Joe Handley

Thanks Ray!

The two different hoods were related to a different, blue plastic kit I bought shortly after R2 bought the rights and everything from RC2, only to find all the custom goodies were left out on that version of the kit, The hood was a left over from that one and since that and the Pepper Shaker are basically from the same tooling, I just used the blue hood as a placeholder until I could do the same mods to the PS kit hood and then later divided it to give it the "pancaked" look. The flipped light inserts were just to try a custom treatment I've never seen on a '57 Chevy before and kind like, and the fins are to change the look of the car, same with the filling I did at the C-Pillar to change the shape of that, the goal is to make it barely look like the '57 Chevy it's built from.

Thanks Carl!

Ok, couple pics from tonight, got the tail lights cut out and the openings filed so that the printed ones will fit, the holes for the side marker lights have been drilled and have the molded on lights cleaned off, I then scuffed the whole body too! Just need to try and install the panel I cut from the kit body to fill in the hole in the roof and the antenna hole. I also fine that there is a slight curve to the upper panels that make using those to fill the Clod’s sunroof hole, not worth while.

Picking back up in this now too! Both the Clod and Lunchbox need paint and never even got the Lb into primer, just did some minor bodywork to fill in the antenna holes on both and sink marks on the van’s hood. Problem is, I boogered up the right rear corner in opening it for the AMPro 3D printed taillights. What I’m going to do here is redo the mods on the kit body in a replacement Black Edition body, plus cut up the kit body to fill the roof vent hole on the new van body AND the sunroof in the Clod body!

Here’s another crazy looking ‘57 Chevy I started, this time from the recent AMT Pepper Shaker reissue, decided to just go overboard while doing something that looked period plausible, but plan on putting the Tesla Drive Unit style drive unit I asked about in the Q&A section in and will modify the floor of the interior as well as the chassis pan to look like it has a battery between the rails and the floor flattened out to take advantage of that. Here’s the pics though, a few you will be familiar with and once again, there is were no intoxicants or psychedelics involved here either, just the Bondic UV Resin

Ok, a few updates here, To start, found the lowrider-ish build a couple weeks ago! Since it’s molded in the same red plastic, decided to combine it with the bubble top car to try and make a really radical show car out of the two! so I also bought a current black and red issue and swapped the white interior into it so I didn’t have to deal with the red plastics if I want to use lighter colors on the interior of it……. This one is currently nosed, decked, mostly shaved and scuffed like the red one was when I put it away. This and the primered one with the wheels from the ‘34 3 Window kit are waiting for the rainy and humid weather we’re getting here in the Chicagoland area to go away so I can start shooting them with more primer and then color coats. Now back to the Bubble Top Show Car……….. It’s quickly turned into a sci-fi looking flying car like creation that will fit nice along side the Thundercougarfalconbird build going on here if at some point in their existence, they end up in the same place???‍♂️? And no, there weren’t any intoxicants or psychedelics involved in this one……..just large amounts of that Bondic UV Resin

Funny, I have this kit and the 2 in 1 Deluxe Set for this Batmobile too, probably going to build this one box stock as a “reference” then give one if not both of the Deluxe Set kits more of a “Dark Knight” makeover that would sort of riff off the darker themes that started with the Burton/Keaton movies, Continued with The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, and the newer movies and the Gotham TV show had, but using the Barris car as a basis for that. Maybe leave the snapper almost box stock but “Darker and grittier” then some body mods to the one you can put the turbine under the hood of with the same “mood”.

Messed around with a Model Master paint bottle that has some sandpaper attached to smooth out the wheel openings today. Still have work to do before I can start creating flares, but at least they look better now!

To me, a true gearhead should appreciate anything that will make a car boogie, don't matter if it sounds likie a Hoover or a can or a tin can full of rocks as it idles past.

Yup? and Yes, but I’m trying to minimize the kitbashing to these two models. Something else to is that in full scale, the problem with vintage rolling stock is that they don’t clear modern brakes, even if those breaks are from 15 years ago, so bigger wheels tend to be needed anyway. A plus in all of this is that the huge tires, wheel openings, and flares should look pretty dramatic once done.

I do think that in 1/1, the GT tires would be big enough that the same amount of surgery would be required. There’s a lot of time where if you compare the tires on modern vehicles to a comparable vintage model, they look a lot bigger. For example, the factory tires on my Dad’s ‘20 Grand Caravan are about the same size as the factory tires the ‘87 Chevy Beauville, even though the GC is the smaller of the 2.

Your build is some of why this one has happened so soon!

And here’s where I’m leaving the Pantera for the night, this is going way too smoothly!

Looks great!

Played around with the Pantera more tonight, looks like the engine bay parts for the GT fit with just a little modification to the Pantera’s interior tub. This is almost too easy at this point and it’s making me a bit nervous to start opening the arches now? Quick question for anybody who looks at this thread, I’d like advice for this situation. I’m Kinda debating if I want to cut open the hood or make a little window in the cover like many modern super cars with the buttressed B-Pillars use so you can “see” the engine while not seeing enough to realize just how basic both the GT kit’s drivetrain is and just how little there really is to the engine bays for both kits. So, who thinks what on that?!

Thanks Jim, and exactly! My original thought as a back story was that this was an inherited car that the young recipient made their own cruiser out of, but I may amend that a bit in a way that now that this person is an adult with a good job, they can do some mechanical updating on the car and by making it an EV, it would be quicker and more drivable in modern traffic, easier to keep clean from a visual standpoint, and just one more thing to make it stand out at shows.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted on here for this build, I wasn’t happy with how the bodywork I was doing with the putty was turning out and decided recently to get another kit and started fresh for the body mods, so far I’ve redone everything but the ‘39 Ford headlights with Bondic YV Resin and have also changed the transition from hood to license plate awning and rear fenders to tail light assemblies, filled in where the tailpipes came through the valance since I plan on trying to copy EV West’s electric conversion for Air Cooled VWs. And how it was as of early this morning.

Came up with this idea when I was still at the LHS and we got in the Fujimi Pantera curbside kits. Bought one and never got around to aquiring the GT kit until after switching to my current job. The idea was to take one of ex-Polar Lights Ford GT kits and put the chassis and drivetrain from that under the Pantera body. Kinda surprised how close the two were in size and only had to cut down the GT pan a little and will need to hog out fenders to fit the larger rolling stock from the GT, especially out back.

Restarted the Kustom Beetle I started last summer, bought a new kit and started doing the filler related mods with that Bondic UV Resin. Also plan on doing an EV West style VW EV conversion on it too. Started a build I started buying kits for in 2015 or 2016…….requires less work than expected so far? Dad and I are making a Sam’s Club run, but the Dremel is coming out when we get home and unleaded?

Got the part to fix the end over problem in the mail today! So long as I put it in the right way, the truck will be 4wd going forward and RWD in reverse and while braking! Sounds like this is a common mod for this chassis in the Japanese market.

From what I understand if the Beast of Turin, that was raced on street courses before there was much for race tracks. A lot of the time, they were also driven to the races by the driver and mechanic…..and none of the Beast’s drivers have ever been slow. Imagine being in some little Italian village 110 years ago, possibly just barely knowing what a car was, then this thing come blowing through on the tires and roads of the day in excess of 100mph with the sound, flame, and fury that car creates then wondering what happened after it passes……….or being on the British equivalent of the Interstate in modern times and have the exact same experience while rolling along at 70mph and wondering the same!

This is one of my “bigger” kit bashing projects and It’s finally done, here’s a few of the pics I shot yesterday8) It’s a Tamiya GF-01TR Monster Beetle Trail with the portal hubs that were taken out to be kitbashed onto yet another Tamiya R/C. Since I had an otherwise nearly complete kit, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it and I didn’t care much for the body this came with, soooooo………. I bought one of these, one of Tamiya’s WR-02 Wild Willy 2 kits! Turns out the WR-02 and GF-01 share a large number of parts, even though one is 2wd and the other is 4wd and have similar dimensions that make putting the Wild Willy body on the Monster Beetle Trail’s chassis very simple! Not only were these both use ABS plastic “hardbodys” that need to be painted like a model kit, but Willy also has a driver figure that needs to be painted too. I used Jeep Moss Green Metallic automotive touch up paint mixed and canned by my friend Miguel at RestoPaint in West Chicago from Sherman-Williams automotive product for the color coat in the truck body and helmet then gloss cleared the helmet and flat cleared the truck then painted Willy with a mix of Testors Enamels, Vallejo and Games Workshop Acrylics, and Tamiya Flat Clear after the body was painted, this also just so happens to be the first figure I’ve ever painted too! Unfortunately, it did endo while shooting some video of it yesterday and I now have a one way front differential on order for it to fix that little drivability issue and plan on removing the roll bar and painting it and the roll bar lights where the silver pinstripe tape isn’t with the bedliner I used on the spare and inside the tub. There may be oil filled shocks (stock are friction shocks dampened by rubber tubes inside the body vs oil) and a Holmes Hobby Snub Nose Revolver motor and Castle Sidewinder Electronic Speed Control in it’s future, however!

Bought this out of a Walmart clearance isle last week to see how well it works to cure that Bondic UV curing resin. Worked well enough, but I think it’s going to eat batteries, may need to look into rechargeable AAAs for it.

Saw that on David Frieburger’s IG post the other night, this is the 4th person he personally knows that it killed.