The Modeling Hermit

That would be a lot cheaper than the wire mesh that I use from the model railroad world, and probably a lot easier to use.

The tri-five Chevies are all over the place. I know that R/M recently did a 55 convertible, and I've heard that they are doing a hardtop. AMT did a 55 2 door sedan a few years ago. These are not expensive. Unless it has sentimental value, I'd suggest going with a new one.

I was born late in 1952, and lived in Oskaloosa, Iowa. My first real recollections of cars were from about 1957. We had several neighbors with 49-51 Fords, and I learned how to tell them apart by the grills and tail lights. One of my uncles worked at gas stations, and owned a junk yard. Back around 1959 he had a 55 Buick Super 2 door hardtop. It was yellow with a green top. The left front fender, one could never be sure of. It seemed like he was always hitting something and having to change it. I still remember that when it finally was junked that the fender was white on top and blue on the bottom. He also owned dirt track stock cars, and usually had some very good drivers. My Dad pitted for him for as long as I can remember. In the early sixties he raced at the Newton 1/4 mile track. His car was a 37 Chevy coupe which was pink and carried the number 409, and was driven by Ronnie Baker. That track was fun because the six cylinder engines outran the V8s. When Oskaloosa and Eldon got going he changed to them. That was about 1965 for Oskaloosa, but I'm not sure when he started racing at Eldon. His oldest son and I ran around together, and usually got in trouble together. In 1969 he got his first car which was a 1965 Chevy Impala 2 door hardtop. It was an exact match of the one on Monogram's first 65 Impala box, right down to the color. My first car was a 48 Chevy coupe that was given to me by a neighbor, which was quickly traded for a 58 Olds 4 door hardtop. I had that for a few months before buying a new 69 Ford Galaxie XL GT 2 door hardtop with a 429 4 speed. It had, what I recently found out was a limited production 2-4 set up, that was Ford supplied, but dealer installed. It was a pain in the neck, and was constantly causing me problems. The biggest problem was that nobody could behave themselves with it. I came into my uncle's gas staion a little too fast one time and left a couple of skid marks. When I went inside my father was standing there, and got on my case about my driving. My uncle told him that he was a fine one to talk. It seems that good old Dad had been in several drag races with it. It wasn't long before I found out that my very prim and proper older sister had been seen driving around 90 mph down the main street of Oskaloosa at three in the morning. I still love the irony, that a teenage kid has to trade off his car to keep his father and older sister from killing themselves. One thing that is strictly off of the record, happened in 1969. One morning I got a call from my cousin that his father had a live trap in the back of his truck. In this trap there was a skunk. Now being good 16 year old children, we wanted to make sure that this skunk was well provided for. I won't go into all of the details, but somehow, shortly before lunch was to be served, that skunk ended up in the high school cafeteria. Of course the first people to be blamed was my cousin and I (they always seemed to do that). The problem was that we'd got the truck back to the junk yard, and took my car and hightailed it up to the pool hall, which is where the truant officer found us. He followed us back to the school, which by now was in a real mess, and presented us to the principal. He was sure that we were the cause of all the fracas that was ensuing, but with a truant officer as an alibi, there wasn't much he could do. What was the most ironic, is that my cousin became a probation officer, and I became a school teacher. Later on into the seventies, my uncle had a driver named Paul Lanphier that was just almost unbeatable. In 1976 he was involved in a really bad accident at the Oskaloosa race track, and my uncle got out of racing after that. I then drove for a friend of mine for the next two years. I ended up in an accident at the same track, that was almost identical to Paul's. I spent two years trying to recover from that, and still have problems to this day. There are things that I miss about the 50s and 60s, such as new car introduction. I miss some of the play cars that I had, especially my convertibles. I had a 2 tone blue, inside and out, 57 Olds 98 with fender skirts, continental kit, and wire wheels, that was probably my favorite car. I had a 54 Cadillac 2 door hardtop that also had a continental kit (I love continental kits), and several Impalas from the sixties and seventies, as well as a couple of nice Olds 98s from the seventies. They were good times, but I have no desire to go back there, or to try to relive them in any way. I have a hard enough time trying to keep my children from doing the same types of things that I did. It seems like each generation has to top what the previous one did.

That thing has attitude.

I've never attempted to build one of the customs from the box. I had several of these 65 Rivieras sitting around gathering dust. I decided to build one just for the fun of it. So if you're wondering what the custom version from the instruction sheet actually looks like, well, this is it. For those of you with sharp eyes, you're right, I did add cruiser skirts from the parts box. My wife says that it's impossible for me to build a model straight from the box. She's right, but then, she's always right. LOL

Thanks for all of the suggestions and pictures of your fine work. I'm fortunate, in that I have another involved build scheduled (a holmes 750 wrecker tribute to Phil Jensen), plus Christmas, which will give me more time to think about it. During that time I'll keep coming back to this thread for inspiration. It's a hard decision to make. Come the end of the year, it will have been exactly 40 years ago that I built this car. There's nostalgia in that, but I've noticed some yellowing on the left front fender, right beside the bumper. I'm fortunate, in that I did spray paint the interior and chassis, and they've held up well.

I like the "six". There's just something cool about a car that you expect to have a V8, and then find a very cool 6.

This was a Christmas present in December of 1968. It really could use some restoring or rebuilding. I'm torn as to what to do with it. When I built it, I painted the chassis and interior flat black, but left the body unpainted. It's held up quite well over the years. Part of me doesn't want to restore it for sentimental reasons, but part of me would like to make it more presentable.

Thanks I appreciate that. This site is in it's infancy, but I hope that we'll get some good stories on it. My stuff is alright, but I really want to read other people's work.

That's a beautifully executed build.

For those that went and looked and found nothing yet, I have placed some stories on the site. Hopefully the word can get out, and I can see some of your work.

I've started a new forum. I'm no expert at it, but I wanted a place where writers of automotive fantasy/horror/science fiction can share their work. I've checked out some of the forums that others have posted, and rest assured that like them, I will tolerate no abuse. I have no intentions of pulling anybody away from other forums, it's simply a place to come and enjoy some good car stories and art. Just follow this lead, [url=http://autofanscifi.proboards.com/index.cgi]http://autofanscifi.proboards.com Thanks for allowing me to share this.

Good grief Luke anybody with the brains of a flee knows that these are bogus, but the disclaimer is cool anyway. You did forget to cover the emancipation of women in it.

I write automotive scifi and fantasy. I also have an N scale model railroad and a 1:1 78 Ford F150 pickup that I'm working on. I like to watch the forums to see what fantastic NASCAR darkside works Luke57 is going to come up with next.

It wouldn't be cheap for me. I've never been able to get out of a Sears store for less than a couple hundred dollars. LOL

All the leaves are gone and the sky is gray

Mark, I'd forgot that Johnny was born in Iowa and then moved to Nebraska. I'm getting old and my brain cells are dying, you know. You mentioned the drivers from Keokuk, and I'm sitting here trying to think of the names of the drivers that I drove against back in the seventies, and not having much success. LOL

I'm going to have to get a 48 Chevy coupe model from him. My first car was a 48 Chevy coupe.

Johnny Carson was from Nebraska, but I came from Iowa, the land of some of the world's best dirt track stock car racing, and the Knoxville Nationals. The best thing to ever come out of Iowa was nice fresh Muscatine Mellons.

Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road

Good grief! Three pages and nobody's said anything intelligent yet. Now I know I'm in the right place, because i sure don't have anything intelligent to say.

Is there another large online auction company, that has enough merchandise to make it worthwhile to go there? I've been looking for alternatives to ebay, but so far all that I've found are small operations. Some may have 30 kits of different types, but no large selection. Are there any online discount stores? I've bought from one person for years, and then when his business dissolved, I went to ebay. For that reason, I don't have much knowledge of what other "reliable" sources there are out there. Please note that I'm not posting this as a means to bash ebay; only to find other sources for purchasing kits. Please think positive.

Does anybody have a date for it yet?

It's back to the drawing board for me. I built one of these for a couple of years ago, but just made a day cab out of it. I then used the wrecker body as is. In other words I used no "imagination" on it. I've been dissatisfied with it ever since. I think it's time for some reworking. Thanks for the inspiration. That is a fantastic build.

Thanks guys. I'll get more definite dates, and see if we can hook him up with somebody.