Dennis Lacy

Forget the model as a whole, the belly pan on its own is gonna be a work of art!

The more T Buckets the better! The late 60’s and 70’s saw them get really dorky. Do your worst! ?

Excellent Ivo tribute, Dave! ? Clever work on modifying the headers to fit the Nailhead and I love your solution to make the top fit properly. That makes a world of difference!

Thanks! The slicks will definitely be black wall. I did see @Dave Darby Ivo tribute T. Very cool!

Now there’s an idea! Maybe I should give it a try? ?

UPDATE! A little more work on the T Bucket. Added a slightly modified Revell ‘40 Ford steering gear box and a pitman arm of unknown origin. I will wait to build a drag link rod up to the front axle until after the chassis is final assembled. Changed the steering wheel to a Cragar 3-spoke from the old Monogram ‘32 Roadster. Decided to glue the bed to the cab and I’ll fill the seam. Many of the full scale buckets had the bed molded to the cab wether made from original steel or fiberglass. Inside the bed I added a heavy reinforcement strip and a smaller one on the underside. Did other busy work like smooth out the underside of the interior tub (unused alignment posts, copyright, etc), smoothing the frame rails and knocking down all their sharp corners and various other clean up. Here’s some mock ups with the latest work which looks much more tight and fitted to my eyes than previous. Time to knock it down and put *some* of the chrome in the stripper (yes, I’m actually going to leave some plating on this one!) and do final prep on the rest.

Totally bitchin, Alan! All of your changes make the truck everything it should have been. It’s a serious looking drag strip truck now! Especially love how the dark center Americans look against the shiny red paint and the Blue Streak slicks.

That’s the target year. The later into the 60’s you go things get goofy. That’s exactly what many people did back then. I don’t think they cared because the parts were easy to come by.

@Speedpro I had one of those Ford F-150 kits back in the mid 90’s. Had a green truck on the box top with all the custom body parts and billet wheels. I still remember the Predator carb and air filter set up from it. I held on to that and the Holley valve covers for years but the parts went MIA along the way. ? Would love to have another set but no way I’m paying current asking prices for those pick up kits! ? Anyways, excellent choice! I tried to think of an induction set up to suggest for you guys and completely forgot about this. It’s actually kind of a PITA coming up with small block Ford multi-carb set ups. Last Christmas I got one of the MPC now AMT ‘88 Mustang GT’s and I was stoked to find an optional dual 4 barrel induction.

Stance is perfect!

Thanks! I’ve been needing to get back to hot rods. Not that my streak on newer cars is over. I very much intend to finish the ‘90 Mustang and ‘65 Nova. Just needed a simpler project as a breather. As for the rear spring over the axle, that’s how all Model T’s and A’s were arranged from the factory. Common practice in hot rods since the beginning, too. It’s also fairy common to put the spring ahead of the axle. All depends on packaging constraints but you will get the best right quality with the spring behind.

It’s been on my mind for a while now to build a proper mid-60’s traditional ‘23 T Bucket. Basically ever since I picked up one of the many reissues of the old Monogram - now Revell kit for the first time EVER last year. Yeah, hard to believe I’ve never had one of these kits! Then again, it’s only fairly recently that I’ve taken any interest in T Buckets. I thought forever that they were dumb but then I saw a few pictures of some done just right and realize how cool they can be. For what it’s worth, I started with this issue: The first thing was to come up with a plan. All the recent issues of the kit suffer from 70’s era “updates” which don’t do the car any favors. Here’s a rough mock up with the front wheels and tires from the recent Atlantis (former Revell) Mooneyes dragster along with rear mags and slicks from Monogram’s Boothill Express show rod. The kit small block Chevy has the blower from Revell’s ‘29 Roadster precariously stacked on top. One of the things I don’t care for in this kit (regardless of issue) is the front axle set up, specifically because of how ridiculously WIDE it is due to the spindle design. I thought the car would look much better with the track width narrowed. I trimmed out the original front frame area and fit the tube cross member with bitchin perch detail from the extra frame in the Mooneyes dragster. The dropped front axle and split wishbones are from Revell’s ‘29 Roadster. The molded brackets were cut off from the ends of the wishbones, .040” pins inserted and then some simple tabs added to the bottom of the frame rails. Now for everyone’s favorite part of scale hot rod building, the motor! The kit comes with a small block Chevy which is good with me so I kept the block, trans and heads as a foundation. The molded timing cover/water pump lump got cut off and replaced with the finned cover/pump and belt drive from the Revell ‘29 Roadster. Also from the ‘29 Roadster is the complete 6-71 blower set up. Mickey Thompson valve covers of unknown origin with separate breathers added top off the heads. Shotgun dragster headers from AMT’s Chevy parts pack engine handle the exhaust while the magneto is from the AMT old tool ‘57 Chevy optional 409. The kit already has a quick change axle with split wishbones and early Ford brake plates so I will use all that as is with one tiny modification which was to shorten the tabs on the spring to suck it down against the axle to lower the back just a bit. Got the basic chassis rolling on all 4 tires. Thankfully there was plenty of room for the blower drive behind the radiator! And here’s a full mock up with body in place. I’m quite happy with the stance and proportions. I think it looks like a traditional T Bucket should before they got weird with lanterns and other paraphernalia hung on them. That’s all for now. Next I’ll be fitting a steering box and building linkage along with sorting out some other details like dashboard, lights, license plate, etc.

I don’t know how I missed this one, Alan, but I’m glad I found it. Everything is so right-on. Stance, proportions, color, parts choice. You nailed it!

@bill-e-boy Chassis is looking fantastic! Also really like how you finished the bed floor. Very nice! @Speedpro The small block for KK’s pickup is turning out great. I like how you picked out the brass core plugs and “plated” the servo cover on the side of the C4. Looking forward to seeing what induction you change to. Needs a “billet” air filter.

My intuition tells me it won’t look nearly as cool as a hiboy. Great looking mock up. I’d just go with that.

So neat that you got to see the Ingalls in person. As Ed purchased the car it had been fit with a 283 Chevy small block mated to an early Ford 3-speed trans. After some maintenance he took it to Monterey and ran it in that configuration and said the Chevy performed excellent and temps stayed cool and solid. After restoring it and installing the Flathead the car was plagued with overheating issues that kept him from fully enjoying it because he would have to bail out of every race session. Out of frustration he quit running it and put it up for sale. Fun Fact: The 283 small block that was removed from the Ingalls now resides in my own ‘32 Pickup and to this day every time Ed is around my truck he shakes his head and says he never should have changed it! ?

This is the Ingalls Special. It was owned (for a time), restored and ran at historic events by friend and fellow Pasadena Roadster Club member, Ed Dwyer. Based on a ‘31 Ford Roadster body and a DeSoto frame with early Ford axles. Originally powered by a Chrysler Flathead 6 but was restored with a hopped up Ford Flathead V8. A brief story at the link below and other articles and pictures can be found on The Web. https://barnfinds.com/american-pride-1937-ingalls-special/

Wow, the 5-Window looks so awesome with all those custom sedan parts! In fact, I think it looks way cooler being a coupe. Beautiful workmanship, too. So rad!

Man does that look WICKED!!! Stance is on-point. Love the rear 3/4 view with the prominent wheelie bars and chute. Looks like it’s ready to kick some ass! This car immediately made me think of “Fat Jack” Robinson’s pro street coupe from the 80’s.

Very clean build of the Grease convertible. I have this kit and it’s a bit disappointing that no hop up parts for the Flathead were included so it’s cool to see you added them and a dual exhaust. The recessed license plate is a simple detail that goes a long way.

Man, that is GREEN! Took me a couple of times coming back to get used to it but given the sort of coach built appearance of the B400 I think it works. The aftermarket Edelbrock details on the engine are really neat. Are you planning to go back and paint the running boards black? Are you going to add the soft top?

Very nicely done Turbo Coupe! The metallic gray and red accent go perfect together. These really were neat cars for their time. Multiple times my friends and I could be found harvesting the complete rear axles at the do-it-yourself salvage yards. They had the same 8.8 axle as our 5.0 Mustang’s but had much better 3.55 or 3.73 gearing (depending stick or auto) and rear disc brakes. With minimal effort they could bolt into a Mustang getting you a much needed gear upgrade and rear discs all in one shot. ?

Love seeing one of Ed’s excellent pickup cabs put to good use. Great looking Willys!

This is bad ass, Claude! Very nice work on the chassis but that psychedelic paint job makes it. Awesome creativity there!

That’s as nicely done as an AMT ‘49 Merc gets! Absolutely beautiful work and nice to see a color outside of red or blue.