CorvairJim

I'm still thinking about either the Nomad or the 442 if I can manage to dig them up. If I can't, there is still the "Vairy-8", which is a mid-engined, V-8 powered Corvair coupe. I've been planning on doing something along those lines for a while now and this might just be the time to do it.

I'll be keeping this build in mind. I have a lot on my plate already, and my workroom in the attic isn't air conditioned so my build schedule is limited. Given the lack of a deadline, I should be able to come up with something. (I take it you don't want to see the half-finished '66 SCCA Corvair Yenko Stinger I've already entered in the Historic Racing CBP... ) I've been considering a '70 Camaro done up for the Silver State run (I forget the actual name of the event, but it's a no-holds-barred high-speed run over about 100 miles worth of closed public highways in Nevada that's held annually) with a full NASCAR chassis. Like I said, I don't want to commit to this build yet, but it does sound like fun, and I will keep it in mind.

Thanks for the compliment and the tips, Charlie. I'll try them out on my next foil job. The Micro-Scale adhesive: Is that for use with BMF or with regular kitchen foil - or either? My Simple Green bath has barely touched the paint after over a week. Unfortunately, the first time I went to scrub the body after immersion in the Simple Green, I managed to snap the windshield frame where it meets the passenger-side post. I guess I just did too good a job prepping the model for paint! I'm going to pick up a can of Easy-Off to see if that'll do the trick. If that doesn't work I guess the next stap is brake fluid, but I don't want to go to that expense if I can avoid it - money is super-tight around here!

Looks like one "Slick Pick 'Em Up Truck" to me so far, Aaron! I like the idea of the Chevy 427 motivation. As we Bowtie fans say up here in the states: "Built Ford Tough... With CHEVY STUFF!"

Oh, the possibilities! I can't commit to this build yet because I'm already involved in about half a dozen CBPs at the moment, but I'd love to try my hand at a full-on custom AMT '51 Chevy, either a Bel Air hardtop coupe or Fleetline done in early Barris or Alexander Brothers style.

I've been thinking about doing models of some of my childhood favorite Hot Wheels for a long time now, but unfortunately I've lost track of where the cars are, having moved several times since I left the nest. I'm sure they're around someplace, but as to just where I don't have a clue. High on my list were the first-generation "Custom Nomad" (the one with the opening hood) in light green metallic and the "Custom 442" in purple metallic with the black plastic wing on the decklid, a white interior, and white stripes with royal blue stars on them. Corvair nut that I am, I could always bail and do one of the many versions of the recent "Vairy-8", but that would entail chroming the interior and I don't have an airbrush for the Alclad work. Since this build is open to other brand 1:64 cars as well, there's always the Johnny Lightning 1962 and 1963 Corvairs from a few years ago. I have some old built-ups that I could restore to replicate one of them. I have all of these 1:64 Corvairs in my collection.

I have several CBP's hanging over my head at the moment or I'd commit a pair of Corvairs to this right now - A 1966 Yenko Stinger (I guess it would have to be a different build from the one I'm already building for the Historic Racing CBP, right?) and a restoration of a stock 1966 Corsa buildup. I have a couple of non-Corvair ideas too, but I don't want to mention them on here quite yet because I'm afraid other guys would jump on them before I had the opportunity to commit to them.

My favorite BMF burnishing tool is generally my fingetip with a soft cloth wrapped around it. I've tried Q-Tips but I find my method gives me a better 'feel' of what's going on. I go around my foil work in three phases: The first pass is just gentle pressure to tack it down as smothly as possible. Next, I go over it with more pressure to get it to lay down in all the details. Then a final pass to make sure it isn't going anywhere.You're right about the tight areas, though - I ought to go back to the Q-Tips for them. A good part of the problem with this one is that the adhesive on my current sheet of BMF isn't working too well, and the aluminum I used for the air exhaust grille under the back bumper is, well, just garbage. It won't cut clanly, even with a freshly honed blade and it's adhesive is weak... until it lands where I don't want it to - then it holds just fine!

While I'm at it, here's the progress so far on my '64 Corvair Monza Spyder convertible rebuild. This will be a semi-replica of a friend's 1:1 car (His is a "regular" Monza, not a Spyder) The custom wheels on the right side of the first two pictures are from a 1966-69 AMTCorvair annual kit. They're almost exactly what my friend has on his car, except that the model wheels are a 5-lug pattern while the 1:1 rims are 4-lug. Close enough for government work! The interior is done at this point. The carpet is flocked, and I added 3-D door handles and a parking brake handle that's nearly invisible under the dash in this all-balck interior! I changed out the very out-of-scale shift lever for one I made from a straight pin. Some kid way on back had converted this coupe to a convertible, and I realized that I had to correct the windshied frame detail after these shots were taken. I managed to do it without screwing up the paint. That came later when I applied the clearcoat, which gave the white color coat a neon yellow cast. It wasn't bleed through of the color of the plastic, since it varied in intensity depending on the angle of the light. It was really a shame, since it went on so smoothly that I wasn't even going to have to polish it out! Oh well, back into the Simple Green bath it went! Worst part was the I had completely foiled it before I cleared it, to use the clear to seal the chrome. All that work down the drain.

Here's my SMP 1960 Corvair 700-Series 4-door sedan annual kit restoration. At this point, I'm ready to call it done... For the moment. As I mentioned above, the chrome is weak but I don't have an airbrush to re-do it with Alclad or the money to send it out to be replated so I'll just have to make do with it as-is. There are a couple of areas where my BMF work is weak (particularly around the rear air exhaust grille), but I really don't feel like futzing around with it any more at the moment! Some time in the future, after I get the necessary chrome work done, I'll be ading tire valves to it too - I just realized while looking at these photos that I forgot to add them! This rebuild was a blast to do: I usually enjoy doing restorations/restomods on old glue bombs like this one was better than building a new kit anyhow, and it being a replica of a car I used to own just made it that much better. (One area where I particularly liked the result was the license plate. I found a seller on eBay who makes computer-generated scale license plates and sells them at a bargain price. I bought several 5-year sets of Pennsylvania (my home state) and California plates from him and was so pleased with them that I special-ordered some more from him with specific number combinations from cars I used to own and am planning to replicate in scale some time in the future. If you're intetested, I'll see if I can dig up his website info so you can contact him yourself. Tell him Corvair Jim sent you!) So, on to the pictures:

Well, I managed to salvage the paint job on my Corvair with the help of my trusty polishing kit. I had to modify the taillight holes to accept the taillights from a repop '69 Corvair kit (the lights from the '60 were MIA, and the 69's look pretty darn close!), but in doing so I chipped the plastic and scuffed up the paint around one of them. Oh well, I'll just touch it up and call it good. I build for myself, not for contests... Anyhow, pictures are on the way in a day or two. The chrome on the model is DEFINITELY not show quality. I don't have an airbrush to do Alclad work and I don't have the moey to send the chrome out to be replated, so I just foiled the bumpers and headlights and touched up the hubcaps with silver paint. (Now if there's anyone out there willing to help out a poor, starving model builder with this aspect of my model, let me know! I'll gladly strip 'em and ship 'em! ) I've decided to do a quick semi-restoration on another early Corvair that's been on my shelf for well over a decade now patiently awaiting it's turn on my work table. It's a 1964 Monza Spyder coupe that someone "Convertible-ized" way on back in the day. A friend of mine has a white '64 Monza convertible so this model will be a semi-replica of his car - It'll still be a Spyder with all the Spyder emlems and the Spyder's exclusive multi-gauge instrument panel instead of my taking it down a level to regular Monza trim. Also, his car has an automatic transaxle while mine will retain it's 4-speed. I disassembled it last night and set it to soaking in Simple Green. The kid that built it originally painted it red (pretty well!) with a brush, and the chassis was gloss black brush paint too, all on unsanded, unprimed plastic, so by this evening it should be down to the bright yellow plastic it was molded in. With any luck, I should have this one finished within a week.

"Holy jigsaw puzzle, Batman", er, Nico! I can tell you're into the theme of this thing, building what you see in your mind, and you just aren't satisfied with "Close Enough"! I don't know if I would have gone to that length just to add a carb, but if it means that much to you and you're willing to put the effort into your art, I applaud your effort. (Of course, I'm the guy who's completely rearranging the cooling fan system for a Yenko Stinger Corvair in the Vintage Racing CBP, and building a 6-71 blown Corvair engine for a different model, a Corvair Gasser, in that same CBP... )

I finally got around to taking a picture of where I stand on the progress on my '66 Cadillac Ambulance-based camper. Pretty obviously, I had to do a TON of scratchbuilding for the camper body on the thing, but it's been fun so far. The chassis has beenheavily modified to support the body as well. Now I need to outfit the interior, since the roof lifts off to display it. The scratchbuilt A/C unit will be the handle to grab onto to lift the roof off. (I've also included a photo of the actual vehicle that inspired my build) While I was at it, I dug up and dusted off another build I have going based on the same old Jo-Han kit. This one is about as different from a camper as you can get and still base it on the same model: It's a chopped, blown, Pro Street Hearse!

I must have missed where Aaron mentioned the "Maggie's Farm" build in his post. Sorry Aaron, but Rob is right: If the vehicle isn't mentioned in the song, it doesn't fly in this CBP. Now if you want to use this CBP and the song as your inspiration to build something for your own entertainment, well, I'm glad I gave you the seeds of the idea. But as for entering it in the CBP, sorry, no go.

No Eelco, but I do have the 'Bee up on the shelf already... There were a couple of others I had in mind too, but others are always welcome to jump on them before I do: A 1960 Impala convertible for the "'60 Chevy" from Bob Seger's "Night Moves" and the Beach Boys' "Surf City" '34 Ford Woodie wagon. Lots of scratchbuilding for the body on that one!

Rob: Aaron's song, "Hillbilly DeLuxe", mentions "Slick pick-em-up trucks". He's building his take on what one of them would be to him. To me, a Bronco without it's fiberglass roof section definitely looks enough like a pickup to qualify. Personally, I like the freedom that a vague mention like that would give the builder. I'm thinking of a second build if I manage to get the little old lady's car done in time - Springsteen's "Jungleland" mentions a "Barefoot girl on the hood of a Dodge". OK, we know it's a Dodge, but what else do we know about it? To me, it's always been a jacked-up Plum Crazy '70 Super Bee with side pipes riding on Cragar S/S rims. To someone else it might be a red '67 Charger, a black '73 Challenger, or maybe even a rusted-out olive green Dart.

Plenty of time to do your thing, Aaron! I intentionally put up a l-o-n-g time to get the builds done, so you still have well over half a year to go. Hey, I haven't even gotten mine started yet, and this CBP was MY idea! (I have the Lindberg '64 Dodge 330 kit, I have the bright red paint, I even have the 1964 California license plates, but nothing's been done to bring it all together yet... )

Eelco: That Monte looks awful... er... Great! Strange to think someone took a car that rough and actually welded in a new quarter panel, but I've seen MUCH stranger things done on 1:1 cars - I love it! Your rust on the hood looks good too. Just a thought: Do you think the paint that's left on the hood might be rubbed through a little where the bungee crosses over it, especially on the center crease and the edges of the raised center section? Rob: Your flatbed sits absolutely right now! Not too high, not too low. If you can get your hands on some of those skinny wood coffee stir sticks from Starbucks, they should be great for the wood on the stake sides (You were planning stake sides, weren't you? I thought you had said so, but I don't recall for sure... )

I agree. I thought it looked a bit high too, but I don't like to criticize other guys builds. I just thought you had your reasons to put it up there like that.

Nico, color just doesn't matter on a "Big Healey", because they look great in ANY color! Your two choices are good, and I also like silver blue on them, possibly with the side cove area two-toned in white.

Definitely not the garden-variety "Flatbed Ford"! This is shaping up to be one cool build.

That's a great model, Sam! It looks to me like the typical mildly-modified Corvette that you'd see cruising the strip every Saturday night in Anytown, U.S.A., which strikes me as the way Jan Berry thought of it it. It's just the sort of thing I had in mind when I conceived this CBP: To show off the car in the song the way YOU see it. I always thought of it as a bright red '63 convertible, but making it silver blue as a tribute to Berry's actual car, undoubtedly the inspiration for the car in the song, was a stroke of genius! I think you did a great job with what has to be one of the crudest models ever to be mass-produced - I built one of them myself as a kid and even back then I was less than impressed with the kit's quality. Your engine detailing is absolutely first-rate, especially considering what you had to work with. I know that the job you did on the throttle body would be W-A-Y beyond my skill level! The other thing that stands out for me was your dry brush work on the instrument panel... WOW! So congratulations on having the first finished entry in the Rock 'n' Roll/Country Music CBP! I'm looking forward to seeing the finished entries from the other guys. Hopefully I'll have my entries in a couple of other CBP's finished soon and be able to devote some time to the one I'm doing for THIS one! (Hmmm... Maybe I'll have to do my red '63 Sting Ray convertible idea for "Shut Down"... I'll let my "Little Old Lady From Pasadena" Dodge do double duty as the '413' from that song... )

Sam, that split-window is looking SWEET! The driver probably won't be listening to that Wonder-Bar radio much, though, with no shielding on the distributor or ignition wiring... That really doesn't matter - in a car like that, the engine makes all the music you'll ever need. You did a great job opening up those extra taillights too. They look perfectly sized and spaced to me, like the car came from the factory that way.I have fond memories of that kit. It was one of the first ones I ever built, back when I was about 12 years old. I later screwed it up trying to transform it into a Grand Sport replica. On the other hand, I do have one still in the box just waiting for the inspiration to strike.

The video doesn't matter! Build whatever the car looks like to you, within the way it's described in the song. I don't recall offhand whether they said it was a '59 for instance, but if they didn't give a year you'd have free rein to make it whatever year you wanted it to be. If the song says the car is black, then your model should be black. If the song didn't give a color and you think it should be lime green, then I guess we'll be seeing a lime green hearse! If the song doesn't tell you specifically what to build, then it's up to you. (Personally, I kinds like the idea of a rodded black '59 Caddy. On the other hand, I have a chopped '66 hearse in progress in my workroom at the moment too... Really! )

I've never heard of it, but apparently bandit1 has, so that's fine with me... You're in, Justin! (If you have a video or a link to one, feel free to post it. I've been enjoying the ones that have turned up here so far. )