MrObsessive

I miss the preview button to see if all is well before you post.

I'm on eBay all the time, and I've beaten folks by a nickel. That's without any sniping or jumping in at the last minute. What I miss about the old days of eBay is that you can no longer see who's bidding unless it's your auction. I'd kinda like to know if I'm bidding against a friend who really, really wants that kit and it's something I can sooner let go and let them have it. I get why they hide identities though.............too much funny business in latter years with folks getting scammed by would be "eBayers", especially if they can see that the bidder paid an astronomical amount for a particular item.

I'll be tuning in as well! One of my favorite Corvette racers! I'm curious how Harold's parts will fit this one too......I've got a couple of these as well as his rare resin "roadster" transkit that I won many years ago at NNL East.

On another thread, I commented on whether the Pacer will be this or this? Granted on the one auction listed, it's shown as a '78, but Round 2 isn't always clear on what will be reissued. Did MPC offer both versions of the car in kit form in '77? Either one I might consider as they have a "cool" factor now, something that was NOT the case when those cars were new!

This is what I got from another board where they're talking about the same thing................... AMT 1/25 Tyrone Malone Kenworth Super Boss Drag Truck AMT 1/25 1964 Plymouth Belvedere Lawman Super Stock AMT 1/25 1964 Plymouth Belvedere Richard Petty Stock AMT 1/25 White Freightliner Single-Drive Tractor Cab AMT 1/16 1955 Chevy Nomad Wagon AMT 1/25 “Blazing Bison” (Meister Brau) Triple-Engined Blown Hemi Puller Tractor AMT 1/25 1980 Camaro Z28 Cheverra Custom (Snap) AMT 1/25 1977 AMC Pacer Wagon AMT 1/25 1961 Chevy Impala SS (apparently the Lindberg kit – doesn’t say if it’s the hardtop or convert) AMT 1/25 1957 Chevy Corvette Convertible (White) Cindy Lewis Car Culture Diorama AMT 1/48 Star Trek F104 Starfighter MPC 1/8 Thunder Chopper Custom Motorcycle MPC 1/25 1972 Don Snake Prudhomme Rear Engine Dragster Lindberg 1/25 Crown Victoria Police Cruiser Lindberg 1/25 1959 Century Coronado Boat No dates have been given----------they just say "over the next few months".

Yes it is a nice kit! I've had mine ever since they were intro'd but haven't done anything with it. I have that eBay seller listed as one of my favorites, and I was checking his listings out. Unfortunately, while he doesn't have gauge decals for the '66 per se, he does have this posted which should work as they're round faced gauges. Might be worth a shot to look into 'em!

Your question got my curiosity up, and I had to go up to my third floor and look for this one in my stash of kits! No, the only decals I see are six license plates (three sets for front and rear) and that's it. No gauge decals, stripes or anything else. I'm not sure who would have decals for that..........I'm not sure Fred Cady offered them years ago for this car.

Thanks for the tips fellas! Looks like either which way, I'll have some work to do. Regarding Chryco's unibody construction------I don't remember where I read this or if it's even true, but I seem to remember that MOPAR's new for '60 unit construction was nothing more than the full framed cars' front and rear subframes welded in the chassis floors without of course the side rails present. Of course this wasn't a direct translation of that technique, but it was said that Chryco used the '57-'59 frames as a starting point for the new unibody construction. If that's the case, then one could use that '57 Chrysler 300C's frame as a starting point, of course shortening the pan where needed. Then one would need to scratchbuilld those inner fenders as they are indeed different than the intermediates from that time period. What I suggested might be a more cost effective way to get the results, without sacrificing a rare kit chassis to rebuild something else. I do have MPC's '65 Monaco hardtop kit (started but never painted), and I'd sure hate to part that one out as indeed they're seldom seen at shows. On eBay where I've seen just the chassis offered, the prices can go out of sight for just a chassis. Nevertheless, if I ever get around to building one of these full sizers from that era, I'll cobble up something to be a reasonable facsimile of that chassis.

I second what Harry said. I do this all the time------not so much because of scratches, but because of the terrible distortion that too many kits have. Clear acetate gives you that nice "glass" appearance more like the 1:1's IMO.

Click here to see Steven's International list............scroll down a bit.

Very beautifully done!! That black finish looks absolutely flawless! I once had this kit and regretted letting it go! Very recently I bought another one, and spent some more bucks and bought the superdetail kit that goes with it. When I'll get around to building it heaven knows, but this is one of my favorite '60's racers and you've certainly done it justice! I have to admit though like Ray mentioned--------shooting the car alone without the busy background will really let this one stand out. Once again, I love it!!

Suzy, mold lines are those ridges or raised lines you'll see sometimes around the back of the body, along fender tops, and around the front corners of the model. I'm not familiar with the particular kit you have, but those are the typical places where they are found. Kit makers have those in this area due to how the mold was tooled. Most bodies are done using a two piece mold, and where those molds join together to form a complete body, is where you'll see those "parting lines". What you described sounds like "flash", where the mold may be starting to wear, and the plastic is seeping through because the molds don't fit as tightly as when they were new. Your kit looks like it's pretty new, so I don't think you'll have a problem with that, and not to mention that the Japanese kits are not known for excessive flash anyway. Not to say that can't have issues later on. As far as sandpaper grits, I use a 400 grit to get rid of those mold/parting lines, followed up with 600 grit to leave the surface with some teeth for the paint to adhere better. Some fellows methods may differ------this is what works best for me. As far as glues? Well that's a loaded question as there's different types of glues for different things. For general assembly that doesn't involve the body, I'll use liquid glue such as Ambroid Pro Weld or Tenax. Tamiya also makes an excellent glue, although it dries just a bit slower than the other brands. I'll use 5 min. epoxy for bodywork and glass, and sometimes for other situations I may use a CA glue, but I don't recommend that for you just yet. It's powerful stuff as it's basically a crazy glue, and can really catch you off guard if you're not careful. One should have an arsenal of different glues for different things as there's just not one "type" of glue for all things. If I can make one suggestion since you're new at this-----------take your time! One of the biggest pitfalls for new builders is to fly through a kit, and end of having done something that's irreversible. You may not be totally happy with your own results when it's all finished up, but that's one of the things this hobby's all about. Learning new things as you go along, but not trying to do all things all at once. Hope this helps!

I'm looking over some old Johan MOPAR built-ups that I have ('67 Plymouth Fury Conv, '66 Plymouth Fury to name a couple), and I was wondering if the floor stampings were pretty much the same for those years through 1970. I ask because someday, I'd like to restore them, but just can't stand the molded in stuff that Johan gave us back in those days. Aside from the wheelbase differences of the B-bodied '68-'70 Mopars, were there any other glaring differences in chassis appearance back then? I could take the later (and much more plentiful) AMT kit chassis' and lengthen (if needed) them to suit the C(?) bodied cars. Thanks in advance fellas........I'll check in probably tomorrow as it's lights out for me. 1:45 in the morning comes quickly as I'm up then getting ready for work!

I second what Bill said about polishing metallics. Most of the time it's a big no-no because of what he described. I can only think of one instance where I was able to polish a metallic paint, and that's on my '69 Daytona from years ago. This Hemi Orange has a very subtle metallic which I was able to rub out without that mottled, swirly look that comes from rubbing those out too much. And yes, if doing a car with opening doors and such, it's better to paint those inside areas first, let it thoroughly dry, then paint it all as a whole. This is especially true for candy colors where it's a good idea to also count your strokes for each panel, and paint in a criss-cross motion to get everything all nice and even.

From what I've read about the car, it was truly a show car in the strictest sense! It had no running gear to speak of, just sat there on display and looked nice. A passing thought years ago I had to do this car, and now with the Gremlin kit out there in plentiful numbers, and I have a couple junk AMX bodies..................hmmmmm........... Nothing against the resin makers out there, but in my case with the way I build, resin can be impractical for me. Good luck to those out there that want to take a crack at this one. It is a VERY interesting car for sure, and makes you wonder how it might have fared on the market had AMC been daring enough to come out with it.

FWIW, I did some digging around and came across this interesting thread about the car here. Also, there was a recent eBay listing showing a pic of the rear of the car. You can check that out here.

While I'm not a designer, and not up always up to speed with what they have to deal with----limitations and all, there's something that's bugged me for years in how cars are designed today. That has a lot to do with the dash to front axle distance that IMO is way too short in many cars, especially the FWD ones. I really hate to see larger cars with the front wheels so close to the leading edge of the doors, that the car looks to me like a constipated dog. When I was looking for a car to replace my Saturn, that was something that stuck out like a sore thumb to me in an instant. Not to mention, I'm a tall guy and I wear size 15 shoes. Many of these cars with the smooshed wheelwells leave no footroom let alone leg room. The Saturn I had may have been the exception, but since I bought my Challenger, the difference is night and day. I have to give a LOT OF CREDIT to Volvo with their new S90 series of cars that have hit the market. Despite the fact they're FWD, they have VERY nice proportions, as the front wheels are a lot further to the front of the car where they should be. I hope other carmakers take a page from their design book and start designing cars again without such awkward proportions.

You see fellas, there IS someone else besides me that's just as insane about the little things! Randy, this is an excellent thread, and it'll certainly be a stunner when it's all done! I like your way of building this--------taking each part as a kit in itself. Sure it takes a while, but it's those details that can make a model a neat little treasure.

I think I might have you beat Rich! I have at LEAST that many and then some from the kits and builtups I gotten off eBay. I have some that I've bought in the early '00's that I've yet to touch. Just today, I got this gem off the 'Bay. I couldn't resist it! I actually saw it yesterday on my phone and gave the fellow a best offer. He declined my offer, so I offered a few dollars more and he accepted. It of course needs a full resto, but except for the wheelcovers looks complete. '61 Buicks are hard to come by without the roof all bent up due to those thin pillars, and I can maybe see this one on my shelf looking nice and pretty some day! eBay can be a dangerous place for your wallet though especially if you have a smartphone. It's just too easy to hit the "Buy It Now" button on your screen and your bank account will be that much emptier!

No, I don't think that was it. Remember, I molded my own glass, so it was much thinner than what the kit provided. I think it was more with the chassis being built up a bit more, and also a couple interior changes I made contributed to it. What I did with the interior was try to make it more of a platform style without the extra floor that's in the kit. Test fitting it initially did bring the floor upwards somewhat, but it needed to be shaved down to completely get those sides outta sight. If you take a very close look at the box art model, it being painted black notwithstanding, you can see the chassis floor hanging below the rockers. Not sure why Revell let it go this way, but it had to be fixed on mine.

Yeah, that's no problem there. If I were to start building this today, I would have still done the roof swap (the biggest problem with that kit IMO), but I may have let the opening doors go. One appealing thing I like about this type of car with opening doors is because the car has a wraparound windshield, I like the look of the glass sitting on the "dogleg" of the door jamb. Call me weird, but I liked to see this as a kid when cars with that type of glass were a lot more numerous on the roads of course than today.

Well this is just great! If they back out of ever making this, what about the tons of folks that put a deposit on this including yours truly?? I suspect that if they go under (can you say Bankruptcy?), then those of us that sent a deposit will simply have to wait in line to ever getting our money back. In other words, we'll be just another creditor waiting to get paid.

James, installing the chassis as is would leave the sides of it hanging down too much below the rocker panels. On some 1:1 pics I have of the car particularly a direct side shot, you can see just a teeny bit of the rear floor peaking just under the rocker. Not the entire length of the rockers would you see the chassis sides. It bugged me enough that I did some surgery as you've seen here. I'm happy with the way it looks now------trouble is if I do any more '59 Chevy's I'll have to deal with that again. On another annoying note, as I was trying to get the passenger door to fit more flush with the body, the upper door hinge broke! This unfortunately was bound to happen as it's been nearly four years since I've built this, and the hinge being brass can only take so much flexing before it snaps. I tried to go the 1:1 route of making the hinges flat like you see in the real cars, but in the future when I do opening doors, I'm going to have to go for sturdiness, and use my tried and true brass round rod. So you know what?? I've decided to simply epoxy the passenger door shut. I'm at a point where I don't want to re-engineer a hinge all over again, and have this set back that much further. Not to mention it would be nigh impossible to make the same hinge again with the same geometry that the first one had. Frustrating yes, but with this so close to being done, I don't want anymore mishaps with trying to install another hinge with everything all painted and shined up.

OK, I had assumed that most had seen it before since I've posted it elsewhere in the past! Kinda hard to remember all of the details as I built this starting in mid '97 and finished it sometime in early '98. I started with AMT's '53 Starliner, and pretty much all the mods were done with sheet plastic, putty, and some superglue. I do remember tracing the fins on paper so that both sides would be symmetrical, and the doors needed to have the "swoosh" taken out of them as starting with the '56's, Hawks didn't have the swoosh in the doors. The hood was mostly scratchbuilt as you can see by all the patchwork done on it, and the front and rear bumpers were modified to closely match the ones for '57-'58. The interior IMO leaves a lot to be desired as I had to modify the seat patterns to resemble a '58, and didn't look as nice if I were to do them again today. The dash was modified as well as scratchbuilt door panels. The trunk was modded from the '53 to be more like the boxy '56-'64 Hawks. Here are a few more pics that are in my one Fotki album............. One of these days (unless a kit comes out beforehand), I'd like to get back to redoing this one. Of course, I'd take apart everything, strip it down, redo the interior and pretty much re-engineer the whole thing to how I want it to be today.

Wow! I can remember back in the '80's when Motorweek did a segment on this fella! The car had just turned a million miles then, and it was only 20 years old at that point! I once owned a '65, and it would never have made it to 300,000 miles let alone 3 million!