MarkJ

Totally agree with you David. It's weird because I had a 1979 El Camino but it wasn't anywhere as neat as this little vehicle is. It had a way underpowered v-6 in it with a 2-barrel carb and it was not fun at all to drive. I ended up trading it in for a 1982 Silverado short bed pickup with a v-8. It was a lot more fun to drive but wasn't overly big like the 2020 Silverado I had before the Santa Cruz. Its posted below. I really don't miss that truck at all. Thats before I put the side steps on it.

I was looking at the photo captures from the YouTube video of the race and luckily noticed that the aluminum fairings for the rear bumper were not raw aluminum on this car. They were painted red along with the rear bumper and half of the front bumper, so I went to all that trouble painting them aluminum for nothing. Now I need to paint them red again. Bummer, but I'm glad I noticed it now before the final assembly of the build. After I fix that I can assemble the tub to the body and the body to the frame and then add the tires, front spoiler, and the exhausts that don't hook up to anything, and I will be done with the build and can start decaling. Yay.

Yes, David. The main thing is, it is fun to drive, and people are always staring at it like they want to ask me about my little Hyundai Santa Cruz. They have a turbo version available, but they always come with a bunch of other stuff on them like roof rack, bed rails, and gaudy looking wheels that hike up the price about 10 grand. I drove a turbo, and it was impressive, but I just don't need it for a locally only, around my house driven vehicle. The base engine is peppy enough for me.

I don't drive daily but when I do it's this little baby. I had a big old Silverado pickup but I got to where I hated driving it because it's gotten too big for me. I can't tell if I'm in the lane properly when on the interstate and it's hard to see if I have clearance when getting on or off the interstate. Plus, when I go to get gardening stuff It's hard to get that stuff in the bed because the tailgate is so far up in the air. And it's even hard to get in the vehicle even with side steps that almost killed me putting them on myself. I was so happy to trade that monster in on this little sports car with a bed. I recently put some of that ceramic polish on it after clay barring the hood. It's like a mirror now.

I'm so close to the end now I really don't want to post anymore wips, so the next photos you see will be in the showroom or whatever they call it here. I never can remember.

Steve , Larry has revealed that you were right all along about your decal choices. Thanks for your help and keeping the discussion going till he could help us all find out what we were looking for.

Edgar, you were right about the Kustom Header decal. My apologies for thinking otherwise, but Larry found an actual photo of the car that proves it. Those YouTube capture photos are just too fuzzy to figure out. Thanks again for your help.

I stand corrected. There are Kustom Header decals on the oob sheet that comes with the kit. It's not quite correct but they will get the job done. I have all the other ones. Thanks again, Larry. I don't usually get this kind of information till it's too late and I've already finished the model.

Thank you so much, Larry for definitively figuring out the decals on the fender and door. Thank you so much for posting a photograph of the real car as well. It is so much appreciated that you would take the time to do it. My only problem is I don't have a Kustom Headers decal that I know of. I need to check my stash again and hope I find one. I could make one with the image you sent but I hate to waste a whole 8.5 x 11 decal sheet to make 2 decals. But I might as well just go ahead, and do it if I have to.

Thanks Steve. The more I look at the front fender contingencies I have come to the conclusion that you are right about the Zoom decal being below the Edelbrock and the Jet way is above it. I was letting a photo of the Rebel 400 car mess up my thinking about it. So, I believe the mystery is finally solved and I feel good about the placement of the decals.

Thanks, Steve, but I can't really take much credit for the gauges. It's just a decal that comes in the kit if you want to make a fantasy build. It just happens to line up with the guages molded into the dash so once you get the decal lined up on top of the gauges and use some micro sol that softens it to get it to form fit, you're done. You have to work the brush with the micro sol to get it nice and soft but after it dry's, its seamless.

A few more things done and I made my usual end of the build check list so hopefully I don't forget anything inside the model. That would not be fun.

Steve at this point I'm going to call it a day and use the jet way decals whether they or right or wrong. Thanks again for all your help with this decal mystery. I will probably add the nascar decal under the winston cup decal just because its supposed to be there and I have seen it there on other Allison cars as well as Petty and Pearson.

Steve and Edgar, below is a photo of the decal sheet I'm using. If you look to the very bottom line below the castrol GTX decal you will see the Zoom decal on this car that is above the Edelbrock decal at the front of the fender. Feel free to look over this image of the sheet and see if there is anything else on it that could be the mystery decal. I believe this car probably had hedman headers but there are no header decals on this particular car. I'm starting to think it may be jet way decal. Its right next to Ingersol rand decal on the sheet.

Steve, you are right. that zoom you posted there looks like it could easily be the mystery decal, but I know for sure the one above the edelbrock is a zoom too. I wonder if the car had two zoom decals. I believe the decal below the winston cup decal is a small coke decal. Edgar, that also looks like it could be the mystery decal, but I don't think the car had those kind of headers on it. Thanks for your input though. We shall see eventually what it is if someone could just find a real photograph of this car. I even asked Smyle Media on twitter, who has helped me a lot, if he had a photo of it but he said he did not. Strange that the winning car at the 1972 Southern 500 does not have a photograph somewhere to be found on the internet. If it's a correct photo it will have red bumpers.

Thanks, Steve. Actually, the Zoom decal is above the Edelbrock, and I also thought the one under micro precision was perfect circle, but I wanted to see if anybody else thought so too. I think I will look at the video again without taking a picture of it with my phone. Maybe it will be clearer, and I can make them out better now that I know which ones to concentrate on. Thanks again for your help on this.

Started to check the decal sheet that I bought for this model from powerslide to make sure it has what I need. 3 of my ref photos from the YouTube capture pics are not recognizable and the shape of them looks like nothing on the sheet. I was able to figure that one of them is Edelbrock but luckily, I found some in my decal stash. If you want to help you could tell me what you think the one below the micro precision is. Also, the one below the Edelbrock in front of the wheel opening. Also, the one below the nascar decal at the top of the door.

Thanks, Donato. I appreciate your comment.

Thanks, Jim. I might need to go up just a little in the front. Have to check my ref pictures. Thanks, Kevin. Have to admit it beats oob with metal axles.

Glad I'm not the only one, Carl.

The beauty of gluing the hood shut is that you can cut the tops out of the front inner fenders so I can get the stance right. I had to add some styrene where the holes for the metal axles go through the frame so I will have a flat surface to glue the wheels to. I will also add a little thin piece of sheet styrene to the rear axles as well. If you wanted to have the hood open, you could always reform a top to the inner fender with some sheet styrene. None will be needed in my case. Using the metal axles on this build really makes the model look ridiculous where the front tires end up being. I mocked it up and I will have to check my ref pictures to get the tire placement just right. Where it is right now might be a little too low up front.

Thanks, Pierre. That's what I was thinking. The engine under the hood of this car was really much ado about nothing and I did not have actual photos, so I did not see the point of wasting time under the hood. Yes, decals are fun but scary at the same time if you mess one up. And I do that a lot with these old hands and eyes I have. Plus, this decal sheet is very hard to find now.

Thank you, Carl, for stopping by with a comment. By not leaving the hood open I will be able to finish quicker than first expected. I do need to make a window net and add the gauge decals to the dash. I will also have to make a shifter. Somehow I lost the one that came in the kit. Thanks again.

I glued the hood shut and heard that the African dust cloud is coming for most of next week so I real quick got the body ready for the tamiya x-22 clear and shot it this afternoon. Came out glossy enough that I won't have to polish it. if you look closely, you can see the reflection of the gum cleaner brush in the sides of the model. I can't get over how good the acrylic gold paint turned out. Really happy with it. The tamiya clear works really well too. You can get really close and shoot it wet but not enough to let it run and it dries glossy with the home-made flow improver I added to the mix. a little dawn dish detergent and a little acrylic retarder. just 10 drops added to the 10-gram mix of clear.

I've come to an epiphany. I was thinking how I ended my last take above and I believe I will just glue the hood shut paint the belts that are on the seat and just add the oob stuff to the interior and finish this thing as quick as possible. I really have no idea what the actual interior or how the belts look or anything about how it looks under the hood. So, I'm basically just wasting a lot of time. Main thing is to get the stance right, clear the body, decal it and future it. Then I can move on to my next build that I have always wanted to do and I will build it the same way. Hood glued shut and no extra extraneous stuff that takes a lot of time.