MarkJ

Finally finished after 231.5 hours . I always wanted to do this build since I was a 13 year old kid. I was into auto racing big time, and about the only source I had for news and pictures were magazines. I had a subscription to Sports Car Graphic, Motor Trend and Car and Driver. Whenever there was anything in a magazine about racing , I would cut it out and put the pictures and story in 2 scrap books. One for Stock car racing and one for Sports car racing and Indy cars. I still have the scrap books today but they are falling apart from age. I just happened to be thumbing through the sports car scrap book and spotted the story about Roger Penske's victory at the Nassau Tourist Trophy race in the Bahamas in 1964. His Grand Sport looked so awesome, I knew I had to finally build a replica of it. Turns out the race was a battle between him and Ken Miles of "Ford vs. Ferrari" fame. Mile's 390 Cobra could pull away from Penske in the straights but Penske's Grand sport would catch up in the turns. Miles Cobra finally blew up trying to stay ahead of the powerful and nimble Corvette. I learned alot about the car. It had a 377 cubic inch all aluminum engine with 4 weber side draft carbs and hemi heads . It basically was a 327 stroked a quarter of an inch to get to 377. it pumped out 485 horsepower. This is an amt kit because I did not know there was a much better kit, until I started the build and was informed of this, so I had to do a lot of scratch building. The wip is over in the wip forum for this forum category under 1964 scca corvette if you want to see how it came together.

Just do the 2400 grit to 12000 grit polishing deal and you will have a mirror like finish. Then finish with good old future or whatever they call it now a days and it will be awesome.

As of 4:20 this afternoon the build part of the model is complete. I finally got the hood to fit almost flush but no way to make it perfect. All that's left is decalling and futuring. Well, its not really future anymore, but I hear its the same stuff. Hopefully I can get it finished up Monday and do the final photos on Tuesday and get them posted up on Wednesday. i

Thanks, guys. I got the tires finished and mounted and have it sitting flat and it actually looks better then I thought it would. I just need to add the park lamps, a fine mesh grille screen , the knock offs on the wheels, the headlamp covers and a lot of detail touching up here and there. Oh yes, I think I figured out how to get the hood more flush. I always make a list of things that have to be done in a builders log book I keep. I probably would have forgot the park lamps if I didnt keep a checklist going. Shouldn't be too much longer.

I finally got the body, interior and frame together. But being an amt model, where nothing really fits that well , you have to put a slight bend in the body to attach it to the frame. this caused a hood that fit before not to be flush any more. Now I need to figure out a way to make it more flush. I hate a hood that does not fit well. I was happy to see that the white stripe decals I made for the tires came out nicely. As soon as I finish the tires I will get them installed and then I can decal and future. Be glad to get this one done.

The movie is hilarious. Warren Oates, the sergeant from the movie "stripes", is in it. If you do a google search, you can watch the trailer, which shows you all you need to know about the movie. One of the beachboys is also in it. Dennis Wilson plays James Taylor's mechanic.

You're not doing the car from "2 lane black top" are you ? That might not be the right name, but James Taylor starred in it . Pretty awesome movie back in the day.

Thats okay , Mike. I'm just doing this wip to keep a record of the build for myself in the future, if I want to go back to see how I did something. Thanks for your interest in the build.

I had to go to the parts box and use a low rider tire and wheel from a 65 Chevy lowrider kit I made into a Nascar Impala. By rule the car has to have a spare tire. Apparently it doesn't have to be the same size as the tires on the rest of the car. There is not much room in the improvised trunk they had on these Grand Sports. I'm thinking they might have used a usac sprint car front tire and wheel as the spare. It sure looks a lot like it. Just a guess on my part.

Great idea for the mufflers. I will have to remember that if I ever build a car with mufflers that aren't correct in the kit.

Headers look great. You can use plastic tubing for collectors. Just sand down the area between the tubes on the collectors, Then make a cone to add to the end of the collector to narrow them down to one pipe.

They all look excellent but tell me more about the one with no numbers or graphics of any kind.. Is that a build in progress?

Mike, Get you some evergreen tube and put some wire in it . it will allow you to bend it wih less chance of breaking it and will also make it keep its shape instead of just tryin g to return when you let go of the bend. Hobby Lobby is now selling evergreen styrene ,tubes, strips, sheets and other shapes. Wallow out the end of the tube with a #11 blade to make the tube more thin walled to model real aluminum or steel tubing.

Looking great, Mike. Like how your upgrading the chassis. The body looks ready for paint. I will stay tuned.

Thanks, Pierre. It was fun but the hard part will be getting the body to mate to the interior. Nothing fits on this kit. You were smart to use the Revell kit for your beautiful 63 Junior Johnson build. Thanks again.

Wow, Mike. Really turned out Awesome. I was trying to picture in my mind what it looked like from our discussions, since we are using the same kit, and It looks much better then anything I could imagine. The metallic paint came out great and the cleanliness of build is super too. Really great build from a very challenging kit that nothing seems to fit right on. A build to be proud of.

The interior is done. Parts of it are attached to the body and will mate with the interior in the final assembly. The black knob in the middle of the dash is the washers for the windshield. It might be some kind of manual pump kind of deal. Not really sure. All the items on the middle dash had little labels made from one of those dial up label makers they had back in the day telling what each item was for. The two guages were temperature guages. One for the engine oil and one for the differential oil. needless to say, I could not model the little black labels. That's way above my pay grade.

Excellent build. Do you have any details about the paint used and the decals and anything else I forgot to mention. Again, a very beautiful, flawless build.

Pierre, check your private messages about the body.

Thanks, guys. Like I said somewhere else, they are just something quick to fill up the seat. I'm sure p.e. stuff would look a lot better. Pierre the interior paint is Vallejo. I mixed 5 silver drops with 3 dark blue drops. then of couse i mixed in 8 drops of medium thinner. It really came out pretty close to the real color which i will post at the end. I'm going to try to find a small box today to put my index cards in with the paint info I derive from mixing paints like you showed in your tutorial.

Pierre, I was going to do a step by step but I figured you had figured them out for yourself, but below is the step by step how i do them. I use 1/8 inch art tape for the actual belt and all the hardware is made from a styrene strip .010 inches thick and a little under 1/8 of an inch wide. I cant remember the exact number but its close to a little under .125 inches. The photos are in order from top to bottom. The last picture is the start of the adjuster. It just needs to have some little cadillac fins added to it.

That looks awesome ,Bill. Like you said it looks perfect. Sometimes it so good that lights and things above get reflected on the surface of the model and appear to be flaws in the paint. But nothing could be further from the truth. See those things right below the c.I. on your fender? They are reflections of the chrome buttons on your microwave.