MarkJ

I had no Idea the Crown was that big but seeing is believing . But did Toyota even have a 400 plus cubic inch v-8 back then that could have even qualified for any events on the Nascat schedule in 1972. Great job on this ultimate fantasy build.

Spare tire work looks awesome.

Continued awesome work. The seat is really something to behold.

Interesting. I never thought about coloring the primer. I guess I'll just stick to white. But I am going to try to get it to flow better so I don't have to sand it. I don't think I have been thinning my Vallejo primer enough and this primer doesn't take well to sanding or polishing.

Wow, Pierre. I'm not seeing bumpy from where I'm sitting. Just another astounding paint job and decal work.

I agree, Bruce, and I hope they do try to clarify some things, but I kind of doubt if they will.

Great job, Gary. I did not realize how big the xke was in racing back in the day. You did an excellent job on this one.

Okay , I'm missing my fix of great building to watch. I hope you haven't finished it already and put it in the finished forum.

Finally finished the decals. I just need to add the bracket to the front of the body, so I don't have to glue the body to the chassis. Then I just need to do the final coat of future and I'm done with this one. Thank goodness for that. These models are very labor intensive and easy to make mistakes. Which I have had a lot of.

Bob, you keep adding so much fine detail to this build. I'm really enjoying watching your journey to completion. It's going to be such a fine build when completed.

Good. That would have looked crazy.

I did some checking on Hess and he mostly drove a Ford in 1966. He competed in 3 races in the Rambler. Bridgehampton, Fonda, and Columbia. Columbia was the only race he finished in the Rambler. He actually out qualified 6 other cars there and finished 17th out of 26 cars. That's pretty amazing considering he gave up 100 cubic inches to his competitors at Columbia, if he did use the 327, which was the biggest engine that came in the Ambassador that year. He tried to run it at Charlotte and Bristol but failed to qualify at those tracks. He also drove a Rambler at 1 race in 1967 but it might not have been the car modeled in this thread. He was last at Greenville after blowing an engine and qualified 22nd out of 23 cars. He ran 5 laps before losing that engine. You can go to Racing Reference if you'd like to check it for yourself.

You can tell you're on the home stretch, but here is maybe a dumb question. Is the interior staying red or did I miss something from earlier posts?

I've done about 900, 000 of the one million decals that go on this model so I'm almost done.

That engine looks pretty Awesome to me. It could pass for a 1:1 replica. Looks like real metal.

Pierre, when do you plan on painting the headlight bezels? Should you do that before any polishing that you might do?

I will second that assessment. the retarder allows the clear to lose the ridges caused by the brush. Makes it act more like future does. But the percentage is very important, and Pierre has certainly figured that out.

Wow, Yes, I understand not polishing the color coat but to get it on that smooth with just the paint and the clear is phenomenal. A light polish of the clear will make it extremely nice. You could probably just use some liquid polish. Its more forgiving than the paper or the pads. Just don't go through the clear and the paint into the primer. I have done that before. But it's pretty easy to fix if you do. Another plus about brush painting.

Oh, Yeah. You did it again Pierre. Looks like a perfect match to me. I knew the polishing would deepen the color and make it just right.

Looks like it will be perfect when you get it glass smooth. No brush strokes that I can see at all.

Good. I'm very glad to hear that. Sometimes being exactly right about a build actually detracts from the overall look of the build.

Oops, I guess you're stuck with the red ones. Were they actually red, or red oxide primered, and never got the silver or gray or whatever it was put on them?

I'd go the elegance route. Those wheels could not have stayed on the car for the whole 24 hours, could they?

Blake, I tried hard to find something to laugh about but all I saw was something to enjoy looking at. Excellent build. Welcome to the forum and hope to see any new builds you want to do in the wip forum.

Thats some awesome modeling you got going on there. Webers always look super fine on any engine.