Maindrian Pace

Looks great, and the signed dash is something I've never seen in a model before. Very creative.

Thanks again, guys, it's much appreciated.

Don & Carol Holthaus, AKA The Modelhaus.

Suspension attention: With the body more or less back in shape, I started in on the suspension. AMT went through a period of weirdness in the mid '60s with Ford suspension. The '65 was the most complex, separate upper control arms, steerable, rolling wheels. The '66 was simplified; rolling, steel axles front and back, no upper control arms. '67 was my least favorite - non-rolling wheels front and back with no provision to make them roll, (cheap) no upper control arms. I never had a '68 kit, so I don't know what they did that year. The '67-'68 AMT Mustangs and Shelby also didn't roll, and since everything I build must roll, (a thing with me) I've had to mod the suspension on all of these kits that I've built. So I decided to use most of the '65 suspension parts on the front of this '67. It was the same on the real cars, so it's mostly correct anyway. I cut notches in the '67 front wheel tubs to use the '65 UCA's: I needed to widen the front track to place the wheels where I wanted them, so I added a piece of the '65 lower control arms to the tips of the '67 setup: And moved to the rear. The rear ends on all of these Fords is supposed to be a 9 inch, but it looks like a generic blob. So I found a glue bomb 9" rear in the parts box, cut the center out, and grafted it into the '67 rear end/control arm assembly. I glued a strip of Evergreen to the control arms to keep them square while the center section was cut out, and glued it together with an axle in it to keep it square while curing. I don't usually get this tricky with suspension, but if it cooperates, it will be the only thing I have with posable steering.

The Boys get captured by bad guys, thrown into a cave and the opening sealed. A few minutes later: B.A. - "Look, Hannibal, I found a complete, operational welding outfit, a running fork lift, gas cylinders, and items that we can combine into improvised explosives to blow the bad guy's Jeeps onto their roofs while they try to chase us!" It was a simpler time.

Love it, any shop would be proud to have that truck. Great stance, wheel/tire package, weathering, everything.

Amazing! You guys just keep stepping up your game, and this one will be hard to top. (Not like it needs to be topped)

Really cool project. I like the notched core support for the discharge tube on the 1:1.

I don't like the peak chrome, makes it too busy with the high-zoot ribbed XL trim. Mine won't be getting it, less is more theory here. Scribed new trunk and door lines: Finalizing wheels and tires - '65 Galaxie steelies, parts box rims, Johan slicks and skinnies. Quick and mostly dirty mock up - I have dog dish caps which may or may not go on, depending how Thunderboltish this turns out.

Love the detailing, the color combo, the whitewalls... Sooooo nice.

It sounds like a great plan. I would wait until the debt is paid down to a level that you both feel comfortable with before taking on the new car payment, but it sounds like that's what the plan is anyway. Just don't be in a hurry, wait for everything to fall into place and it will happen when the time is right.

The basics are there. I think that with the right paint, smaller wheels, and less sillyslam, you'd have something cool. Paint it green and it would be a Gas Monkey truck.

Very nice work, Mike. It really looks the part.

Steve, I think you're onto something there. I never put 2 and 2 together, but I bet you (and AMT) are right. Mike, That thing's crazy! I like it, a Fairlane sized Galaxie.

This car was bad enough that it was beyond my ability to do anything about it, so I had to wait for some improvements in skill before I could take it on. Opening doors blow, they just weaken the body for no reason and are tricky to make work. I can see opening the trunk, but I want this to come together with a minimum of fuss. So everything was glued back on - The trunk lid was re-shaped to match up to the rear bumper: And new vent frames were added from a '65 Galaxie parts kit. These are actually more accurate than the original kit frames, which are too rounded at the top. I thought I had shaved the 1/4 panel GALAXIE 500 lettering off, But a look at my promo and convertible kit reveals that they never had it. As good as AMT was in those days, they did occasionally overlook some pretty basic things.

Amazing detail, very well researched, love the scratchbuilding.

Brutal! I love how the splitter contours around the intercooler.

I just got an order from them. I got that message from them a few weeks back, and the order came in right at the three month mark - only a little longer than usual. As is always the case, the wait was well worth it.

Supposing, perhaps in the past, you did something that you are not very proud of. Like slicing up a rare kit to make something trendy, ugly, and almost immediately dated just because it was in fashion. In the early '90s, my grand plan was to take an unusual subject and make it into a fully detailed, smoothed-out, pastel colored, (including bumpers and grille) modern interior/turbo engined pro-street hoopty. Kind of like what a Galaxie would have looked like if it slammed through Boyd Coddington's shop in 1990. And it would have been a mild custom too, with smoothed bumpers, custom tail panel with '68 Torino coupe taillights, shaved this'n'that, and all kinds of other questionable touches. Then I lost interest - but not before cutting the doors and trunk out, destroying the bumpers and grille, and fitting an early '90s Thunderbird interior. Subtly radiused and re-flared rear fenders - actually not that bad. Ruined bumpers - Don and Carol to the rescue. Something you probably didn't know - kits said 427, promos said 428. About the only mod I did to this poor thing that I actually still like is the Thunderbolt scoop on the stock hood. It plays well into the planned street sweeper build. We'll have to see what happens to all of this.

Smooth Can-Am trade with Mike Mackie (mk11).

Thanks very much, everyone! Winning the club plaque is always an honor, as we have some very talented builders in the Moonlight club and everything on the table was impressive.

It came out fantastic Brian, and with a scale backdrop, it would look real. And real serious!

How about a '78-'82 Fairmont Futura. Endless possibilities there.

Thanks very much guys. Ed, it's the junk model because of what it started off as. There is a certain satisfaction in bringing junk back from the brink.

Try using an inkjet printer on clear decal film, available online. You can experiment with sizes by printing on paper until you find the size that works best. You often have to get creative when dealing with 1:18 diecast scale. Incidentally, the stripes and lettering on that car look underscale to me.