papajohn97

Hey Eric, really enjoying watching all the scratch-building you're doing on this one. This build is making me fantasize about building a later body ('66 - '67) Doug Thorley/ Hayden Proffitt/ Randy Wells topless Corvair early funny. Wonder if the recent AMT Chezoom ('69?) Corvair body could be a suitable donor to cut the top off and use for a '66 -67 body? Mike (iBorg) - thanks for posting those two history links....the source of my scale modeling fantasies! What a brief but awesome period of drag racing history!

Initially, like many here I figured I'm safe because of my extensive stash of unbuilt kits (cars, planes, tanks, ships) that I've accumulated over the years. Then it occurred to me....Oh No! ....Paint! Supplies! Decals! AM stuff! Many of these items are foreign sourced (Tamiya, Gunze, Zero, Cartograph, AK, MiG, Eduards,....). I guess US dealers will still be ordering big orders (> $800) from any foreign manufacturers and selling to us domestically but I can also imagine a possible supply chain slow-down due to bureaucratic issues/ customs process chaos over the coming weeks (months?)..... We may all want to take inventory on our paint & building supplies and order a safety stock as required from US dealers soon???? God forbid we all run out of paint & glue!

Awesome build Mike & thanks for the tip on the Fremont resin bodies.

Beautiful model Elliot. Love the two-tone Larry Watson style paint work and that tuck&roll interior is outstanding! I don't generally model customs but your '55 is inspiring me!

Excellent job Eric on the roll bar re-sizing, this build is going to be awesome once it's all painted up & decaled. What are your plans for the markings? Home-printed decals? Unfortunately white is a real challenge unless you have an Alps printer.

Fantastic job David! Love these early 50's GM sedans (spent my younger years riding in the backseat of my parent's '52 Chevy). I wish Revell had issued Chevy and Pontiac versions of this kit, the AMT '51 Chevy Fleetline body is just plain weird.

David - Really liking this stock car version of this excellent Revell kit that you are doing justice to. Your paint and construction work is first class. Looking forward to seeing it in UG soon! I built and posted the "City of Roses" Pan-American road race version of this kit a few years back and was so impressed with this kit, I bought two more to eventually build a showroom stock and a gasser version. Your stock car is making me want a third kit now to copy you here and do all three!

Spectacular job on the paint work, spectacular job on the BMF trim, love the color, love the stance. I'm not a fan of large wheels with low profile tires on classic cars (I'm old....) but I have to be honest and admit that they look great on this build. Bravo!!!

Great pics guys! My favorite is Grumpy between the two blonds (Linda Vaughn & her understudy?) I've read that Mr. Jenkins was quite a lady's man when he wasn't tuning cars and winning championships. The good old days indeed!

Wow! That's quite a list Mike! Looking forward to seeing a photo of all these lined up (or even half of them!) later this year. I remember building the first release of the Jo-Han '64 Dodge Polara "Ramchargers" kit as a 10 yr old and wishing a year later that Jo-Han would issue an AWB version of a '65. The 60 year wait for these Moebius kits was worth it! Thankyouthankyouthankyou Moebius!!!!!

Nice progress Eric. I agree with you on the roll bar, it's way too thick! I've had good luck using .080" -.125" OD Evergreen styrene rod and heating it using a flame or boiling water to bend it around a suitably size mandrel (round bottle/ cap, drill bit, etc.) for the radiused portions. Love the side profile pic showing that awesome stance, this is going to be one bitch'in build when it's done and painted. Model on!

Here's what pleased me today (actually over the last few days): 1. My best friend Joe generously gifted me a Kyosho Mini-Z Ready to race RC Porsche 962 with controller: OMG this thing is FUN!!!! We raced on a foam race track at the hobby shop where we bought our cars. It was like slot racing without the slots. These things really scream! 2. Ok, I knew it wouldn't take long for me to put the first ding into my beautiful new 1/27 scale Porsche 962 but little did I know it wouldn't be due to my driving. Today I decided to practice some driving on our back patio. Our six year old beagle "Huntley" was hanging out in the yard at the same time and when he saw the RC car take off, he did what any good hunting beagle would do and took off chasing that "rabbit"! Like a good hunting dog, he caught it and managed to put the first small dents into one rear wheel and the body of my new Porsche (although like a good hunting dog he didn't squeeze his jaws hard and totally crush that "bird"!). Now I can really start enjoying my new toy and no longer worry about the first dents! Dents/ defects vent evil spirits, right? Besides, now when I look at those dents, I'll think of two of my very best friends, Joe & Huntley!

I agree, very cool!!!! I'm amazed what you 3D printer guys are doing these days. I retired from CAD use 9 yrs ago but maybe I need to reconsider my decision, looks like 3D printing may yet be the rule not the exception of scale modeling in the coming years.

Great timing Mike! I've got this one on the bench now with plans to use the Fremont decal set. Thanks for the heads-up on the decal size, I'll need to check out the Fremont graphics relative to pics of the actual car. Like all your other door slammers, this one came out great! Do you have plans to build more of the other '65 Dodge AWB A/FXer's that you haven't already?

Ooohhhh......very very nice finish on this one Bill. The engine detailing/ plug wires/ fuel lines are A+ as well as the paint/ decaling/ foil work and general construction also all A+. I also really like the paint work you did on the front mags to make them look like more realistic slightly oxidized mag wheels and not the shiny toy-like polished chrome wheels that come with the kit. Looking forward to seeing your build of the S&M Tiger II AWB sedan as well as the Harrop Dodge posted here in the near future. You do beautiful work!

Nice job Bill on this super neat&clean model of the legendary "LAWMAN". I agree with you that this Lindberg '64 Plymouth is one of the best of the mid-sixties door slammers and the orange & white two-tone and decaling look's just about perfect on this one. Bravo!

Be careful getting cyanoacrylate (CA or superglue) anywhere near clear styrene (if you pre-mount the front and/ or rear windows before doing this), it takes very little CA to craze the clear styrene. Love the look of these blue tinted windows with the S&M red-white-blue. Like M W Elky, I airbrushed the clear kit windows with Tamiya X-23 transparent diluted 1:1 with Tamiya X-20A acrylic thinner. Nice progress, looks like we'll be seeing this beauty in UG soon.

Interesting that you applied the BMF this way. I recently foiled a build with frustrating results because of soft molded edges on window frames. The X-acto tip kept wandering on me. I removed all the BMF and precut lengths with the width eyeballed to match the final frame widths and just applied the foil strips along the edges of the front & rear windows using tweezers, a foam swab stick and my fingertips. It came out great without the need for any X-acto cuts on the body and was much quicker. I'm going to use this technique on future builds and ditch the X-acto knife cuts directly on the body wherever I can. Your foiling looks great on this vette using this technique.

Very cool build Ron. If you don't yet have decals, Fremont Racing Specialties ("paintinjoe" Joe Curtis on eBay) offers a nice set at a very reasonable $5 + shipping. His listing also features some pics of a nice built model of this car. I forgot how fast these supercharged gassers were (9.79 -144 mph, WOW!). Looking forward to seeing this one posted in 'under glass'!

Very cool project Eric. One the big challenges in reproducing scale models of these early funny cars is finding reference photos of the engine/ chassis/ interior details. It seems most of the mags at the time mainly published exterior photos of the cars at the staging area or launching and rarely showed details of them in the pits or under fabrication. Anybody out there have any magazine articles about this car??? (MW Elky???) Looking forward to watching this one come together!

Saw this '63 Galaxie drag car with a monster 427 engine and tear-drop hood at a "cars & no coffee" event at King Harbor in Redondo Beach, CA. TASCA emblem, Holman & Moody decals, sleeper black with black steelies. Probably a handful to drive on city streets but I'd love to see it parked on my driveway so that I could just look at it for hours. What a bad-ass car! Wish there was a decent kit of a '63 Galaxie to make a nice 1/25 version of this one.

Great job so far Elliot on upgrading this AMT AWB Falcon kit. The work you have done to improve the crude kit-supplied cammer is particularly impressive. I built and posted my attempt on Dick Brannan's "Bronco" A/FX AWB Mustang using AMT's Mustang "Funny Car" kit four years ago and swore "never again" but your Falcon is inspiring me to copy what you're doing here. If I did, I think I might cheat and replace the kit engine with the Moebius 1/25 427 SOHC out of one of their Comet A/FX kits along with a modified or scratch-built injector manifold and metal velocity stacks. Looking forward to watching this beauty come together! (PS: Please-please-please Moebius!!!: Make us some new state-of-the-art '65 Falcon & Mustang AWB A/FX kits!!!!!!)