MrObsessive

The item I posted I've been following for WEEKS now with of course, no takers. I have a hard time believing it's a typo and it gets relisted over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...................

You mean like this one??? Outrageous!!

I think they're talking about Model King's '64 on Spotlight, not the new Moebius one.

I see no pics on my end either................

?????????????? X2

Interesting info about eBay. I'll have to remember that when I go searching for something there. I don't fault folks for not wanting to buy from there but OTOH, it's the reality of what's out there now. I have to admit I've found some things there that I would have NEVER got anywhere else, and at reasonable prices at that.

Very nice work Al! One of my favorite '50's Cadillacs! I checked out their Facebook page and they've got some very interesting offerings! That Lincoln Mark V looks like it has some potential, and I may look into that one further.

My comments above also extend to Johan's '70 Superbird kit. While the Revellogram '70 is not bad, it never looked right to me either and once again, it has to do with the kit's roofline. The C pillar doesn't appear "broad" enough--------the real car had a plug to make the rear window more flush, it just looks like Monogram very slightly modified their '70 Road Runner roof and called it day. One beef I do have with the Johan Superbird, and it's a small one------the nose on the kit isn't quite right. There are recesses surrounding the flip up headlights (I suppose to make decal placement easier), but that whole area should be flush with no indentations. Some say the front fenders aren't quite right, but the jury's still out on that one IMO. If you can grab those '68-'70 Johan B-Bodies at a reasonable price (built-up or kit) DO SO! They'll probably never be the likes of 'em again, unless Moebius gives a new tool '68-'9 Coronet perhaps, but that's wishful thinking on my part.

Should be an interesting resto! I can remember as a kid when the 1:1's were new (in 1970).

This site here can also be your friend when trying to find colors and whatnot for a particular car and model year.

Looks like those vents are there. You can just barely see the split of the vent in the middle of the bumper. BEAUTIFUL job so far as always on this car Steven!

Having built this kit MANY years ago, and having the doors working, I can tell you that indeed it will have shut lines that are too wide to appear correct. I don't have the model anymore (lost in a flood), but what bothered me more than the shut lines were the hinges themselves. I'm not a fan of plastic hinges and if I were to build this again, I'd replace 'em with brass ones which would last practically forever. Having said that, one cure for fixing gaps that are too big in a model is to simply increase the size of the doors. You can do that by adding some .020 styrene sheet around the perimeter of the doors, and then file and sand it to the contours of such. I'm doing this very thing on my Shelby build now, and I have some pics of my Turbine Car build here which show how to do this (scroll down a bit to see several pics with text). Hope this helps!

The Johan kit's body IMO is hands down THE best B body Mopar one can get if they want a dead on nuts accurate car. AMT's kit is MUCH better detail wise as far as the chassis and engine goes. I just can't get past the car's "droopy rear", incorrect rear wheelwells, and faint side eyebrows. As far as the kit itself, it does build up nice, as I've never heard any major complaints about how it goes together. I have a couple kits each of both the Johan's and the AMT's. I'd rather mess with the AMT bodied one as that one's an eyesore the most in my view at the moment. Now you mentioned Revell's '67 Dodge Coronet............whooo boy! I cringe each time I see one of those as the whole back half of the car is woefully flat out wrong! I have a fix for that one too, but it would involve about as much work as I'm putting into my '68 Shelby build, and it's not high on my priority list at the moment. Someday it will be, and it'll involve some MAJOR surgery-------more so than what I did to fix AMT's '68 Road Runner.

While I'm not familiar with the kit (pics of the kit and the glass would help), the real car had flush mounted glass which is not terribly difficult to do with clear stencil sheet. The problem with using clear styrene sheet is that it will scratch VERY easily when trying to handle it, also clear styrene can be very prone to fogging when it's being bent. If it were me, I'd make a pattern out of the cracked glass, then make sort of an "inset" or lip on the pillars and windshield header that would approximate the thickness of the sheet on the perimeter of the windshield frame. I would then paint the borders of the glass which would simulate the inside pillars holding it, and then very carefully glue the windshield on the outside of the body with some non fogging CA glue. This would lend a more realistic appearance, and the stencil sheet (acetate) IMO reflects the light much better as if it were glass. This might sound a bit a daunting, but I did a somewhat similar technique when I didn't want to use the glass in my Johan Turbine Car kit as the glass was too distorted for my tastes. The difference being however the glass mounts from the inside instead of the outside. If you check this link here, and scroll down a bit you'll see what was done. HTH!

Shaun, I believe that engine is supposed to represent a 352 for '59. I have a diagram here that can help you out if you want to see how the wires go from the distributor to the spark plugs. IIRC, on this era of Ford engine, the #1 cylinder starts with the first spark plug in the front on the passenger side. Your distributor is in the front looking at your pics------------the #1 plug would be on your left hand side in the front looking at this diagram. Hope this helps!

Oooooh! That is NICE!! That paint looks flawless from where I sit!

I don't know how I missed this 'cept that I don't get much into drag cars-----------this one is super-duper nice!! Very sharp and clean and it "sits" right!

I hear ya Steve! I was trying to patch up some tiny areas on the roof of my Shelby build, and I tried to use masking tape to cover over an area that I had already puttied. Either I didn't mix the putty for that area correctly, or there was some grease on that spot, but the masking tape pulled the putty clean off the plastic! I've since fixed it, but that'll be the last time I use that! Tamiya's tape worked fine over the other puttied areas, and no drama so far. I've got a looooong way to go on bodywork with all that I want to do, and I'd like as little drama as possible!

Well, when I first knew what a car was (early '60's) I was surrounded by fins and chrome. I didn't really pay attention to what was happening to cars until about '73 or so when I was in Junior High School. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I knew something about the automotive landscape was changing. Some of it might have to do with the fuel crisis which hit later that year, but I noticed that the appearance of new cars was changing. Of course, most '50's cars were off the road, but a lot of the mid/later '60's stuff were still roaming the roads. Things were definitely changing come 1973 however. Gone were new convertibles 'cept for the big full sizers, GM had intro'd "Colonnade" styling on their mid-sizers which were an unreasonable facsimile to a true hardtop with roll down rear quarter windows. The cars had gotten definitely slower as I can remember my Dad complaining about that as he was looking for a new car at the time. Yeah, things were not the same as they were a few years earlier, and it wouldn't be till the FWD cars started showing up in the early '80's when the auto industry IMO was TRULY in the dark ages. I was disappointed by the "Road Runner" when it was re-intro'd by Chrysler based on the Volare, as I still had fresh memories of what a Road Runner was SUPPOSED to be, at least what I can remember when they were new as a kid. I never bought the original kit, and while it's nice that guys are enthusiastic about its return, I just can't get past that I was never really crazy about the 1:1. Now if they're going to go '70's with some new kits, here are just a few I'd LOVE to someday see on the store shelves.......... 1976-77 Olds Cutlass Supreme (Scott mentioned that one and it was our Driver's Ed car) 1977-79 T-Bird (Starsky and Hutch's Torino holds out some hope for that one) 1977-79 Lincoln Mark V (see above) 1971-72 Buick Riviera I've gotten a bit off topic, but since we're talking about Malaise era cars, these were part of that era, but at least they represented some class unlike that which followed later which was about as bland as they came-----for the most part. Adam, that was a good review, and while I'm not a big fan of this car, your write-up on it does it some justice, and certainly would pique anyone's interest if they were thinking about buying this one.

Tom, I gotta disagree with you here. The NNL East doesn't charge two different fees to attend the show, and dare I say the NNL East has become a MUCH better show than Toledo has been for some time. You have quite the number of vendors that set up shop there, and there is not another price to see the models at the same venue. I dunno, I was just rather put off by it as I could see the models on display at Toledo from literally across the room, but if I wanted to either participate or simply be an observer, I had to "get in line" and pay yet another fee to do that. EDIT: I should add that perhaps it's time to split things up and let those hosts part company and go their separate ways. If the show (NNL) can't survive on its own merits and has to keep resorting to that kind of business practice for whatever reason, then maybe its time has come and it's time wave goodbye. Sad, but that's going to happen sooner than later.

Snake, that was Steven Guthmiller that's doing the '68-9 Coronet build with the much needed quarter window fix. Back in June, I posted a tutorial on how to fix AMT's '68-'69 Road Runner which can be found here. Namely I focused on the rear fenders of the car, and the rear wheelwells. I also tackled that quarter window shape. Not everyone will be able to do what I did, but it may be a cheaper alternative as original late '60's Johan B-Bodies are getting more scarce with each passing year. When they do turn up on eBay for instance, the prices for untouched pristine examples can be sky high. Even rebuilders are getting pricey these days unfortunately.

I have this kit and always wondered how much trouble it would be to kitbash AMT's mechanicals of the Stealth with this Mitsu? As you mentioned they were the same car, but of course this one's 1/24 scale, while AMT's Stealth was 1/25. BTW, I can't remember the last time I've seen a 3000GT as opposed to a Stealth which was a lot more common around here. Hmmmm----the wheels are turning in my mind..........

Wow! I LOVE that yellow! A not too often seen color back when these were new so they really stood out! A somewhat unloved era of Corvettes as they were not blinding fast like say 10 years earlier, but are nice drivers if you can find a decent one today, and not terribly expensive considering.

I'll be watching too! I had this kit untouched, but it was lost when my place got flooded back in '11. I've since got another one----------a rebuilder looking for a nice home I got off eBay. Watch out for those rather stout sink marks that are just in front of the leading edge of the doors. They're a result of impressions that were made on the inside of the body for the door hinges/hinge retainers. Filling those in (or maybe even sanding that area level) shouldn't be too hard.

That would go a long way to making a very nice kit all that much more desirable! It's a trouble spot for a lot of builds I've seen, and it's unfortunate because that's a signature feature of '61 GM "bubbletops".