MrObsessive

Well Rob, you know I'm a replica stock kinda guy, so this is what I think could be done with that '57 Chrysler 300C. I always thought that a lot of Chryco's '57 offerings looked a lot like custom jobs right out of the factory. You'd need to shorten up the chassis (I believe the wheelbase is more of Dodge's territory), and then the challenge would be to find taillights, bumpers, and Desoto badging. With Don and Carol Holthaus out of the picture unfortunately, getting those pieces might be easier said than done as they did make those. Still, a beautiful car just the same............

Yes, I heard that from Ed also when I talked to him at length at the NNL East. I'm definitely getting one when the stock version comes out. These things were EVERYWHERE in the high school parking lots when I was there in the late '70's. I'd like to see a "open headlight" grille offered as most I remember seeing didn't always have the headlight doors operable. It'd be nice to have the option on 'em either opened or closed.

HA! Danno, you got that right! In the borough I live in, there are THREE brands of patrol cars! A Chevy Caprice (the Australian Holden Commodore), a couple Dodge Chargers, and an older Ford Crown Vic. No corporate bigotry there huh??

Tom, he's speaking of the giant 1/12 scale Monogram '57 hardtop. I don't know of any sedan equivalent that anyone makes of that one.

You're talking a LOT of work to turn Monogram's '57 Chevy two door hardtop into a sedan! As Steve mentioned not only is the roof taller on the sedan, it's also a bit longer. Chevy shortened the roofs on their hardtops just a bit to allow the rear quarter glass to roll down the whole way, as opposed to having is sit up slightly on the sedans, particularly the two doors. This aided in that cleaner look that makes hardtops look better IMO. Also, you'd need to reshape the beltline somewhat on the sedan. Hardtops had more of a "dip" in the beltline, whereas the sedans beltlines were a bit straighter, except for the little dip which would be about in the center of the rear door. Yeah, definitely some work's involved for this one, and this is where very good reference pics would be paramount.

And you can betcha right at the time I begin to dig into mine.............WHAM! Someone will come out with a modern kit!

Every time I see one of these, I can't help but think of the 1:1 I had years ago. 390 4 spd, 3:54 rear end, and absolutely no power options. No power steering or brakes, drums on all fours, and believe it or not----vacuum wipers! Just a VERY basic go-fast car! Of all the cars I've ever owned the AMX was my favorite, with my Challenger coming in a very close second. Raoul, you beat me to it! Actually this was the next car I was planning on doing after I finish the BMW, but the Shelby's winning out because I want something very different to take to GSL hopefully in '19. I've got all the bits and pieces, and in fact, I've got THREE of these AMX kits and for whatever reason, it's taken till now to want to build any of 'em. Absolutely GORGEOUS build you did, and painted in my favorite Big Bad Green as well! I wish my 1:1 one was this color----it was a very bright yellow, and would have made a nice choice had AMC decided to add it to their color palette. Of course, I've saved all of your pics as I've got to add this to my AMX pic collection it's so nice!

Jesse, you wouldn't have to get a spare body to make your corrections............you can do like I did here with AMT's IMO incorrect '68 Roadrunner. It would sure save you a bunch of money!

IMO, the jury's still out which '57 Chevy kit is better------the old or the new. There are aspects of both that don't sit right with me. For instance, on the old tooling I don't think AMT got the side trim quite right. It's sits too high/too close to the beltline. When you compare 1:1 pics to the old tooling's body, you'll see how the trim could stand to be a bit lower. On the new tooling, the trim looks perfectly fine to me, but one issue I have with it is that the wheelwells of the kit always seemed too big too me. Particularly in the quarter panel area, there should be a bit more real estate from the trailing edge of the rear wheelwell, back to the bumper. Some have argued in the past that the new tooling's body seemed "large" and bigger than 1/25 scale, while I've not noticed that issue as I've compared comparable cars to the body, it appears to be in scale to me. It's just those wheelwells that bug me. This may sound far-fetched, but if I ever build this car, I'd cut the wheelwells out of the old and new tooling's bodies, and put the old ones in the new ones place. At least the shape would be correct, but you're talking a LOT of work. Revell's '57 Chevy Hardtop? Mehhh------something about the C pillar/rear window on that isn't right to me. New tool AMT's body captures that shape the best IMO. Just my 2¢ worth............

Tim, you're certainly welcome! Ford hit a home run with me when they came out with this car, as I was very disappointed to what they did to it after the "shrunken" 1980 models. Those were a bit of a letdown after the very classy '77-'79 models-----a car that when intro'd in late '76 was a heart stopper for me along with their super sharp new for '77 T-Bird. ALL of the guys that I knew when we were in high school back then lusted after that '77 Mark V! It's funny that this thread turned up at this time, as just last week when my sight started to get a lot better, I was looking over and "groking" this very body as it's something I'd like to tackle someday. I have most of the parts to get 'er done, just that there are other projects that are tugging at my heart strings more. My suggestion of what could be done to the body to make it right probably goes back 10 years or so when I got the Mark VII kit I have now, and I knew from first looking at it that there was some "shrinkage" done to the body to make it fit on the chassis. Nevertheless, I'm watching this build with much interest as this is one of the very few vehicular bright spots in the '80's/early '90's IMO. And yes, I don't care for the "everybody gotta have an SUV" mentality that's taken over the roads as well------I'll be glad when the pendulum swings back the other way and folks want an actual car again. At least that's my hope!

Roberto, some really fine lookin' cars there! Sigh..........you don't know how much I'd like to get back there again! Hard to believe it's been 10 years! I still have pics posted on Fotki of the show I judged there in Caguas/Gurabo. With my recent eye troubles, and the money I'm gonna have to pay out of pocket for that, heaven knows when I'd get to travel down there again. Thanks for posting that!

Just a quick shout out to those of you who were so kind to send me PM's, and sending good thoughts my way with my recent vision difficulties. I want to say many thanks as I went back to work today for the first time in a month! It was good to be back, and some were actually rather surprised to see me as they thought I'd be out for much longer considering what was done. My sight is near back to normal..........I'll say 90% of what it was just before I started having trouble. I still at times notice a "gray" area in my lower right peripheral vision, but I was told that the healing is a bit far from over, and folks I know at work who had this done told me they had the same thing for awhile. I also suspect I may need a prescription change at least for the right lens in my glasses as I don't see as clearly as before. Again, this is something the Doctor said may be the case, and it could be that in time this will clear up. At least I can function again pretty much per normal, and since the Doctor lifted the 20 lbs weight restriction particularly after the surgery, I was even back in the gym today for the first time in over a month-------no heavy lifting though. Those days are pretty much over. I got some time in yesterday for the first time in quite a while at my worktable trying to get more done on the BMW 850i, and hopefully by next week it'll be all done! So thanks again folks, your thoughts and prayers went a long way, and I really do appreciate it!

Mike echoes what I'd like to mention about the Lincoln body. You'd have to make some kind of "Z" cut just in front of the leading edge of the rear wheelwells, and then slice rearward to the trunk area. IMO, and this is just me, I think the C pillar itself is fine. It's the trunk and quarters (between the doors and rear wheelwells) that would need to be stretched just a bit. I have a pic of the resin that was out there years ago. I think this is an AAM(?) original kit. However looking at it compared to a pic I have of the 1:1, it too seems a bit "short" in those areas. It's up to you............either which way a lot of work, but then this is a car that IMO would be worth the trouble as it's certainly one of my favorites!

OOOH! Definitely following this one! One of my few favorite cars out of the '80's! Keep us posted!

When I first saw the new Camaro in pics online, I was a bit put off by it. It seemed just a bit too edgy and somewhat out of proportion to what the previous car was to me. Now that I've seen them on the street (not as many as new Mustangs however), I've come to like the looks, but I can understand GM not wanting to go too far with the styling. They may not want another repeat of 1993-02 where IMO they went too far with the looks IMO. It was too "spacey"and out there and not at all traditional like the previous Camaros we've come to know and love. Time will tell how this one holds up.

The closest one could get to making that era of Grand Prix, might be the 1995-99 Lumina that you can find out there in a promo, or perhaps one of the '00's Monte Carlos as they were all basically the same car. You'd have to do some stout scratchbuilding/modifying though to get the shape of the Poncho. No, you'll never see a kit of that car! Just wasn't popular enough even when they were new unfortunately, and that's a shame as I thought they were good looking cars, especially the two doors. Now that I think of it, there might be and I'm not into NASCAR so I don't know............there could be a NASCAR body of that car out there. IIRC, they did race those.

I dunno Steve......if it were me I'd barrier the heck out of that using either Future, or BIN Zinsser sealer. I say this because I tried what you did there on a '55 Ford Victoria I was working, and filled in the hood with as much plastic as possible. I also did this to the roof which was heavily modified from a Lindberg '53 kit and after everything was said and done, it looked perfect. Or so I thought.......... A few weeks down the road after the paint had fully cured and I could see where I did the bodywork, and it sits to this day. I'll redo the car someday, but it'll involve a complete teardown of the doors and hinges and windows, as I would strip the body clean and start over. Just a caution as you know you've had trouble with hoods in the past!

Ok, I was just scouring through eBay and I did run across one of those 1/8 Trans Ams in the Vintage section which I follow. You can check it out here, but I can guarantee you the price will go up from where it is now. Damage to the body notwithstanding........

I don't remember what I paid for mine as it was in the early '90's----------$20-30 maybe? But get out your wallet and get ready for it to be bled dry if you see one of these on eBay! EVERY time I see one of these and follow the auction, the price gets crazy high! You might find a beater built-up kit for a much better price, but the caveat with these is for some reason they seem to be molded in a more brittle plastic than the standard scale fare. A lot of them I've seen in the past suffered from fractured and shattered body panels, but they went for "reasonable" money though. It's the pristine kits that are in the stratosphere price wise. REVELL! PLEASE SEE FIT TO REISSUE THIS ONE!!

AAAAAHH! MUCH better Steve! Now those quarter windows will have the shape we all know and love!

Interesting factoids about the 300SL Skip. I always thought that the body on the roadsters seemed "beefier" than the Gullwings, and now I see where. And yes, I have the Italeri kit of the car and now I'll have to check out the windshield frame and see how it can be corrected if I ever decide to build it. The no fabric up-top thing kills me with that kit too, and I have a '50's Corvette hardtop that I'd like to modify to fit to use on that if the mood ever strikes me to tackle that one. The hardtop in the kit they give you isn't right to my eyes and just won't work. Also It HAS TO have a fabric up-top as well! I'm sure I can modify something that'll work. That's one of those cars that looks really good top up or down, and whether it has its hardtop in place or not.

Great looking model and a neat video! This was one of my favorite shows in the early '80's, but in later seasons when K.I.T.T. was changed to go into "Pursuit Mode", I didn't care for it and stopped watching. I saved your video BTW as that's pretty clever how it all went together.

Tim, this brings up another point that you mentioned in your '16 Camaro review. I too truly wish that all kitmakers would start calling out part names again as opposed to just an illustration with a number next to it. Case in point is the Tamiya BMW 850i kit that I'm trying to finish up. Tamiya got the molds from Revell and while they did a decent job of reboxing the kit, they also changed the instructions sheet where they don't name the parts on the sprue. I have this same kit in the Revell box, and on their instruction sheet it does call out the part name which I too believe is also educational especially for a young person just getting into cars. Unfortunately, and I don't know if it's because of a translation issue where everything is so international to not name parts on their kits, but the American manufacturers followed suit some years back by simply giving us numbers and illustrations with no part name given. Just one of those little things that would go a long way to help those either not familiar with the car, or are not "car guys" like us who don't need no names for stuff! I do have to commend AMT back in the '90's for finally putting color options on the sheet in relation to what was available in 1:1 on the car including the interior in their newest kits at the time. I have to give GIANT kudos to Moebius at the present as their instructions are the best to be had as far as layout, AND it's in bright, brilliant color to boot! Just to add that they indeed DO call out the part names on their instructions. Yeah, their build sequence might be a little wonky at times, but I give them an A+ for effort! Now if we can get everyone else to follow suit..............

Harry, I can't give you a complete answer 'cept to say it's just a "thing" with me maybe. I could liken it to convertible kits that don't have an uptop. The model doesn't "need" it, but to me it just seems incomplete without it. After all, a convertible's point is to show off its interior------an uptop would hide that. I like uptops because they flat out look better IMO with them up as opposed to down. Some of us perhaps may want to display the complete engine next to a car on display at a show for instance, and of course you can't do that with this one as Tamiya's defeated that purpose. As was mentioned, the Aston V-12 is a very key component to this car as well as Aston's racing heritage. It would have been icing on the cake if they could have given us a complete engine (once again MAYBE just for stand alone display purposes) as opposed to what some might consider an unreasonable facsimile.

Steve! An intermediate! Who'da thunk it?? Hey I like what I see so far, and you've confirmed something I've wondered about. I have a '68 Dodge Coronet Convertible body that's in dire need of a resto someday. I have the body with all that's needed with it buried deep in my stash on the third floor, and it crossed my mind a while back if this very thing would work. Now I see that it does! If I can make one teensy-weensy suggestion about the body? If you could level the rear quarter window sills just a bit? For some reason, it always seemed liked it swept up a bit too "high" for me, but then I'm compulsive about things like that. I'll definitely be following this one!