seanyb505

Small 5 year hiatus. I pulled this out of the closet after I finally had the gumption to build a proper airbrush booth. We've only been in the new house for 5 years, so the timing is, uh, better late than never! I re sprayed the body with scalefinishes competition yellow, and airbrushed Tamiya x paint for the taped off black. The lines aren't as crisp as I'd really like, but they'll do the job on a shelf for the rest of my life lol. Body decals now underway. A couple smudges here and there, but they should clean up okay after clear. Funny enough, I only stumbled on this old thread while researching some decal locations! Finally, a little real life inspiration over the weekend!

Brilliant thinking on the mirrors

Your poor picture quality is better than my real life build quality!

I'd go to the dealership for the grand am, and leave with this!

Gorgeous build. One of my favorite modern car designs

Is the fiero a monogram tooling? I bought one of those 20 years ago and still haven't built it lol

I'm on board! Haven't made any progress on mine lately.

It is the revell version. It looks off in the picture as there's tape holding the radiator to the nose cone. I think it sit flat.

Trackable street car

After about 3 hours with the Taurus, here's where I stand. A bit of 2 steps forward and 145 steps back. - Thunderbird wheels scale to about 16" on the Superbird. Taurus (white) are about 17. Perfect. Tbird tires (I think I'm sticking with these) are 26" tall and 12" wide. Taurus tires are 27 and 11. If I can tuck the tires well into the body, the height difference won't show, at least perception-wise. Ground clearance may require some work. - Going to use bits of the ford chassis. Most before the firewall and most from the lateral roll bars rearward. This alone is going to take some time given I have no idea what I'm doing lol. I could slap the Superbird body on a less modified Taurus chassis, but I want it to be less stock car and more street car turned recreational track car. - Centering wheels in wheel wells is going to be tricky. Might have to measure this before chassis work. - sticking with the hemi, but going to use the Taurus oil pan and dry sump. Debating Plymouth or Taurus radiator and fan. Plymouth has additional support for the body. - Depending on how the engine compartment comes together, my front air dam may need modifying. - Discovered I lost a fender scoop. Going to attempt some sort of vent scratch build to sit flush in the top of the fender. If I was getting close to final vision for the car two days ago, I've got some hacking to do now... Also came across a fun write up on the car from a couple months ago: https://www.dodgegarage.com/news/article/heritage/2024/10/a-look-back-the-iconic-yearone-goldberg-superbird-tribute.html

New wheels are in. Black wheels and tires are from a 1:25 Thunderbird nascar kit, white wheels are from an old 1:24 Taurus nascar. Tires are the same. The Taurus tires are taller and more narrow. I've got a few kits ahead on the schedule, but this looks way better and gives me gumption to not let the superbird sit another few years.

Decal design and execution looks amazing! What kind of nail art pack did you use?

Yeah yeah lol. Still for $50, might as well just buy something that's already available for $20.

Yikes. For those prices might as well buy a kit for cheaper. Jeff Burton on the way next week.

12 years later, this build is off the shelf again. I've determined the 1:25 Thunderbird wheels and tires are too small. So now I have two ideas: - Buy some mid-90s 1:24 Nascar model - Aftermarket nascar wheels & tires. If I go this route, are there any fictitious options that have the look and feel, but maybe scale out to 16" or 17"? I don't want to go with the modern 18" BBS wheels. Need D-Window for this. Once I source wheels I can get back to determining stance, then drivetrain, then interior. After that just build it like a normal model!

In body shops I've seen vibrating shelves that can mix a large number of paints at once. This gave me an idea to build some mini version that would rotate, similar to a rotary tumbler. Last year I picked up a small charcoal grill that included an electric rotating spit, like this: Grill. The mechanism comes off the grill and doesn't spin that quickly, maybe twice a minute. I'm wondering if this slow rotation would be enough to keep bottled paints properly mixed if left running overnight or for extended periods of time. Basically turn it on Friday night, do modeling on Saturday. I'd need to fashion some some of shelf and retaining system, but there doesn't seem to be many available options to draw inspiration from. Just vibrating vortex mixers that do a single bottle at a time and cost more than the free supplies I already happen to have on hand. I suppose the main issue would just be the slow speed. Whether I could speed it up by switching gears or not, is this a dumb idea to keep paints ready to use whenever I actually sit down to work?

Next up I feel has to be body work which I'm really not looking forward to. I feel all the innards can be slightly sloppy, but if the body looks sloppy, it'll be really distressing to showcase. The ultimate parking space for this is going next to a 1:18 Autoart C6.R and a 1:18 Spark Audi R10. It'll look really bad if it doesn't look halfway decent next to those.

Last update for now. Finished the roll cage install, corrected the seat belt orientation and installed. The rear bars didn't quite like to sit all the way into the rear shelf, so bit of blue tape holding them down while the other half of the testors tube glue sets lol. I've also been checking along the way for fitment issues as I've seen a few people get tripped up. With the windows in the body it might not be model show perfect, but with enough gallons of testors tube glue I should be okay. At least for an office knick knack on a top shelf of a book case with no books.

Putting the chassis together now. This was painted with rustoleum semi-gloss, which is far too glossy. Oh well. I had a little trouble getting the front right corner to sit flush, so it was taped down while copious amounts of testors tube glue set overnight. Also threw in some splashes of color to the electronics. Nothing special. Is there a yellow warning label there? Idk, probably not! ? I really like the color of the headers. Instructions call for gunmetal, this was a silver/gold mix. Again not accurate, but visually looks good enough.

I still need to paint the rear tail lights something smokey, but here's my attempt at jazzing up the front lights. I used metallic gray here instead of regular gray. I couldn't quite find a good reference photo of the inner light surface as most pictures have either highly processed glare on the lenses, or the lights are actually on. Main bulbs are a mix of testors yellow and gold. Not perfect, but hoping it's small enough once the model is completed that it won't stand out as painted by a two year old. Also threw some aluminum on the inner bulbs to further break up the head light bucket.

Back to the C7.R, and interior work this time. Added a little detail to the drink bottle. A little clumsy, but will be buried and will provide visual items to a black hole of an interior. But nowhere near as clumsy as this seat belt arrangement lol. First time using tape for a seat belt. A small slice of sprue painted silver serves as the "clasp" lol. It's so crummy that it cracks me up looking at it. Keen viewers will also realize it's even installed upside down on the seat ?. This has been corrected. ? Also tried to give the dash a little color as there's no decals. Looked pretty good until I slipped the tooth pic adding green at the last second. Oh well. Highly doubt it will ever be noticed. For the dash I originally painted it testors flat gloss black with a brush, but the visible strokes in the paint were too much. Rustoleum Flat black here. Surface looks grainy, but I think that's the low light again.

A little inspiration! And if the base model comes with Pilot Sport 4 all-seasons, then that's good enough for my station wagon! Coming from Pilot Super Sports obviously the ultimate grip is decreased, but for spirited daily driving to the office they work really well. These are 245/45/17 on an 8" wheel. Maybe a smidgen too much, but I'm glad I tried the larger size. I would have always wondered. I'll definitely step down to a 225/45/17 next time.

These pictures are making it look worse than it really is, I promise! Discs and calipers behind an unpainted wheel. I decided to paint the Calipers gold just to give a little pop. Again, probably not super accurate, but visually stimulating enough. Was happy I got the decals on well though!

Yikes - my phone takes huge, grainy low light pictures. Anyway. here's some progress on the air box. I debated ordering some carbon fiber decals and some solvaset, but determined it was just over the line for the spirit of this build. Went out and bought some metallic gray for the box. Taped up the ridge and painted steel for the top airbox straps, then used tin foil and super glue for the intake hose clamps. Just detailed enough!

Engine work. The basic testors kit didn't come with a few colors, so I tried to mix a few of the basic paints. Mildly successful, and it'll definitely pass the sniff test. Did my best on the pulleys with the basic testors white brush lol. Luckily while drying it I pulled the bristles out of the handle, meaning I got to go to walmart and upgrade.