Snake45

Gorram the pusher man! --The fabulous John Kay Orchestra, AKA Steppenwolf.

Agreed. I think there was one named Nikki something or other who was cuter. Jungle Pam Hardy was hotter than Linda. But I understand that Linda has a near-photographic memory about the good old days--she is apparently a walking, talking encyclopedia about all that stuff--and she was there. Supposed to be a real nice person, too.

I'll bet if there were a kit available of it, I could turn it into something presentable. It reminds me of a lot of the rod and custom models guys built in the early '60s--There's just WAY too much stuff going on with it. Less would definitely be more.

Can't speak for anyone else, but me, I'm heavily into Living In the Past. And that means my car modeling interest lies mainly between about 1964 and 1972. (In airplane modeling, my interest lies pretty much between 1944 and 1967 or so.) Life is too short to build models of stuff you're not that interested in.

Hence the term, "stock as a stone."

How about altered wheelbase/match racers/early funny cars of the 1964-67 period, real or imaginary? Lotta freedom there to move around. Is end of the year too soon to get something together? That's about 10 weeks. I think I could get something done by then.

I have some kind of weird soft spot for the old MPC '69 Camaro. I've built four over the years, the first in 1969, the last in 2012 or so. Found another one—I think it's the last—in the Snakepit and couldn't resist seing what I can do with it. This really is a wretched backbirth of a kit. It was based on the original MPC '68 molds, which weren't too bad, but they only did a half-assed job of converting it to a true '69. Hence the low wheel openings and weird body side contours. Now I could fix all that, but with the accurate Revell kit available, why bother? I thought this half-breed body might be the perfect use for some of those modern dicky wheels in one of the “Resto-Mod” kits. We'll see if that works out or not. Here's what the thing looks like out of the box: I cleaned the body off completely of all chrome trim, emblems, etc, except the window trim and the SS on the rear panel. Scibed in the panel lines at the front fenders, tulip panel, header panel, front valence, rear panel, and lower quarter/rocker panel. Spent several evenings in front of the TV sharpening and refining the body contours, and filling a couple low spots. Body and hood went to the paint shop for primer yesterday (second coat). Last night I glued extensions to the ill-fitting spoiler and rear valence, and this morning spent about three hours making those parts FIT the way they SHOULD. Sigh. In the above photo you can see what I'm doing with the rear SS emblem. I foiled it, painted black around it, filled in the SS letters with white paint, then scraped the paint off the raised borders of the letters with a toothpick. The rear panel will be painted black. I haven't trimmed the foil off yet. Before I paint it, I'll trim as close as I can, and then mask the letters with liquid mask. Here's a couple more shots of the body and hood in primer. It went to the paint shop today and got its first coat of color. The spoiler and rear valence got their first primer. Might need some refinement and then will be painted later. I'll have them all caught up by the time the body is polished out. Oh, well, it'll look a little different from all the other '69 Camaros on my shelf, anyway....

You need to put a "429" in it. It's right in the soundtrack: Johnny had a '57 Chevy Four on the floor and a four-twenty nine We used to take it out on Wild Horse Pike Run it out to the end of the line.... --"Roll with the Punches," Warren Zevon, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxZPZgQouDE

Paper and ink are light.

Weird Al?

Very, VERY nice! Big Props for using BLACK plug wires, and properly routing them around/behind the valve covers instead of over them, as is too often seen. I think you got everything out of this kit that one can get without getting into extensive body mods. Well done and model on!

Very nice! Not a fan of those Big Wheels (at least you painted them), but the paint, the color, the stance, and the overall craftsmanship are outstanding! Well done and model on!

Okay, before someone turns this into one of those annoying and pointless singalong threads (yeah, I know, I kinda started it), I'll pull the plug. It's Rod Stewart's Stay with Me. (Last night I could hear the next line but couldn't come up with the title.)

Wow, he kinda does! That's pretty cool!

Red lips, hair and fingernails....

Nicely done!

Don't think anyone's done anything from this band yet: When I became of age my mama sat me down Said, "Son, you're growin' up, it's time you look around" So I began to notice some things I hadn't seen before That's what brought me here knockin' on your back door

He was a nice guy I did quite a bit of bidness with. I think his problem was just the opposite--this was such a common thing that he just assumed I'd know about it, so didn't think to insult me by mentioning it to me. You know, kinda like a gun shop guy NOT saying to you on your way out the door, "Now don't shoot yourself in the foot with that thing, okay?"

Of course I could have done that if I'd known anything about it. I read six different magazine articles on intake manifold installation, plus of course the instructions in the manifold itself, and not one of them ever mentioned anything about this. I'd also asked the speed shop guy before I started if there were anything I needed to know before I started this job. He didn't say anything about it--but when I went back later, after the deed was done, he diagnosed the problem immediately and told me about tweaking the oil pump. Oh that was a LOT of help at THAT point!

Anyone ever tried to model this?

Here's one I'm working on now. Basically all that's left to do is foil/trim it and put it all back together.

Okay, I've done some drawings. A is based on the AMT Fruit Wagon cowl dimensions and a near-perfect profile photo of a C-cab rod in Street Rod Pictorial #2. The cab in this photo looks like the same cab as three other rods shown in Street Rod Pictorial #1 (and very similar to the two photos I posted above). Key dimensions were measured from the photo and scaled to match the kit cowling (height and length) with a dial caliper and laid out within .005". I did this drawing without looking at the kit part at all. B is an outline of the Fruit Wagon cab kit part. Note that the size of the door is almost identical to the door in A, which was drawn and dimensioned from a photo. This leads me to believe drawing A is darn close to accurate in size for this kit. You can clearly see that the cab behind the doors is much longer than drawing A, the roof is higher, and of a different contour. Can you cut the kit cab sides down to match my drawing? Almost, but not quite. However, by removing about 7 scale inches from the rear, and then lowering and reshaping the roof, you can get kinda close. Drawing C is another tracing of the kit cab side, with the areas to be removed marked in red. I think I'm going to try making my own cab from sheet styrene, but might also try cutting down the kit parts as in C and see how that looks. If I do, I will remove and replace the body molding lines from the kit parts, as they don't seem to be in the right place. Will use Evergreen half-round strips for this. This drawing may be printed out for personal (noncommercial) use. Since I have no control over how Photobucket will size it, or how your printer will print it, I have included a 2" scale. Save the drawing to your computer, and print one using your favorite program. Measure the scale, calculate the necessary adjustment, then resize your saved image so it prints out with the scale measuring exactly two inches.

Not really. The DD chassis is much older and shorter, and of a different type. The Parts Pack body wouldn't be the best starting point for that. You'd have to fill in the provided cutout. You'd be better off starting with a regular AMT T body. The DD kit has a usable Chevy engine with injection but you'd have to come up with the tubes for it. You can build an A/C from the DD kit but it will be a much earlier version and won't look much like the car in the pic. A better starting point might be the Revell Tony Nancy car.

That sounds like the Pace Car paint scheme.

Excellent work all around so far! Keep us posted on your progress!