W-409

Here's my AMT Dodge Charger Daytona, built for the "Cannonball Run" Community Build on this forum. The kit wasn't too great, but with some modifications it can be built into something presentable. I have one Revell Superbird on my stash, but I'm not sure when I'll get around building it...

This solid looking G-Body Malibu has been sitting for a long time on some company's yard under a tarp. Now the tarp was off for some reason so I tried to shoot a picture of it. Those Malibus are good looking cars. And yesterday while Cruising around Helsinki with my daily driver, I saw this early '70s Toyota Celica parked to the side of the road. I'm definitely not a Toyota fan, but some of these older ones are really cool! But what really made my day was this very nice and clean Jeep Wagoneer! Seeing these is rare, but I can't even remember when was the last time when I saw one that was in as good shape as this one.

Wow, looks like we have similar interests! I have a bunch of those Ramchargers Dodges to be used as donor kits for some early '60s Mopars but I also have one that will be built some day... Dyno Don '61 Impala is currently in progress, but I'm modifying it as the Optional Super Stock version that he ran in '61 Indy. And Hayden Proffit '62 Bel Air is also waiting for its' turn together with Dave Strickler's '62 Bel Air. I also built Beswick's Catalina a few years ago, as well as one '62 Impala Super Stocker.... Hopefully you'll post some pics when you get started with them!

Yep it's not very often when you see old US cars cruising around, unless there's a Cruising night nearby. Those old Fiats are seen sometimes, but I can't say that they would be common cars either. But that Aspen looks really good. Those are often in very poor condition, so seeing one as nice and clean as that one is rare! The speed restriction sticker was used on old vans. After '81 Vans that were heaver than 3968 lbs had the maximum speed limit of 80 km/h, and it had to have that ugly yellow "80" sign on the rear end. If the van was lighter, you didn't need this, and if the car had ABS brakes and airbag on driver's side then it didn't have that 80 limit either. And to make this a bit more confusing, this applied to all cars that were registered as vans, so many Station Wagons and Pickups were also having that 80 km/h speed limit. If I'm not mistaken, Pickups are automatically registered as vans, but Station Wagons could be registered as "Passenger Cars" as well... But the reason they were almost always registered as "Vans" was that you didn't have to pay ridicullously high taxes from them... If it was registered as a passenger car, then your only choice was to pay a lot of tax from it... So that's why pretty much all STWs that are big enough (Caprice Classic for example) have that speed limit on the back. That's one of the many laws here in Finland that don't make any sense. Believe me, there are more idiotic rules as far as cars go....This is one of them. Luckily my S10 is so light that it doesn't have that 80 km/h limit!

That turned out great! You can never have too many Vintage Super Stock cars! Nice to see a different version of this kit than the Color Me Gone/Maverick/Ramchargers version we usually see built from this kit. Nice job with the paint and decals. Great job!

Saw this '82-'87 El Camino on the parking lot a while ago. Here in Finland these G-Body Caminos are unfortunately pretty often in quite poor condition as back in the day they were used as a daily drivers for a long time... And especially the Finnish winter doesn't treat daily drivers very well... So seeing one in this nice condition was really cool, I had to park my daily driver (1st gen Chevy S10) and shoot a picture. And later on the same day an older Chevy Truck was spotted on another parking lot. Unfortunately the picture didn't turn out that great, but..... I spotted this '76 El Camino probably two weeks ago if I'm not mistaken. It's in nice clean condition too, and it's always great to see these GM 3rd Gen A-Bodies as I'm racing a '74 Malibu in Stock Eliminator. And the most recent one was this '68 Firebird Convertible that I saw last weekend. It looked pretty solid too.

That's cool! We have a '60 Impala 2D HT in our family. My dad bought it in the late '80s and just a few years ago I welded new quarter panels on it. Very fun car to cruise around with, under the hood is almost stock 283+PG. It's not fast, but it always takes you where you're going.Here it is in 2015. Sorry for the little offtopic, anyway, you can never see too many X-Frame cars!

This looks great so far, plus that you can never have too many '60 Impalas (or other X-Frame Chevys)! Great job with the body mods and paint on this one. I can't wait to see more pics.

For those who don't know the 1:1 car, Berner Oy, a Finnish company that was importing new Plymouths to Finland was also racing in Rally with Plymouth Valiants and Barracudas. They had been racing even in Monte Carlo with those cars, so the Plymouth factory wanted to give a prize to the owner of this company by offering a possibility to order himself whatever Plymouth model he wanted. As the owner wanted to fit his family inside his new car easily, he ordered a 4D Sedan Belvedere, but he wanted it with the most powerful engine option which was of course the 426 Hemi. So yes, the factory built one Hemi powered 4D Sedan Belvedere in '67 and that car has spent its entire life here in Finland. Nowadays after a few different owners it's not in perfect condition anymore, so the current owner is restoring it back to its' former glory... ...And as I already said on the Finnish forum, it's interesting to see how this turns out. It's about time to have someone build this exact car in 1/25 scale.

That looks really good! I don't know if the Ford is interesting enough for me (Nice car and great job on mastering it though!), but I'm interested in that '59 Wagon. I understand that you probably don't know yet the exact price, but I'd like to know what price range we are approximately talking about?

Wow that has to be the best build of a '60 Comet that I've ever seen, very nice job! The body style is really cool too so it's nice to see one that's built this well. Especially the paint and BMF work look flawless. Congrats on a super nice and clean build.

This looks like I might get one of these if I can find it with a reasonable price in here. Living here in "The Country of 1,000 Lakes" I also like driving boats... So building the Drag version from this kit would be fun. And great to see those Frontrunners used as tires! Once I replace them with something that fits a bit better for that use, I have one more pair of Frontrunners for a Drag Race project.

Keep them coming guys! All I can do is laugh at some of those box arts ! This isn't very tempting either...

Something minor has happened since my last update, the front seat was sprayed with a coat of filler spray to smooth out all of those minor flaws at once. Then after a bit of sanding I brush painted it with a Humbrol color. Not perfect, but good enough to be hidden inside the car... Some filler was also applied to the roof as well. And at the same time I also removed the spotlight hole from driver's door and smoothed that out with putty. And the chassis was painted too. Everything is done with a brush and that required some very careful painting in some areas (And some trial and error!) as everything was molded as one piece. But luckily it turned out decent in the end.

Great work on this Dodge! The problem with this Lindberg kit is definitely the stance as the front end is way too low if built box stock. But looks like you fixed it really nicely, it looks really good now. Sharp detailing on the engine too... Keep the pictures coming.

I still have this Chevy S10 as my daily driver. When I started looking for a daily driver, I knew it had to be American, rear wheel drive and with steel bumpers... Otherwise it would be too new. This fit the criteria, but I had modify it before I started driving it, as some of the previous owners had lowered this car and it had a wide flat black stripe running in the middle of the hood, roof and tailgate... As you can see on the first picture some rust spots always start showing through the paint during the winter (Stupid road salt!). So every spring the rust has to be removed and those areas need to be painted with primer and then with body color...As done before taking the other two pics.

That '40 Ford Sedan is great news! I'll need at least one of them as the older versions of this kit aren't so easily available anymore. It's great that AMT has lately included all of those old optional Custom parts in their new kits, so I'm really looking forward to this one...

... Here are some more Glue Bombs! Revell Hot Rod Series '56 Chevy. The previous owner had chopped this '56 Chevy and I continued from where he had stalled. The plan was to build a nasty Street & Race car, but this has been as a back burner for several years now... Monogram '56 Bel Air. Otherwise the body was looking pretty good but lots of parts (Including the roof ) were missing. So a perfect starting point for a Lead Sled. Very rough '79 Mustang. It had some misc interior and chassis pieces, but they were even worse than the body... I started building it as an Outlaw Street Drag Racer but nothing has happened in a long time... Another Fox Mustang. The body wasn't good on this one either, but a lot better than the other one. I started turning it into a C/Street Drag Racer... Revell '67 Chevelle. I wouldn't consider this as a Glue Bomb, rather just an old "builtup" or something as the previous owner had built it pretty nicely. Anyway, it will be a Sleeper with a Twin Turbo BBC some day... Another a bit cleaner "Glue Bomb", a '59 Edsel Corsair. Gonna be a Mild Custom some day... This crashed '51 Chevy will be used as parts. I think I already know a good use for it..... Another a bit cleaner one, SMP '61 Chevy Pickup. Another Mild Custom starting point...

Jo-Han '71 Barracuda Pro Stock. This was fairly easy to rebuild, even though bunch of modifications was done. Monogram '69 Camaro that has bunch of errors as far as the body shapes go. This was far from an easy rebuild, the body was very rough after some of the previous owners had removed paint with too strong liquids. The body had cracks all over and the plastic was hard to work with. Well, I rebuilt it anyway. This AMT '70 Super Bee was actually pretty good starting point. All parts were there and it was built pretty cleanly. AMT '66 Nova Pro Street. Same thing with this, fairly easy rebuild as it came with almost all parts and it was built pretty nicely. '67 Corvette '70s style Hot Rod. This was built just like most of the US cars were here back in the day. The body was rough and most of the parts were missing.... This was a "Parts Box Special". Monogram 1/32 '55 Chevy Snap Kit. This was easy as the original builder didn't use glue at all, but some parts had pretty thick coat of paint on them. There are some of my Glue Bombs that have been rebuilt. I have more that are under construction or waiting to be built...More on them a bit later.

Looks like the original builder had lots of putty on hand when he originally built this Ranchero ! Never would have thought how nice and clean it would look after removing the paint. I really like your idea of building it with the same styling ideas that the original builder had, but your version looks just a lot better. I like the new front end a lot and lowering the roof scoop is definitely a good idea. I'll keep watching this one closely.

Wow! Very nice Monaco! As someone said earlier it's great to see a top of the line model built from this kit (Mine will be built as the poorest model possible ) for a change. Very nice and clean work everywhere, but what really catches my eyes is that hood ornament! That's something I don't usually see on scale models. Fantastic work & Greetings from Finland too!

The "Inliners" sounds like an interesting theme! I didn't finish my entry this year either, but I'll try again next year. I'm guessing I'll end up with a Chevy Straight Six under the hood of something we don't see every day.....

I think it's a lot easier to build headers from styrene rod rather than using solder. Styrene rod is easy to bend with a candle and the plastic headers are a lot lighter than solder headers. These headers were made from styrene rod:

Well if that's the case and the Molotow doesn't rub off after a bit of handling then I have no problem. I was just thinking about clear coating as someone else said that Molotow will rub off easily, but if it can take a bit of handling then I don't need any clear on it...

I have a question about clear coating over Molotow Chrome. My plan is to airbrush Molotow to the bumpers of my '78 Malibu and '60 Fury resin kit. Zoom Zoom said that Alclad Aqua Gloss Clear will work fine without ruining the chrome effect, but has anyone tried Alclad's Klear Kote Gloss for this? Does it work too or do I have to find a bottle of that Aqua Gloss Clear from somewhere (It seems that finding it in Finland might be a bit tricky)...