--to copy for a build, and he returned it no problem. Maybe I'll actually build the thing someday.

Wow, I believe you built that kit about as well as it can be built. VERY well done and model on!

Or the reissued AMT "Funny Farmer" Tempest AWB funny car.

A couple of the old JoHan kits had "chrome" foil included. The original '66 Marlin was one of them, I know.

I believe quite a few of the old annual AMT hardtop kits have convertible interiors. Never heard anyone complain about it back in the day.

C is for COMPANION.

N is for NOTHING.

M is for MISBEHAVE.

S is for SHINY!

B is for BETRAYAL.

And before he was Ronald McDonalad, he was Bozo the Clown in the Wash DC area.

6

Huh. I could have sworn I saw '63s on the hobby shop shelves back in the '80s but just did a quick google search and I must be wrong. I must have been thinking of the '64. Now I feel less bad about not buying one in the '80s.

Great progress, S59 and Dave! GITTER DONE! Okay, I finally decided on a project for this round: The original annual AMT '69 Ford Galaxie I started in 1969 (52 years ago, probably this round's record). I'd have never bought this kit, but I won it as part of a case of 12 AMT kits in a national magazine contest. Inspired by the badass box art, I thought I'd build it as a lower Stock class drag racer. Painted it white with a black vinyl top, did some hand-lettering, apparently had second thoughts about the whole idea, and put it back in the box. Until now. I was greeted by a much bigger mess than I remembered/expected. Evidently I'd named it some word or phrase that started with a C or O and ended with -ion, and then tried to polish that off (probably, in those days, with toothpaste). Looks like I ran the numbers and discovered it would run in K/Stock Automatic. Also, I'd run black ink into the left door and trunk lines, and then changed my mind and tried to wipe it off. That apparently didn't work too well—there was dark blue-black staining all around these lines. At this point (yesterday) I decided that the first step would be to see if I could get the ink-staining off, and then the lettering (I'll just be building it factory stock); if I couldn't make that happen, it would go back in the box, as a strip-and-repaint would kind of violate the spirit of BOYD in my eyes. I couldn't use alcohol for cleanup, because I'm pretty sure the white paint is AMT lacquer, which alcohol could ruin, so tried Windex. This took off about 90-95% of the ink staining but of course on white, that's not nearly good enough. So I tried polishing the stained areas with Wright's Silver Cream silver polish, and this seems to have taken 99.7% of it off; you can still see it if you know it's there and are looking for it, but, “Good enough for BOYD.” If you haven't already guessed, this will not be a Grade A build; I'll be treating it like a “rescue” of one of my toy-show-find glue bombs. The ink cleaned up, I polished off the hand lettering (no doubt Testor enamel) with the Wright's. This went better than I expected, and I managed to pull it off without “burning through” the old white lacquer. It seems to be pretty tough stuff, and shines up nicely with polish! So that's where I am right now; this is my starting point. I painted the interior black in 1969 but might get seized by a Fit of Industry and repaint it blue, green, or tan. We'll see what happens. As I said, this will be factory stock. The kit's custom/race wheels & tires and nice engine disappeared long ago, no doubt pirated for other projects, but all the stock stuff seems to have survived. Wish me luck!

Wow.

There was a writeup on KH and his friends in Hot Rod a couple months ago. Very interesting. Hart himself seems to be a gearhead, but many of his friends seem to be new to the hobby and KH is bringing them along with a little help from some pros. Anybody diggin' old musclecars is cool with me. Hey, I wonder if there might be some Round 2 or Revell merchandising/tie-ins possible here? Interesting to think about.

Uh-oh, my poor credit card, after several months of rest, is due to take another beating!

Love the Bigfoot!

I bought quite a few of those at those prices back in the day. Built some of them ('69 AMX, Maverick), still have others in the stash to be built someday ('70 Olds, Marlin, Mustang and Challenger funny cars). One I missed I wish I'd gotten was the '63 Dodge.

Here's how mine turned out, anyway.

I put a lot of stuff on my watchlist, and I've only gotten two or three of those email private offers. The one time I can think of that I immediately accepted the offer, it was on something I had NOT put on the watchlist, but had looked at earlier in the day.

Good luck with that build. I started one in the '70s and only finished it up a couple years ago. It was a major PITA straightening the roof, getting the front end to fit, and trying to fix that gadawful, mickey mouse chassis into something that resembles something that might have actually worked on a real car. Even after all that work, it has noticeable shape problems in the roof C-pillars. I can say I wrestled one to the ground, but I'll never do another one. I'd rather try to graft the front and rear ends onto a Revell '67 body, if that could be made to work.

Your Firestone Supremes were what came in the original AMT Cobra kits.