62rebel

must have been a Stingray then; no less fun to ride. one of my friends had white tires on his 'ray.....

iconic American actor and race driver James Garner has died aged 86. i suppose most of us identify him as Jim Rockford of the Rockford Files, others may remember him from countless other roles and as a great amateur racing driver.

the '56 by Monogram is a completely different kit from the Revell '57. looking at the old build reveals that it does display pretty good proportions, better than many would admit given it's age.... i think the kit actually does a better job of representing the actual car than the AMT version of the same era. admittedly, it has lots of faults like fragile suspension and excess flash, difficult to install body chrome, and cast-in side trim.... but the prospect of working features like opening hood, doors, and trunk, raising rear quarter windows, and poseable steering make up for much of that.

the Japanese would have the electronics industry locked down, have a chokehold on the American car market, and drive the entertainment industry via computer games, while Germany would have the luxury car market and upscale audio market locked down. the Italians would have their own corner of the supercar market and be known for stylish suits...... oh, wait. they did LOSE, didn't they?

i had one in junior high, metallic blue with the shifter, etc... loved that thing, it was so much easier to ride than the big Schwinn 26" i got from my Dad. both of them got sold in the early '80's when i was in the Navy.

political issues are lots of fun to watch. they sometimes develop into full scale wars. being offended by articles with historical references is one of the most ludicrous modern pastimes i have ever encountered. if we were to obliterate every article that might offend someone regarding it's content, we'd be standing around in empty fields chewing cud.

congratulations to Chrissy and you. she definitely has shown skill and determination.

Bill; i may start doing that trick as well.... you make it look so easy....

it's a painful fact that the demographic that buys not only "early model" ( read as "old") car kits but reissued kits out of nostalgia is a shrinking one. i don't foresee ANY manufacturer looking at a future release list and saying "we need to do a '65-'66 Ford Galaxie kit", since AMT's evergreen issues are pretty much the best value for the money. long-gone Mopars, seldom seen GM early intermediates like Johan's Olds F-85 and Buick Specials could stand being redone, but i don't foresee many of those any time soon. the current trends of drift cars, donks, slammed and/or ten-foot tall trucks will pay the way for a few old kits to be reissued maybe one more time...... i felt a little ashamed to see AMT having to do a movie tie-in some twenty years late for the jaded old '72 Nova SS kit. really? the car might have had five minutes of screen time. the "Jack Reacher" Chevelle at least was a pivotal part of a chase scene..... ah, well. i wish there was a kit that opened it's own box and assembled itself and had flawless paint and two trees of "chrome", one without chrome plating on it.

oddly enough i just watched highlights of that race last night on youtube.....

as always, the best work from a master! looking forward to more.....

wow.... the audacity of the Suzuki designers AND the Mazda retailers! blatantly copy Ferrari styling points and cover a Kei car with them! honestly, though; it looks pretty imaginative for the time period and manufacturer. does Jay Leno have one?

the tooling is still there, AMT released the '69 (?) Corvair in their Prestige line in the '90's and maybe once or twice since then.

that's an extremely nice build and clearly illustrates the fact that even a bad kit can be built to a high standard if you simply have the skill and patience to work on it. it was a difficult kit even when new; but difficulty overcome is a victory.

i've built two of those in forty years... one was lost to childhood mayhem; the other is safely packed away.... it's probably the pinnacle of AMT Indy car kits imho.

i found a Cresta, in, of all places, a backwoods salvage yard in the Altavista area of Virginia.... about 25 years ago. it was in a section devoted to off-beat "furrin" cars.... the old fella that ran the place had around 6-700 cars in the yard... all, more or less, arranged by make and era.... there was a literal LINE of 49-51 Fords and 49-51 Mercs that stretched for hundreds of yards. tri-five Chevies by the dozen.... and a good many B-body MoPars as well. he died around 1994 or so and his young'uns crushed the entire place, lock stock and barrel.

we're stuck in the past because Mr Peabody didn't build a "Way Forward" machine.

i was wondering why somebody said paint it black!

i built the Herbie for my Disney-fangirl wife and it did fall together well... i'll certainly grab a couple of these.....

i must have crawled through a mile of briars to look at cars like that for my Dad in the early '70's..... never a thought about snakes, etc..... YIKE. very authentic!

excellent!

my Dad restored them when i was a kid and some of my earliest memories are watching him work on stuff that looked very much like your model.... i honed my reading skills by reading Clymer restoration handbooks! most A's gone that "bad" would suffer stress cracks along the edge of the front fender where the brace went underneath, along the door beltline near the middle of the window, failed joints where the running boards attached to the fender and splash aprons, and often some sort of roof damage that would destroy the canvas top exposing the cotton batting and chicken wire stuffing and the wood battens to the weather. all of the exposed wood would turn grey as it deteriorated. their rear fenders were seldom untouched by damage of some type, as the rear bumpers offered little protection. usually the back edge would be stoved in pretty badly on such a "field car" as yours...

i hate to be the wet blanket guy but A's had a fabric insert in the roof from the front to the very edge of the "roll" at the rear and across the center from a similar point. even a "filled-roof" A would show a different wear pattern from the original sheet metal along the edges where the metal was welded or brazed in.... great weathering, nonetheless.

gentlemen, start your MP3's!

building my second Tamiya cooper and realized that the roof can be left white as well... except the driprail itself. it is supposed to be body color.... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr