Misha

Count me in for recreating the 1951 Hudson Hornet that De Niro wheels around in The Irishman. At first the thought of slicing and dicing one of the Moebius kits into a decent four door model was quite daunting. Then came across the resin body from Motor City and bingo, the hurdle disappeared! So how does one turn an early 50s four door sedan into a Cannonball competitor? Searching thru the stash the answer fell into my lap, the Foose Caddy approximates the same wheelbase as the Hudson, bingo! My plan is to combine the chassis and running gear from the Revell kit into the Hudson. The chassis plate will require a splice with the front portion of the Hudson plate. I’m unsure if the Caddy interior can be fashioned to fit the Hudson, as the aim is to have a comfortable and classy interior for the Cannonball run. Colour will be black with a red or burgundy interior. Will be ordering the Motor City Resin body this week, hope it won’t take long to reach Vancouver Island. In the meantime plan on beginning the running gear and adapting the chassis plates. Also will look for the 52 Hudson ragtop for the front grill and hood as it most closely resembles the 51 model. Looking forward to all the builds! Cheers Misha

Congrats Bernard on another great build! I have a set of Curt’s wire laced wheels waiting to be used, they look bang on. Always enjoy both your building skills and your photography. Good finish to the year, cheers Misha.

Great job Niko of a classic kit. Your enhancement of the basic parts and paint makes this a winner. Thanks for sharing with your great photos, cheers Misha.

With the similarity between the hardtop and the post sedans it is not that difficult to convert your build to a post sedan. Using Evergreen strips it is fairly straightforward to lay in a strip around the edge of the roof to duplicate the door frames, then combine different sizes to represent the upright post. I did this to my 62 Fury to turn it into a Savoy. Cheers Misha

Terrific lineup Phil with a great variety of types. Cheers Misha

Great work, perfect stance. Thanks also for answering the various questions. Any hints on how you cut out the hood for air cleaners, looks terrific. Cheers Misha

Wow, great work Jim! Especially your detailed paint scheme, thanks for providing the details. Also great to see it in a different scheme. Your work is very clean, looking forward it being Under Glass. It is also neat to see the photos of the body tilted up for access to the engine. Built this kit many years ago, still in the display cabinet. I added a rad for the engine by positioning it under the seat structure. Now thinking of getting another one to build it with the body tilted. Thanks for the inspiration. Cheers Misha

Thanks, great to know!

Very kool look Ferby! The concept looks perfect, especially how you dealt with the rear end. The scalloped paint scheme also fits in perfectly with the body lines and the front and rear grill treatments score above the stock versions. Great job! Cheers Misha

Brings back memories of how I used to build. Good work on saving it with the added touches. Perhaps darkening the panel lines would work. Cheers Misha

That is just delicious, great colour on a fabulous build. Kind of neat to see all the 58 bling on it. Congrats! By the way, does MCW ship its paints up into Canada? Hope so. Cheers Misha

Got it now... ? whew!

Test.. working now! Switched to airplane mode then back to normal... go figure.

Having a problem posting photos from my iPad. Just updated to 13.3 yet never had a problem before. Any ideas? Thank Misha

Well, after thinking about attempting to recreate the 51 four door Hudson Hornet that Di Niro wheels around in his early days in The Irishman I may have stumbled upon a solution! Motor City Resin offers a 53 four door and by combining it with the 52 ragtop for the grill and hood it might be a go. My main question regards the quality of the resin products and their service... any thoughts would be useful. So, not entirely sure of my decision yet, there are other options... Thanks for any comments, cheers Misha For some reason unable to post photos from my iPad....

That’s a great looking tree! Rich and bountiful. Wishing you and yours the very best for the Holidays! Merry Christmas, Misha

Thanks for the suggestions Leslie and Mike, good ideas that Will help. Still undecided, yet it would be a great challenge. Whatever the decision, I'm in for this round of the CannonBall run and I'll post the build on the other thread. Wishing all the CannonBallers good luck and great fun! Cheers Misha

Thanks Rob for the correct year plus the great link, I'm sure it will be useful to all participants. Been looking at various examples of the Moebius Hornet kits to see how one would slice and dice to come up with the 51 four door; not easy! The main issue so far is achieving the truncated rear end. With the somewhat fastback look the greenhouse extends quite a bit over the rear quarters. Was looking at photos of the 54 special Fastback, yet it doesn't seem to reach back far enough. Also looking at the 52 ragtop body as the basis for the build as the 124 inch wheelbase was common to all models. What would remain is cobbling a four door greenhouse and mating it with a re-scribed body... it would be a major task to achieve the look required!

I had voted for the rear engine theme, yet film is a great choice as well, so hope to take part this year. Right now the car that has grabbed my attention is the Hudsonfour door that Di Niro whelels around in his early days as the lead in The Irishman. Which year is it? Would it be too much of a stretch (sorry...) to use a two door in its place? Or perhaps two kits into one? Hmmm, Misha

I announced my intention to complete my Inca Shoebox for this round of "Git 'er Done!", yet life often tends to interrupt plans that are made. Nonetheless, I still have time to at least move this project along and with the holidays fast approaching and a minor surgical date coming up, I'm hoping to spend time at the workbench. The main work is getting the running gear built, based upon the Y Block from the 56 Victoria. The interior is nearly complete and the body requires detailing. Here is where I'm at, plan is to post daily advances... Cheers Misha

That is great detail on the rear of the chassis! I realize that the body is nearly done with paint, yet it would be great to have the trunk panel removable to view your work. I still have my original that I built when it came out, all the parts are in a box, so one day perhaps... your build is great inspiration. Cheers Misha

I believe that the car is Goldfinger's ride... "Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) owns a black and yellow Rolls-Royce in the movie Goldfinger(1964). The Rolls-Royce driven by Goldfinger and his henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata) is a Rolls-Royce Phantom III Sedanca de Ville by Coachbuilder Barker, Chassis Number #3BU168. It was originally custom-built for Lord Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire in 1937."

Thanks Richard, another publisher of great auto books is Car Tech Inc. Have a few of them including Larry Davis's Gasser Wars: Drag Racing's Street Classes 1955-1968 and good bios of Don Nicholson, Tommy Ivo, amongst others. Cheers Misha

Shelby Mustang: The Total Performance Pony Car Just finished a very informative and enjoyable read of Colin Comer's Shelby Mustang: The Total Performance Pony Car. He provides a very complete history from the beginning of the 1965 GT 350 to the upcoming 2020 Shelby GT500 with plentiful photos of most of Carroll Shelby's creations. A good part of the discussion focuses on the various changes from year to year during the first period, '65 to the final '69 (unsold units at the end received new VINs for 1970 models) and the current run that began in 2006 with the Hertz Shelby 350-H rentals, commemorating the original 1966 model from fifty years ago! While concentrating on the street versions Comer does offer coverage of the track models especially the first generation GT 350R and later race efforts with SCCA, TransAm, and on the dragstrip. I would have liked more details and photos of the competition vehicles, yet that might easily be another volume of just over 200 pages. Comer also offers a glimpse of the difficulties Carroll Shelby faced with his dealings with Ford. His desire for producing Mustangs that would perform on the track and street became frustrated as Ford gradually took control by October 1966. "Very few buyers existed for street cars thinly disguised for street use, but plenty of buyers existed for street cars heavily disguised as race cars." (p. 124) Sprinkled throughout the book are side bars with reprints of ads and magazine articles, testimonials from owners, and a description of Shelby memorabilia. The forward is by Lee Iacocca who developed a close friendship with Carroll when he came over to Ford from GM to shepherd the development of the original Mustang from a secretary's car into the GT 350. It was as a result of their friendship that Shelby developed special models for Chrysler during the intervening years between the original Shelbys and the current run. I found this book to be well written and very informative, especially for model builders that will enable scale versions with greater detail and authenticity. A very helpful detail Comer provides is to include the serial numbers of special models and one offs. Another fascinating detail is the story of the Shelby de Mexico developed by Eduardo Velazquez at the end of the 60s. He first bought a GT 350 to race in Mexico and progressed to manufacture Mexican Shelbys using the Ford plants there. "Since the only body style produced in Mexico was the notchback coupe, all Shelby de Mexico would use this body style... the biggest visual difference was the addition of fibreglass sail panels that extended back from the rear window area and into the rear quarter panels, giving a unique fastback look to the cars." (pp 196-7) Overall a great addition to any Shelby library! The book is published by Motorbooks, retailing for 38.99 Cdn or 29.99 US, A wonderful bargain and an entertaining read that kept me turning pages for two days. Cheers Misha