papajohn97

Thank you Steve for all the effort and details that you are putting into documenting this WIP, it’s fascinating (and educational) watching how you do your magic. This engine is almost too magnificent to install and risk hiding any of these incredible details. If I were a rich customer and you were building this Dodge for me as a commission project, I would order a second engine from you to be able to display next to the finished car!

Amazing polish job on raw styrene, looks like paint! I’m in awe of how you and others here are able to foil and avoid knife slipping disasters. I guess I just need to dive into the deep end of the pool on a few “learning builds” to conquer my foiling anxieties ???. I remember building the original AMT ‘66 Skylark kit when it was new and it looking really sweet after painting and assembly (mine was yellow). It’s amazing how $$$ these old kits are these days, too bad these old molds have been modified to make modified stocker kits...thanks for rescuing and sharing this one.

Great resto job on my favorite Corvette (C2 coupe) in my favorite color (blue). You are inspiring me to build a stock C2 kit someday. So which is the best kit/ kit bash combo to use as a basis in 1/25? AMT ‘63 body over a Revell ‘67 chassis?

These are all really incredible car models. Like many others here, I would love to take “master classes” from Mr. G, especially classes on how to do under hood detailing. I also love his taste, the Bill Mitchell years at GM which I think produced the most beautiful American automotive designs. Thanks for posting these masterpieces!

Enjoyed my first museum trip today since the shutdown last year - the NHRA Museum in Pomona, CA. It was really an excuse see an old buddy and meet half way (I live north of LA, he’s down in South Orange County). We’re both retired and it was really nice to get out of the house and spend a few hours together after a long absence. I think we both thought “boy did my old friend ever age a lot!” The museum staff was still cleaning/ preparing the place after being shut down since last year. It’s a nice collection of 1:1 cars although reduced from the last time I visited (5-7 years ago?). Other than us two and a few other visitors, the place was empty. The highlight was seeing Barry Price’s excellent collection of 1/25 drag car models. Here’s a few pics I took. Price is a very talented builder from the UK and I believe one of our fellow posters here on this board, Marc Weller, did a fabulous job repairing the cars in this collection from the damage they encountered during shipment to the museum. My friend is not a modeler but he was equally captivated by this collection. Check it out if you’re ever near Pomona, CA. Enjoy, John

Wow! You build’em FAST! Came out beautiful too! Interesting how the darker lower half seems to reduce the “funny-ness” of the altered wheel base, at least to my eyes. Dog dish caps on the rear may also contribute to making it look a little less radical. I have not yet built this AWB kit, only the Moebius stock wheel base Melrose Missile which assembled pretty easily. The plastic injector stacks look pretty good on your build, did you have to do anything special to clean them up and align them?

Nice job on Honda’s first big hit. I had a silver ‘78 CVCC 5 speed with the “hound’s tooth” cloth seat inserts. These CVCC’s had the best “drivability” of any vehicle available in the mid/ late 70’s, the “not golden years” of autos IMO. They were fun to drive compared to everything else (all relative...). They also tended to fall apart before 100k miles. Thanks for sharing!

Nice job on a less than perfect old kit. Your two-tone color choice stirs memories for me. My first car was a ‘56 210 two-door post sedan in close to these exact colors, the first of several “wished I’d kept that one” cars from my youth, purchased for just a few hundred $ back when they weren’t considered “classics”....Thanks for posting and bringing back some memories!

Beautiful job Jim! Hard to believe this started from a poor fitting flashy kit, the finished model looks fantastic from every angle. Your paint and decal work is gorgeous. Are the front and rear black riveted window frames decals? If so, they must have been a real challenge to apply. If the body can be removed, I would love to see more pics of the engine and chassis details you added. My drag car modeling interests generally don’t go much beyond ‘67 but your build here is inspiring me to expand my range. Thanks for posting!

Very nice clean build of a cool subject Marty! I’m in awe of builders like you who make their own decals- did you use a special printer (Alps?) to make these decals or just a common ink jet printer? Love that you can personalize them (“Marty’s Speed & Machine”). I also love early/ mid 60’s SS because they were so much closer to street cars than later years and I can also imagine most of these Jr stockers were driven to the strip (as well as work/ school/ church/ grocery store!). I agree with the previous post - more pics please (chassis and under hood). I have a set of the Fred Cady 55 Chev “Monster Mash” Jr stock decals to go with the AMT post two-door sedan kit and your build is inspiring me to move that one up in the queue....

Incredibly beautiful paint work, look’s like it came out of Larry Watson’s paint shop. You’ve mastered the airbrush in one model build!

I just ordered a 2nd one of these kits in fear of them disappearing and/or shooting up in $$$. I also ordered the Lee Smith decals for this car (actually his was a Belvedere - Satellite vs Belvedere trim diff seems really subtly to me, especially on de-trimmed drag cars?). Fremont Racing Specialties offers a reasonably priced set of the Lee Smith decals and Joe does fabulous decals, just wanted to pass this option by you while you decide which way to go. Engine start looks good! Looking forward to watching your progress on this one.

Hi Bob, I identify with your car model paint struggles. After years of painting aircraft/ ship/ armor model subjects, I dove into car modeling a few years ago and experienced the steep learning curve of “shiny” - it’s HARD! I’m still learning but have settled in on two methods that seem to work best for me. I prime everything with either Tamiya light grey fine lacquer primer unless the final color is white or light, then I use Tamiya white lacquer primer. If there’s a Tamiya rattle can color that works for the subject In doing, I use that for the base color and clear coat it with Tamiya TS-13 clear coat. If I need a different and/ or accurate original manufacturer’s color, I order the flat base color from Scalefinishes.com (or Zero Paints base color if it’s a contemporary auto or race car) and airbrush it over the primer, then clear coat it with TS-13. I’ve used Testors rattle can lacquers which are pretty good paints but their rattle can nozzles are not as good as Tamiya’s (sometimes the spray is too thick or sprays splatters/ drops). Also, I only use Scalefinishes flat base coats for two-tone paint schemes, rattle can lacquers tend to bleed thru masked edges when you do a heavy/ “wet” final coat. I avoid all the super hard/ non-sticky two-part urethane clear coats such as”2K” because of they are very toxic/ carcinogenic. The few times I’ve tried spraying auto subjects with acrylics, I have found them to be too thick, too soft, too sticky. Also, they are incompatible with any hard lacquer clear coats. These are just my own opinions/ experience, there are others here that do amazing paint jobs using totally different materials and techniques than I describe above. I applaud you for trying different paints and finding your own best methods. Love your Nova so far! Awesome engine! Body look’s good in grey! John

Beautiful build of a magnificent car! I can see this one parked on the greens at Pebble Beach. Well done!

Love these topless funnies, a short period in FC evolution (‘66-‘67?). Did you use the Speed City resin set for this build? I wonder if it might not be too much work to convert the recent Moebius AWB ‘65 Ply Golden Commando kit into this topless version? Cut off the roof, add a sheet of Evergreen styrene and a long diagonal cut section of styrene tubing?... Your build made me search for other topless FC’s on this forum, only came up with John Teresi’s beautiful Flying Dutchman and amazing Beach City ‘Vette builds. Anyone ever build a topless Canuck Nova? Thank you Dave for pulling this one out of your archives and sharing this beautifully executed and unusual drag car. You’ve inspired me!

Michelle, I commend you on this and other recent “modeling outside of the box” postings. You are doing some really creative scratch building and kit bashing, a nice break from the rivet counting obsession some scale modelers pursue (and most of us fail at!). I knew nothing about “Hot Wheel Accelracers” but your funny description about the special tires made me laugh and led to a Google search. Thanks for sharing!

Darn that’s purdee. Love the vintage Halibrand wheels, very cool old school look. You sir have impeccable taste as well as amazing fab & paint skills.

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Hey Jeff, awesome collection of AWB A/FXer’s/ match racers. I just joined MCM forum in March and missed your Dec postings, so I’m glad they came back to the top of the finished drag cars listings so I could check them out - nice collection! We have similar taste although my favorites are SS’ers between ‘60 - ‘65 before they started to morph into funny cars. I’ve completed 14 over the last few years and have another 10-12 in my stash which I hope to complete unless burn-out sets in. I have a resin ‘62 Ford Galaxy light weight and Brannan’s “Bronco” AWB ‘65 Mustang on the bench now and hope to finish and post them in the coming weeks. Decals seem to dictate what I build... Like others here, I’m really interested in that Chrisman Comet with the set-back engine as well as Dyno’s AWB Comet - please post more pics of both, even if they’re still in process. Thanks for sharing your cool collection! John

Hey Gareth, really love this very well executed stock build of this classic ‘64 Ply kit, super clean, amazing foil work, beautiful interior with an amazing dash, period correct beautiful metallic blue. I built the AMT “Lawman” SS version of this kit and agree with you that it’s a joy to build and more realistic looking IMO than the ‘64 Dodge version. And your natural light photos are actually pretty good. Thanks for posting!

Hey Niko, thanks for the details on your plastic rod header fabrication method. It sounds very similar to the solder technique but I like the finished appearance you got on your Ply gasser build, I’ll have to give it a try. Unless I’m doing a kit that’s molded as a drag version, I’m finding that scratch building headers, even with solder, is a lot quicker than trying to use/ modify existing headers from another kit in my parts box.

Thanks Brian & Bainford. Dang! Had no idea about the AMT competition parts pack, looks like a much better option than the T-Bird funny car for an Allison. Price is about the same on evilBay - seems like everything is $50 with shipping these days. Wonder if prices will be this high when model swap meets start up again?....

Has anyone built this kit and posted any photos of the finished build? I’m thinking of locating one for the Allison V-12 engine (the old AMT parts pack version?) and am wondering if there are any other usable drag parts that can be salvaged from this Model King re-issue. I’ve read that the Thunderbird chassis portion of the kit is a real turkey.. thanks, John

Hey Bob - Just in case you haven’t considered them, here are two excellent kits that could be used as a basis for vintage gasser builds: 1. Revell’s recent ‘50 Olds coupe, modern tooling, builds like a Tamiya, looks totally accurate IMO when done. I built the Mexican road race version because of the cool decals but hope to do a gasser version some day with mild mods to the suspension, engine and adding some narrow rear slicks. 2. The AMT ‘49 Ford “Gasman”kit: This kit is from old molds but the re-issue is excellent and includes a lot of nice vintage drag parts. I have stayed away from the older Revell gasser kits with the opening doors (original SWC Willys, Anglia, Henry-J) because of my bad experiences attempting them when I was a kid, very spindly assembly, poor engineering, lots of flash. I should try one again sometime just for fun, maybe this re-issue J? Would love to put a 1/24-1/25 Allison or Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 in one.... John

Another retired dude here (5 yrs). I like to build every day, some days only hour or less, other days 4-6 hrs if my wife is busy with her “stuff”. Not so much on weekends if kids are visiting. I build at least two kits at a time so I have something to do while paint or bonds cure and it prevents me from rushing which leads to disasters/ regrets. I love auto builds but mix it up with aircraft, ships and an occasional tank. I had a production line of early 60’s super stocks going since last year but am currently taking a break from cars and am building two of the five P-38 kits I have. I try to do one complex 1/350 ship subject every summer. Cars are still my favorite, gratification is quicker, they don’t take up much space and if I take a hammer to it, it’s not a $150 plane or $300 ship!