roadhawg

I really like this! '70 is my favorite year GTO. Well done!

About the panel lines......I do all mine using Roger Hayes' (Plowboys) method of simply scribing the existing lines deeper. Nothing else, no accent color or anything. It's easy to do and looks tons better than any other way. In most cases, adding a wash to the lines actually distracts from the appearance.

Thanks a lot, y'all!!!

https://public.fotki.com/SpeedwayDecals/hot-rods-street/badman-1-24-jpg.html They are printed on clear decal paper, not colored.

Thank you, and yes, those negative comments were what made me decide to do this one. No, it's definitely not on par with more modern kits, but it does build up nice if you take your time. Some people should stop whining and learn to be problem solvers lol.

Lol, I know, I know......but like I said, I chose not to fix that. This was somewhat aimed at the Facebookers that call it a junk kit. I wanted to try to stay as much with the kit as possible while catching the outside look of the real car. I probably should have changed out the console, but, well.......you got me lol.

Thank you sir, and yes, Bo is still with us. He's getting on up in years now, but he's still a hot rodder.....just with late model computerized cars now. I've already built the Corvette gasser he had, and I've started on the '70 Monte Carlo....I guess I might try to finish that one day.

Thank you everyone, I do appreciate it!

His real name is Earl, but we've always called him "Bo" for some reason. He's my first cousin, the son of my father's sister, and he's always had the coolest cars in the whole family, such as a '62 Corvette that ran F/G in NHRA, a '68 442 which held the NHRA national record in D/S for 4 weeks while being his daily driver, and a '70 Monte Carlo that looked bone stock but ran 11.50s in 1972, extremely fast for a street car in those days. I ran across a picture taken on Christmas day, 1967, at my grandparents house that shows two other cousins in front of Bo's 1967 GTO, which he had bought brand new at Boomershine Pontiac in Atlanta. I was 12 at the time, and Santa had brought me a Polaroid camera, so I was taking the picture. Bo's car was red with a black interior and a 4 speed transmission. I don't know what he had done to the engine, but I do know it had headers because it had that distinctive header sound when it was running. When I found this picture, I wanted to build a model of Bo's GTO. The only '67 GTO kit out there is the old MPC kit, which gets a LOT of bad publicity, ESPECIALLY on places like Facebook. I wanted to show that with a little work and careful planning, it can build up fairly decent. Yes, I COULD'VE used the much more detailed Revell '66 GTO as a donor, but my plan was to use as much of the MPC kit as possible just to show it's not as bad as you've heard. First, here are the main areas of concern that I found during the build: 1) The wheelbase is slightly off, being about 1/8" too short. I don't know why this is, but I corrected mine simply by moving the front wheel mounting locations 1/8" forward. 2) There's remnants of screw bosses on the radiator support, and where these sit against the chassis leaves the front of the car sitting too low. I suspect that originally the front bumper/grill had tabs the went in there and screws held the whole works together, but those tabs got removed somewhere down the line. The fix is to simply add 1/8" spacers to the bottom of those screw bosses. 3) The transmission is a manual, but the console is for an automatic. In the interest of wanting to keep this build within the realm of anybody being able to accomplish this, I did not fix that. To be accurate, you would need to use an automatic transmission (easier) or come up with a 4 speed console and add a clutch pedal (harder). 4) The top of the transmission interferes with the bottom of the interior tub. I fixed that by grinding the top of the transmission down. That part doesn't show anyway. The rest of the build was just using basic building skills. Test fit, test fit, then test fit again. Yes, theres some flash, but you should be cleaning up those seam lines anyway. Non kit parts I used were the wheels (2 sets of rear wheels from the Revell '32 Ford kits), the tires (AMT parts pack), a Kris Morgan distributor, and some tubing for heater and radiator hoses. I used some scrap bits of styrene to make a panel to cover those unsightly screw bosses. The kit has no mirrors at all, so I used the mirrors from a '66 Chevelle kit. The paint is Tamiya TS-8 over gray primer, and I used a '67 GTO decal set from Speedway Decals. No, it's not perfect by a long shot, but I'm happy with how it turned out...plus I had a lot of fun building this one. Maybe some of the issues I listed will help some of y'all. Thanks for looking!

Man, I really really like this. Keep up the good work!

Yes sir, you are correct! The body shape is the main thing. Everything else is workable.

No, this one was built over about 3 weekends, in order to familiarize myself with any issues I needed to be aware of for the 24 hour build. I built the same kit as a gasser for the 2021 24 Hour Build.

Thanks Y'all, I appreciate it.

I don't get on here as much as some, so I miss a lot of content. I saw a post from a week ago where the AMT 1963 Corvette was call "junk". Calling a kit "junk" is a bit harsh, I think, but I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion.....even if they're wrong. I built this one a little over a year ago and I never got the impression that it was junk at all. Challenging, maybe, but what fun is life if there are no challenges? This is built 100% OOB. No added details at all. The only things that were not in the box was the paint (Tamiya Pure White), the decal set (from Speedway Decals), and the BMF. I just threw it together as a test run for the 2021 annual 24 Hour Build. Could it be better? Well, yeah, of course........but it's far from junk! Thanks for looking.

I think it looks great! Like you, I'm also a bit disappointed in this kit, even more disappointed in the gasser kit, but you made this one look good.

Absolutely gorgeous! I love the way that color came out.

Thanks y'all!!!

Love it! Everything about it is just right.

Tim, coming from you that's quite an honor, thank you. You have to dig around on their site to find the rules, but they're there....see if this helps any: https://www.southeastgassers.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=534589&module_id=335128 Also note that in the last couple years, they've added a period correct super stock class and a period correct A/FX class. When Quain Stott started the series, they told him it would never work, no one would want to put in the effort to build a period correct gasser. Today, he gets over 100 cars at every event. If you ever get the chance to attend an event, by all means do it, you won't be disappointed!

Thank you all so much for the kind words, you're all too nice!

Thank you! Yes, 4 speed, and no clutchless shifting. If they suspect you're not using the clutch, they'll put a camera in your car!

Thank you! The decals were custom made by Speedway Decals.

Donovan Stott had that decal on the Anglia gasser he raced a couple years ago. The SEGA says all decals must look like they're from the late 60s, so I though that might work lol.

Thanks so much, y'all. I appreciate the kind words!

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” -Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride. Gasser. That term gets used a lot, for all sorts of vehicles....I've even seen on Facebook a gasser described as "any car that's jacked way up and has a big engine", but in my opinion a true gasser is a competition legal drag car that raced in the 1960s. As far as being jacked up high, believe it or not they actually had rules about height, such as the centerline of the crankshaft could not be more than 24" above the ground, and usually only the top 3 classes (A, B, and C/gas) were raised any at all, to accommodate straight front axles. The gas class reached it's prime in 1967, and was eliminated by 1972, so there's really no such thing as a "modern gasser". There's cars built today to resemble a gasser, but they're just current interpretations of a true gasser....and to be honest, seeing modern parts on them just sorta ruin the look to me. There are several nostalgia gasser groups that race today, but only one....The Southeastern Gassers Association....races PERIOD CORRECT gassers. Their rules are based on 1967 rules, and their motto is "follow us to 1967". These cars are the real deal. If you ever get a chance to attend a SEGA event, please do! It's only $20 for a full day of authentic heads up gasser racing, and that includes your pit pass. Anyway, enough of my shameless promotion of the Southeast Gassers. On to the model... I wanted to build a gasser that, if real, would be SEGA legal. This is the MPC Flip Nose '57, built using the SEGA rule book as a guide. I've added period correct tires and wheels, and lowered the car slightly, which required reworking the rear suspension and opening up the rear fenders. I've also noticed on other builds of this kit that the front axle looks a little too far to the rear, so I moved it forward about 1/16-1/8"". Since the SEGA doesn't run a supercharged class, I modified the hole in the hood for fuel injection instead of the blower. The SEGA gives a weight break for uncommon engines (something other than Chevy, Ford, or a Hemi) so I went with a Pontiac 421 from the AMT '62 Catalina. They also give a weight break for mechanical fuel injection as opposed to carburation, so the intake is from the parts box....I think it came from the Revell Anglia gasser....Oldsmobile engine, I believe, but the injection unit is the same basic design for a Pontiac. Wheelie bars are also from the parts box. Interior is straight from the kit, except I added a dash mounted tachometer. The windows were replaced with clear yellow plastic, except the windshield which remains clear. The name is a play on words for the Pontiac "engine"....Pontiac being an Indian Chief. Decals are from Speedway Decals. The color is Duplicolor Bright Red. This was a fun build, and I'm reasonably happy with the way it turned out. Now, for my next trick, I'm going to try to convert that Moebius Nova gasser into a real SEGA legal gasser....that should keep me busy for awhile! Thanks for looking.