Phildaupho

I am anxiously awaiting posts with photos. It must be a great event as the Internet seems void of any reports. I am in a San Luis Obispo motel after a great top down trip down the west coast. North bound for home tomorrow.

VERY VERY IMPRESSIVE !!!! BRAVO

Very nice model. Great job on the trunk.

You are definitely the Roth miester. I have just looked at all your builds and all are outstanding. I have all the books about Big Daddy Ed Roth and at one time all the Roth kits. If I ever get the Beatnik Bandit built and it looks remotely like yours, I will be very happy

http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki I first started reading about cars in my dad’s Popular Mechanics magazines. My favorite issues were the ones that featured new cars and especially concept cars. Trying to raise the profile of their year old Corvette, Chevrolet built three special versions – a hardtop with roll up windows, a Nomad station wagon and a fastback coupe they called the Corvair. My model uses an R&D Unique Mini Exotic transkit mounted over an AMT chassis. I built it as a curbside as I have read no confirmation that the original even had an engine. The AMT Corvette sits very high requiring about a quarter inch of lowering. I took the easy route by channeling the body. The side-vents and exhaust outlet were opened up. Model Car Garage photo-etched headlight covers were swiped from an earlier C-1 build and aluminum tube exhausts were added. The real car has never re-surfaced and was probably cut up. The chassis may have been subsequently used under a stock Corvette. The paint is Model Master Custom Lacquer System White Primer, Diamond Green, Emerald Green and Ultra Gloss Clear. The R&D Unique Mini Exotic transkit was pretty good. There were a couple of thin areas but the body did not require too much clean up. I think the unique characteristics of the one of a kind Corvette Corvair were captured very well. The only real criticism I have is of vacuum formed windshield. Two windshields are provided but both fit poorly and had imperfections in the “glass” area

http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki I have always had a soft spot for ’57 Olds. My parents had a ’57 Olds Super 88 four-door sedan when I first got into building model cars and reading car magazines. It was in this car that my family drove across North America with one of those “air conditioners” hung on the side window. Also etched in my mind’s eye is a memory of seeing four young guys cruising on the freeway on a hot summer day in a two-tone green ’57 Olds hardtop station wagon. To turn that memory into reality I used an R&R resin kit. While I was at it I preformed some mild customizing by shaving some of the trim and installing an AMT parts-pak ’57 Buick grill. For a bit of realism I converted the molded headlights to lenses and reflectors. The stance was suitably lowered and parts-box custom wheels were installed. The kit only comes with a vacuum formed windshield so I had to fashion side and rear windows from sheet clear. The paint is Model Master Custom Lacquer System White Primer, Emerald Green, Diamond Green and Ultra Gloss Clear. NOTES regarding R&R KIT – PROS – The trim, body shape and proportions are quite well replicated. The bumpers, grill, headlights and taillights come chromed. R&R is the only game in town if you want a 57 Olds Wagon and certainly offers a huge range of car bodies that are not available elsewhere. CONS - The body had a lot of pinholes and rough areas Even though the chassis is identified as being for ’57 and ’58 Oldsmobiles, I had to shorten the rear of it substantially. The kit only comes with a vacuum formed windshield so I had to fashion side and rear windows from sheet clear. The leading edge of the rear door panel line was incorrectly scribed as a separate panel line rather than integral with the trailing edge of the front door. The rear window pillars needed to be realigned.

I have experience with three of the '53 Corvette kits being discussed. A number of years ago after recently returning to the hobby, I decided to build a '53 Corvette for my brother as he often said how much he liked the first Corvettes [i later found out he meant the '56 & '57 Vettes]. Anyway, I remember being in the hobby shop and trying to decided between the AMT and Monogram. As a kid I had always favored AMT but the salesperson convinced me the Monogram kit might be a better choice. Both myself and my brother were very pleased with how the model turned out. I made my own mesh headlight covers that were better than what comes in the kit but not accurate. I used the excellent Model Car Garage photo-etched covers on a later custom project. I am currently working on a trans-kit project that specifies the use of the AMT kit. I have to say it is an OK kit but I definitely prefer the Revell/Monogram for the body and trim items in particular. Something I do really like about the AMT kit however, is the very cool looking up-top and side curtains. By coincidence I am also helping a nine year nephew build the AMT Snap '53 Corvette. I consider this a great snap kit for a beginner and think in many ways results in a more realistic looking '53 Corvette than the AMT glue kit.

Is this longroof week or what? There sure have been a lot of very cool wagon and panel posts that last few days!!

Great looking phantom

Very nice work on a rarely seen subject

There have been many fine Cobra projects posted during the past year but this is the one that I would most like to see in person. Congratulations on a job very well done.

Excellent Cobra. Looks fantastic.

Beautiful model. Always one of my favorites. I saw the Sunoco Lola in action at Kent Washington summer of 1967

Very nice. Looking forward to completion photos.

Good job Cobraman. This has been a good year for 289 Cobras on the MCM forum.

I was disappointed to learn that there would be no beam axle with the Rat Roadster. That being said, there are many beam axles in other kits that can be adapted. My favorite is the beam axle and hairpins in the AMT '41 Woodie I used on a traditional Deuce. I also adapted the quick-change with mono-leaf transverse spring from the same kit. The kit has not yet arrived at my LHS here in Victoria BC Canada but I am looking forward to it. Every two years Victoria has one of the biggest Deuce Days anywhere with hundreds of '32's from all over North America on display around the Inner Harbor in mid July. The car modelling community has two Deuce model displays scheduled - one at an in door car show the first weekend of June and another at the host hotel for Deuce Days.

BRAVO - it looks so real and beautiful

Great work. I really like the photo of your Cobra production line. Harold Bradford sure does nice work on his resin parts and bodies but I am not sure if I have ever seen one of his own models.

Fantastic demonstration of scupture. My favorite part of model car building is building a car that does not exist in kit form.

Today I picked up the Revell of North America Ferrari 599 GTO which of course is the Revell of Germany kit molded in white. All things considered I can highly recommend this kit as a great value to anyone interested in building a 599 GTO. I bought the kit out of curiousity as I converted a stock 599 to GTO configuration over two years ago. Even as I was building that model I was made aware of resin conversions kits and that there would eventually be a Revell kit available. I have no regrets doing it my way but Revell did a very nice replicating this future classic especially the seats. photos of my 599 GTO http://public.fotki.com/phildaupho/models_of_sports_cars/ferrari-599-gto/

Congratulations on a fantastic historic racing Cobra replica

Great execution of a wild concept

You got everything right on your Deuce. Brovo.

Thanks Larry it was a fun project as I have been to Allen Grant's garage in Squim Washington and saw his full scale replicas. Yes I made my own decals except for the Ford lettering and V-8 on grill. I use the Testors decal program.

I made posts previously about the Cobra On the workbench http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=66468&hl= Under Glass http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=66929&hl= More photos at http://public.fotki.com/phildaupho/models_of_sports_cars/allen-grant-cobra-c/ To replicate the truck I used the currently available Revell Ed Roth ’56 Ford. I remember attempting this kit back when it was new in the early sixties. I recall that it was much more detailed and fiddly compared to the AMT and Johan kits I was used to. I am not even sure if I ever finished it. At the time I think it had small easily broken plastic pins to attach the wheels rather than the more common for the era metal axles. Even by today’s standards, for an almost half a century old kit, this ’56 Ford is surprising detailed. But I am not sure that it lives of to the old adage that it is only as good as the sum of its parts. The individual the parts and assemblies are really quite nice. I found they just did not go together as a whole all that well. It was fiddly then and still is. For this project the cab was converted to the big rear window version, which is trimmed with Evergreen, round styrene and has very thin plastic film “glass”. The kit has opening doors, which I wish more kits had but I glued the doors closed to add strength while opening up rear window. The pickup bed floor was separated from the box, as was the dash from firewall for easier painting. Many parts were de-chromed. The front bumper is rubber-covered wood and the side mirror converted from round to rectangular. I tried the dropped front axle but with the stock height rear, there was too much forward rake. In retrospect, I the truck would have looked better lowered at both ends. Because I had to use a fair amount of glue to get the running gear set there was no turning back once the “stock” stance was set. The decals were made with the Testor’s program and I used some images obtained from the Internet like the emblems and 1963 license plates. The trailer is the Round2 reissue of MPC ’76 Chevy Caprice with rope and chain from a model sailing vessel. In the first photo, the models are posed just as the real vehicles in front of the Shelby building in Venice California for the photo by Dave Friedman which appears in his book COBRA The Shelby American Original Archives 1962-1965. Standing beside the truck are Ole Olsen and Allen Grant.