Dennis Lacy

This is RAD!!!

When comparing this kit to Revell’s 41 Willys Pickup, one area I much prefer about the Revell is the short bed and more abbreviated fenders. Now I’m wondering how this would look with a larger radius on the front outer corners of the fenders? Nice work making the wheels steer!

Very nice start! The shorter bed has much better proportions and it looks better with the little running boards ahead of the rear fenders deleted. I also really like the front fender and supercharger mods! 😎

Thanks, Tim. All those nice sentiments mean a lot coming from you! This is a much simpler model than I tend to build (in terms of modification and fabrication) and I had a laid-back, fun time with it. I’m stoked with how it turned out and it reminded me that just because I’m capable of building heavily modified models, they don’t all have to be. The rear wheels are from AMT’s 49 Ford. I don’t know if they’ve been in there since the original issue but at least since the 90’s. Thank you and so cool of you to say. I hope so! Thank you so much for all of that. I try to make my kit-bashing look as cohesive as possible. Thanks! I think “sanitary” is a great compliment. Thank you! My Dad built models back in the 60’s when these kits were originally issued. He still has a handful and this is how he did them, albeit with brush painted bodies. 🤣

@bill-e-boy This sounds like a fun project. There was a resurgence of interest in early Ford 4-cylinder performance in the 60’s thanks to the formation of the Forever Four Cylinder club. They even ran a rail dragster. ARDUN never originally made a Model A/B head but they do exist now as a modern day creation. I knew a guy that ran one in his 29 Roadster Pickup. It sure looked neat! Inspired by that, some years back I created an ARDUN 4 in scale using a Revell block and a head & rocker cover from a Revell 50 F1 Pickup kit with a scratch built intake. I put it in an old Revell parts pack Dragmaster frame. I’ll leave a few pics to help inspire your conversion.

I didn’t know you were awarded custody of this body. 😆 Neat to see it getting built!

This project came about to participate in an AMT Trophy Series build-off on the niche forum, Traditional Rod and Kustom In-Scale. It wasn’t necessary to use an original Trophy issue, reissues were welcome as long as the original release was in the Trophy series. I started with the most recent retro reissue of AMT’s 1940 Sedan and set out to make a generally period correct Gas class competitor focused on about 1961. To achieve that the following changes were made - AMT 36 Ford optional Pontiac engine block/trans. AMT parts pack Pontiac engine heads, valve covers, front cover and Spalding Flamethrower dual coil distributor. AMT 32 Vicky 2x6 log intake. Revell 40 Ford Stromberg carbs. Replicas & Miniatures scoops. AMT 40 Willys Lehman cam-driven water pump. Revell 32 Roadster headers. - Kit stock front wheels. AMT 49 Ford tires, special narrow slicks and rear wheels. - Kit roll bar, auxiliary gauge panel and tachometer. AMT 49 Ford steering wheel. - Kit optional solid grill panel. Shaved trim and running boards. Revell 40 Ford door handles, trunk handle and fuel cap. AMT 40 Coupe tubular rear bumper. Front bumper and brackets shaved with drilled stubs to mount a tow bar. - Kit optional red tinted glass. - AMT 40 Ford Coupe add-on left side exhaust pipes with rearmost tailpipe sections and tips from Revell 40 Fords. - Various AMT retro decals. - Tamiya rattle cans, Pearl Light Blue and Racing White. Thanks for looking and comments welcome!

My last post in this thread was November 2 of last year, back on page 22. At that time I was just needing to paint the roof insert flat black and blackout the underside of the body, hood top and firewall. Well, look what finally happened today. It only took 10 months! 🙃

Got the last of the details finished for this project. At this point the only things holding up final assembly is needing to paint the front and rear window trim and then polishing & waxing the body. Engine is glued down for good along with the radiator and hoses. The connector pipes from the headers to the exhausts are installed and painted. Finished chassis. The undersides of the body, fenders, hood and grill are painted flat black. After some arm twisting of my friend Ed at Drag City Casting, I convinced him to make me 30 sets of interior door handles and window cranks that he used to supply with his now discontinued tuck & roll interior sets but still had the molds handy. I received those last week. I had previously come up with the door handles so I fixed up 4 window cranks with pins, “chromed” them with a Molotow pen then installed. Last but not least, mounted an early 60’s license plate to the custom rear bumper. Hope to have it finished and Under Glass this weekend.

I think this is the best approach I’ve seen to the streamliner body. Good thinking! Ya know, as an original Trophy Series kit, this definitely qualifies for the KISS group build and nobody has entered a Double Dragster yet…

More progress. Started by painting the exhaust pipes with a combination of a small brush and a toothpick with good ol’ Testors silver. While the silver paint was drying I assembled the interior except for the shifter (which I failed to prepare) and the window cranks because I have a better solution coming. Then, I assembled the chassis including the exhaust tips and rear bumper. The engine isn’t permanently installed but I couldn’t resist seeing how it looked sitting in place. After all of that I also couldn’t resist mocking the car up with the decorated and clear coated body.

Great looking roadster and extra impressive considering it’s an AMT body. I had written AMT 32’s off years ago as Revell put out their far superior line, but every once in a while someone comes along and proves you can make a nice looking model out of them. The Revell interior and wheels help a bunch as does the great color choice.

This turned out absolutely fantastic! Excellent attention to detail throughout and the one thing I think that makes it look better than the actual car is the pie crust slicks out back. The back tires on the actual car (while period correct) were wimpy looking but those larger pie crusts make it look extra tuff! Plus, you actually used a 32 body, so there’s that… 😜

Awesome! Glad you’re over there checking it out, too. Some of us OG’s are trying hard to get the activity flowing again over there. It’s been nice lately thanks to this build off.

We’ve been having our annual humid/tropical week out here in Sunny SoCal but back on Tuesday afternoon I had a window that felt pretty good so I sprayed clear coat. Should polish and wax nicely in a few weeks. In the meantime there’s a chassis and interior to finish. 😎

Made some solid progress today. Started by polishing the dash and then installed the kits option accessory gauge panel which was detailed with gauge decals from Revell’s 32 5-Window. This kit comes with a racing tachometer but it doesn’t have any way to mount it, but, the sister 40 Coupe kit has a column mounted tachometer so I used that with a decal from Revell’s most recent 32 Roadster. Then, I moved onto assembling and detailing the engine. The carb scoops were chromed with a Molotow chrome pen, along with general touch up to the other chrome parts. I just couldn’t resist seeing how the finished engine looks between the fenders. I think that should work!

Today I was able to get the decals installed. Going into it I had no idea what I was gonna do for a layout so I got out about a dozen AMT Retro-Deluxe decal sheets and let them speak to me. I didn’t want to use white because it would clash with the cream white accents throughout the car so I decided to use red to tie in with the windows. The “67” and “A/G” come from the Salt Shaker 37 Chevy Coupe, “Pontiac Powered!” From the 36 Ford Coupe/Roadster and the “ISKY Equipped” from the 49 Ford Coupe. It was very common for these cars to be sponsored or campaigned by a local garage so I used a Sunoco Service decal from the most recent issue of the 34 Pickup.

The last couple of days I was able to get the body in color. First, by spraying the inner fender aprons and grill area with Racing White and then following up with the Light Blue Metallic. Cut it super close, too, with not a drop of blue to spare in the can. Just enough to get 3 even coats. Next step, decals!

Last night I couldn’t help posing the chassis parts, wheels and tires together for a sneak peak. Just need to paint the exhaust system. I also sat the engine block in the frame to see how the Champagne Gold and Racing White look together. Today I thoroughly wet sanded the body pieces with 1000 grit and sprayed on 2 wet coats of primer for a nice, smooth surface. Tomorrow, paint!

Paint continues. Over the weekend I handled the fiddly detailing of the wheel hub centers, lug nuts, starter and oil filter (both molded with the block), steering wheel emblem and trim ring and the springs. I also was able to swipe a Revell 1940 gauge panel decal from their 32 5-Window (which has an optional 40 dash), cut the individual gauges out and apply them to the AMT dash, as well as, add some era appropriate racing decals. Yesterday I sealed all of these pieces with Tamiya gloss clear which adds a nice level of richness to the Light Metallic Blue and Champagne Gold. &nbsp Today I masked off the white areas of the frame and sprayed the rest matte black. Now all that’s left is the tedious task of hand painting the exhaust silver. Can’t wait!

Yesterday I was able to mask the white parts of the interior tub and get the floor, package shelf and outside sprayed flat black. I also masked the blue part of the dash and got the recessed areas sprayed racing white.

Painting continues. At lunchtime I sealed the frame rails with gloss clear and this evening pulled all of the tape. Stage One was a success. Next, mask all the white parts and spray everywhere else flat black then carefully brush paint the exhaust silver. I also hit the “upholstery” with flat clear and pulled all of the tape, too. Just like the frame, mask all the white and spray the floor and package shelf flat black.

Painting continues. I had to decide how to approach the frame. Because of the molded on and glued on exhaust, masking the frame to spray the floor areas would be a massive pain. I decided the best way would be to paint the frame rails and front area the accent color I wanted and after that mask those areas and just spray the entire center flat black. I also masked the floor and rear shelf of the interior tub and the spring areas of the axles. Here’s a Quick Look at how the main blue will look with the off-white accent.

This past Sunday afternoon was spent doing all of the final sanding and clean up to prep everything for paint with an intermission run to Pegasus Hobbies to get said paint. Laid all the bare plastic parts out in a “yard sale” pose. There’s not a lot to these old AMT kits! There were also two final mods. The first being sanding away the poorly rendered speaker grill and glovebox clock/trim. No interest in trying to detail that! The second being filling the outer half-round notches in the bumper brackets (the custom bumper only uses the inner notches) and generally fixing up the shape of the brackets. Yesterday all of the parts made it into primer followed by the body pieces today. Today also saw some parts get color. The same blue will be used on the body & fenders. If the background scenery looks different, that’s my welding table at my shop. I do all my spray painting at work. 😎

Thanks! That pesky lower hose is easy to overlook. Heck, half the time the kits don’t even include it! 🤣