W-409

...Or was it Mostly Old Parts And Rust...

This is going to be interesting, we don't see too many American Motors cars being built. Like the idea of opening doors, the start looks promising so this one should be a great looking Rambler when it's done. I'll be following...

These would pretty much all be must have kits for me. I really like Pickups, and would like to see some of these rare body styles being kitted. Especially that '46 Hudson and Studebaker Champ Pickups would be on top of my list. And if some model company could do this, it would be Moebius. I wish some day we'll have kits on some of these things. Hopefully.

I was following the build thread from start to finish and while I'm happy to see it being done, now I feel a bit strange as I can't go to the Army Vega thread to see if there are any new updates. Some people say that there is no such thing as a perfect model, but I have to say that this is at least very close to that. I can't point out a single thing that could be done better. This is definitely built with the idea that "Every part is a model by itself", and it pays off. In addition to that flawless detailing, your paint work is incredible, doesn't matter if we're talking about the beautiful smooth paint job on the body or frame, or how realistic the Alclad painted engine parts look. And that subtle weathering here and there really makes a big difference. The Vega looks like you could fire it up any moment and head to a local Drag Strip. Truly amazing piece of art. And last, thanks for sharing all of the WIP pictures with us, it was a great fun to follow a detailed build thread like that. Now I just can't wait to see your next build thread. I'm definitely going to follow that one as well.

Great to see that this kit is available! Had to get one of them also, so I ordered one from eBay. There was one seller with a realistic shipping cost to Finland, some other sellers and some online companies like Model RoundUp had pretty high shipping charges... Can't wait to have this kit on my hands!

Thanks! Removing the exhaust pipes was a lot of work and while doing that I kept thinking that I should have started with the Revell's newer '55 Chevy kit. But it was fun to build this old kit, trying to make it a bit more accurate at the same time. Yep, the kit headers are pretty cool, but I didn't use them either. My headers were also scratchbuilt from plastic rod and sheet styrene.

That start looks really good! I'd be very interested in seeing a build thread on that project, I built mine with the same engine as you're planning to. Even though the kit is a bit simple, it can be built into a decent model. Here is my version, some improvements were made to the kit during the build...

When I saw the thread title and who had posted it, I knew it's going to be amazing. I've always liked these 1st gen Thunderbirds, so it's great to see one built this nicely. As always, the paint and BMF work look flawless. Very nicely done T-Bird.

It's always nice to see these AMC cars built as models. I have some of them on my stash as well, so this is a great inspiration. Very nice and clean build, the color choice is just right and your paint job is looking excellent too. I like it.

That turned out great! Haven't seen many of these built, so nice to see one that has been done as nicely as this one. I agree with the others, the interior looks really good, but nice work on the exterior as well.

Great to see that the Duster is coming back! These are great kits, but they're not so easy to find anymore. I've had one 1970 grille laying around for a few years, as a friend of mine cast a few of those in resin and I got one of them. So now I can finally put that into a good use.

Wow that turned out flawless! Always great to see these rare kits being built, and this is one of the best builds that I've seen from this kit. Especially the sharp BMF work stands out as the car has so much chrome on it. Very nice job. Makes me want to start mine, which is a resin version though.

Wow, that looks fantastic even though it's not completely done! I'm not surprised at all that it took home the Best Engine award, as I couldn't imagine how one could build a better looking mill than that one. Very nice work. Following this thread from the start, it makes me feel like I'd like to build something with a bit similar idea. Which means that I'd like to try my hand at building a model with the idea of "every part is a model itself". And I have a couple of Trumpeter '63 Novas on my stash, they would make a perfect starting point for that kind of build, probably factory stock. Who knows, maybe some day? Anyway, congrats on making it to the show, and I can't wait to see when all of the last details are finished on it. Great work.

This looks like an interesting project. I built a 7.50 second roll cage on the same kit by using the kit's original roll bar as a starting point. It wasn't that hard actually, it was pretty fun too. Your 1:1 car looks great so this will be interesting to follow. Where did you get those front tires from?

...And today I saw this '65 Rambler American which is used as a daily driver all year round. Of course the winters around here are pretty rough for these classics, so it's not in a perfect condition anymore. But, it's still a million times cooler than any of the new plastic cars. Sorry for the horrible cell phone pics...

Last Friday while coming back home after visiting a local Speed Shop, I saw a Duster: And on Saturday was one of the first really warm days around here. So I went for a little Cruising with my Pickup Truck and saw these... It looked like there was a lot of cars in traffic! On the same day I also saw some others where I wasn't able to take a picture, or I was, but I missed... They were at least a red '63 Oldsmobile, Triumph Herald, '68 or '69 Roadrunner/GTX/Satellite or something like that, light blue '65 Valiant Convertible, Opel Rekord C Coupe and 1st gen Opel Manta. Plus a Lotus Seven.

A bit of offtopic, but do you or does someone else have that kit and would they be willing to take a picture of two of the Iron Duke engine? I'd need one to be able to build a replica of my 1:1 scale daily driver, a Chevy S10 but I don't want to buy the Fiero kit without having any information if the engine is good or not. Because to be honest I don't have interest for the Fiero kit otherwise.

Thanks guys! I appreciate the kind words! The class markings on the windows were painted with a tiny paint brush and Tamiya's acrylic white paint. That paint works very well for detail painting like that. Here's a picture of the paint bottle, found in Google... https://hobbyking.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/1/2/128870.jpg Hope this helps. And here are some pictures of the finished product. There are mistakes and other flaws as always, but overall it looks pretty good on the shelf. As always, all kinds of comments, good or bad, are highly appreciated. I also want to say Thanks to everyone who has been watching the progress or posting comments. Thanks!

Thanks John, glad to hear you like it! This is the last set of WIP-pictures. The body panel that is between the grille and front bumper should be painted body color. It was molded together with the grille though, so the options were either to try and mask the whole chrome part away and try spray painting the area with the body paint, or then find a blue that is pretty close and paint by brush. I went with the brush painting idea, because if I tried to mask the whole grille off in order to spray paint, the masking would probably have leaked from somewhere... Luckily Humbrol had a metallic blue that was pretty close, so I used that and painted it by brush. The mesh screens on place of the inner headlights are the clear kit parts that I just painted silver and black washed with "The Detailer". I also polished the hood. The mesh parts behind the scoop were painted flat black. Those hood pins are the kit parts, because I had ran out of photo etch parts for them. The tail light panel required some detail painting as well. The area between the two chrome moldings had to be painted with silver, just the way it is in the 1:1 version too. The Fairlane 500 badge, chrome moldings and tail light bezels were black washed with "The Detailer" too. Then it was time to do the final assembly. In the engine bay the only problem was with the air hoses that lead air to the carburetors. But with a little of sanding I was able to get the hoses past radiator hoses and valve covers. In the exterior, I stripped the chrome from the front bumper as the real cars had aluminum front bumpers and they often weren't polished to a perfect shine. The original Thunderbolts had only one windshield wiper, but that was taken off from many cars back then, so I didn't want to install that on my version. These things rarely had outside rear view mirrors either, so I didn't install one either. Here's one picture of the finished product, I'll try to take better shots tomorrow, but in case I don't have the time to do that, then it'll be next week.

Today I saw a clean two door Chevy Caprice Classic. The four door models, or especially Wagons are not very rare around here, except for the ones that are in very good condition. But these two door models are very rare around here. I can't even remember the last time I saw one of these 2D models in traffic or in a Cruising Night, it was several years ago.

Thanks JC! I appreciate the kind words! Some more progress with the Thunderbolt. First I painted the inside of the body with semigloss black and headliner was painted with the interior color. Then I went ahead and glued the windows on place. All windows had some fit issues, but after some fine tuning I got them installed anyway. Here is the body after gluing radiator wall, front springs and interior in place. After a couple of small adjustments to the chassis, it was ready to be installed on place too. The chassis fit pretty well on place. Now on to the smaller details...

Today I saw this very clean Volvo Duett parked in side of the road. I found a parking place nearby as well, so I was able to go and take a picture of it. It was like new. I also saw a Volvo Amazon STW from the early '60s and a very clean '76 Dodge Coronet STW. But I didn't have a camera on hand...

Thanks Todd! Today I was able to get more bench time than I originally thought, so the BMF work is done. As usual, there would be plenty of room for improvement, but it's not my worst effort either. Once I can get the underiside of the body painted flat black and windows on place, I guess it'll look pretty good.

Yep some of those built models go for big bucks! I just wonder how the sellers ship them so that they're not totally broken when they arrive at their destination. Sometimes I've thought of building something with the plans to sell it later on, but the market here in Finland isn't very impressive so the only choice would be trying to sell it in eBay.

Thanks John and Dave! I highly appreciate the kind words from Masters like you. I was able to get the hood painted so that the shade of blue is exactly the same as it is on the body. Tomorrow I will be shooting a coat of clear on it, to be able to polish it later on. Now back to finish the BMF work on this thing...