MR. Macabre

This '71 Duster build is only the second build I've finished since I got back into the hobby after a 45 year absence. It's not exactly a work of art, but for only the second build since 1980 by an old geezer with shaky hands, I think it looks pretty good. I decided to go all out on this project, so I bought and used the '67 Chevelle pro street kit as a donor kit for the Duster. I back halved both chassis', and spliced the Chevelle's chassis onto the Duster's front half. This gave me the narrowed rear end, suspension, wheelie bars, drag slicks and wheels, on top of the seats, headers, and the roll cage to finish the Duster with. I ran both the fuel line and battery cable from the trunk area all the way to the engine compartment, and I used an aftermarket tach, carb, coil, MSD box, and distributor to complete it. My other 2 finished builds are a '71 Dodge Demon 340 street car, and a '69 HEMI GTX Super Stock car.I can post a few photos of those later if anyone is interested in seeing them. In the mean time, here's my '71 Duster,

This build is unreal, and puts my HEMI GTX to shame.

Growing up in SO. CAL. meant that we saw L'IL John's car every time we were at a drag race, so I'd go with his.

My aunt and uncle live in LaCrosse, the last time I was there was in 1979. Your interests in cars sounds exactly like mine, muscle cars, street machines, pro street builds, and drag cars. My first real car was a '68 OLDS 442 packing a '70 W30 455 under the hood. I had a lot of fun pampering and driving that car until I had to sell it in '88.

You didn't exactly start out with easy builds did you?

Hey everyone, I go by the name MR. Macabre, and I just got back into the hobby after a 45 year absence. I was born and raised in SO. CAL. during the 60's, 70's, and 80's before relocating north to Washington state in 1994 with my family. Throughout the 70's I built dozens of model cars, planes, tanks, ships, trucks, and monster models. Once I got my drivers license in '75 I built model cars exclusively, because by this time I was a car fanatic and a huge fan of drag racing, so I built a lot of race cars, and was pretty good at it. I modified every car I built into a drag car, and I did this until March of 1980, when I met my then future wife. I was still living at home and had just gotten my first real full time job, and after we started dating there wasn't any interest or time for building models any more. Fast forward 45 years and I'm back in the hobby again. I've been retired on permanent disability since July of 2015, so I'm at home while my wife is at the office supporting us. My physical problems are making it harder for me to do anything outside of the house, so I decided to try my hand at model cars again a few months ago. I've finished 3 kits so far, a '71 Dodge Demon street car, a '71 Plymouth Duster Super Stock car, and a '69 HEMI GTX Super Stock car. I'm in the beginning stages of working on a '68 HEMI powered Dodge Dart Super Stock car. I'm using the back half of the '67 Chevelle model kit's chassis on the Dart, just like I did on the '71 Duster. By using the Chevelle as a donor kit, I'm getting the rear end, suspension, wheelie bars, seats, and the roll cage I need for the Dart. The parts and pieces from the Dart's kit aren't detailed enough for me, I'm trying to build a modern version of this legendary machine, something you'd see on the drag strip today. I'm also going to use a 3d printed HEMI engine from ICEMAN Products in the Dart, along with aftermarket tires, wheels, ignition parts, a pre-wired distributor, fuel pump, shifter, fire extinguisher, gauges, and hopefully headers. My builds aren't exactly works of art, but for a 66 year old geezer with shaky and numb hands, I think they came out pretty good.