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I've never liked those modern engines (Chevy LS engines, new Chrysler Hemis etc), especially I find it horrible when they're installed in an old car. I see those engine swaps done sometimes, and some people say they just wanted more horsepower or better reliability. I understand that, but old engine, especially in pretty much stock form can be very reliable as well. And if you want performance, why would anyone want the car to act like every other family sedan when you drive it normally? I think a high performance Street Machine has to be loud and sound like it has a "healthy cam" in it... It doesn't have to give you the smoothest ride ever. Plus that if you want to have an old car, why start modernizing it with today's parts and technology? It makes no sense to me, why not to buy just a 2015 Tojota Pr*us then? Of course this is just my personal taste and I know many guys disagree with it and I'm not trying to say how it should be done...Just saying my opinion. But that being said, I'm never going to install any of those new engines in my car unless my car is not so new that the engine came as a factory option (But I doubt that). I prefer old technology on this subject. ...And soon when I have to go to a shop to get me a bit of Bondo to finish bodywork on my daily driver, I'll fire up that 55 year-old 283 SBC and if everything goes as usual, it fires up really nicely and runs & drives like it should.

Wow, surprising how good that kit will look when it's done properly! Excellent job creating a good looking Caddy. Paint job looks flawless, which is great since gloss black is by far the hardest color to get right. Sharp BMF work finishes this off. Now I gotta get me one of these kits...

Usually I'm not so much into this type of cars (They can look very good, but usually I'm not so interested in them that I'd like to build one too) but this is an exception. After seeing this I somehow got an inspiration to build one of these. Well, luckily the kit is so old and expensive that I'm not buying one right away... Excellent work as always, Cliff! It's always great to see your posts since your builds are usually something that's not seen every day plus that they are always top notch quality. Just like this one, great job.

That's a very neat trio right there! I like these X-Frame Chevrolets a lot so it's great to see three of them built this well. Great job with all of them, but I have to say that '60 is my favorite (Yep, there is one parked in front of my house). Maybe I'll go for a little cruise with mine after seeing this. Great work.

Very good looking Shoebox Ford! It looks pretty much like I'd want mine if I had one in full scale. Those body shapes are just about perfect and your nice paint job with those flames really finish it off. It's hard to believe that the interior from Revell's Mercury fits there with that little modifications. Excellent job. Only thing on the styling that I'd do a bit different would be adding a rear bumper. A smooth bumper without any bumper guards or anything would look very good on there. But it's very cool like this, too.

Very nice Hemi Cuda. I really like how it looks without too many factory options, especially steel wheels with those Dog Dish hubcaps look very good under this body. I like the color as well. What kit is this built from?

Very nice build on a very nice kit. That color is just about perfect for this body style and that combined with your flawless BMF work make this stand out from the rest. Engine looks very good too. I built this kit years ago as well and it was a lot of fun. Gotta get me another one some time...

Great to see one of these being built! I have the same kit as well and it's going to be a Mild Custom one day when I find an AMT '59 El Camino chassis for it. You did an excellent job with this. That paint job is fantastic and very nice and clean work otherwise, too. Only thing I'd do different is that it's a bit too low to my taste. Otherwise it couldn't be much better.

Excellent looking '69 Chevelle, definitely one of the bests that I've seen. Your modifications sure make it stand out from the rest, details like that always make a big difference. Good looking paint job (I never seem to success with gloss black!) and very nice clean work all over. And actually if you didn't say it, I would never thought those taillights being decals, they look so good. Great work.

Thanks guys! Michael: Yes, it feels great to do some scratchbuilding after a long break. Somehow I think I like doing these modifications more and more, it's very rare that I build something out of the box nowadays. And I believe that a 427 Big Block Chevy with Tunnel Ram intake will be nasty enough for this one. Mark: That Edsel is one that I can't wait to start. It's going to be a Mild Custom, but I'll need to do pretty much modifications to that as I'm going to use AMT '58 Edsel chassis and engine in it. Andy: It's true that those cars look like each others a bit. Maybe that's the reason why I like so much about this Cortina body.

Looks like this is an okay kit after all. I'm not too crazy about it being so simplified, though, especially it would have been nice to have a properly detailed engine with lots of parts. Engine bay with molded in batteries and other parts is a bit disappointing, too, but I can live with that very well. Those stance mock ups look very good to me and I see nothing wrong with body shapes either. Being molded in color doesn't matter me at all, a good Primer will take care of that easily and actually I think it's even easier to do bodywork (Removing mold seams and sink marks etc) when body is molded in color. I will pick up one of these for sure.

It would be great to see this kit hit the markets. That Oldsmobile is not actually what I've wanted to build for whole my life, but I would need probably two, or at least one, to be built as a Super Stock Drag Car. Interesting to see if this is really coming out or not.

Thanks Carl! It feels good to be back building again and this project is very interesting. I haven't had too much time to work on this, but I have a good start on the frame. I bought some styrene rod from a Local Hobby Shop and after looking at old pics of a Street Altered car's frame I got the idea how it should look. It needed a bit of planning to figure out how it should be built, what tubing should be glued where, how, and when. After all I hope I'm not doing this the hardest way... These are the longest frame rails needed. They are mocked up with tape so that I could measure how wide those frame crossmembers should be. First crossmember was glued to the front end of the frame. I couldn't make other crossmembers yet, because I must mock up rear axle, engine and driveshaft before so that I know if I have to do bends for them. On my reference pictures the car had very simple rear section of the frame (Part that goes on top of a rear axle). So I made a similar one to my Cortina. A couple of crossmembers are still needed here as well, but I'm going to use them as shock mounts so they can't be added quite yet. So the next thing is to glue these two parts together and then continue by adding more tubings to sides. Hope to have more soon.

Very nice Dodge Coronet. It's always great to see these AWB Cars being built and this is one of the best looking Mopars for that. Excellent job on the paint and detailing, this is one of the best AWB cars I've seen for a while.

Sure, I started a WIP thread in Drag Racing Models a couple of days ago: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/106203-65-ford-cortina-street-altered/ . The pics are not the best though, looks like Photobucket is lowering picture quality while resizing pics. Before it hasn't done that. Now I gotta try resizing pics different way then. It's definitely an interesting project, and a challenging one, too.

This is coming together very nicely! Body looks excellent so far, smooth paint job and great color choice. That white stripe fits very well to the look and as others have said, your BMF work is very clean. I'm waiting to see more.

I bought these from a local Model Car Show a while back: -AMT '62 Bel Air Super Stock will be built with kit parts, but of course I need to add some details here and there. -Monogram '66 Malibu Street Rat builtup will be rebuilt as '70s Street Machine, pretty much like the box top shows. But extra detailing and some modifications will be needed as the kit is pretty simple. -AirTrax '65 Ford Cortina resin body. I'm building it as a Street Altered Drag Car. -AirTrax Alfa Romeo Resin body. It's going to be an early '60s Altered. -Slicks & a couple of engines. And then I got that Decal Tray for free. And then I found these accidentally from a local Swap Meet. I was searching for 1:1 car parts for my projects, but found these. As they were pretty cheap, I picked them up. Thunderbird has been started by gluing a couple of parts together and decals are missing from it, but otherwise they seem to be complete and unstarted. Now I just gotta find me a decal sheet for that T-Bird from somewhere.

This will be very interesting to follow as I've missed your builds. That engine looks very good already, super nice work scratchbuilding those parts. You make it look so easy but I know it definitely is not. I can't wait to see more.

Thanks for the kind comments, everyone! It felt really good to work with styrene and resin after a long break. Hopefully I can keep working on this and it won't get stalled after a week because I don't have parts or something like that. Funny you posted that one. It is an old Street Altered car that was known as Footbait Cortina. Nowadays it has been brought back to life and it's running with a Hilborn Injected Big Block Chevy here in Finland. Here's a picture of that car from decades ago: http://www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk/alan_currans/comp_altereds/page_08/1-CA-143.jpg Today I'm going to go buying some material to build the frame for this, so stay tuned.

I've been away for a while, as I've simply had no time to build anything or visit on these forums so often. I've been busy with 1:1 cars, visiting Cruising Nights, Car Shows etc with '60 Impala and building my new daily driver, '92 Chevy S10. It looks like I might find some more time to build models as well so I'll post this thread on a build I started today. A Couple of weeks ago I was at local Model Car Contest where I bought this '65 Ford Cortina Resin Body. It's made by AirTrax and the body has some flaws, but as usual with these AirTrax bodies that have mold flaws in them, this is so good that I can't find any problems in it. I have only the body, but I'll have to buy a separate hood, grille, bumpers etc for this. They're not needed right now as I have tons of other thing on line first. My plan is to build a Finnish Street Altered Drag Car from the early '80s. At that time, Drag Racing was a pretty new thing in Finland (First race was driven here in 1975) and Drag Cars were home built... And they looked like that too. Driving abilities weren't very good and tracks had no prep on them so usually it was quite slippery even though drivers laid some track glue on the ground after burnout and spinned the wheels in that liquid. Street Altered cars had to have naturally aspirated engines running on gasoline, but otherwise engine tuning was pretty much free. It was allowed to build a new frame and suspension components were free as well. My plan is to scratchbuild a frame from square styrene rod and all suspension components will be taken from my spare parts box. Interior will be very simple and overall I'm not trying to make this too cleanly finished so that it looks like it could have raced in Street Altered back then. Here are some old Street Altered car photos to get you in the mood. "FlatTop Plymouth" and "Wheelie Valiant" "Hitler's Revenge" VW Beetle. Street Altered Escort Beaver Rocker Cortina I started today by removing mold flash from window areas and then I started to mock up tires. Rear Slicks are from Jo-Han '69 AMC AMX Super Stock and front tires are 13 inch tires from AMT Chevy Monza. Because most guys didn't narrow their rear axles, rear wheel openings had to be cut larger and then rear tires stuck outside the bodyline. That's why I did the same on mine: Now when both rear wheel openings were enlarged and the tires fit on place, I did a fast mock up: I would have started building the frame as well, but I have no styrene rod for that. In a couple of days I'm going to go buy some more though. Hopefully this thread will keep me going and make it easier to get back building.

Yes, I'm doing great, but just like Matti said I've been really busy with 1:1 cars. I guess when guys get bigger, toys get bigger as well. Hopefully I'll find time to work on model cars as well in the near future. There are a couple of projects I'd like to continue soon so I'll keep you guys posted when I get to it. This is the reason why I've been so busy: http://tapahtumakuvia.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Tapahtumat%202015/Cruisings/Stadi/Stadin%20Cruising%201.5.2015/DSCN5529.JPG/_full.jpg

This will be very interesting! That real thing looks like a wild ride to me and building a scale replica of that one won't be an easy task, but I know it should be no problem to you. I can't wait for more.

I haven't been able to check in for a while on these forums as I've been so busy lately. Now I'm really glad that I could see these latest updates - the engine is looking fantastic! Super nice detail work and it looks like you could fire it up any minute. Gas tank looks very good too... Keep the pics coming!

I'd like to see of course a '58-'64 Chevy Wagons (Nomad, Brookwood, Kingswood etc). As an owner of a '60 Impala HT, I'd buy lots of those if they were available. Others I'd like to see would be '80s Chevrolet Caprice STWs. That's just simply because lots of them were imported to Finland when they were new and they are still seen quite often on roads. Plus that it's not a bad looking car either. '79-'81 Malibu STW would be cool too. Perfect starting point for a Street & Strip car.

How about this one? I got a stylish set of duds that I'm proud to wear I got a greasy pompadour up in my hair