62rebel

nice stuff! i love Predictas; i built two so far modified from OOB. copper looks good on yours. i have a Monte that is still in pieces in a box.... hated the prepaint purple and did it in gloss black. left the interior in prepaint white, though.

Bill i am astounded. i love to see your work, even though you make mine look pale puny and weak! i got about a quarter into the lindberg mustang concept car and it went horribly awry........ i should have sent it to you instead!

cool build! sweet decal work. i miss the heyday of ProStock before it went stupid.... Doorslammers rock!

nice so far! i'm glad there's more big car fans like myself. (of course, it could be the slightly larger PARTS for my old eyes) i actually have a couple of those 60 kits that ended up as parts cars.. couple of those 62 tbirds too. i built one '63 1/2 Galaxie substituting the 57 ford frame in it, before the 60 came out. not ALL of my AMT's have metal front axles....

yep, Paper Clips. where i had to cut the roof open for the T-tops, i bent and glued in sections of paper clip in the A-pillar, header bar, and down the center, expecting to lose lots of rigidity if i didn't reinforce it. if i'd had the digital camera during that build i'd have documented it. i'm still trying to figure out the optimum reduction in pic size to fill the available holes... those were reduced to 25% and still too small. will try 30% for next batch; the closet is full of boxes and the boxes are full of cars. was hoping the extent of the modification i did on the rear of the Matador X would show more clearly... can't understand why AMT spent money to retool the hood and grille but not the rear pan? it was a separate piece and using stock taillights with that cool custom grille wasn't going to cut it. that version had the unplated Cragar SidePipes in it, too. unplated sidepipes? in the days before BMF? i also replaced the automatic trans on the X with a 4spd from a parts box Hemi. any self respecting Matador custom ought to have a 4spd in it! stock rims were all they included, too.... but they look cool on it, so they stayed. those are the 2-piece plastic tires, too.

and these unfinished Scouts in showroom stock versions.

others; like the AMT 49 Mercury custom i did just before the Revell kit came out....

an attempt to replicate my (now-gone) 1:1 1978 Mustang II Rallye T-Top V8 car.... lots of fabrication and some super glue, paper clips, styrene stock and aggaravation.

and my Matadors, stock and X versions:

let's take a stroll down memory lane (and imagination station!) and check out some of my junk.

since revell cocked up and only released 4 engines a decade ago, and AMT in it's many guises has only released the competition parts packs, who has a complete list of what the original packs were and what was in them? i for one never saw the original ones (i didn't build models with that kind of detailed content until the mid 70's and later) and would love to know what there was available at the time. on a separate note: especially in AMT kits and to a lesser extent R-M, the identity of competition parts is up to the builders knowledge or imagination. having an original set of instructions is great, the parts are almost ALWAYS properly ID'd on them.

i recall a toy-like diecast (i THINK) of this car from the late '80's. you might get lucky searching Ebay for it. as it was a cop car it doubtless had holes in the roof for lights that need filled for a stock version. i'm surprised, actually, given the success of the two "Men In Black" movies that nobody filled this niche yet....... or a family truckster!

excellent execution MJ! i scored two Matadors off Fleabay over the last year, one stock, one the X version. built them months apart but they're both British Racing Green metallic. need to pop some more pics and post them. how were you able to save the decals? i'm not very lucky with 30 year old decals myself.

i been busy..... redoing a Deora into a LRW wannabee, seriously sectioning a Lindberg 40 Ford, heavily customizing a Goodguys Revell 40 Ford, attempting a boxcover clone on the repop AMT 49 Ford coupe, and repairing a couple of dozen assembled kits that were in a box my grown son knocked over and didn't pick up..... i got a digital camera now so pics are in order.

asking forgiveness and would like to return to the tables.

i pride myself on being a Virginia-born Southerner and a member of a family that traces it's roots far past any inter-tribal conflicts resulting in being sold into the New England-run Slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries. for those of you that consider being "Southern" equal to being barefoot, ignorant, and useless, i'd like to see the end result of this nation had we been able to secede peacefully without forced return to the Union. The United States is currently the ONLY nation still holding territory seized from a sovereign nation during wartime... yet our military is conducting continuing operations overseas to quote LIBERATE unquote foreign nationals..... Virginia is a Commonwealth; supposedly an equal entity to the Federal Government (a centralized Federal Republic is NOT what the "Founding Fathers" had in mind..read your Patrick Henry, Henry Clay, John Calhoun etc) yet like the various and sundry other states and Commonwealths stands subjugate to "majority rule" (laughable at best when the minorities are the ones who have their say) and must kowtow to Washington in every circumstance. i am certainly aware of and respectful of the suffering of slaves in the United States up to and during the War for Southern Independence; yet slavery was illegal in the Confederacy. it was however, legal throughout the North and practiced EVEN AFTER the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. as a matter of fact, several NORTHERN states and cities quickly enacted laws to prevent freed blacks from emigrating into their boundaries, and even permitted them being whipped out of city or state limits. these laws predated ANY "Jim Crow" laws enacted in the South. it is true that the victorious side writes History books; all through History the truth is overshadowed by the victor proving his point through misinformation and twisting of facts to suit the outcome. Abraham Lincoln would glady have let the South go to avoid a war if not for the loss of income from the very sweat and blood of the slaves he eventually "Emancipated" despite his known suspicion of having great numbers of freed blacks remain in the US. i apologize for the long rant but this is the last one i will ever post here. farewell.

i dunno; once it's hidden inside what's supposed to be a brand new car it may look more correct. i tend to lighten interior colors for that reason, low light inside the body to show them off. that woodgrain is excellent BTW....

nice work on all of these, Casey! the F100 from the Ford post is one of my favorite kits. i like the SCOT blower on the flattie.

display the kit engine on a stand and put a parts-box engine in it. i did two of these and the FIRST thing i got rid of on both was that peak down the middle of the hood. raided my stash and put wire spoke wheels on them too. somewhere in my closet is the 58 Belvedere i never finished.... it probably follows the same scheme i have on my cheeslers.

ya know, GI Joe is approximately 1/6 scale... some greasy coveralls, tools and toolbox, and he could be a mechanic standing by his latest build.... one of my OTHER hobbies; trying to replace the 'Joes i destroyed in the '70's.....

i wander from kit to kit when it's like this. open a box, fiddle a bit, paint something or assemble something and set it aside and go to the next until i lose interest again. currently working on 4 at the same time... but there must be 30 i COULD finish if i had the initiative.

i was working inside, even the painting. and yes, "bad weather" is entirely relative! i spent a year or so in Great Lakes NTC so i know what Chicago weather is like. i spent a year in Florida too.... no, the paint reaction on the GMC truck was as if i'd laid lacquer on enamel, odd, since both coats were enamel. the impala simply had dust and sanding marks i hadn't cleaned up. the Dodge pickup came out looking fairly good. i spend most of my spare time working on my 1:1 cars so i only work on models during times when i can't get outside. and i tend to start new builds LONG before a current one is finished... hence a closet stuffed with almost-dones.

after several days of crappy weather and now freezing temps i STILL can't get outside to work on the 1:1's so i decide to catch up on the idle stack of boxes in the closet... out come the two bodies i painted several weeks ago, wetsanded a few days back, and decided to respray today. one went fairly well but too many sanding marks remained, and the other reacted badly to a new coat of paint. hmmmm. decided to do one more body and sprayed my Dodge lil express wagon in dark blue; looks nice, no ###### in it and smooth, good cover. amazing how much difference between one model and another. i think the impala had less ###### in the original paint job than in the one i just laid on.... grr. ah well; let it cure and sand it out again.....

the v8 is at best a poor representation of no particular engine at all. given the era of the original kit, it's typical of the day. the best v6 would be in the capriII kit of the next year, much cleaner and more prototypical. any smallblock v8 could be used to represent the MII v8, as long as it has either a c4 or MT.

i think they're being cast up in resin but i don't remember by whom! i guard my "special" parts jealously; so much so that when i DO start the build i STILL hesitate to use them! i used to hoard the good AMT firestone supremes (NOT the "tractor tires"!) for those builds too... what i REALLY would like is a few sets of the "stock" AMT tires from the '70's era. currently i make wide ovals from the big blue streak tires by slicing them through the tread on the first diagonal and the supergluing the halves together. presto; instant '70's meat! if anybody has a foolproof method for improving the AMT solid vinyl slicks i'd like to hear it. i'd love a bunch of piecrust cheater slicks for 'rods.