Drake69

Okay. My nephews watched "Once Upon A Time" this week and saw Cruella De Vil's car on the screen, and immediately wanted it. I did some research and all I could come up with was it was SIMILAR TO the Panther De Ville that Disney used in the live movie "101 Dalmations". But THIS one looks nothing like Glen Close's car from the movie. The movie car... '77 ~ '84 Panther De Ville The car on "Once Upon A Time" Thoughts? Ideas? This second one looks more like a Rolls Royce to me...

Yeah... you got me to thank for that. I had to give you credit you so richly deserved for figuring out why the front pieces looked so wonky. And with all the recent Christine builds out there now, it'll help others with their cars.

Yeah, I know... I was just calling it that like SK did in the book. No worries. And thanks everyone! EDIT: Decided to change it anyway. It DOES make it correct! LOL!

Here is my take on an iconic car.... I had to sacrifice a distributor, an antenna, several coats of paint, and extra time to the gods to build her, but she came out rather nice I think. Intake manifold, dual carbs, and dual air cleaner setup from an AMT '57 Chrysler 300c, but the parts fit perfectly on the engine block. I also had photoetch I was going to add to it, but research showed that very little badging was put on the car to keep her and her 24 "sisters" simple for the camera. Let me know what all of you think!

Thanks all! Appreciate the comments! Alright, I'm going to bed. I need to put the front and rear plates on her but she's pretty much done. A BIG SHOUTOUT to Richard aka ramfins59 for figuring out why the hood doesn't sit nicely with our cars, it made my Christine look tons better. Pix to come!

Richard, man... I can't thank you enough. I hit ALL the issues you had, and this was the BELVEDERE kit, not even the reissue! But it was your suggestion on the front rad support that fixed my biggest problem. Thanks again, and awesome car!

Love the lower stance and choice of wheels. I've not seen one done up resto-mod before, and it's giving me ideas... Nice build!

It's so cool to see the 50's and 60's wagons done up like this. We need more of them! Great stuff!

Parts are drying, and I found my Las Vegas sign. Christine looks cool lit up with it....

You are correct, my bad. You can use Windex to clean any heavy buildups from too much Future. I actually just did that on my Christine build when Future had collected along the bottom areas of the doors on each side. After wiping off the Windex and extra Future and letting it dry, you can then lightly brush Future back on to return the panels to their clean glossy look again. Thanks for the correction!

You should find them as... It will ALWAYS be an acrylic wax FINISH, not a CLEANER. Cleaners have ammonia and other chemicals that do terribly nasty things to a model car body. It will ALSO be CRYSTAL CLEAR COLORED, not yellow or some other off-color. When in doubt, read the label on the back and look for the Future atomic logo. It is almost always printed on the back side of the front label, meaning that you are looking through the bottle to read it (which is a cool sales tactic actually...).

Awesome stance. Pegasus wheels rock for that type of look. Been meaning to do up a Hoonigan-style '66 since I've got two of them in my stash. Great work!

You know.... it's model builds like this that give me a glimmer of hope.... that someday... ...I'll be good enough to do one up as gorgeous as this. No words, dude. No words can describe it.....

Pretty sharp for a hardcase model. Nice work!

Almost there... Like looking down the barrel of a gun...

Body drying from Future dip last night.... And a shot of the adjustable steering...

Also, Tamiya Smoke acryllic paint (not the spray can but the small bottle...) can do the same job as Detailer Black. But either way, toning down the chrome in the center definitely brings out the headlights more....

Interior complete... Chassis complete with tub and undercarriage assembled.... Next will be BMF, followed by glass install and then another dip in Future to seal everything up nice and neat.

Fujimi makes a Pantera kit. There's several on eBay right now.

Need to put batteries in the camera, but interior is finished. Will take pics real soon.

Dude, you beat me to it. I'm currently building Christine now, but the backup red-molded kit I will have left over was going to be repurposed into a similar musclecar version, low stance, hopped up engine, everything. Also in black..... Darn. And she looks PRETTY this way. Good job!

It's absolutely hilarious sometimes. You go through test fitting, then priming, painting, detailing, test fitting, building an immaculate interior, more detailing, then priming, painting, more test fitting, assembling a chassis with suspension, THEN priming, painting, foiling, detailing, metal badging, glossing a body till it shines better than any car you've EVER driven off a dealer's lot. Then breathe a sigh of relief.... almost done... MKK the glass on the inside sills, attach the glass, let it set for awhile to give the white glue time to disappear, then Triple Checking the body, chassis, and interior for fitment problems.... All good... Then put it together.... ONLY TO FIND OUT THE BLESSED BODY WAS SOMEHOW WARPED!!!!!!! AND YOU WOULD SWEAR ON YOUR NINTH GENERATION GREAT AUNT THRICE REMOVED WHO DIED IN 1875 THAT @#$/^&* WARP WAS NEVER THERE!!!!!!!! DID THE WARP FAIRY SNEAK IN THE NIGHT BEFORE AND BLESS THE MODEL SOMEHOW?!?!?! Ummmmmmmm..... nope. Never happened to me. I have no idea what your problem is.....

I am in awe, dude. Nice work!

And don't worry about the aluminum paint not covering up the stripe lines. BMF should lay down on them quite nicely and cover them up for a smooth look.

As an avid SK fan I would be remiss if I didn't do a model of my favorite movie car. And right out of the gate she took up her namesake. Pix first... Air cleaners, dual carbs, and intake manifold from the Chrysler 300C kit. I loved the detail AMT put into those parts, they really make the engine look right. BMF'ed the air cleaners for the chromed look, left the intake silver and painted the valve covers gold (just my take on the engine...). Body done in Tamiya Gray primer, lightly sanded, then sprayed with a coat of Tamiya White primer, smoothed out again. I started with Tamiya Matt White paint until I had a nice even white color on the upper half of the body, then masked off the roof for the next phase. I then laid down a coat of Tamiya Italian Red to the whole body, then a problem (more on that later), caused me to sand the problem area and shoot the whole model with a top coat of Model Master Flame Red. The darker Flame Red helped fix the problem perfectly and gave her a more "blood red" look. After masking the body panels. I shot the trim with Taimya Gloss Aluminum so that I would have a nice even look to the paint on her side panels, then coated the body with Future clear after some light sanding. This gave the flat white on the roof the glossy look it needed, and it sharpened up the red on the body as well. BMF will be next on the body to detail the trim. Now, beforehand I mentioned something about this one model living up to her namesake. The first thing that happened was I was using my motor drill pin vise to drill a small hole in the back of the block to fit the distributor since I was no longer using the kit's own manifold. During the test fitting/drilling/test fitting stage, the dizzy popped out from between my fingers and hit the floor. Of course, I'm not building the kit molded in RED so I could SEE the RED part on a cream colored carpet. Noooo. I have to be building the older, nicer, cleaner BELVEDERE kit with the CREAM-COLORED parts. So first thing for the sacrifice... one tiny distributor. I grabbed the one out of the red molded kit and grumbled profusely, angering her worse. More on the "paint sacrifice" later.