MarkJ

Looks good. I've usually seen it attached the other direction. Is it because its a road course car, or it doesn't really matter?

I've always wanted to do a Raymond car. Maybe this will give me the inspiration I need to follow through some day. So many builds , so little time.

My gosh , Clay. Your work is just unbelievably too perfect. Always a joy to view.

Real car or fantasy build? What ever, it will be awesome.

Yes, I know the colonades and the monte carlo did not have windows but I remember that the 1973 Malibu teams were complaining that the big missing quarter glasses were making the back glass act like a parachute. And that is why they came out with the colonades in 74 and beyond to help that situation. The olds had a colonnade roof in 77 but it came with the flat nose grille instead of the more wedge shaped grille the gray ghost used. I guess the grille is more important than the roof for speed. The open big quarters did not seem to hurt the gray ghost at all. It dominated the Daytona 500 that it won.

Awesome Job , Gary. I followed the wip on this one and it seems to me it was a very challenging build. As every one can see you nailed it, so I don't think you will have any problem with the Orange Super. Looking forward to watching that one come together.

Looks Awesome , Tim. Your choice of chassis really improves the authenticity of the build. Excellent build in every way. Its weird that the real car did not have 1/4 glasses. Did Nascar out law them or did the car actually run better with out them?

They had to keep running these old bodies I guess until 81 when nascar forced them to go to the smaller more boxy gm intermidiates. a lot of people think the Gray Ghost was a 1980 olds but it was really a 77.

That's not a 78. Gm went to the smaller intermediates that year. I know because I bought a 78 monte carlo. One of the worst cars I ever owned.

Great job.

Wow, another Awesome one. Crisp, Clean, Perfect as always. Cant wait for the final pictures. Always enjoyable to view.

Excellent job as always, Jay. You are brave to post such close up shots. Shows the quality of your work.

Tim , check your private messages. I have a question please.

The S&H kit supplied chassis would be nothing like the chassis that was under the real car Im doing. I'm better off with my approach. Like I said at the top . I know this nascar chassis is not correct for the car im doing . Its not even correct for the 71 merc kit that the chassis came from. but I don't feel like doing an entire scratch built chassis for this car with long arms and all the other stuff because I have no reference pictures for this car ,Chassis wise, interior wise ,and engine compartment wise. in fact I think this wip is being terminated right now. There is really no point in continuing with it. Someday, I will post the finished build.

Great job , Bruce. . I saw Weatherley win at Richmond in 1961. I was 10 years old and I bet the car looked a lot like this one.

Thanks, Dave but I believe the monogram is a 1/24 scale model and the body I'm using is 1/25 scale. I had the same problem with my 77 Earnhardt Monte Carlo that I used a 1/25 scale "wheels of fire" kit for the body. The 1/24 scale monogram chassis will work, but the engine looked huge under the hood compared to reference pictures, so I had to go with the 1/25 scale amt 91 thunderbird chassis with a 91 1/25 amt olds, chevy engine, for under the hood. That's why when I found this mpc 1/25 scale 71 mercury model which is only 4 years older then the 76 torino , I knew it would work with the 1/25 scale "Starsky and Hutch" thunderbird kit. That's why I included a picture above of the torino sitting on top of the mercury. They are almost exactly the same length. Thanks again for the input.

As usual, I will reveal that at the end. But it wont be hard to figure out.

Wow , Tim. That is absolutely stunning. The details , paint, decal work and cleanliness of build are up to your usual high standards.

Got my decals finished so now I can start on the wip. I'm using the last of my 45 year old glue bombs as the chassis for this build. The body ,dash ,engine, and glass will come from the Starsky and Hutch kit. The tires and wheels will come from an AMT 91 Olds Nascar kit. I already stole the engine from this kit for a build, I did a while back. I know the chassis wont be right for this build, but it wasn't right for the 71 mercury that it was kitted with. It will serve my purposes. I just have to lengthen the floor a little to get the tires in the tire openings correctly. I will probably cut the tranny off the 429 and install it to the 351 Cleveland. Another one of those builds I always wanted to do and I'm finally getting around to it.

Super nice build.

Excellent build, Tim. Sits just right . Paint and decals are perfect. Love the gold engine. As usual, up to your high standards of skill and accuracy.

Cool, that should work fine then.

Thanks, Jim and John. I really appreciate it.

Looks great. I hope you allowed room for the hood to shut with the air cleaner on that high rise manifold. If not you could just make the air cleaner removable and only have it on the engine when you take underhood shots.

Any more progress on this one?