MrObsessive

Mike, I never knew that about that kit! Just goes to show how they really dropped the ball! Now I may go out and find one just because of that!

It sure was, and I built one of these MANY years ago! As I learned in later years, it does not represent an actual GTO in the least!

I LOVE the body mods! This just reinforces that things can be done to a "toy diecast! If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have swore that you indeed DID modify a plastic kit! VERY, VERY WELL DONE!

One feature that's lacking that I'm missing already.........when you click on a post and then either go back to the original page, or close the tab, when the forum is refreshed the original post disappears from the page unless someone new responds to it. In the last format, the subject was simply "faded out" or highlighted in some form-------not totally gone. I could go to my history and recover the thread in case I wanted to respond, but as I mentioned before this'll take a while to get accustomed to all these changes. As far as being tablet and phone friendly, I get that's why the changes were made, but for me personally, I don't like at all responding to a post on my phone or tablet. Those are just for viewing this forum. It's just woefully annoying to me as I like to have an actual keyboard to type from, and for me with vision issues, I just flat out see better without everything being so "scrunched".

Go to where your name is, hit account settings, then go to notifications where you can change it to not sending you notice.

Vince I take it that it's under "Unread Content" now. This new look will take some getting used to!

Hmmm.....looks interesting! I wonder how well that would kitbash with Revell's '57 Ford wagon chassis?

Ahhh I see! I do remember a conversation about Italeri cheaping out and using the roadster body for the Gullwing. I never had the Gullwing kit, so I wouldn't have noticed that. I'll have to take a second look at the windshield frame of the roadster. I can say that the removable hardtop in the kit is total garbage and doesn't suit the car at all! I'd sooner scratch one up using a Gen 1 'Vette hardtop as a base and go from there. And yes, the wheels and tires are too big for the kit. I have HRM's wheels and tires for the Tamiya Gullwing I have, so I'd sooner swap the ones in that kit for the incorrect ones in the Italeri.

You can do that if you'd like, but there are some hues/shades that don't show up as well with acrylics vs. enamels and vice versa. If it were me I'd hang on to them as you don't know when they might come in handy sometimes. The rule of thumb with painting anything is always test out your paints before putting it on anything. Either scrap plastic, a junk body, plastic spoons, etc.

Thanks for the link Skip! Like you, I like to have as many pics as possible on any particular car............there's no such thing as too many pics! My only beef with Fantasy Junction though is that they won't let you right click and save on the enlarged pics. I have a way around that though so no biggie. BTW, I love the reference heavy aspect of this thread! LOTS of very interesting info about this car out there, and there's a couple things I picked up that I didn't know it. I have the Italeri kit of the 300SL convertible, but something about that one is not quite right to me. Almost as if the front end is a bit "stubby" or something. I think it was mentioned here before on the board the issues with that kit, but my memory is failing me.

I strongly advise putting a small amount into a jar (you can get airbrush or similar jars cheap at the arts and crafts store), and then add some of their thinner to it. Brushing it as is out of the jar WILL make a mess and I can guarantee it will never dry thoroughly. You may want to try out the water based acrylics available from Tamiya and others for painting small details and interior parts as well. They clean up with water (I'm using them right now in between responding to posts) and dry sufficiently unlike the enamels. We don't mean to sound like killjoys, but unless you have a dehydrator to dry those enamels, you can be waiting quite some time for them to dry to the point where you can handle them and not make a mess.

I'm definitely watching this thread! 300SL's are one of my favorite cars of the '50's!

I had a bit of posting trouble with these pics here, but all's well now. All done now with the lateral struts in place as well as the control arms which are in place where the car's original leaf springs would have been. Note the brake and fuel lines have now been put in............ Of course, there are some things I had to "fudge". Some of the pics I have of certain parts were taken at odd angles, and I don't have a shop manual for this setup. Interesting enough, I see no emergency brake cable of any sort on the chassis in the many 1:1 pics I have of this car. More than likely since this was basically a test bed sort of car, Ford didn't worry about that since the car wasn't necessarily street driven or registered to be on the road for that matter. So in that case, I'm leaving it off of this one! Now I get to move on to the front suspension which won't be near as difficult as it'll build up pretty much like I did my '67 Mustang. Then it's on to semi fabricating the exhaust, painting and putting back in the gas tank, and finally I get to move on to the interior which will be a bit of a challenge there. Thanks for tuning in and the encouragement along the way!

Been awhile folks, but I've made some progress! I have some much needed time off (till Tuesday) so I figured what better time than to FINALLY get this IRS setup finished! This has literally been a kit unto itself, and it has been uncharted waters for me. The hardest thing about this is that since I had no positive locating points to work with, I have to constantly check the position of things to make sure the car won't sit too high (or too low) in the end, and that the wheels ultimately won't stick out too far in the wheel wells. This pic here illustrates how I went about to make compression springs. You'll want to find some kind of screw that has the spacing to your liking, and then taking a wire (bead wire in this instance), wrap the wire around the threads completely till the screw is "full". In the final making of these, I ended up using .020 brass round rod as it was a little more sturdy to work with, as the bead wire was a bit too "weak". Once you're done, gently turn the screw the opposite way to release the wire, and there you have it----------a nice compression spring! The Green Hornet uses a sway bar in the rear along with the IRS, so I had to think of something that would replicate that fairly reasonably. I didn't want to use plastic in this case, so I have bunch of wire that's used to wrap flowers with in a couple different sizes. Using a size that looked in scale to me, I set about bending the corners, and then putting the very ends into a vise, flattened the ends as much as possible so a hole could be drilled. I placed this on the chassis floor to get an idea of how the clearances would check out once the springs were in place. Once satisfied with that, I positioned the sway bar on the lower control arms, and these were pinned in place with plastic and metal "rivets". As you see in this pic here, I'm now beginning to form the half shafts for the pumpkin. My pics show a type of backing plate for the rear discs as well as a lateral strut that connects on to it, and is placed in the rear subframe. RB Motion supplied the rod ends, and the rest was scratchbuilt. Another tough thing about this IRS setup is that it is solely unique to this car. There was nothing else save for the pumpkin that I could use, so 90% of what you see had to come from my own mind to get it halfway right. Half shafts are now fully made and in place using more of those U-Joints that I got from Shapeways. You see the backing plates mounted now with the lower control arms fastened to them. It's now time for disc brakes. Originally I was going to use the PE ones from perhaps Detail Master or MCG, but since the rear wheels won't be removable once they're set in, the extra expense wasn't worth it, so I set about to making my own. Using a circle template that I've had for years, I picked out a size that would reasonably fill out the inner wheels without going overboard, and using a sharp steel rod (I filed a nice sharp point on it), I put this in a pin vise and went round and round till the disc broke free. Some sort of punch might have been easier, but I don't have such a thing at the moment, so I used what seemed to me the next best thing. I made eight discs so I can double them up to let the resin calipers I have fit nicely on them without a lot of slop. I'm finally at the point where I can paint the chassis, and do the slight overspray of the Green Hornets color. Rustoleum Red Oxide Primer was used, and while it's not exactly like the 1:1, I used this as more than likely, this is how the original California Special (which this car was originally) would have rolled off the line back in '68. The color I'll be using will end up being a custom mix of green, black, and some gold pearl powder that I've had for quite some time. In this case, I used Testor enamels airbrushed to do this overspray. When it comes time to paint the body, I'm going to hunt down a can of Krylon Hunter Green with the gold powder mixed in. For the topcoat, I'll be using a sort of green dye mixed in clear to give the metallic some depth, so you're not seeing gold flakes sitting on top of paint. A little experimentation will go a long way, so I'll be trying this concoction out on a junk body. I don't want ANY surprises when I get to this point! The plastic you see on the sides in later pics is Parafilm. This will keep me from wearing away the paint too much, as there's still a LOT of handling I'll be doing before it's said and done. Rear end now put in with the springs and shocks in place........... I needed to see how this will sit with the body placed on. So far, I Iike what I'm seeing and with the one wheel I had mocked into place to check position, the wheel sits EXACTLY where I want it to. The suspension will move slightly up, down, and even back and forth for adjustments if needed. Stay tuned for more!.............

Your comment reminded me of a line in the old "Heckyl and Jeckyl" cartoons............"We can do anything, we're cartoons!" Back in those days I'm sure you could talk the dealer into almost anything when it came to ordering your car. They're weren't so apoplectic about doing something "out of the norm". If you had the cash and patience, your wish was their desire. It would make for an interesting conversation piece just the same..........I'm just not a big fan of the cluttered look (IMO) of the wood grain appliques. At least not for this era of cars.

Randy, I Iike where you're going with this! One detail that you've nailed is the ride height! EVERY one of these I've seen either sits too high, or the frame is hanging below the rockers which is a major turn off for me. Yeah, as per normal one of the first things I noticed on the body when I first got it is the too flat (actually too horizontal) upper window line. I had lost interest in the kit I had, and sold it on eBay years ago. I still have the convertible, so following your build will give me some insight into what other foibles may come your way while you build this. One of the things that drove me nuts each time I took the convertible body out of the box is the WAY too high windshield frame! I got so tired of seeing it like that I cut it down to the proper height and shape, and it's on my "someday" projects to build. Interesting how they got the windshield height correct on the hardtop, but were so woefully off on the convertible's frame. HOPEFULLY Moebius will fix the flat upper window line too on their upcoming '64. It's one of those "signature" items I bring up from time to time when it comes to rooflines from certain carmakers and eras.

While I'm working on my Shelby (slowly but surely), I'm "air building" in my mind what I'd like to perhaps tackle as future projects. A few days ago, I won off the 'Bay a started '70 Ford Galaxie police car with the conversion pieces to change it to the nicer hardtop LTD model. I have that conversion set already as I'd like to someday build The Modelhaus resin'70 Ford wagon with those LTD parts. My question is this........I'm NOT a fan of the fake wood grain sides and tailgate that the Ford Country Squires had in those years. Yet, I like the fancier hideaway headlights and domed hood that came on the LTD. Did Ford make '70 Country Squires with that front end that did NOT have the fake wood paneling? Was there an option to delete that? Has anyone ever seen such a beast or have pics? To my eyes, those wagons look soooo much better without it!

Mark, thanks for the info! I never had either the '65 Ford or the '66 kit, but in 1:1 they would be similar if not identical as far as running gear. I do believe the Merc would be a tad longer in 1:1 but for me in our modeling world, that's no big deal.

I've not bought anything from him, but here is his page with his items and one can judge for themselves. Some interesting things he has there............

To echo what Pete said, I have different airbrushes for different things. My old standby is a Badger Crescendo 175T for primer coats and my BIN sealer. I've had this one since 1993-94. Not long ago, I bought a new Crescendo that I'll use when I'm doing for instance metallic paint jobs and I want something that will atomize the paint and metallics with not a lot of drama. Depending on what's being painted, my tip sizes will vary from fine to medium. For small details like engines, interiors and they're related parts, I use a Badger Patriot gravity feed setup. Believe it or not, I still have the old Badger 150 which can spray like a can for things such as chassis, and whatnot for those times when I want complete and good coverage-------red oxide primer on the chassis for instance. As always whatever you use, test out your airbrush on something such as a junk body or plastic spoons. Nothing's more frustrating to me when it comes to building than to put all of the time and effort into getting the body work done, getting to the paint stage, only to have it ruined by a bad paint job due to poor prep.

I might be interested in the '66 Mercury if it's sold in one of the original box art versions shown above. I already have one, but one of the things that's stopped me from building it is the chassis. I don't care for the molded in stuff at all, and I'm not sure of a reasonable replacement to give it more detail. '66 Mercurys have a very clean and straightforward design. After that, they started to get rather bloated and clumsy looking, but that's my own perspective. I'd get another '69 Olds kit for the simple reason that they make for EXCELLENT chassis donors for those obscure GM Colonnade coupes I'd like to build someday! The double stripe whitewall tires?? Hmmm...............very interesting!

I second the work the Chief Joseph does! I just got the other day the corrected grille for the Revell Bronco.......very, very nice! Flawless casting, and certainly looks the way it should! Two thumbs up indeed!

Mike, that's an interesting observation about the tumblehome on the lower sides. I hadn't paid attention to that until you pointed it out. By biggest beef about this truck is the waaaay too flat roof. Almost to the point that I notice a subtle "dip" in the center of the roof when looking at it head on. My fix would be to totally cut the roof top off at the seam starting behind the roof pillar, and then cutting along the drip rails. I'd raise the roof roughly a scale inch or so, and then fill everything back in with plastic and careful sanding. This would leave the windshield intact as that's to mount from the outside, but would give the cab an acceptable roof crown and not so flat looking from all sides. Some "flexing" and "bending" of the cut roof section I'd do also to the cut-away roof to give the peak of the roofline more "crown" to it. Just my 2¢ worth!

Lookin' good Phil! Love those Halibrands!

Casey, along those lines the same thing could be said of AMT's 1/6 scale '57 Chevy Fuel Injected engine kit. I have that one and I don't remember it ever being reissued since it first came out. That one's a very super detailed kit with literally working everything. I think I've only ever seen one built, and that was in a hobby shop where the owner had one in a case. I've not checked on eBay for average prices of what they go for now, but they weren't great sellers AFAIK, and I don't see that one coming back anytime soon either.