W-409

Thanks David! The interior is a little simple at some areas, but I think it came out pretty good. Especially as it's not seen that well in finished model anyway. I mocked up the grilles that came with the kit and found out that both of them had an issue with the mold, a piece of the grill was missing from both of them. I have one '41 Plymouth glue bomb on my stash so I checked that one, but it had the same problem. I carefully added a bit putty in there, sanded to correct shape and covered that with BMF. A bit tricky, but I think it came out decent. Then I painted the areas between the grille tubes with flat black. Body trim was also done with BMF. That was not easy either because many of the chrome trim were not that well visible after a couple of primer coats. But in the end I made it and while it's not my best BMF work I think I've also done worse... So I guess I'll live with it. Underside of the body was painted flat black and headliner area with flat brown like the interior. Then I glued windows on place. The fitment of the windshield is pretty bad, but there's nothing to do about it at this point unfortunately. Here the body and chassis are ready to go together... ...And body mounted on place. Now I'm pretty close to finishing so I guess this is the last update before I'm done.

Thanx David and Mike, much appreciated! I think the chassis is pretty much done so once I get the body finished I can glue them together and then work on the last details. For the engine bay I installed a Mooneyes gas tank in front of the radiator and built a fuel line from the tank to the fuel pump. The tank was glued together from two halves so it required a bit of filling and sanding before it could be painted, but it turned out ok. Fuel line fittings were done, as usual, from hex-shaped plastic rod and for the fuel cap I used the original '41 Plymouth unit. Interior was also finished. I added lap-style seat belts for the driver and a helmet that was painted with red metal flake. Shifter and tachometer are also my own additions, everything else came from the Plymouth kit. Dashboard was just detailed with paint and a little BMF.

Thanks Keith and David! I appreciate the kind words! After the first primer coat I needed to correct a few things here and there. Not too bad though, so a little putty and some sanding... Then I sprayed a second coat of primer on the body. When that dried everything looked good, so no more sanding was required. And as this is representing a budget racer, I wanted to leave this thing in grey primer. I also wanted to add a couple of decals between the doors and rear fenders. While the finish is a matt grey, I had to trim decals very carefully around the edges to avoid them silvering. I didn't want to go crazy with decals so I just added Isky Cams, Hilborn Injection and Mooneyes decals on the body. After that I sprayed a coat of flat clear to protect the paint and decals. Then I had to build a cooling system for the engine. Radiator is also from Revell's '40 Ford as is the engine. I wanted to use the radiator hoses from that kit as well, so I had to be really careful to get the radiator on the correct place so that all four water hoses fit. Finally I was able to figure out the right position so everything was glued on place. Then I had to paint the class designations to the body. I randomly chose a racing number and the class is G/G. I didn't want these to be perfect, because someone just painted them with white shoe polish at the Drag Strip. So I brush painted them on, and I think I managed to get the look I was after.

Very nicely done Oldsmobile! I think the stance looks great and I love those red headlights too. Excellent paint job and very clean work BMF'ing the chrome trim. Nice work!

That came out very nice! Great job backdating the car to match the earlier version of this iconic car, in fact I've had a plan to do the same thing myself so I have bookmarked your build thread for reference. Really nice build, the driver figure definitely finishes it off. Too bad the real car can't be seen on race tracks anymore, luckily I was able to see Mike Boyd (RIP) behind the wheel of this beast at the California Hot Rod Reunion a few years ago.

Very nice chassis work so far! And, I love these Shoebox Fords so I know this one will be a cool project. As far as the accuracy and correct racing classes, I guess we all build just for fun, but personally I think one of the cool things in modeling is to do the research on the subject, and then trying to create an accurate version of it in scale. After all, it's a pretty small amount of time what it takes to do the research and figure out how something should be done in order to be accurate, compared to the actual model building itself, so I think it's worth it. Someone will disagree and build their model without even thinking about old class rules or anything like that...And that's okay too!

Wow! That's a very nicely done Cadillac! I really like the look of a late '40s Cadillac and I think you did a very nice job on building it. Where can I order one of these kits? I've had a plan of turning the Revell's Foose Cadillac into a Traditional Custom, but that requires modifying everything, and as far as I know no one is offering those tail lights / rear fenders in scale anymore which is one of the big issues in the whole build as those are not easy to build from scratch. This would be a lot easier way for sure.

Very nicely done, we certainly don't see these long nose cars done too often so it's nice to see one done this well. Overall a very nice and clean build!

Thanks guys! I appreciate the kind words. Now I've been doing bodywork in order to get this thing painted soon. The most work was on the front end, after I had glued the nose panel to the body and added some putty and sanded it a couple of times, the seams between front fenders and the rest of the body had pretty much disappeared from the front. So, those were redone using pieces of stretched mold sprue glued to place. I think they came out quite well. Then I sanded the rest of the body. It didn't have too many mold lines, but a couple of them were at really tricky spots... I also glued the rear bumper filler panel on place. Today it was time to spray some primer on the body. As I predicted, a couple of spots need to be fixed before the final primer coat, but it's not too bad. Front seat required some putty for the seam between the seat halves.

Thanks David! I think red steel wheels fit very well in many different applications. I had glued the firewall on place earlier and now I had to smooth out the seam between the interior tub and the firewall. So a little putty and sanding had to be done. Then I painted the firewall with gloss black and installed the whole interior tub to the chassis. Next up was to figure out how to make somekind of a steering system for this thing... None of the kit parts would work so I had to dig some parts from my parts boxes. I started with a steering box, which might not be 100% correct for a 1941 Plymouth, but it's way better than nothing at all, and honestly it's only barely visible on the finished model. So this is the one I came up with. Underside of the steering box was hollow, though. I filled the hole with sheet styrene, sanded to correct shape and then painted the steering box with gloss black. Here is a picture of the finished steering setup. Tie rod was found also in my parts box and it was a perfect fit for that axle. Only modification that I did was to cut the Pitman arm off and then I glued it back on a little different position. Tie rod was painted with Humbrol's Metallic 53 and I added a couple of bolt ends on it for detail. Steering box was glued on place and a correct length steering shaft was made out of plastic rod. It was really hard to photograph the steering box setup, but there it is! Especially from the top you can only barely see it. If I'm not mistaken these Plymouths have a brake master cylinder mounted under the floorboard. I tried to find some reference pictures, but came up short. Only thing I found was that it didn't appear to be in the engine bay. So I scratchbuilt a really simple brake master cylinder from plastic, mounted it under the floorboard and made a brake line from the cylinder to a distribution block. The kit supplied driveshaft wasn't good for this build, so I had to make my own. On the top, some unknown driveshaft from my parts box that is too short, but it had pretty good driveshaft joints on it. On bottom, piece of mold sprue... After combining these two into one, I had a proper length driveshaft for the Plymouth.

Thanks guys! Michael, you're right, the injected Flathead would look good in many applications. Next up was front shocks. The ones from the kit didn't work with the new front axle setup, so I found these from my parts box. The upper shock mounts were made out of a beer can aluminum just simply cut and bent to shape, painted gloss black and finished with bolt ends made out of hex-shaped plastic rod. Engine got a couple of more parts and now in these pictures it's ready to be installed. I added the crankshaft belt pulley and made the belt from paper that I "painted" black with a Sharpie. I chose not to use a generator at all, because it's optional in Gas-classes at the NHRA Rulebook. And this car would probably not get many street miles anyway. Starter and the stock oil filter assembly were installed as well. Then I glued the engine on place. It sits kind of high and a little "nose up". But, with the body on place I think it looks pretty natural in there, and I think, after all, that is more important in a finished model.

Great looking bodywork! Having built a couple of 427 Cobras and having one still as a Work In Progress, it's very cool to see one of these 289 versions built. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the kind words everyone! The progress hasn't been very fast, but with a local model car show coming up in a few weeks, I really need to finish something. I think I can pull this off in time, so let's go! First I fabricated brake lines to the front. The rear brake line will be added later, as well as the brake line from the master cylinder to the brake line fitting/distribution block on the frame rail. All fittings are made out of hex-shaped plastic rod, brake hardlines are some thin metal wire, brake hoses are Scale Productions' spark plug wire material. Then a little engine work. I built collectors to the headers. They were made out of plastic rod, cut to length and then I of course drilled the ends open. A little putty was used to smooth out the seam between the collector and the header tubes, and after that the headers were painted flat white. I also painted some other things like the engine mounts and transmission. Once I get a few little details done on the engine and chassis, I'm able to glue the engine on place.

This turned out really nice! I think you captured the overall look of the rear car perfectly. Very nicely done.

Thanks Ace and Mike! Ace, I agree completely about the stance. You're correct that many of the "Gassers" seen posted in the internet are actually more like Street Freaks and I'm never been a huge fan of those things.

This is a very cool project. The Hudson straight six is a great idea and in my opinion, it makes this build stand out from the rest. Keep the pictures coming. I've had a bit similar plans, but with a Plymouth Flathead six from the '41 Plymouth kits.

This thing is built here in Finland. The guy drives it regularly during the summer months, I've seen him often on the road with it when I'm driving home from work.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words! You're right, the orange car on the box art looks killer. I'm sure an Impala was a pretty rare sight in the Gas classes, because like you said, most of the '58 Chevrolets were either Bel Airs or Biscaynes. But that picture proves that there was at least one! Well, the progress continues. I started working on the body, and the first thing to do was to glue the doors shut. Someone might wonder why I did that, but honestly the opening doors usually don't fit as well as they should and the detail in the door jamb is not up to the level it should be if the doors did open. Sure, that all can be fixed, but I don't want to go through all that work with this project, I much rather have it finished sooner than later... Plus that the doors have incorrect type hinges anyway so they would need to be scratchbuilt as well. Anyway, after a bit of sanding and smoothing out mold lines and mold flash, I was able to glue the doors on place. This required a bit of work for the door panels so that they could be installed from the inside. See the original one on left, modified one on the right. Now the door panel goes on place even with the door closed. Then it was time to do a mock up to see how it looks. I was also going to test fit the hood, but soon I realized that the Cal Custom scoops are not going to clear the hood. So, after some measurements I had to cut a hole to the hood... Starting point for the hood scoop was found in my parts box. I believe it's from an old Monogram kit. It required a bit of shortening to make it fit the Impala, but after that I think it'll work so I glued it on place. Now I think I can start cleaning up the mold lines etc from the body to get it ready for paint.

This turned out fantastic. First of all, my hat is off for even attempting to build one of these "modern day, front engined Top Fuel Dragsters", because despite sharing the same basic idea as the old Slingshots these are very different than anything that has been offered in model kit form ever. So with that said, congrats on building one, especially when the end result is this high quality. The attention to details is incredible and I think you nailed the overall look perfectly. I can almost smell the nitro from here. Can't wait to see your next project.

This looks interesting. I'd think the '68 Coronet will be a pretty good seller as that kit hasn't been available in a very long time. I also will definitely need one of those. The Nova is another kit that I need to have, because I like those cars a lot.

Thanks for the kind words! Daniel, Yep, I think that the amount of research that is needed to create an accurate race car for a certain class is minimal compared to the amount of actually building... So when one is already building a model and trying to add some details on it, why not make it accurate at the same time. Here's the last update for this week. Tomorrow I'll be leaving to London UK to be at the Rockers Reunion in Aldershot on Saturday night. So the progress will continue next week with the Impala. Anyway, I got the engine and driveshaft installed to the chassis. The driveshaft was painted gloss black with silver U-joints. Looks like everything fits nicely on place even with the body on. I guess next I'll need to start working on the body and interior...

Thanks Ricky, I appreciate the kind words! Yes, diode, that's what it was... I can remember when I walked into a store that sells electrical components and went to the counter to buy those diodes. The salesman asked about what resistance etc I wanted and the looks in his face was priceless when I told him that those doesn't matter, it just has to look right. But he then understood it when I told him they'll be used in a scale model as fuel filters. The idea of using them as a vintage fuel pump is actually a good one! I'll need to try that. Now that I'm on my Winter Vacation this week from work, I've had some more bench time as usual. And I'm making decent progress with this thing! Brake lines were the next task. '58 Impala has a single circuit brake master cylinder, so I had to build a couple of distribution blocks to the frame to get brake fluid on all tires. They were made out of hex-shaped plastic rod. Brake lines theirselves are thin "copper-wire" and brake hoses that go to both wheel cylinders are made out of Scale Productions' spark plug wire material. Fittings between the brake pipes and hoses are also made out of Hex-shaped plastic rod. In the back everything was done the same way, except that it was just much more simple... Brake pipe is copper wire, brake hose is spark plug wire material and the fitting in between is made from Hex-shaped plastic rod. In 1961 NHRA required Gassers to have a parking brake. So I had to fabricate parking brake cables as well. They are quite simple actually on an X-Frame Chevy (it's easy to check for reference material as we have a '60 Impala 2D HT in the garage). So the cables were made out of the same spark plug wire material as the brake hoses. The cables have a rubber/plastic covering on the rear, but they don't have that in the part that goes inside the X-part of the frame. This was replicated by simply painting the spark plug wire material silver where necessary and the fittings in between are also hex shaped plastic rod. The chassis is coming together pretty good. Tie rod was a little too narrow, but I cut the other inner tie rod end apart from the rest and glued it to a new position, making the assembly a bit wider. That fixed the problem...

Really nice and clean work on the Camaro. Everything looks so good, but that front spring & shock modification is one that I need to try out at some time. It looks excellent. Really nice work, keep the updates coming.

Wow! I definitely did not expect to see that offered in resin or 3D, but I'm glad I saw it now...And ordered one immediately. I've had Shirley Shahan's Drag-On-Lady SS AMX stalled for years because of the lack of proper engine bay. I was trying to find a decent starting point for making one myself, but never got to it. This looks like it will make things a lot easier. I also ordered a set of those Dragster wheels. Interesting to see how they look in person.

Really nice work as always Steve! Glad to see a convertible with the uptop, because a) the top itself looks fantastic, and b) I think most of the convertibles look the best with the top up anyway. Excellent work with the details. This will be another stunning model when finished. I'll be watching.