62rebel

another fine example of a builder's work instead of an assembler's. great job; love the color; it screams 1975 all over.

side note; I don't for the life of me know why or how Ford did it or even if it was intentional, but when I pulled the Fordomatic from my '60 Starliner and cleaned it up, the cast-in "Ford" oval was more gold in color than the rest of the casing which was aluminum.... I thought possibly it had been painted and scrubbed it with steel wool and brake cleaner and it simply shined up more gold-like. very odd and I've NEVER seen another like that... Fords have been my life and I'm never amazed by what they did. they were willing to try ANYTHING once...

MPC's old "Grand National" stock car Chrysler products had wedge heads, intakes, AND hemi heads and intakes.... well, if memory serves me, anyway. the general appearance of a B/RB and Hemi block is overall the same at 1/24-1/25th scale, so why not simply cut the molds for a second pair of heads, valve covers, exhausts and intakes? I replicated my uncle George's plain old Satellite Sebring with 318/at by backdating the 340 out of the new Duster kit... can't do his Duster with the slant six without a Gibson or Lindberg engine.... and can't do a Chrysler Poly 318 at all, accurately. Ford put an awful lot of 351m/400's in trucks in the '70's and all through the fullsize line for years, but how many Cleveland/modifieds do we have? how many 240/300's for trucks? Chevies got a good spread of 235's a few years back, and their small and big blocks are easy to replicate as 400's or 402's or anything in between.... a second engine like Lindberg's slant six would be SOOOOO welcome in ANY manufacturer's lineup.... for every HO 5.0 Mustang there must have been 25 plain jane 200's..... or even 2.3ohc fours..... MPC was so cool in providing the OHC Sprint Six in their '69 Firebird kit along with the 400.....

we've been lulled into believing that our lack of attention/skill/training can be replaced by having new cars with crumple zones while everybody has been churning out 6,000 lb 600bhp trucks and suvs for the past few years that render said "crumple zones" null and void imho. there's a reason "smart" cars are built like steel volleyballs.... that's how "normal" sized cars are treated by drivers of oversized overpowered leviathan pickups/suvs on our roads. you want people to drive safely and direct all their attention to the proper task at hand? take the driver's side airbag OUT and replace it with a six-inch long hardened steel spike and remove the shoulder belt from the driver's side. I hazard a guess that more than a few of those wrecks involved someone pushing their personal envelope of ability far past what the CAR was capable of doing. owning a beautiful classic muscle car in no way grants you the skill to use every last iota of it's power. in other words, stupid HURTS.

ain't that the truth.... and the "super glue" of the time was the worst formula for styrene possible. I remember running out of Testors' red label and trying to use some old epoxy my Dad had left over to put together "The Old Pro" '72 Nova... boogers would have worked better! or my first paint jobs.... POSTER PAINT. yep; tempera.... well; any goof-ups and you washed it off and did it again.... man, I was cutting-edge in those days..... hah!

I'm currently working (slooowly) on a Revell R/S Camaro, making a typical '70's style street car along what a high school kid with a part time job could and would have built... but there are no really good representations of Cragar Showpipes out there.... those big honking sidepipes with fake collectors at the front. and, to be period-correct, it should smell of the brand-new non-toxic Testors glue (the lemony stuff) and Pactra 'namel paint! those two fragrances kick me right back to 1975......

not sure what crops would grow in the ground after a Harley leaked oil all over it. cool idea, though!

I've seen mis-identified parts called out several times over the years, as well as incorrect color callouts.

see what Vauxhall did with it if you think it wasn't successful.

not sure why you're waiting to put wheels on till the last minute... what kit are you working on?

those are magnificent conversions.

wow. and here I was, thinking Allard never made an ugly car. proved me wrong!

the answer to that is a click away, and yes, that was a color combo used on Edsel engines.

nice save, Nick!

actually it's pretty easy to lower the rear on this kit. when you're assembling the rear axle, stop before putting the brake backing plates on and use your razor saw to remove the springs from the axle, making sure your cuts are straight and square. add lowering blocks of your intended scale drop, and voila. another detail can be great to add and strengthens the weak rear suspension of the kit: air lift bags. simply cut a thick piece of round sprue to the correct length to fill the space between the top of the rear axle and the frame; glue in place and paint flat black, add air lines, and again, voila. different versions of this kit have holes in the block for steel wire axles or modified front wheels to use thick stub axles that really ONLY fit the stock height location well.... 1/4" styrene tube can be glued into the top "lowered" positions on the frame before the engine is installed, then short pieces of steel wire axle used to hold the wheels. of course, I've built over two dozen of these (probably closer to three) and every time I do one I find another way to improve it.

gosh Harry I hate to barge in on your build but. yes, the Diamond Duster has working suspension, was rigged for lights, AND has self-propelled feature (an electric motor buried in the Chrysler B/RB engine block. that chassis was also featured in the Fiat dragster I think.

Harry; you are inspiring me to revisit the Minicraft MGTC I've had mouldering in the closet for about ten years now. or to finally build something onto my Lindberg Diamond Duster chassis.....

that car would figure highly in a Mogadishu setting a la "Black Hawk Down"....... or the final sequence of "Navy Seals".... perhaps a scenario from "Munich".... all of which might constitute a "sick joke" to somebody. trouble is, it's historical fact that we're dealing with and not revisionist history. four opening doors in 1/35th? no wonder it costs so much. that's complicated execution.

great looking build! as far as "doesn't fit well", I don't see anything out of place. just great technique and patience and the results thereof.

interesting that such a relatively mundane people-mover only SLIGHTLY less ubiquitous than a 2CV would end up kitted. I once thought you could collect and send in Gitanes wrappers to get the real deal.

the orange one is the FE from the Revell '59 Ford Skyliner kit.

Revell supposedly addressed the issue of the windshield top edge LAST issue, but I didn't buy one to see. if they've recreated the original sponsor decal sheet they USED to include in this kit (and most of their others IIRC) i'll buy it to get one. this kit was the third or fourth model car I built as a kid. Christmas present from my cousin Paul. I would love to do the box-art car for nostalgia's sake. here's "cutting edge" kit design for you: this kit and the related sedan have... SEPARATE DOOR HANDLES. the tri-five series had all kinds of trick details, if you recall: door panels that had upholstery on one side and "bare metal" detail on the other; raising quarter windows; choices of trim level for side chrome, etc.... and the best representation of a small block in any kit at the time.

I reflect on the several amazing new kits on the shelves, and the rebound of reissues from days gone by, and the difference in content between the two respective eras.... this hobby flourished in the late '60's into the mid '70's and suffered some pretty serious setbacks in the interval years; I often wondered if it would EVER recover as I walked through our local hobby shop in the early '90's.... de-contented kits; many simply BAD kits issued over and over; serious issues of "we don't care as long as SOMEBODY buys it" from every corner... and then something happened. model builders started having their voices heard; manufacturers began to issue corrected kits; accurized decals; all-new tools of existing models..... sure; there were miss-steps from all of them at one time or another; but the bottom line was that WE were getting what we wanted. so, whenever there's an urge to blast a kit or manufacturer, try to remember that they are a business and have to create a profit. remember that, once upon a time, two-piece plastic tires and just enough parts to do a stock-only model were all they put in the box.... and if we were lucky, there was a crude CB radio and antenna included, as well as a little glossary card of 10-codes. and at least they're not a block of balsa wood and a three-view instruction sheet.

doors look like Fiat 124 Spider sourced.

are you referring to the iconic 1968-76 1602/2002 coupes? I have been hunting ANY kind of decent kit of that series car for YEARS, as I used to own several 1:1's......