Farmboy

I've gone ahead and made a template for the pickup bed cover. Based on this, I'll cut the rectangle for the bed 'walls'. I taped the template to the body and misted black primer so I had an outline to follow and this is the opening. Now to cut a long thin piece of styrene to make the bed wall. It will be one piece, rising to just below the fin height at the rear, resolving in to the body at the base of the rear window

This is the roof after shortening it. It looks like two cut lines, but there's only one and that's the line nearest the center. The other line is a beauty or character line in the front of the roof. It went together pretty well. Note also the B pillars are inset in to the sides of the body. A little filing should even out any discrepancies in the arc. I made a slight adjustment (about 1/16th of an inch) to take advantage of the headliner engraving. it just so happened that the amount to be removed lined up with a rib in the headliner. I couldn't pass it up.

The more I looked at the 300C, the more I thought it would lend itself well to an El Camino type of body. I had initially planned to use the rear window complete and removed it that way, but it now seems the build would look better with a longer bed. So... I left the cut back from the front of the roof because I didn't want to mess up the detail around the vent windows and top of the windshield that will need bmf during sanding operations. The roof will be shortened so the pillars line up (or closely line up) with the door edge and the roof mate with the front. I'll remove the part behind the pillars and square off the rear window. The box part of the build will not follow the slope of the trunk line, rather it will go horizontal. A quick eyeball shows it will be just below the height of the fins. This will mean removing the plastic that's there and building a rectangular frame to drop in. I'll put an aluminum (looking) slatted cover on it. The rear end will stay the same with the vertical trunk lines extending up to the side of the box. A door handle on the left will convey the side opening function so the whole back end doesn't need restyling. That's the plan....I'll post updates as I get them done. Think widening the wheelwells and adding a 2nd rear axle is over the top?

This is the trunk. The covers are for the t-top panels (for us detail freaks). The cover on the spare tire is raised back to show the tire print detail As for the suspension, she`s sleeping for the winter right now, and short of putting her on a hoist, there`s not a lot ot see. I can tell you that Revell's '79 Camaro 3 'n 1 Streetburner (85-2155) has it about right for the front end with gm's typical wishbone/shock setup, the kit rear end only needs the addition of a swaybar as shown here, easily added with carved styrene blocks and a length of styrene or brass rod hope this is what you needed. Mike

She's all original except for possibly for the mud flaps. She even still has the 1st generation space saver spare with original compressed air inflator can. If anyone needs a pic of that I'll shoot it and post it. The wheels were a factory Z-28 option in '79. The neat part is the Revell StreetBurner 79 Camaro has the correct 2-tone blue decals! As for the wheels, I found a set of gold chrome ones in a chevy lowrider kit. I'll be starting a build in a few weeks. I'll post progress in the proper forum. Now, where to find plaid paint.... note how uv affected the vinyl on the armrests. They're being replaced. the am radio face folds back so you can insert the 8-track

Here's the last of them on that laptop. I know I have additional car photographs from previous trips to Cuba, I'll scan and post whatever ones I find. Hopefully the quality will hold. Basically, I thought these pics may offer a few ideas to give new life to the odd glue bomb or maybe an interesting curbside. Hope they were of interest. Mike.

Most vehicles I saw on the road in Havana and other places were later model imports (Fiat, Lada, Skoda etc...). These old dinosaurs are getting fewer and fewer. The owner of the red chev said all of these older ones are kept going with Lada parts.

....here's a few more.

I finally found these pics on my other laptop, thought I'd share. I have more of different cars I'll post over the next few days.