W-409

Well that turned out very nice! I like how that color fits together with that black vinyl top and as always with your builds, the BMF work is flawless. This is a museum quality build. Very sharp details in the engine bay and that wheel and tire combo finish it off. Nice work.

I bought this Trumpeter kit a few years ago and started it a little, but before I got far the project stalled for an unknown reason. Now after finishing my Fiat Topolino Altered I decided it's time to pull this one out and finish it. I think I'm going with the same plan I had when I first started building this, so it'll be a mild, pretty close to stock but a bit Hot Rodded '65 Ranchero, so I'm going mostly box stock with this one. The kit itself is really nice quality and I really look forward to finishing this one. Here's a picture of the box top and body. This is how far I got before this thing got stalled, I started the engine. It was painted and clear coated with spray cans and then valve covers and twin carburetor intake were installed. Everything you see here is from the kit, but some touchups, minor black washing and other detailing is required to make that powerplant look a bit more realistic. It's a good starting point though. And here are the wheels and tires I'll be using. Again, they are from the kit. I painted the wheels Turquoise that will be used on the body as well. Dog Dish hubcaps are from the kit too and I detail painted parts of them with flat black. I will add valve stems to the wheels in the future so this wheel & tire combo isn't quite finished yet.

Wow this is a cool project! I've never seen one of these built and you're doing a great work with yours. That new side trim looks just right and I like those new bumpers too. Nice work with the conversion. Looks like the color laid on very nicely too. Keep it coming.

Great to see you back at the bench again! Your builds have been a great inspiration and this is no exception. Truly unbeliavable work with all of that detailing. Makes me speechless.

Great to see a way how to fix that chassis-issue as I have a '59 Impala and a couple of '60 Impala kits waiting to be built / in progress and I need to take care of that problem in all of them too. Your build looks fantastic as always! All of your hard work is really paying off. This will look super nice when finished.

Thanks so much guys, it means a lot! I like how it turned out too. There are lots of mistakes and some things I'd do a bit differently now, but overall I like the look, it has that "Old School Vibe" I was looking after. But of course the most important thing was that I had a lot of fun with this build. I really have to get another one of these kits to build a second one some other time.

You did a great job with this one Ray. It shows how much potential this kit has when you do a few little modifications and do great job during the buildup. I like the overall look with yellow body and black bumpers. Headers coming through front fenders is a good idea too. Great work.

Thanks Brad, Bruce and Greg, your kind words are highly appreciated! Here are some pictures of the finished product. It was a fun build and I'm pretty happy how it turned out even though it's far from perfect. These Vintage Drag Cars are my favorite subjects and of course you need to have at least one old Altered on your shelf! Thanks for looking everyone and especially thanks for the kind comments during the buildup. Here are the pics, and of course comments are always welcome...Good or Bad! And here's a shot together with my FED that I finished a few years ago from this same kit: And a picture from yesterday's Model Car Show. Looks like the judges liked it as it placed 2nd in Racing category. To be honest it was a surprise as there were some high quality models there!

Greg: Thanks so much, you're too kind ! Usually it's me who is learning from other people's threads but it's great to hear that some of you find my threads helpful as well! It keeps me motivated to post some stuff in here too. Dave: Thanks a lot, I appreciate it! I have to agree that I'm happy how this one looks. Little modifications and some extra detailing on an old kit like this can really make a difference. Today I got this thing finished so here is the last set of WIP pictures. The first picture shows almost finished chassis and body parts along with lots of minor details were waiting to be installed. This picture shows the interior after adding a a tachometer from my parts box. Its cable is made out of Scale Dreams' wire and it goes through the firewall and contacts to the magneto. I also added a launch handle for parachute that I made out of sheet styrene, but its' cable is still missing in this picture. Here is the completed parachute. Details were made out of Scale Dreams' wire, regular metal wire and masking tape that I used to create that "rope" that connects to the frame. Here is the finished product in one small picture. I'll shoot proper pics on Sunday and post them up. But now I have this thing boxed up and ready to go for a local Model Car Show tomorrow.

Today I did lots of little detailing & assembly on the frame. I started by making a driveshaft from something I found from my parts box. After some cutting the driveshaft was a lot shorter and then it fit well on place. I painted it with Revell 91 silver and added a bit of black washing to the joints to bring out a little detail. Most of this driveshaft will be hidden under the Belly Pan anyway. Then I moved on to the "interior" where I installed pedals, steering wheel, brake handle etc. It's starting to come together now, I still have to add brake lines, chute handle, tachometer etc. Gas Tank was also painted and installed and I added fuel line from tank to fuel pump as well. And as usual, those fuel line fittings are made out of plastic rod. I installed the grill on place too. Black wash is The Detailer's liquid. Now I also glued windshield on but as it's drying I have no pics of it yet. I hope I can get this one done next Friday in time for the show.

Now there's a Model Car Show on March 5th that is pretty close to where I live so my goal is to have this one completed by then. Looks like I could make it but there's still lots of work to be done so I need to stay busy. I shot some flat clear to the body parts last weekend and today I continued by painting inside of the body flat black. My original plan was to shoot some grey primer overspray on rear wheel opening-areas, but I found out that my airbrush couldn't do it well enough so now this thing has only this Red Oxide Primer on it. After flat black on the inside was dry, I painted class markings to the doors. I used a small brush, free hand and Tamiya Acrylic white paint for this and the end result is decent. I tried to achieve a look that those were done with white shoe polish at the pits and I guess it could be worse. Last, I added a bit of black wash to door lines using Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color. Engine was installed on place and Belly Pan was painted with primer too. Tomorrow I need to make a driveshaft and then I can continue assembly/final detailing.

Great to see you back on the bench! The Dart is looking excellent so far! Those AMT slicks look a lot better than the ones with Revell kit do and your engine detailing is super sharp. Those fuel filters are my favorite part of it, where are they from? I can't wait to see more progress on this one. Start looks very promising.

Thanks so much guys! Brad & Joe: You're right, my skills have improved a lot since I joined here. Lots of good tips and tricks have been found in this forum and I've got good help from other builders too as well as the amount of inspiration that can be found in here. I'm trying to get better with every build and I want to try some new things that might make my builds better. Hopefully some day my builds will be as high quality as some of the Masters in here. Randy: It's interesting to see how this will look in my display case when completed as I have never built anything that was left in Primer before. It's nice to do something different from time to time and this is actually quite fun...This won't be the only build that I'm leaving in primer. I'm sure I'll do another one some time. Walter: That's some interesting information, thanks! It sounds really clever as who would want his car to catch fire during the Quarter Mile trip, or even worse, have flames hit his face if driving an Open Rail. Those are something I haven't seen often in scale so it's fun to see how people react to those parts in model car shows "What the heck are those?". Thanks again for the kind words. They are really appreciated!

Wow that turned out fantastic! Thanks for sharing this thread, lots of good information, reference material and inspiration in here. I think I'll need to bookmark this one for future reference. Your build turned out super nice. Detailing is very nice and clean overall, not only in the engine but you've added lots of extra stuff in interior and suspension too which really paid off! It looks excellent in every way. Congrats on a fine build!

Thanks Bruce! There are some little grease marks in the engine block, but not much of them will be added as race cars are not supposed to leak any liquids. Some black washing will be added to the engine though to bring out some detail. Today I made some good progress with the engine. First I black washed that fuel pump and a couple of other little spots, but some more black washing will be done when I glue the engine on place. Then I added a simple bracket for that fuel pump out of beer can aluminum and started working with carburetor linkage. I used Scale Dreams' Photo Etch parts and some copper wire I had laying around and created a pretty simple but pretty decent linkage. Of course one piece of that wire will be added later on that will connect to the linkage that I already have on place and go through the firewall. Then I decided to add those aluminum shields on top of carburetors. I've seen those on pretty many old Drag Racers and I believe they were used to protect dust from going into the carbs? They're something that are not seen that often in scale so I decided to make them for this build. Those are simply pieces of beer can aluminum bent into correct shape. I still need to add some minor details to the engine before I can glue it to the chassis, but it shouldn't take too long anymore.

This is looking interesting! Old Stock and Super Stock Racers are my favorites so I will keep a very close eye on this build. Nice work with the chassis and interior so far. Stance and wheel and tire combo looks just right as well. Keep it coming!

Oh yeah, when I saw pics of that 1:1 ride the first thing came to my mind that this would be another ultra cool John Teresi project! Start is looking fabulous as always, body is looking great as well as the chassis does with all of those scratchbuilt items. I can't wait to see more progress on this one...Great work so far!

That's really nice! Excellent work with those body modifications, and your black paint job looks flawless too. All that Police equipment is a nice addition as these old Cop Cars are being built quite rarely. Great work as usual!

Thanks Chris, I appreciate it! You're right that it would be ready for paint now, but as I'm building this for "Primer Build" on another forum it will be left in this Red Oxide Primer. My plan is to try to add a little Grey Primer overspray to rear quarter panels, but I'm not sure on that yet. It depends on if I can make it with my airbrush or not. Today I installed fuel pump and its drive belt on place. They fit nicely on their places, but I had a bit of trouble with adding a fuel line from that fuel pump to the junction block that is in the middle of the intake. That fuel line is a piece of some small diameter wire I had laying around and its fittings are made out of plastic rod. I will need to add a fuel line from fuel pump to gas tank as well, but of course I can't do that before engine and gas tank are both installed. I have a question though. I was thinking of adding a bracket to that fuel pump, but as I don't have much experience in this kind of fuel pumps so I'm not sure what type bracket should it be. Similar to regular alternator bracket? Something else? I also need to add some black wash to the fuel pump. Now it looks just like a piece of painted plastic.

That turned out very nice! Even though American Graffiti is probably my favorite movie, I've never been much of a fan of that More American Graffiti. Those scenes at Fremont Drag Strip with John Milner are great, but otherwise the movie is not that special. Anyway it's great to see a nicely done replica of Milner's ride and actually I've planned to build this one too. Very nice work with those decals and sharp details finish it off. Great work overall, and that Hunt Bros car is a nice addition to the shelf too!

That's a very high quality build of a cool subject! Excellent detailing on those engines and those photo etch wire wheels on front are a very nice touch. Excellent work!

Wow! That looks great, nice to see one of these being built. Very nice paint and decal work, placing decals on top of chrome trim isn't easy but those sit very nicely on their place. I agree, more pics would be great.

Thanks for the kind words Brad! I was thinking very carefully what should I do with that nose/grill area and that idea sounded the best after all. Smooth nose piece with no grille at all would have been a bit too boring so this modification makes my Fiat a bit different from most of the others. Now there will be about two weeks before the next update as the next time when I'm at home is on February 19th. Hope to have something done that weekend. This weekend was so busy that I didn't get anything done.

Wow! That is probably the best looking chute that I've seen! Very nice work on it with all of those little details and the color of that chute is just right as well! Excellent work as always. I can't wait to see more!

Very nice work! These Hudson kits are excellent quality, I've built the Factory Stock version and I have one of these Stock Car kits waiting to be built, too. Yours is a great inspiration, very nice and clean work all over. Nice paint job and decals fit very well to the body shapes even if they are placed on top of that side trim. I know that's not easy to do right but here it looks spot on. Only thing I'd do differently would be painting bolts and nuts from those wheels with silver. It would give a bit more detailed look, but don't get me wrong... It looks fantastic like this too!