spencer1984

Looks great, nicely done!

Beautiful work, I like all the subtle details like the seat piping.

Excellent work, if you can get the pics to load (or a link to them) I'd like to see more like the engine. Also, where did you get those wheels?

I appreciate that, thanks! This was a good model to try it out on since there was a bit of wiggle room for making mistakes. Thanks for the feedback, all I can say is check back after weathering - you may be surprised what the color looks like after it's all done! These two were painted using the same paint (EDIT: as each other, not the Nova). The only difference is what happened after!

Like most Hollywood cars, the dents seemed to move around a bit depending one which car was used for which scene...the most obvious tell I could find was the top of the front fender, which went from pretty mangled to just a single small dent: Ideally I'm trying to keep the curves, just lessen them back to correct from AMT's severe bowing. I overshot on the one side, but brought it back out a little bit closer to correct. Also, I got some paint on it! I used Nassau Blue as a stand-in for Astro Blue, which is what the movie car was supposed to have been originally painted. It's a little darker than the sun-faded and dusty wreck, but that will come with weathering. After the red primer, I sprayed it with gray primer and then the blue. That way I could sand and scrape through the edges to get the paint/primer/rust look from the movie. Now it's starting to look more like Axel's car! I made the vinyl top out of making tape, cut and layered to give it the right overlaps and applied to show some places where it's starting to lift. I used this particular tape because the coarser texture looks like an old top that starting to crack. It only got one layer of Reefer White, because I didn't want to make it too stark, though I may go back and do a second coat just to even it up a little more.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this, the General has ben on my to do list for a bit now!

Thanks, Anthony! Sorry, I checked back through my e-mails and the only ones that come up for "Nova" around that time were conversations about the then-recent Death Proof car. If you can, shoot me another e-mail at spencer1984@yahoo.com.

Interior is done! I made some door panels and the floor from sheet styrene, then used some parts box seats cut down to look appropriate... The dashboard and steering wheel were taken from an AMT Freightliner (my first attempt at Optimus Prime about 20 years ago). I cut the dash flat across the front, then sanded the bottom so it would sit on my custom engine tunnel. Dash & tunnel went in first, followed by the door panels. Then the floors with the seats already mounted finished things off.

Those headlights are a great touch, and I like the overall look you've gone with here.

Thanks, Anthony! The dents were one of the things holding me up on this build, and one of the reasons why the choice of kit wasn't as critical as it may be for some other models. The smaller dents like the front fender can be done by shaping the plastic, but big ones like the doors need something more aggressive: What I did was I made a foil copy of the panel, dented it, carved out the plastic, then replaced the panel with my new banged-up sheetmetal. It's getting close to the right shape here, and you can also see the difference between the corrected (passenger) and curved (driver) window frames.

Looks good, nice work! Like Jeff, I always preferred this to the look of this one over the Testarossa

Thanks, guys! Yeah, AMT really missed with the trim level on this car. Model Car Garage and Harts Parts Resin will be providing the grille, bench, and 3/4 of the wheels (with COPO hubcaps). The fourth will be a bare steelie courtesy of my parts box. In this case getting a nice straight body would be a bad thing! I'm with you, though. My earlier build of this kit taught me a lot, including the troublesome roof pillars and window frames. I missed fixing the hunchbacked C pillar on that one, but will be sure to fix it this time. Yours looks great!

Having been long on my "to do" list, I've finally started in on building a replica of the "crappy blue Chevy Nova" from Beverly Hills Cop. As erratic as my schedule is, I wanted to have some actual progress to show before I started posting this build (though no promises that there won't still be gaps when I get distracted by other ideas...). As always, any comments and criticisms are welcome! I'm using the official release by AMT, even though there's a lot wrong with the kit. Considering how much needs to be altered to match the movie car, though, Revell's really would have only been marginally more helpful. One of those changes is the engine: Axel's car didn't have a number badge over the front marker light, suggesting it had one of the base engines. The '69 Chevy I had years ago had a straight six, so I decided to go with that and ordered one from MCW. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I was hoping. The oil filter, distributor, coil, and starter are all cast into the block; the side panels aren't sized correctly; and the Powerglide is a little rough looking. I took off all of the cast-in details, and did what I could to restore missing details like the cyl3 spark plug socket. It's far from perfect, but once it's finished and dirtied up some of these remaining problems will disappear. Painted & weathered, it doesn't look too bad. In addition to removing the side details, I added a dipstick, drilled out for the distributor, corrected the oil pan, and replaced the breather with a cap from Detail Master. On the other side, I took off the carburetor and header pipe. Weathering was done using a combination of paints, pastels, chalks, charcoal, and weathering effects by Tamiya, Vallejo, and AK Interactive.

Nice clean work, that looks great!

Very cool, and not what I was expecting!

Looks good in blue, nice job!

Neat little scene, nicely done! I know firsthand how difficult it can be to get them, but any more interior shots?

Looks good, your mods really suit this Challenger.

A very clever solution and the result looks fantastic. Nicely done!

Nicely done, the green really suits it and I always liked the hideaway headlight look.

That'd be awesome, I'd love to see a scale model version of Motormaster.

Thanks! Go for it, AMT's Freightliner is a near-perfect base for Optimus!

Nice clean work on this!

Nice work! I did the conversion, and knowing what that was like I think you made the smart choice! I think Replicas & Miniatures of Maryland has a set of weapons, too. Greenlight makes it, and it looks pretty good but there's something weird going on with the roof. It's like they didn't line up the skin and drip rails correctly, so it has a bit of a wedge shape. Still, it's a good starting point if you're willing to do some light customizing.

Nice clean work, you don't see enough of these!