1959

Wow, great looking build. The color choice is perfect and execution is really nice. I would really much like to have one of those AMT kits too. As some of you said that 59 Buick is one of the nicest 50's cars I have to agree. In the late 80s there was a blue Electra often on the yard of one house on the way to our summer cottage and I asked my dad to wake me up just before we pass it. Once we were looking at some cars that had just been imported to Finland from US and it was the first time I saw a 59 Impala coupe. But when I saw a 59 Buick front peeking under a plastic cover I decided that I got to have one when I grow up. So when I turned 40 I bought Invicta convertible. A very nice car but also quite complicated and definitely not the easiest one to service and repair and parts are not easy to find. Kimmo

Have to admit that I had to Google who or what is Holden Efijy... thanks for the tip, sure a fine looking concept where to pick some ideas for future projects too.

Thanks! And you are right, my initial plan was to use a resin body on this but wanted to take the challenge. And I didn't find a resin body where the top chop was done to my taste. Any suggestions as I have couple more Mercurys with poor or completely missing bodies?

No worries, Henri is already on the bench with some new projects!

That is true that different brands could cause problems but in this case everything from primer to clear was from same brand. My guess is that candy effect would have needed a bit more time to fully dry and settle before the clear was applied. I tested the paints for few spare part hoods and there was no issues but I applied the clear after a month or so.

This is my son Henri's (13 years) latest project. Revell kit built with the kit's lowrider parts. It is mainly out of the box but wheels and tires are from Pegasus and some details in the engine and interior has been changed with the parts from the spare part box. Molotow chrome was sprayed in many parts in the chassis. Paint job was a real head ache in this project. We used a hardware store spray can candy effect green over silver. The first attempt was not successful, perhaps it was the humidity, but the green was shiny on some areas but mainly dull. So paint was stripped and Henri started from square 1 and this time it became nice and shiny. After the roof decal was put in it's place the whole body was cleared with the same manufacturer's clear and it became nice. But after some weeks when BMF work had been done some cracks started to show up in the clear coat on the green areas. So much effort was put already on this so he decided to leave it like that and finished it despite the cracks. Strange thing is that such cracks didn't show up in the pieces where we tested the paint. Lots of challenges with this but case is now closed with this one and next one will be better. Kimmo & the builder Henri

And here the before and few WIP photos

I got this AMT 49 as a terribly customized glue bomb from my friend. First I thought it is beyond rescue but then I decided to give it a try. So after I stripped off several paint layers and bondo I realised the roof had an extension piece in the middle and it was also heated and pressed down on the rear window area to get rid of the "bubble" that was left there due to the way the top chop was done so it was worse than I thought. But I kept going and first cut out the rear window frame and then took off the roof and removed the extension piece. Roof was too much chopped to my taste so I added some 2mm to the front pillars. Rear part I left on the height my friend had made and glued it back. Then I tilted the rear window frame in it's place and filled the gaps with styrene sheet pieces to get some smoothness to the lines. I wanted to have Hirohata-style sidewindows so I left the side pillars away. Then it was just filler, sanding, primer, again filler and sanding and primer many many times. Rest of the body is pretty much untouched but I frenched the head and tail lights. I added some 2mm styrene pieces between the bezel and the front fender to get the head lights a bit further and get a bit more forms to the front end. Tail lights are from AMT 57 Chevy. Window and side trims and the Hirohata glass frames were made from Evergreen styrene rods. Styrene sheet was used also to build the fender skirts. Paint is metallic red from a spray can that I bought from hardware store discount and with spray can clear on top of it. I am not happy how it turned out as I think I added too thick last layer and the paint made some wrinkles on the roof so I had to sand off the first round completely and of course the base for the new coat wasn't that good any more. After a long thinking between several options I decided to use the Mercury kit's pretty simple custom grille bar. To avoid to have too much vertical bars in the front I removed the bumber guards and the bar between them and used Molotow chrome to "replate" it after the modifications. Tires are AMT Firestones with handpainted white walls. Caddy Sombreros are from Replicas&Miniatures and are the only aftermarket parts in this build. Interior is OOB, white with Revell gold 94 as accent color. Same color is used for the engine. Kit came to me with the Mopar big block which is a bit strange option for this kind of a car on my opinion and wanted to use something else. I found a Ford Y-block of unknown origin from my spare part box. Someone had installed a tri carb system on top of it which I think looked pretty cool so it was an easy decision to go with that. Found also a nicer pair of valve covers and exhaust manifolds. Added some wiring and throttle linkage to complete the engine. Frame is oob with a modest lowering on top of the kit's lowered custom version suspension. Lots of work but also lots of fun with this build and it came out pretty much as I would build a 1:1 Mercury too. And lots of fun to show this to my friend and compare the outcome with the pictures of his build... All comments are wellcome! Kimmo

Really sharp build! Great paint job with excellent color choice. I made also sometime ago this ElCamino-style 55 and I think this is one of the nicest conversion choices that any model kit has because it could be something that came out of the factory line. Many custom options are more or less odd to my eyes. Kimmo

Nice! I like your idea of leaving rest of the car almost stock with heavily chopped top. Top chop is very smooth, rear window area flows nicely towards the trunk lid.

Really Really nice build of my favourite rally car of all times. And great that it is late great Henri's Monte Carlo winner Delta. He did an amazing race then along with other Finnish rally heros Salonen and Mikkola finishing second and third. What a great time for me to be a 10 year old rally fan in Finland!

Great build! I really like the group B era rallying and it is nice to see models from that era. Your build is Tony Pond's 1985 RAC car, am I right? He finished third and it was Metro's debut race.

Great model from the greatest era of rallying! Well done! As a kid I watched probably 30 times VHS-tape from 1985 WRC season and remember well the Monte Carlo rally and how one of our country's legendary drivers, Ari Vatanen, won the race and Rohrl was second.

You are right. I had build and painted basically everything ready and was waiting a parts delivery where the exhaust pipes were coming and run into trouble when started to test fit those. Had to make a compromise with it and hoped no one notices😀 Thanks for feedback! Kimmo

Great looking build and very tasteful color and wheel choice.! Paint job looks excellent. As an old american car guy I have lately found my self liking these earlier JDM cars and I have one of these kits too and it seems to be of high quality. Too bad that Hasegawa kits don't have open hoods and engines. I have 3d printed engine waiting but it also needs the firewall and inner fenders so lot of work ahead but your build gives motivation. Kimmo