horsepower

go to the train section in your local hobby shop, or the model airplane section and find some small decals of the proper size, you can also find some tiny decals that can pass for underhood informational decals, they little decals have such small writing the only way anyone will know what they say is if they carry a super magnifying glass.

Since the resin is a lot softer than the styrene plastic, using some 80 grit paper on a flat sanding board should thin it out pretty quickly, or if you have access to a belt sander and a light touch, then just switch to finer paper to finish it, or build an inner structure out of.010 to smooth out some of the coarse sanding.

the Bel-Air hardtops have been done in several different years and scales but there's only been one release of the Bel-Air sedan in '56 and it's been decades sinc we've seen that one, and the last sedan we saw wasn't the Bel-Air, but the middle of the road 210.

Thanks, that's a pretty good idea, I may try the same idea with a set of small block valve covers. It even gives me an idea of how to do a close copy of an engine Kendigit Design did on a LS series engine. Super job, that soft yellow gives it that Dad's car look and multiplies the sleeper persona. And you really killed it with the engine, I like the valve covers, where did they come from with the Chevrolet lettering on them?

Great build, I was thinking of using Krylon Metalcast silver base and a transparent blue for the steering wheel and shift knob, I used the Orange Anodizing color over that base for a Cragar metalflake wheel in a Hemi Hydro build a while back. That's a really coarse metallic silver and makes a good metalflake simulation under a candy color, for a model, to enhance the metalflake effect I use a good coat of clear before putting the transparent color coat on, it adds a little more depth and sparkle to the effect.

Super job, that soft yellow gives it that Dad's car look and multiplies the sleeper persona. And you really killed it with the engine, I like the valve covers, where did they come from with the Chevrolet lettering on them?

Almost all the 1:1 plum crazy cars I've seen had white seats and door panels and the lower dash, with black carpets rear package tray, and upper dash, oh yeah, thejjy had white headliners too. There's more than one paint code that used the plum crazy name, and one thing that might be confusing you is what looks like a fairly fine metallic on a real car looks like metalflake on a model. Plum Crazy is a metallic color, I have painted a lot of it over the years, we started running it as the primary color on our dirt stock cars in 1969, when the color was first released, in fact that first purple paint was a custom mix because none of the paint companies had a mixing formula for it yet, we also painted our '55 ChevyBel-Air tow car to match the race car, it was really popular with the public, the first race car that color was also a '55 Chevy.l

Looking good, I kinda like the "optional" four speed hydramatic transmission yours came with (lol). I'm not sure that little anemic four cylinder had enough power to even turn the pump in that tranny in stock form, but it's a cute addition to a little dilemma, there aren't many kits that have the stock trans to rob from.

Two four barrel carbs like the ones in the Rat Roaster kit would work, or for a vintage look the four Strombergs like the ones on the Ed Roth Beatnik Bandit would be perfect. In fact the entire Oldsmobile engine from the Beatnik Bandit would make a great choice for a vintage street rod look.

That's good, all I want is the body and bumpers (or mid seventies Camaro bumpers) for a late model sportsman oval track racer.

Don't forget the water bypass hose that goes from the boss on the top center of the water pump to the front center of the intake, it's the same size as heater hose and is very easy to make with a piece of insulated wire bent in a 90 degree angle.

As long as we're wishing MPC would bring a one of a kind kit back, how about the 1974 Pinto, it was a sedan body style with the deluxe side moldings and chrome window trim, and stainless wheel opening trim. I want another one (I have one already) to make a version of the '71 I had when I got married, it went through four different major rebuilds, and different versions of custom and stock paint (one of the perks of owning your own body shop). It's a pretty simple job to do, just use the front and rear lower valances and little bumpers from the earlier Runabout kits. And if you want to get really technical use the interior tub and seats from the 1971 Wonder Pony kit from AMT, this was the only sedan body AMT offered, but it had the plain Jane style body and bumpers. But did have the correct '71 interior, with the different tiny arm rests and the plain transmission tunnel without the catch all mini console under the dash in front of the shifter.

Thanks for the clarification, I knew there was discussion at one time about the COPO having needed Yenko parts.

Has anyone got an idea about what will be different for the gasser version of the '57 Ford?

Wasn't the Nova a COPO, not a Yenko, but the discussion was that it was closer to a Yenko than a COPO because it had some options a COPO didn't, but the Yenko's did?

Alan, before painting the car show community with a wide brush,or a roller I'd suggest a little better research, in the recent past there have been several AMBR finalists that came from individual garage builders, and even one from a High School shop program, and the past couple of years the winners have appeared to be very close to out of the box garage builds, but the biggest difference is the detail work, and attention to the little subtle changes that take a really close look to find. And it's kinda ironic that you made the remark about reproduction sheet metal not being close enough for the purists to use, because again let me give you a little known background bit of trivia on reproduction parts, when thereproduction industry first started one of its initial offerings was parts for a 1932 Chevrolet roadster, to say these were the usual offerings that only a hot rod builder might use in a pinch is a little off. In fact to showcase their offerings, the company built a totally stock roadster using body parts that was done using the manufacturers firewall tag as the only production line part from Chevrolet, it won it's class and this was at one of the countries top concourse type shows. They did forfeit their award and disclose that the car was officially built using reproduction tin, but as far as building a real car it would still be considered a 1932 Chevrolet by the DMV. Many street rod builders really prefer the reproduction steel to original junk, because of the better quality control than the factory did back then, and because they don't have to correct or repair decades of neglect and abuse, or improperly done work before being able to start on a project. So I think that last stock deuce coupe is safe now, thanks to the hot rod industry who want a project that is miles ahead in quality of what Henry had to offer.

Beautiful car and shows a lot of talent and searching for the proper details, only thing that detracts a little is it looks like somehow the chassis locators or something caused the chassis to be assembled a little to far forward under the fenders, at first I thought it was the kit had the rear wheels off, but it's not just the rear wheels, it's all four. And if the chassis moves a tad to the rear it will even make more room for the front tires to turn in before having an interference problem with the fenders. The only thing I have to ask is why did you hide the golf clubs? I know that the owner just have to have a set.

For the wheels, do an eBay search for; fujimi tires and wheels, and click the description box. I know I've seen about the same set on there, but you'll have to paint the centers unless you get lucky and they're one of the two piece sets with just outer hoops and unpainted centers, and you might have some trouble finding the proxis tread pattern in wide enough tires, I've picked up a couple of sets but not that wide on Wal-Mart brand diecast of the Pontiac two seat roadster, and it's Saturn counter part, I got lucky and found them in a clearance aisle for $4.00 each.

Maybe it's what you have planned, but I can see the lower parking/signal lights from the Cadillac bumper being used incorporating that part of the bumper as light pods, and turn them into modern projection beam style headlights. Stripping the chrome and doing a little body work to the cut areas on the bumper then paint body color, and use either foil or good silver in the light buckets, I've heard of guys using alclad chrome with a brush in small spots like that with good luck. Keep on building it's really got that "Look" to it.

Thank you, she brought it home Monday night and I played with the body drooling over it for an hour, took ALL the stuff out of the box to check it out, and luckily felt something sliding down my leg (I'm still bed bound after surgery in January) and looked down just in time to see the tire bag slipping slowly away, it was being very carefully taken by our sneaky little two and a half year old miniature Dachshund, he got busted and luckily hadn't started chewing yet, this is the dog that it took us six months of buying every indestructible toy made before we finally found one he couldn't destroy in less than an hour. So I put the bags back in the box and marveled at the body, and for those that have seen the pictures and wondered about that Stinger hood scoop, it doesn't run onto the front header panel like it does in the artwork for the box, they probably never changed anything, but I don't remember my first issue of this body being so clean, I haven't found a body mold line that really need anything other than a pass or two of 800 paper, the worst one is across the upper rear edge of the deck lid, and the spoiler will cover that if I don't want to mess with it. Not really excited about the decals for the seat inserts, to me it's asking a lot for decal setting solution to get these to snuggle down into the molding on the seats and I don't think without setting solution they will even work enough to look right, but I'm sure someone who will prove me wrong. The other minor thing is that the air injection pump for the emissions control will have to be removed from the belt assembly and a small piece of styrene strip cut to fit in the place between the lower pulley and the alternator, the two four barrel carbed cars didn't have the air injection pump in place from the "factory". And a car with aftermarket tubular headers would be extremely rare to have an operational one still in place, most of the small block, and even the big block guys who had cars with them from the dealer took them off and stuck them in the garage. I came across the ones for my 2.8 Mustang II we built a strong motor for, and it was a pain to do all the work to hook one up to the four barrel manifold, also found three of them off the 2.3 Pinto's we had. Us old racers are almost as bad as a modeler about never getting rid of anything, and my wife says it's really bad when you have an old racer who also builds models, our parts boxes are much bigger.

There's some really interesting stuff in there, especially the different 1/24 scale figures for diorama displays. I was asking my wife how long she thought it would take some enterprising modeler to remove the wrench from the hands of the one lying on her back working under the car in a slinky dress, and putting her in the car instead. But it better have lay down seats I don't know of one with a wide enough back seat for that pose.

Thanks, now I can get my wife to drop by and see if the local shop has them yet.

Just curious, has anyone seen this on the dealer shelves yet? The release is scheduled for March and it's approaching the magic third week of March so it should be arriving anytime now.

Have any of the preferred dealers seen the Nickey Camaro kit on the shelf yet?

It would have been nice if they had used some of that money to re tool the chopped hardtop in the '50 Ford kit, a few of us older builders will actually remember seeing it, but it's been MIA since the first reissue/second release. I would have stepped up and bought one of these if the top was in it, but since I already have two of them still sealed, and I can pick up an older version that's virtually the same kit for fair amount less on Evil Bay it just doesn't make sense to me.