mr moto

Very cool and creative! I'll bet you had fun with that one.

I agree that SMP seems to have disappeared after 1961 and I believe it was fully absorbed by AMT at that point if it hadn't been before. My favorite example of what Ed was talking about is the "AMT" 1965 Dodge Coronet. It was really an MPC tool but I didn't know that at the time. I just knew I liked that kit and built three of them. A few years later I bought an MPC Dodge Charger and was surprised to find that many of the parts were interchangeable!

Excellent!! I remember seeing that illustration in R&C and thinking that it was very inspirational but I never acted on it. Thanks for taking the opportunity to be inspired and running with it.

I know there are some very knowledgeable model car historians on this forum - Art Anderson certainly comes to mind - and the real history and relationship of AMT to SMP has never been clear to me. I looked at the Wikipedia article and some of it didn't add up to me (go ahead, act surprised!). I was around back in the day when AMT and SMP kits were out there and I don't think there was any difference at the time. If their selection of kits wasn't the same it sure overlapped a lot. The boxes looked the same except for the letters on the logo. So who came out the 3-in-1 kit first or was it at the same time and were AMT and SMP already the same company, why did they market under both names, etc.?

BTW, that's not just a made up engine that only exists in the kit. That's the "R-5" engine that Andy Granatelli ran in the "Duo Cento" at Bonneville. The R-1, 2, 3 and 4 engines were all production engines (even though real original 3's and 4's were only made in the single digits). It was rumored that a version of the R-5 would make it into production if Studebaker could have lasted a little longer. Great reference stuff at the link below: http://www.studebaker-info.org/AVDB3/duecento/230211/dc230211.html

Holy Moley!! I LUVVV that Dodge!! Is that the original engine from the Johan kit detailed to the max or is that a Ross Gibson?

Slant Six under construction to go into a 60's style D/Dragster.

Now that we've seen the 1:1 where's the model? That's fantastic!!

You know Harry has been known to Photoshop the background! I still think it's real - just saying, don't judge by the background.

The windows were sprayed on the inside with a mix of Testors candy blue and candy green decanted from spray cans and then thinned 50/50 with naptha. To get the splattered look on the outside they were sprayed with Krylon flat clear from a long distance - maybe 2 feet away. When I was a kid one of my uncles had a '59 Caddy and the main thing I remember about riding in it was the deep window tint. It felt like being underwater! Here's a couple of interior shots from before assembly.

How does it compare to a 1:1 Hudson? It might be that the wheels are really that far back.

I don't remember the exact place where I got the hay bales. It was an on-line vendor that specialized in model railroading. They've been modified a lot also. I added the "bailing wire" using small jewelry wire. To make them look more like real hay, I filled a plastic bag with short bristles cut off of disposable paintbrushes and then I sprayed the bales with clear Krylon, quickly dropped them into the bag and shook. When they came out they had a nice "fuzzy" appearance.

Hey, no need to be embaressed! At least the front plate is trying to fall off. It'll start rusting any day now! Actually, that's a great looking '48!

You have a great eye for detail. I love the green coolant around the bottom of the radiator!

Here's my "Cowboy Cadillac".

Could it be neither? Maybe it was made in Photoshop.

Don't know if anybody is aware of this site: http://www.genesis2scale.com/wip.htm It looks like there's nothing actually in production right now but they sold some Duryea race cars (winner of the first auto race) on Ebay last year and they looked great. If there's any interest in that type of vehicle maybe a flood of e-mails to the site will get production going again.

Check out the link to the brochure up above. There's a picture that shows a white or maybe very light gray headliner.

I do the same thing at Hobby Lobby. Spend a little quality time looking at stuff in the jewelry section and you'll find all kinds of small wires and even some stuff called pony bead lacing that is a tiny hose just right for a radiator hose.

Here's a couple that I did. How about an early Cadillac mill in a '53 Stude? And here's a factory stock Avanti with an R-2:

The X-el/Johan catalog includes some of my all time favorites. Put me down as very interested in any rereleases. If the '59 (or '60) Dodge makes it back into production I'm all over it! I just love a good pair of fins!

Clean and cooooool! That is very sweet.

Here's a link to the original sales brochure. It looks like it was one trim level only. http://oldcarbrochures.org/index.php/NA/Chevrolet_El_Camino-GMC_Caballero/1959_Chevrolet_El_Camino_Folder

This is a fun thread! How about "High and Mighty"? The Ramchargers first effort and a test bed for the ram induction idea.

Don't know about the Rambler but Johan's old Studebaker Lark kit scales out to about 1/22 or 1/23 so anything is possible! It was also advertised as 1/25 because that's what the cool kids buy!