Spex84

I have the remains of one of these kits in my parts stash, and against my better judgement I'd like to do another someday! I'd love to slam it on Rotiform wheels, do the Stance thing...just for fun and spirited community discussion, haha. Looking forward to seeing this one getting built!

Insane!! I love this thing. It has a "Gene Winfield's Pacifica meets Syd Mead" thing going on. Can't wait to see more!! Part of the reason I love it is...I have a chopped-up GTX sitting in a box that was going to get a very similar treatment. I got as far as cutting the body up and creating a rough concept sketch, but then lost interest due to the very piecemeal styling resulting from the mis-matched parts I'd planned to use. Might get back to it later with some styling changes:

That MPC box art is terrible but the actual kit contents look pretty nice! The Revell Roth's Outlaw has a windshield frame that's quite delicate/in-scale. I inverted and modified it slightly for my T project:

I've had good luck gluing wheels into problematic tires with a skim coat of epoxy all over the wheel. That said, I don't think the tires I was using were quite as aggressively plastic-destroying as the ones you're dealing with!

The Revell 283 parts pack chevy engine comes with a Potvin blower...that's a front crank-mounted supercharger setup. Here's a forum thread with a punch of pics of the real thing. The Mooneyes dragster had a chevy with a potvin setup, and the Orange Crate (offered as a kit by Revell) had an Oldsmobile V8 with a similar blower. If you search "Potvin blown SBC" you'll find a bunch of photos online. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/anybody-running-a-potvin-front-mount-blower-set-up.1160001/

I have a couple little jars of that Jade Green metallic (from the 90s) in my stash. Haven't checked recently to see if they're still good though! It's a beautiful color and I keep meaning to paint something that color, maybe a '49 Mercury...

Hmm, cool! Here's what I'd do... Body,grille shell and up-top: AMT '25 T Windshield frame: Tweedy Pie or Roth's Outlaw Front tires/wire wheels: Roth Outlaw Back tires: A kit with large diameter M&H Racemaster slicks on Halibrand mags wheels. One of the Tom Daniels 1970s show rod kits might have the right ones. Chevy 283: Tweedy pie, Revell Parts pack chevy, Revell '55 Chevy, about anything really! Exhaust headers: Revell Rat Roaster? Headlight stands: AMT '25 T Front suspension: Roth Outlaw axle and 4-bar mixed with AMT '25T spring? /////////// Or...the MPC'25 T "Switchers" kit would get you most of the way there. Here's a mockup I made a few years back using some of the parts I just listed:

Whoa, wicked! I love that front 3/4 shot showing the independent front suspension and rectangular headlights. Crazy, creative, and it all works pretty well despite the wide and disparate range of parts and inspiration. Kind of reminds me of Gary Campesi's awesome digital car concepts. Well done!

Love the paint job!!

As Ace mentioned--if 3D resin parts have not been properly post-cured, they can deform and/or crack later. From my reading on the subject, I've learned that 3D objects that have not been properly hollowed can end up with liquid resin inside; if this resin doesn't cure (because no UV light is reaching it), the 3D part can crack later. Also, it is possible for a manufacturer to ship a "bad batch", but it's not common. That said...model car parts are generally very small, and thus easier to completely cure with UV light than large, complex miniatures (think dragons and minotaurs and other fantasy figurines). Complete 3D printed bodies will probably still have relatively thin walls and cure to a satisfactory degree. I feel fairly confident in the longevity 3D-printed, UV-cured resin parts. Time will tell!

I pulled a model off my shelf to take some photos recently, and discovered that one of the whitewall tire inserts that I'd cast in white resin about 9-10 years ago had shrunk badly. I only noticed when I saw that it had pulled the tire partially off the wheel! Clearly I didn't mix the resin properly...but it took many years for the failure to become apparent. Bummer about the '55 Lorne....and I agree about wanting to know if 3D printed parts will have similar issues. So far so good, for me, but I only have printed parts going back about 3 years.

Beautiful :D What product do you use to seal the filler primer, Dann?

This is so cool. Thanks for the link!!

Cool Lots of interesting details to admire in this project. Reminds me of the old trucks I've seen in Mexico used for hauling boats in and out of the water....tons of rust, barely holding together, but still useful!

Another way to explain it: 3D printing processes require that the 3D model be contiguous....for example, if the 3D model were filled with water, nothing would leak out. They'd be "water-tight". Video game models, especially the low-quality 3D meshes frequently available for free on the internet, don't have to be water-tight or contiguous. In fact, just the opposite is preferable: because a video game uses memory to display 3D objects, 3D modelers try to get away with using as little 3D geometry as possible to depict an object, in order to reduce the amount of memory required to display an object or scene. It's like a false-front building built as a film set, where there's no actual building behind the facade. In 3D model terms, this can mean things like deleting the underside of objects that rest on the ground--because no-one will ever see them. The end result--buildings, rocks, telephone poles, cars, you name it--that all have a "hole" in the bottom, are not water tight, and can't be 3D printed unless all the holes have been laboriously patched. 3D models touted as "Hi Res" are much more likely to be contiguous/water-tight, but not always. When I checked out that site, I recognized a number of 3D models that have been floating around the internet for at least a decade. Some are pulled from video games. I've downloaded a bunch in the past, and have found the models to be very poor in quality. I'm not at all convinced that the website is above-board.

Many of the kit parts in this T are so chunky that I'd tend to substitute Monogram or Revell parts that are more accurate or in-scale (that front axle is a prime example!). However the quickchange rearend and axle bells, Z'd T frame, headlights/stands, grille shell, wheels and tires are all good stuff. The engine block is not accurate for a Lincoln Y-block, but the air cleaners are darn nice compared to many other AMT/Monogram air cleaners of the time (no mold seam down the middle!) and the headers will fit a hemi engine. I didn't have much use for the stock model T buggy parts. That said, as has been pointed out already: this kit is perfect for 60s-nostalgia "survivor" style building....in the right hands, these old AMT hot rods can turn out beautifully (lookin' at your examples here Dave D!) I'm not sure I'd drop $45 (Canadian) on another T like this, when a more detailed kit would give me more kitbashing components for the money...but who knows, I bought the Vicky when it came 'round a few years ago, purely so I could leave my original '60s example unmolested. $20 would be much easier to swallow, haha. Here's my sole finished example (actually chopped down from the full-height body in the T-bucket double T kit).

Awesome work so far! The bodykit is dramatic and suits the car's lines well. I'm curious about the wheels and tires too...I have a Revell Supra kit on the shelf and if I build it, I'd like it to be similar to what you're building here!

I approve all of these neat styling studies. This fragmented dystopian look is being popularized by Ash Thorpe, Aaron Beck, and Khyzl Saleem. I can see the influences of their work in video games, films...and even real custom car builds at SEMA etc. Weird stuff sometimes, but I've always liked cyberpunk. I like the Ferrari F40 vibes I'm getting from it.

Haha, cheesy but kinda neat. I'd actually love to see a Mad Max version of that....real human skulls, maybe 3 in a row (or a pyramid), all rigged to move with the throttle. They sort of did it already, but not quite... ...and here's a skull air cleaner on a bike. Downright classy!

I'm enjoying this build! Just the right mix of period-correct parts, and nicely proportioned. I even like the unchopped windshield frame. Color-wise, while it would look good in gold, purple, ice blue, candy red....I actually quite like the mockup shots in white styrene. How about pearl white?

Haha, crazy! I love the idea...it looks like one of the retro-inspired custom hovercraft trucks Keith Weesner might draw.

If it's not a Falcon (and it probably is) I'm gonna go with ...'57 Ford Thunderbird:

I love that bike! Had forgotten about it, so it's fun to see it again. Impractical as anything, more of a rolling sculpture, but as sculptures go, it's absolutely fantastic. I like to imagine it embodies the concept sketches 100%, with nothing lost in translation or watered down. Every shape and proportion on the bike resonates in some fashion.

I am very curious to know how much of this is BS and how much is true. I suspect Mopar took a very slight advantage and exaggerated it as much as possible to make their cars look vastly superior to the competition. That said, I sure wouldn't want to be flinging an Olds around tight corners at speed after watching this video! Very entertaining regardless. Thanks for posting! *Edit* I agree that it would be great to have more kits of the various '57 Chrysler models. I prefer the New Yorker and Windsor/Saratoga grilles and side trim to the Chrysler 300 of the same year.

I do this kind of thing, to a lesser degree. I have a pile of paints that I have not used, ever. I bought them with future projects in mind, but it takes me so long to get a project paint-worthy that some of the paints have gone bad, just sitting there waiting. At a certain point, I have to look at my current stock of paint/kits/tools/whatever and ask myself "Did I use the last thing I purchased? Or did it just get added to the pile, and sit unused for months or years? What will I do with the new thing if I buy it?" And if the honest answer is "It will sit on the shelf, gather dust, age until it's unusable because I'm afraid to use it"....then I try not to buy it in the first place. Saves me the self-recrimination later :D