MrObsessive

Lookin' Good Dominick! A while back I decided to go past my old school and drive through the lot for a minute. Long gone are those '60's and '70's cars that littered the parking lot. Back then Dodge Coronets, Chevelles, Darts, Olds Cutlass, Vegas, Pintos and VW's populated those spaces. Now I see Hondas, Nissans, Kias, Hyundais, and the like taking those spaces. I know time moves on, but those cars while very competent and good cars, just don't have the same "personality" like the cars of yore. Hmmm................40 years from now however the high schoolers of today, might be saying the same thing about the cars then!

Christian, that was it!! Haven't seen that in MANY years! Dig that crazy box art! Is that a reissue in recent years?? That's literally the first time I've seen it a looooong time!

Wow! Thanks for the pics Casey! High school days for me back then..........what was once common sights on the streets (most of them) are no longer. That Grand Prix I see we had as one of our Drivers Ed cars when I was taking it. Memories.............

Now THIS is definitely a great modeling subject for me! It was said that this prototype was under serious consideration for production, but in the end Chevy deemed it too costly and might have bit into sales of the Corvette. Hmmm..........a shortened '67 Camaro body and chassis, straighten out the upper fender line, Big Block 396 power.........SS trim......Very Interesting!

Models won't complain how many there are of them. You can have as many you want and you'll hear nary a whimper!

Knew this one the second I saw it!

Can't forget about the 2005-09 Cobalt! More than likely they had the early '60's on their minds. Too bad it was never pillarless like that '61!

Interesting enough, in my neighborhood (mid '60's into the early '70's) all the boys I knew built models. It didn't rub off on me though and I remember someone bought me a kit of a really wacky looking '57 Chevy which was more of a caricature of the car than the real thing. I guess I was around 10 at that point. IIRC, I think Revell made it and it was molded in yellow-----had small wheels up front and super giant wheels in the back. Of course, I wouldn't put it together and a couple of the kids I knew BEGGED to build it. I gave it to a next door kid and within that afternoon he had it all built. Whatever happened to it I don't know, but it would be another seven years before a model kit would cross my path again!

Round 2 when will we see this again?? Pic courtesy of eBay

Bill, I'm at work right now and seeing that comment literally had me bursting out laughing! Here's another one you won't ever have a model car ask..........."I'm I as fat as that lady?" Honey, if you have to ask...............

Models don't give you no back talk! Nor do they complain about what they're going to wear (paint), where they're going (the shelf), or how much money you're going to spend on 'em!

Just a small update for the moment....... Finally got the body in primer! As usual, I like to use my tried and true Plastikote T-35 Gray sandable primer. It dries quickly, sands beautifully, and is just plain more user friendly than other types I've used. Oh, and the price it still reasonable compared to "hobby" brands. I let the body sit for a day and then airbrushed on a coat of BIN Zinnser sealer. This was not without a slight bit of drama! I wanted to do this very early this morning, but when I went to open the can I've had for years, it was a hardened up mess. Seems as though I may not have put the lid on as tight as I could have when it was last used, so there you go. Here is the can of BIN ZInnser.............good stuff for those of you who have never tried it! I'll let this sit for another day (soon to be bedtime for me), and put on the final primer coat tomorrow. One of the chief reasons I'm going through this trouble is that the hood in particular has a scored line for the builder to cut open the hood if they wish for a blower. I hate that as it never fails that no matter how well you paint it, the hot solvents in the color coats can make that line "ghost" through the hood, ruining an otherwise nice paint job. I'll very lightly sand everything before putting on the last coat of primer, and then the color coats will go on which I've got the paint mixed up for that now. I want to avoid that as much as possible, so these extra steps I'll take to ward off trouble. So that's all for now........stay tuned!

Back in the early '80's (1981 IIRC), my Mom bought a brand new Eldorado with that Diesel engine. Because of the type of job she had back then (salesperson), she wanted something that was going to last and she had heard good things about how tough Diesels were. She bought the Caddy and if I can remember right, the car was something like 15-20K back in those days-----at least the one she had. Well, about a year later she started having TREMENDOUS problems with that Diesel to the point that the car became undrivable. My Mom never to take no for an answer demanded that they replace the engine in it (they did) and she had no more trouble out of the regular gas engine. I literally can't remember the last time I've seen a GM Diesel on the road. If any still exist, then it must be a very low mileage example as the owner hasn't found out yet what happens to them after so long!

I'll have to definitely keep that paint in mind when it comes time to paint the vinyl top on my Shelby! That looks soooo much better than masking tape alone and it looks 'in scale'.

Very nice and clean work so far Alex! I didn't think much of these cars when they populated the roads here back in the '80's-------UNTIL I had a hard time beating one in my '69 AMX 390! These little beasts can haul! And given a chance, they don't seem to have any limit! Unfortunately, they tend to be oil burners and as far as I know, Mazda has no current car with a rotary for sale. BTW, I like masking too........especially when I know the end result will be worth it. It can be time consuming, but I consider that as part of the paint job overall.

That's the first I've heard of a Diesel offered by GM that early! The earliest massed produced Diesel by GM would have been in an Olds Delta 88 which was intro'd sometime in late '77 as a '78 model. Oldsmobile was once GM's "technology" leader. Whatever new feature was to be intro'd to the public Olds was the first or one of the first to have it. It's very interesting that if indeed he bought an experimental car such as that and it still exists somewhere, you can imagine what that might be worth! It's also interesting that the dealer told him it wouldn't last any more than 50,000 miles! That's about as long as those '70's and '80's GM Diesels lasted------ask anyone who owned one! I do find it a bit suspect that GM would let a car like that go to the public without much legal wrangling. It's one of the reasons experimental cars are mostly scrapped.......they don't want the product liability issues in case of an accident.

Snake, I can see your comments on my end. If what you wanted to bring up about the MPC '69 Firebird and its foibles, I wanted to mention that I've been investigating how one can transform some of the bodywork from the MPC 'Bird to the Revell '69 Camaro. Some surgery would be needed of course, but nothing major/drastic. Of course, as soon as I attempt to start a project like that, Revell will announce an all new tool of a '69 Trans Am! This was one of the cars I mentioned to Ed Sexton personally at the NNL East a couple years ago. He mentioned the MPC tool though but I said that IMO the car is off shape wise and his Camaro could serve as the 'bones' for new tooling. Same basic body shape, same chassis (they already have the '68 Firebird), and they could use the engine out of the '68 for that matter. Just a new interior, proper wheels and decals, and they'd be good to go. So we shall see..............

Snowed like crazy here in Central PA Thursday during the day. Since I work third shift, I'm in bed as of 1:30-2:00. When I got up at 8:00 I turn on my phone and I got three messages from the job that work was cancelled for that night. I look outside and we got REALLY dumped on while I slept. Total was 8.5 inches by storm's end which was sometime that evening. That made for a nice three day weekend for me as Thursday night when I go into work is my Friday. To make things nicer, next week is a VERY short week because as of Wednesday morning, I'll be off for four days for Thanksgiving. Speaking of that, I distinctly remember Thanksgiving time 1971 when we got hit with a major snowstorm. I remember it because that was the last Thanksgiving we spent in that house as we had moved to VA that next summer. I can't remember such a big snowfall this time of year since then till now!

There is one caution I do want to throw out there regarding painting certain parts. I would advise when painting your hood for instance that you paint both sides to prevent warping. Sounds crazy, but several years ago I was trying to paint the hood on a particular resin model. I won't mention the model or the maker as I don't want to cast a negative light on them as this wasn't their fault. The hood was quite thin naturally, but it was straight as an arrow when I got it. I painted it with an automotive lacquer on the top side and a couple days later the hood had curled up like a potato chip. I got another hood from a different caster--------------same thing happened. The only thing I can think of that happened is that the paint as it dried and shrank, pulled the hood against the side that wasn't painted resulting in the warping. Needless to say the model sits to this day, although I did get a plastic original hood for it not long ago, so hopefully I can get it done down the road as it's something not commonly seen these days.

To echo what you said Steve, years ago I was on a Mopar message board and someone needed a windshield for what was either a '60 or '61 Chrysler. They wondered if the "bulged" glass would work as his car had a flatter windshield. The response was either one would work as the dimensions were the same for the circumference of the glass-----the bulge would not affect the fit. Perhaps the more bulged glass was limited to hardtops while the sedans had the flatter glass? Think 1957 Chrysler Corp convertibles which had a different windshield frame than the hardtops (a detail many don't get right when converting a 300C into a convertible for instance). For '58 Chrysler gave the hardtops and convertibles the same A pillar shape ('cept for Plymouth), so this might explain the differences in the glass between models. Just my 2 cents worth.

I'd say just about anything Ty. Resin is not subject to crazing like plastic so hot lacquers, polyurethanes, acrylics, etc should be no problem. I strongly recommend that you clean the resin (soak in Westley's Bleach-White for instance) to get rid of any mold release that may be on the surface. Also, it wouldn't hurt to put on a primer coat to give your color coats a better base to adhere to. Others will probably have more to say, but that's what I know about resin from having built a number of them in the past.

Very nice redo and EXCELLENT paint! I don't think one could have too many Revell '69 Camaros! I do think that's one of Revell's best ever made subjects! Never heard any complaints about it.

Robert those look very good------thanks for posting those! Yeah, he seems to be a very friendly guy to deal with and as I mentioned before, that was nice of him to offer up another Buick wagon to me since I had lost the original auction. Not too many do that as they'd simply relist the auction, or make a separate one for the same type item. I had another seller do that awhile back which caught me off guard. I saw on eBay a conversion kit for turning a '69 Dart into a '67. Hood, grille, taillights/with panel and rear bumper. I originally had lost that auction, but much to my surprise I got an email from eBay letting me know that the original winning bidder had backed out and since I was the next highest bidder, I could have it if I wanted it. For $20, I got what I think is a very well molded set! The seller's name was 'mustang_mom44820'. I don't think they're on eBay any longer under that name as it's been quite some time I've seen them sell anything.

Tim, I just tried to take a good look at the photo and from what I can tell, I see what may be just the top end of the engine. This is one of those cars that has a lower belly pan, and you wouldn't really see the bottom end. Still, this is miles ahead of Revell's Ford GT and I'd certainly wouldn't mind having this one over Revell's.