Bernard Kron

Yikes!! That must have take a very small, very sharp point, and plenty of patience. Beautiful work throughout, as always. I especially like the tubular crossmember you made. Very pretty... Can't wait for more, more, more...

Thanx Raul! Wait'll it gets its full bellypan!

Thanx for all the props guys, they are very much appreciated! Below are pics of the body in primer. Cleanup went much more smoothly than I thought. Still some touch ups to do but I'm well along in the process. I will leave shut lines on the skirts and include Dzeus fastener details on them to sell the fact that they are removable. It is, after all, a race car not a custom. Additionally, I'm pretty much through sanding down the fender flares. They are not quite so prominent as they were but I have left a shadow line to give the area some contour. Making Lowey's carefully considered design totally slab sided would be a mistake IMHO. Chromed engine parts are in the stripper bath. The basic engine will come from the kit. The Undertaker engine is too horrible for words so I'm only using the intake manifold, blower drive and pipes from it. The blower, injectors and pop-off valve are from the AMT double dragster. I need to get the engine at least mocked up so I can begin designing the chassis. Thanx for lookin', B.

I replaced the blurred picture of the engine compartment with something sharper. Also resequenced the pictures a bit. But I still haven't switched out the door handles! Here are a couple of "family portraits" of this build alongside a gorgeous and absolutely perfect full fendered Deuce that my friend and modeling mentor Raul Perez gave me after showing it at the NNL West this year. I thought you all might find them interesting as contrasting approaches to a contemporary-traditional street rod.

Thanx Dave! Yeah, that's it, aerodynamics, that's why I did it. Actually, I thought they didn't look that great from the start. I'm not real big on elaborate ornamental bits. I think I'll grab a set of straight ones from a sedan kit and mount them forward pointing!

Thanx for the kind words Frank. Regarding the door handles, in my defense that's the way they're called out in the instructions (a pretty weak defense IMHO since I tend not to use instructions a whole lot except for technical reasons). The only reason I know is because they're asymmetric so I checked while I was doing final assembly. Anyhow, door handles were first introduced on the roadster (no door handles on the Dan Fink Speedwagon) and they're rearward facing on the 3-window coupe too. But once Revell introduces the sedan they make a new handle, which is straight instead of s-curved. It's still asymmetric but they move the hole for the door handle rearward toward the door line and point the handle forward. The same is true for the 5-window. Checking on the web asymmetric s-curved door handles usually point rearward but not always... And finally, my friend Raul Perez built me a gorgeous full-fendered Revell '32 roadster (black with a flattie) and he pointed the s-curved handles forward. But my significant other told me she prefers them pointing rearward. Hmmmmm...

The Lobeck-style ’32 is finished at last. It can be found Under Glass here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=32530 The problem with the p/e grill fit turned out to be caused by having used a Dan Fink Speedwagon version of the Model Car Garage piece in the Replicas & Miniatures of Maryland resin shell and radiator. MCG had been out of the Revell ’32 Coupe version that I usually use and subbed the Speedwagon setup (labeled ’32 coupe, BTW – v. bad!). It is not quite the same and doesn’t fit the Rep Min shell (although it appears to fit the original Revell kit shell). So a heads up on this obscure piece of modeling lore… Anyway, final touches included using headlights from the AMT Phantom Vickie kit, with the buckets stripped of their chrome finish and painted body color. The p/e grill is also painted body color. So below please find some a final “beauty shotâ€. Thanx to everyone for the kind words and for following along. I hope you all like results.

Barry Lobeck Style '32 Ford Highboy (More pics below) The Revell Goodguys '32 Ford Roadster has always been problematic for me, most of the time it's because it's too modern. I land up replacing the airbags with a Model A buggy spring and wishing it came with a more traditional dropped I-beam front end. such as the one from the Revell "Rat Rod" '29 Ford Roadster Pickup and '31 Ford kits. But even as a modern ride it has always bugged me a little. Some things like the wheels and tires and the stance were never ideal, even when it was released in the mid 90's. For me the master of the "contemporary traditional" look of the 80's and 90's was Barry Lobeck. A primo Lobeck ride is a thing of beauty to my eyes, very low in the front with a dramatic stance and exaggerated big and littles at the corners. So, using the Revell kit as the starting point and using the Butch Martin Lobeck-built Deuce highboy from Vol. 1, No. 1 of The Rodder's Journal as my inspiration I set about trying to "perfect" this classic kit. First off I lowered the front and rear suspension about 1 ¾" all around by changing to a mono-leaf front suspension and cutting down the dreaded Revell airbags. To get a dramatic "rubber rake" I grabbed the front tires and wheels from the Revell Stone, Woods & Cook Willys Gasser kit and cut down a set of rear mags from the AMT '53 Studebaker Starliner kit to fit a pair of 11 inch Firestone dirt track tires from Replicas & Miniatures. Next up was building a classic small block Chevy in place of the kit's Ford mill. It's made from various bits and pieces from my parts box but it's basically a Revell piece. The only modification to the kit body was to make a louvered hood and smoothed hood sides with a small row of louvers at the lower rear corners. This turned out to be the most major work of the project. First off only the hood sides from the original roadster kit fit a fenderless car properly. The smooth sides that come in the Coupe and Sedan kits are curved at the bottom to fit the tops of the fender valances and thus leave a gap when you try to use them in a fenderless application. Since the only hood sides that come with the roadster are heavily louvered I had to file them off. Then I applied some 3 dimensional louver decals from Archer Fine Transfers ( http://www.archertransfers.com/ ) to the top the hood and sides. The interior is stock except for the dashboard. I've never cared for the kit dashboard with its air conditioning outlets and radio and cassette player (?!). So I cut them out, glued in a blank panel and installed a p/e dash from Replicas & Miniatures. Paint is Duplicolor Torch Red over Duplicolor Red Oxide Primer. The grill is a p/e piece from Model Car Garage finish in body color and set into a Replicas & Miniatures grill shell and double sided radiator. Headlights and taillights are from the AMT Phantom Vickie kit, with the headlight buckets stripped of their chrome finish and painted body color. Thanx for lookin', B.

Thanx Raul. I'm juggling 3 builds at once. Hope to get the Deuce roadster done very soon and I'm making surpringly good progress on the Stude streamliner. Maybe Curt's right and I'll get something completed before the Modelhaus tires arrive...

Nice stuff, TJ. Like Harry said, keep at it and the pieces will continue to fall into place!

Thanx as always for the kind and encouraging words. And I will be patient, Curt! Needlesss to say I have other projects to keep me occupied. A small update while I wait for tires from Modelhaus... I got the engine completed. The block, Winfield head and exhaust are from the Revell '29 "Rat Rod" Roadster Pickup kit. The carbs and intake manifold are from the "Classics" issue (2002) of the AMT '29 Ford Model A Roadster kit which includes a lot of the old hop up parts from the original release but unfortunately not the Riley 2-Port head. I thought the early 30's vaguely Miller-style carbs and simple tubular manifold suited the look of the build better than the more finished parts in the Revell setup. Paint finishes on the metal parts are various shades of Testors Metalizer. The bellhousing and transmission are also from the AMT '29 A Roadster because they fit the AMT chassis I'm using. The distributor is a 4-cylinder pre-wired unit from Morgan Auto Detail. Thanx for lookin', B.

Also Early Years Resin: http://earlyyearsresin.webs.com/lsrparts.htm

Lots of subtle details make this custom really quite unique - a very original vision I would say. Great modeling and great customizing. And yes, some lids-down photos would be greatly appreciated.

Thanx to all of you for the extremely kind words. I'm glad you all enjoyed this build. It's one of my personal favorites. Thanx Artemis. At some point I will build a circle track roadster, probably very much influenced by one of my all-time fave hot rod artists, the great Gus Maanum. Are you familiar with him? Pen and ink artist from the 1940's specializing in hot rods. He used to sell portfolios of his drawings out at the lakes durng the early post war era. Here's an example from the May 1948 issue of Hot Rod, showing a "Typical Track Roadster". He just nails the vibe perfectly and the roadster istelf has the most wondefrully idealized lines.

Great tip, and applicable wherever an offest needs to be adjusted. The result is 100% better and helps "sell" the difference in front and rear tire size. Speaking of which, any thought on narrowing the front wheels for narrower front tires?

Thanx guys! That's pretty much what I had in mind. I'm also thinking of leaving the back end open with the rear edge of the upwardly curving bellypan forming the bottom of the opening. Then I'd fill the whole thing with mesh set back a little from the outer edges. We'll see if my chops are up to it...

Thanx Nick. This one will take a while, at least if I stick to all the things I intend doing. I figure bodywork first, then the engine followed by the chassis and bellypan and finally the interior. Probably I'll do the engine alongside the bodywork in order to get the "imagineering" going on the chassis ASAP. I have other, simpler, builds on the bench for when this one frustrates me and I need a break.

I've had this in mind for a while so I sat down at the bench and did some preliminary work. AMT '53 Studebaker done as a salt lakes streamliner. Tubular frame, Potvin Blown Chrysler from the Carl Casper Undertaker kit (therefore the hood stays stock and smooth), bobbed front fenders, skirts all around, slammed, Moon Discs, open rear end with mesh grill to exhaust air, color undetermined at this point. I sketched out the shape I wanted on the bobbed front fenders, traced a template and then made masking tape templates to make the cut. Here are some pics: I decided to go for the radical kit chop. It looks surprisingly right with the skirts and slammed stance. I particularly like the way the line of the rear window flows into the bustle on the rear deck. See the pics of the initial mockup below. This project is gonna take a while. Lotsa filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and... Thanx for lookin', B.

Thanx for the kind words, guys! Those aren't double rails. The upper piece is the fairing for the tops of the chassis rails. They were left in place to allow for a proper seating of the hood . If you don't use that panel then you have to do something else. Here's pic of a car where they used a rope to solve the problem! Also a note regarding numbers. I was wrong in saying that unnumbered cars were quite common in the thirties. That's more a late 20's thing when the very, very first cars hit the lakes, mainly model T's and the like. Certainly by the mid-thirties, like this car, numbers were pretty much what you did. And in fact the numbers were really quite "formal" in terms of fonts. "Shoe polish" numbers aren't that common, at least on the cars that were actually photographed (even in pictures of groups of cars). So I'll go with fairly simple white numbers of some sort. I hope to have pics of the completed engine and perhaps chassis in the next few days. Then into the box she goes waiting for tires which I have ordered from Modelhaus. (4 to 6 weeks... grrrrrrr!).

Also one of my all-time faves. You are the one to do this justice, of that I'm certain! And so far things look great. I have plans to do something like this later this year so I'll be following this one along with everyone else.

Neato!!!

Cool build, even cooler presentation and great story!

I think this is as nice a rendition of this kit as I've seen. Very finely done!

Thanx. And, BTW, thanx for the weathering powders. It's only taken me a couple of years to get around to using them! I'm not sure about numbers. In the mid thirties time frame of this build they went either way (probably depending on how formal a racing meet it was - SCTA with its system of number ranges assigned to member clubs didn't start up until the end of November of '37, running its first meet in May of '38). Un-numbered cars were seen quite often. If I did go with numbers I would probably use a fairly "casual" font (see below) to approximate "shoe polish" numbers. Using typewriter white out to do them by hand is too risky, since it badly mars the paint , giving you only one chance to get it right. I would need white numbers so I would probably have to order them. Patto's Place Slot Cars & Decals in Australia has some that might work, 'though I'm not fond of the black outline for this usage: