W-409

Thanks Gene! I think I will leave those valve covers and that bottom plate alone, as you said they look pretty good like that. I wanted really light weathering on this one and I think it's looking decent even if I'm not the best in that area of model building. Yes, you're right, lots of prep work is needed in order to make it look realistic. But we like challenges I guess. As for the paint color I'm not completely sure. I planned that since I'm building this for a Primer Build on TRaK, I'm going for probably semigloss red as a base color with some overspray with grey primer. I'm not sure if I can make it, but I'll need to practise on a plastic spoon or something first.

...And a rear bumper / push bar. But really good looking build overall. Using a Corvair power plant is a great idea for sure. I've never considered it either, but looks like it can be installed in a '32 Ford too. Good job.

I'm especially interested in that Fast Freddy's Pickup. I've seen it a few times here in Finland and I have really good memories from those times. His huge burnouts and fast reversing back to the starting line are neat to watch. Not to mention that one last qualifying run years ago when he was out of the ladder and the car didn't go straight at all. Anyway Freddy stayed on the throttle and made it to the ladder. Here's a little inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdWI6Y1L1kc

Heh, as a Chevy guy I thought the Hemi is not enough so I had to go with the Blower. Seriously speaking, a big Thank You, Adam! I appreciate the kind words and I'm pretty happy how it turned out too.

Thanks Gene! Yes I like that color as well. The shade of orange is just correct and it lays down really nicely and doesn't leave major brush strokes visible. Stan - Thank You! I hope I can turn this into a good looking model as the kit is a bit simple and I'm not going to go as far as I'm going with the modifications on my '55 Chevy. Here's a little update. First I painted the valve covers and bottom plate of the intake manifold with chrome silver spray paint and they turned out pretty good. Then I assembled the main components of the engine together. As this build presents a car that definitely is not a show car, rather a budget racer, I thought the engine looked a bit too clean. I know I'm not very good at weathering, but I decided to try my hand at it anyway. Using The Detailer's black wash and Tamiya Weathering Master I added some oil / grease marks to the engine. I think it looks decent. I'm still debating on wether I should add some minor weathering to the valve covers or not. I also painted the front axle. That leaf spring is really simple, but I think I will go with it anyway.

Really cool '59! It's great to see these resin versions being built as well, especially when they're done as nicely as this. Perfect color and I like the scallops a lot. The stance looks good as well and great details in the engine bay make it stand out from the rest. Especially that water in the windshield washer's container is a neat detail that I like to add on my builds too. I'm not too crazy about the fender skirts, but otherwise this is just like I would like to see one in 1:1 scale on my driveway.

This is a proof that these kits can be turned very nice with some extra work. I'm planning to build one of these too with some upgrades and yours is a great inspiration. Fantastic work with that paint, I know black is really hard to get right, but this looks spot on. Good looking engine and chassis too, even if they are pretty simple in the kit. I really like the overall look, even if the wheels and tires are not my favorites.

Good looking '59 Chevy! I like the color combo and really nice work overall too. BMF Looks good to me and paint job is smooth, too. It's also always nice to see a well done W-Block engine and that combined with an X-Frame Chevy is a great combination. I like this one for sure!

Yep building that throttle linkage is not the easiest part, but it can be done. I did similar throttle linkage as you will need on this one to my '69 Charger Daytona using copper wire and Detail Master Carburetor Linkage Photo Etch Set. I hope this picture will give you an idea on how it can be done. This might not be the only right way to do it though. I am interested in seeing more of this one!

Yep, those wheels are definitely the best looking from those three options, great pick! I hope you decide to paint the spokes like they are on real wheels when they're not polished. I think they look the best that way, with polished spokes I think they look more modern (And I don't like that ). Of course I'm not saying you should do this, but it's another option. The Dart looks really good so far. Nice and clean work with the engine and interior. Those seat belts are a nice addition.

That trailer is a real piece of art. Weathering it so nicely as you did is not easy and scratchbuilding that trailer is even harder for sure. Fantastic work with the Falcon, too. I can't wait to see more of this, it's coming together so nicely.

I'm with Lee here. Except that I can't see a real problem with that AAR Barracuda, but otherwise I think the same way. If these new kits were the same quality as Palmers were back in the day, I'd understand the amount of complaining that can be seen on these forums. Now I can't. But of course every builder has different goals and someone might want the body to be exactly right when taking all of the measurements and that kind of fancy stuff. To me it's fine if it looks right to my eye, and I think every new model kit does just that.

Here's mine. Built almost box stock from the Stock Car kit. Only additions were some details to the engine and interior and then those headlight covers that were made of sheet styrene according to the reference pictures of the real thing.

Thank You, Dave! That was an excellent and informative post for everyone. Personally, I've very rarely complained about the flaws that a model kit "has". Maybe it's because usually the "flaws" are very minimal and it's the modelers that make the flaws much bigger than they really are by complaining on different forums for 30 pages or something like that (Yep, I'm referring to the Revell LX Mustang thread). I know I have a bad eye for those problems, but I can see nothing wrong with almost any of these new kits. The Mustang's top looked spot on to me until I saw the correct resin body that was done. Still the difference is very small between them and I can't see nothing really wrong with that Mustang. The grille on that new '67 Camaro is a bit off, but it should be an easy fix. Starsky & Hutch Torino's rear side window is a bit off as well, but not so much that it would be worth skipping building the kit. To me the shots of those Moebius Pontiacs, for example, look perfect. But don't worry Dave, even if a perfect kit was produced, the guys in the internet will find problems with it!

The original pictures are taken by my dad, but I wanted to share them here as well, because I thought they are really cool. So I took pictures of the paper pictures to get them in digital form. So in 1990 my dad was in the USA with a couple of his friends. They visited other places as well, like SEMA Show and Pomona Swap, but this race was really interesting especially because a Finnish Pro Stock Bike racer Veli "Jappe" Malin was racing with his Pro Stock Bike there. A couple of pictures from the pits first... Stock Eliminator Pontiac. Super Comp Camaro driven by Tony Foti. Then the action pics: Stock Eliminator first (Unfortunately only one picture though). I'm not completely sure about the class of the Mustang, but from what I can see I'd say it's a B/SA car, the Chevelle is G/SA. Then Super Stock: GT/FA Chevy Camaro. Can't see the classes, but two more Super Stock Camaros. More to come later... (Tomorrow)

I saw this one today on a parking lot nearby. I don't know the story behind it, but it was really dirty and it might be possible that it hasn't been moving for a while. I don't know for sure though. Earlier in the Summer I saw a GMC.

For me, it was Missing Link Resins' '73 Chevelle kit. It was about $80 if I remember correctly. And I can tell you that it was truly worth it! Here are pics of the parts.

In my opinion the best place to get good deals is a Model Car Show. There you'll find lots of fellow modelers selling part of their collections and sometimes the kits can be bought really cheap...But of course not always. For example I bought a Burnout Bird Pontiac Firebird FC kitted by AirFix for about $20. Some parts were missing, but not much and otherwise it was unstarted. I have never seen another with AirFix box and the MPC versions seen on eBay are more expensive as well. As I'm here in Finland, buying from eBay is not always a good idea. Some sellers think it costs something like $40-50 to ship a model to Finland ! As far as the Hobby Shops go, I had good experiences with Model Express, but unfortunately it's closed. I made an account to Model RoundUp, but I haven't ordered anything yet. Usually I drive to the nearest Hobby Shop here in Finland and buy my new kits from there. For aftermarket parts that can't be found here in Finland, I use Ted's Modeling Marketplace.

That's a good looking Galaxie, as your builds always are. Big points for making those decals, I have to say that after trying to study some of the computer programs that folks use to produce those decals (Without any success) I really can understand how much work is put onto them. Really great job overall.

Great job building one of these Dirt Racers! These do not quite fit into my interests, so I'm not an expert on these. It might be a stupid question, but I don't know the answer, so why is that one front tire different from the others? Great work building this one, good looking paint job and I like the paint colors on the engine. Especially those injector stacks look realistic. Good work.

As I said earlier, this is probably the best of all in this year's Cannonball! The other builds were fantastic as well, but somehow this just stands out. Even if I'm not crazy about that modern engine, I think this looks really good.

Wow, thanks fellows! I'm really surprised to see this much comments on this thread, as the original one got a good number of comments, too. So Thank You ! It was a fun build overall and as always I had great time in the Cannonball Run. I can't wait for the next year, I know I have a killer idea and I will build a true sleeper...Stay Tuned.

This update seems to be disappeared because of the forum's crash, so here are a couple of older pics first... I painted the engine with Humbrol Orange using a brush. Intake was painted with Revell's silver as well as the clutch cover. Frame is Humbrol Gloss Black painted with a brush as well. I didn't want to make it as smooth as spray painted frame would be, because probably the young Hot Rodders who built this one in the early '60s on their backyard did that as well. New valve covers arrived as well, they are resin cast by a friend of mine and they're very good quality as usual with his products. I ordered two sets of them, and the other one will be used on another build later. I also got a set of hubcaps as a bonus. So a Big Thank You, Marko! I ran into a problem with the intake though. It is meant to work with a SBC and it's way too narrow for the Hemi. I don't undestand why I didn't test fit it earlier, but now when I did, I thought it's not a good idea to start making major modifications on that one. So I went with Plan B and took an eight carburetor setup from my parts box. I unassembled it and did some smoothing and sanding for the parts. Except for the bottom plate the parts are now in paint stripping. The bottom plate was shot with Primer at the same time as the valve covers. And I drilled holes to the front axle to make it a bit lighter. Here in the picture it's still before final cleanup, but now it is ready for paint.

Thank You David for the great information! It has been a while since I've worked on this Impala, but I was able to do some minor work with the interior. I flocked the carpet using flat black from spray can to "glue" the flocking to the floor. Then I mocked up the seats for the picture. Next step will be painting a dashboard, but I will need a set of Revell '62 Impala cauge decals for this one, the ones in this Lindberg kit are not very good.

Last week I got my driver's license. I can tell you that I've driven lots of miles with my '87 Chevy Van during this week, and it looks a bit different on the High School parking lot between all of the "four-wheel washing machines" made out of plastic.