MarkJ

Doc, I can't find the finished pictures with all the views. This was a very interesting build and to not see the final pictures is kinda disappointing. I know it was 2 years ago but I went to that part of the archive and no Perry Cottingham Buick.

Finally got the build part finished and started decaling. Basically, have to decal the car twice because I had to make white underlay sheets because the car is not white, and the numbers and letter decals have white outlines. Most Lorenzen cars have light blue outlines. This one doesn't. Also, the contingencies would not have looked right without white underlays.

If you're going by the black and white photo at the beginning of this thread, it seems to me if the red parts are truly red and I'm sure they are it must be a very dark red. The monotone shade of the wheels seem to be an exact match to the fenders. Usually, a red in a black and white photo turns out to look like a dark gray just like a blue would. Just saying . But what do I know? Too bad they don't have color YouTube videos of those races which I know is impossible but that's usually the only true source in trying to decipher color of a race car from the 50's or 60's. But those are even very hard to find.

Gas cap and hood and trunk pins. Trying hard not to forget anything. I still need to make an overflow tube for the gas tank.

Don't know how I missed this one. First thing that grabbed me was the excellent metallic paint job. Very clean overall appearance. I agree that dull coating the tires will improve the lettering immensely. I would not attempt to remove the decal material around the letters. That would be a very daunting task. Buying a new goodyear tire decal sheet would be a much better choice than that. I'm thinking Power slide makes a pretty good sheet with many choices on it.

Really great build. Good save on the GTE decal.

Great build. Looks just right. Very clean.

Yes, Bob, there are only a couple of us left to do the 50's and the 60's. I always wanted to do The Fonty Flock 1952 Oldsmobile winner of the 1952 Southern 500, but kits or resins for that car are like gold to find. And I'm sure Salvinos will never get into those decades.

Thank you so much for that tip, Bruce. I'm sure it will come in handy.

So true Bob. Thats why if your lucky enough to find a YouTube video it can solve a lot of questions you might have about a particular race.

If you want to watch the video, I posted the link below. It's cool to see how different the crowd looked back then. Nobody wore t-shirts and bubba caps. They mostly wore button down short sleeve shirts and fedora hats if they wore a hat at all. You can pick up a lot of reference material about the cars watching them pit during the race.

Sounds good. Can't wait to see the results.

The image above was the start of the race showing Fred on the pole and Junior starting second and it has Southern 500 63 across the image.

Thanks Jim. I have another image from the you tube video that shows the difference of Fred's Ford to Junior's Chevy which was a bright white. You can tell Fred's Ford is a little darker with the pearlized white paint. and Fred's ford has gray wheels not light blue. Its a color image because Junior's roof number is red.

Very close color match that went on very nicely. Do you plan on doing any polishing?

If you're using the kit I'm using and want the body to fit better on the frame you need to remove the tab as I have shown in the picture below that has the two holes in it. You can keep the tab on the rear bumper. The grille also fits better if you do this modification. If you don't the engine does not line up properly with the radiator and sits too low in the engine bay. It's the typical amt type problem you will run into with their kits,

Thats perfectly okay, Keith. I'm just glad to get some feedback. I finally got the body attached to the frame and just need to attach the wheels and tires so I can get this baby decaled and the final touch up done to it.

Keith, you are not catching my drift. The car normally had baby blue wheels, but for this car, the 1963 Southern 500 car, it had gray wheels and a pearalized white paint job that almost looks like a very light silver. The pictures you have posted are not from the 63 Southern 500. One is not even from 1963. But thanks for the input.

I'll be going with gray wheels. The only images of this car I could find were from a Youtube video of the race and nowhere in the video do the wheels look blue in any way. Added some decals to the dash. I could not find any still color pictures of this car from the 63 Southern 500.

Coming along very nicely. Interior looks Awesome and under the hood. Body prep looks great as well.

Yes, it would be too difficult for me to make that trip as well. Gotten too old for it. glad I did it back then.

Excellent very clean job, Yoshimi. Everything looks just right, and you took a very basic kit and refined it nicely. Hope someday you can make that trip to Virginia to visit the Wood Brothers shop. The summer of 2000 we made a trip to North Carolina to visit the Bill Davis Shop, The Hendrick Motorsports shop and the "Garagemahol" D.E.I. incorporated shop. I missed seeing Ward Burton by one day at the Bill Davis shop but Tommy Baldwin gave us free reign to walk around the shop and get up close and personal with the mechanics while they worked on the 22 and 93 Pontiac Grand Prix's. I dont think you can get access like that anymore, but you never know. Those are memorys I will never forget.

No way, Pierre. Not this close to the end. So far, I have never stopped on a model and not finish it, even when I know it's not going to turn out very good, like this one. I never could get this pearlized paint to turn out right. Needless to say, I'm not doing any more of these. Thanks for the support.

Carl, yes, I will be making covers for the head light pods and park lights. I'm not familiar with the vents you are talking about. I have a paper hole punch that makes perfect covers for the headlights, but you have to remove the bulging headlights for them to fit on the edge of the headlight pods.

Just a few more things to do to get this thing assembled. The wheels don't seem to be the baby blue they usually appear to be. I have a picture of Fred lieing next to one from the actual southern 500 car taken from a YouTube video of the race itself and the color seems to be a light blue/gray metallic.