Ron Hamilton

You and me both!!!! I love those old AMT mid '60's Corvettes. I plan to build one of each year and body style, and sell off the rest.

Unfortunately, That '66 Monaco I had rode away to another owner a couple of years back, as I was able to get another without a box for a lot less from a friend. It was missing a couple of minor parts, which I was able to get from The Modelhaus. I will miss them. I have a '65 and '66 Monaco, which are Grails of mine, which I am going to definitely build. I plan to book end them with my '65 Polara CHP Cruiser and my '66 Polara 500 convertible If I sell off any of them, I'll give you a shot at them.

Those trucks are drop dead gorgeous!

I am cheap by necessity. Fortunately, I have most any model I will want to build, as my investments in unbuilt annuals is over. The most I spent on a single kit was for a MIB MPC 1966 Dodge Monaco Hardtop for $150 several years ago. Recently I have been selling off my unbuiltsm which I have completed.

To me, the cleanest resin would be from the Modelhaus '83 Impala if you can get one. The Caprice Sedan resin looks very close, and it would not take much to make modifications to improve its accuracy. I sold the State of Maryland, its counties and other departments over 770 '83 Impalas, as well as a couple of hundred '84 Impalas to other Maryland, and Northern VA municipalities, as Ford won the '84 MD state bid, due to certain specs particular to the Ford Crown Victoria, and I am very familiar with the specs of the various cars. I was lucky, that I was able to get a Modelhaus '83 Impala to build as a MSP Marked Cruiser, similar to Tom Sheehy's excellent build. In order to do the MD State car, I have to recreate the HD Interior with HD Bucket Seats, and Black Steelies with Dog Dish Caps, as the entire fleet was equipped with them from the factory. The full wheel covers are not necessarily incorrect, as they could have been added to the car after delivery. The non-special service Impala in those years had full wheel covers as standard equipment, and dog dish caps were not available except as a C.O.P.O. By the way John and Wayne;s Impala Cruisers are excellent examples too,

Those are quite handsome cars.

Seems like an excellent deal to me if it is missing just one tire.

That's sweet!!!!!

Nicely done!!!!!

F&F Resin did a pretty nice '64 Convertible several years ago. Sorry to write that Ed Sr. had passed several years ago, and the transkits were very rare, and pricey, but well worth it. A couple of years ago, I wanted to do a '65 Starfire , but I decided to do the car as a Dynamic 88, as doing a Starfire or Jetstar I would have involved cutting up a '65 Grand Prix for the roof, and I did not have a junker. However, I would love to do a '62 Starfire, as my Dad had one.

Raoul, That is some exquisite work on those '70 Judges.

I understand, and I am quite sure it is going to look great. Those other Galaxies you did look fantastic. Wait until you see the '68 I am planning.

I have a sweet spot in my heart for full sized cars. I really like that '68 Ford XLGT. May I make a suggestion? If I were building this one, I would paint the package tray flat black. In the real world, a white package tray would reflect light something terrible. When I was growing up, my dad had a few cars with white interior, and the package trays were always black. Just a suggestion.

I have a couple of AMT and MPC early '70's Camaros in my collection, as well as some MPC early '70's Firebirds in various degrees build, from unbuilt, to restorable. One of my projects is a '78 MPC Camaro Z28, which I am converting to one of my first cars. I cleaned up the body, and cut in the T-tops. I have to find a flat hood for it, and a few odds and ends.

How about a '71 Camaro SS396 2 'n 1 based off of the new tool Camaro. If they tooled up a non-Rally Sport front fascia, it would "sell like cattle".

Nice work!!! I like those cars too, and I have to build one of mine in the future.

Cary, I have restored many a gluebomb, as well as building them as a kid. The AMT '67 Fairlane is definitely a rare kit, and depending on the degree of glue burn, a clean replica stock build might not be feasible. In looking at the pictures, this one is definitely welded together. On the case of that interior, I would not attempt to take it apart. The seats look pretty clean. If they are in the proper place, I would leave it as is, and treat it like a kit where the seats were moulded in the tub. I would do a putty repair of the sink marks in the corner of the interior tub, clean up the glue joint with sandpaper, an x-acto knife and a file, prime, paint, and detail it to the beat of your ability. I would leave those tail lamps there, and tape over them, do the body work in small sections, trying to save the emblems and detail. prime and paint. The windshield has glue burn in it, it may have to be cut out. I have made attempts to remove "welded in parts" from glue bombs, and destroyed them in the past trying to save them. I have been successful in restoring them too. In the past, I restored a '67 Fairlane several years ago, and it was quite gratifying. I have an original '66 and another '67 in line for a restoration, as well as '66 and '67 AMT Cyclone annuals to re-do. I am using a new tool Fairlane powertrain and chassis under this '66 Cyclone annual. It took a little cutting and pasting here and there, but it allowed me to get an incomplete model up on its wheels. I have to finish this one. . For some reason, I am not crazy about the newer tool '66 Fairlane and '67 Cyclone. The roof looks a little fuuny on both of them, even though they have excellent chassis and engines. Good luck on the '67 Fairlane resto. I look forward to seeing more. It can be saved, but it is going to take a lot of work.

Very Nice!!!!

Very nice!!!!

Exquisite!!!!!

John, You are absolutely right about the panel between the trunk lid and the rear seat. I may attend to that, but personally, I do not want to cut the body, but I may have to attend to the flipper panel, as this bugs me a little. I grew up with the cars, as my uncle had a '62, '64, and '65 convertible, I drove my Dad's '62 Hardtop when I was in high school, and one of my cousins had a '58 Hardtop. The problem is that this is a 56 year old model, and the plastic is quite brittle, and I have already cracked it on a couple of places. It has been repaired, and is in primer now. I do not want to over work it and crack it again.

Kind of funny, Today, I purchased a '71 Ranger XLT pickup. I could have gotten the '70, or the '72, but I bought the '71 because it is the only long bed in the series, and I wanted the sport wheel covers for a '70 Ford XL project I plan to do, and they are the only ones available in scale. The kit will also yield the proper wheelbase for another project, the restoration of an AMT '76 Ford F350, where I want to re-do the wheelbase on the chassis and bed, I started on the restoration by correcting the windshield, and cleaning it up. Now I can properly cut the chassis and bed, as well as make up the bed inners, using the Mobieus kit as a guide. I have seen a few of the AMT kits re-done, as well as several of the Mobieus kits built, and I can say they are very nice when properly built. I am happy with my '69.

One thing about working with old kits, you cannot leave well enough alone. Over last weekend, I started clearing out the mould separation lines, and deepening the door and trunk openings, and one thing led to another, I added the body separation lines between the fenders and cowl, the panel that covers the void when the top is down, the headlamp and tail light bezels. Raoul, the way I did this is that I looked at the reference photos of the car, and drew the lines on the unpainted car with a ball point pen. Once I was satisfied with the shape, I used an used x-acto knife to scribe the lines into the body, the first one with the sharp end of the knife, and several others with the back side if the knife, working slowly. Once I was satisfied with the work, I leveled everything down with a 4-way sanding stick. I think it came out well. On the one-to-one, there is a lot of leading, particularly on the front fascia, and rocker panels. Unlike modern cars, there are no seams here. While doing that, I blocked the body, to ensure it was straight enough to take paint, especially around the panel separation, and I worked the hood edges to line up with the fenders and front end. I laid a coat of primer on the car today, and other than a couple of scratches on one of the quarter panels and a sink mark I missed on the left front fender. As my funds are pretty tight, I am going to use some paint I have on hand. I am thinking about "accessorizing the car" with some period parts that could have been bought from the Ford dealer's parts department in the early '60's. The interior is next. I want to just sharpen it up a bit. It is going to represent the standard two-toned vinyl '60 Thunderbird Interior trim. John, if it was not for seeing your beautiful '59, I would not have gone so deep on this one. I think that you are going to like this one.

I picked this one up at our club meeting. It cleaned up nicely, and I have already made plans for it. The car is pretty rare as a model and as a one to one. fortunately, all that was missing on this one was one wheel cover, which I am not going to use anyway. The chrome did not hold up, so I may strip it, clean it up, and send it out for re-chroming, so I have plenty of time to work on it.

I found a set of them in my travels several years ago. I am going to use them on a resin '61 Dodge Hardtop in my stash.