Snake45

I see some problems with the roof, which might be fixable. I'm not a MOPAR expert. Can you give us some other details of what's wrong with the AMT body?

Lotta good ideas here, at least one of which should produce satisfactory results! Just thought of another one: Place Scotch "invisible" tape on the inside. (Most of their tape these days is "invisible." You have to make some real effort to get the old original shiny kind.)

Well, you could take a Dremel and grind all the kit parts out from the inside so that when finished, even though it looked stock, it would be lighter than an out-of-the-box model. :lol:

PM me your email address and I can send you Raspberry Beret. Hindu Love Gods is the only Zevon CD I don't have (have it on cassette) but RB was on his box set I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, so I have that one HLG song on the computer.

I just happened to dig out the Coddington version of the kit with the chopped top, and you're right--the fit of that top isn't bad at all. I might even paint the top and body separately and join them after polishing. But I also have an original MPC issue molded in yellow, with the unchopped top, and the fit of the top on that one is awful. Every so often I dig it out and work on getting those two parts together a while and then throw the whole mess back in the box. Apparently the first owner of the kit had the same problem, which is why I was able to buy it CHEAP at a club meet some years ago. I also just checked the AMT '32 Vicky body against the Switchers '32 fenders. The body is almost a direct drop-on--very interesting! Cowl width is also the same but the Switchers body is just a hair taller. As I mentioned above, I'm going to build the old Switchers as a full-fendered Gasser, and I think I'm going to try to do my own "switcher" deal with it using the AMT Vicky body. (Somewhere I acquired a "junk box" that has an AMT Vicky body, hood, and grille shell in it. This could be the perfect use for that.)

I thought of one '54 I could stand to build if someone put a gun to my head: Corvette. But only if I could do it as a late-'60s Modified Production or Gasser. Pretty sure I have a '53 Vette kit around here somewhere. IIRC only difference between '53 and '54 is all the '53s were white and the '54s were also available in red and blue. Which of course means nothing if I'm doing a fantasy racer.

You got it. Zevon does all the singing. The REM guys were basically his backup band. The only thing on it I REALLY like is Raspberry Beret, but I can stand to listen to Battleship Chains and One Woman Man, too. The rest of it, not so much. I'm not that big an REM fan, but I like Stand a whole lot. Wish I had that, but not enough to go buy a whole CD for it.

My first reaction is to paint the inside of the windows with Dullcote or something similar, too. Make sure the inside of the glass is very polished, because any scratches would really show up doing this, I'd think. If you have an airbrush, you could also experiment with misting on light coats of something that will craze the plastic--lacquer thinner, acetone, liquid cement (MEK), something like that. Dunno if this would work better or worse than Dullcote.

I'm not into the whole "road warrior" thing at all, but I have to admit, that's different, interesting, and cool!

Just scored the Malco Gasser Mustang at Michael's with a 50% off coupon! Thirteen and change out the door! BOO-YAH! Imagine what a mint unbuilt example of this kit would have sold for on ePay two years ago!

REM? Do you have their early album Hindu Love Gods? It's all covers, but a few of them are pretty cool, such as Prince's Raspberry Beret.

I was born in '54 and there's not a '54 ANYTHING I'm interested in building. If you count the fall introductions of the '55 models, though, I've been wanting to build a '55 Nomad gasser. I can't think of any of the Revell funny cars I'd be interested in.

I've been trying to think of something interesting to do with Revell's '65 Chevelle Z16. Now they only built 201 of these and they were only made in three colors, red, yellow and black. I've never seen or heard of one being drag raced, except for one that was fitted with one of those weird turbo rear axle thingies. I'd think there would be a ton of "what-if" drag racers that could be built on this kit--Stock, Super Stock, FX, altered wheelbase, etc. Bill Jenkins and/or Dave Strickler, Jungle Jim, Dick Harrell, Bruce Larson, Doug Thorley, and so forth. Sound interesting to anyone else?

Beat you to that one six posts ago, old friend.

Might help if you'd tell us what model, how much you want to lower it, and so forth.

With the putty now smoothing the aluminum extentions into the plastic axle, the rear end is ready to go to the paint shop. Rear end back from the paint shop and installed, the chassis now sits on its wheels again for the first time in more than 40 years. Actually, the wheels, axles, and front tires are borrowed from the current Fruit Wagon reissue, the whitewall slicks are from AMT parts pack. I'm thinking to use these wheels and tires on this, going for a mid-'60s look. Time for a quick set-together just to see where I'm at with this thing. Wow, I don't think it looked this good when I originally built it around 1968. I think this hot little mess just jumped to the top of my Git Er Done list. After taking these photos, I spent about four hours today working on the engine, mostly cleaning up the headers, drilling them out, and making new mounting flanges for them. Also repainted the interior with Black Chrome Trim. Should finish the engine tomorrow and then it should be all downhill from there.

Foreigner, War with the World, off their fabulous first album.

Looks like what Batman would drive to his audition with the Village People.

And then there's this one, which I've seen crop up (no pun intended) on at least two other (non model car) boards. Smells like a 'Shop job to me:

Well, it's finished, at long last, and photographed. I had no idea this "quick, simple model" would take so many hours to finish. Now on to something with a shiny finish!

Here's a VERY nice AMT Challenger model that was posted recently. The builder used a Jimmy Flintstone replacement SE body but that is based on the AMT body so the basic body shape is the same, just the roof is different. You can get a good idea what the AMT kit looks like here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=93395&hl=challenger

I'd like to have '74 Ventura pieces to do a '74 GTO, but that might involve quarter panel/window changes at well.

The old Monogram '32 Ford roadster (oversized kit from the '50s) made the same mistake.

There's at least one "Christmas store" here in Dickburg open year round. Even stranger (to me, anyway): About 20 years ago, when my son was small, I went to some kind of kid's event at one of his friend's house (Cub Scouts or Little League or something of the sort). The place was a "McMansion" in a new, supposedly tony development. The place had two dining rooms, or maybe it was two living rooms, or whatever, at any rate they had an extra "grand room" or parlor of some kind and they'd turned it into a Christmas Room and had a tree in there and all sorts of other Christmas decorations and they left it that way all the time (I was there in June or July or something). I thought this was amazing, and not necessarily in a good way. How can Christmas be special if you've got a room decorated that way all the time?

Speaking of Queen, I was an early fan of theirs, but am burned out on all the Q songs you now hear on the radio except Fat Bottom Girls. IMHO their best album ever was Sheer Hear Attack and I don't think I've ever heard anything from that on the radio except Killer Queen. What I wouldn't give to hear Tenement Funster or Brighton Rock or Now I'm Here on the car radio every once in a while!