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I'm thinking this is an old "friction" style toy much like Tarheel Ricks. I also had a few of these along with a '56 Olds and a '55 Dodge as a child. The give away is the metal chassis and you will notice a couple of slots in the chassis that were the attachment points for the friction motor. You would hold the car and run it forward a few times on the floor and this would get a small flywheel mounted on the chassis spinning. You could then set it on the ground, and it would run across the floor until the energy in the flywheel was spent. All great fun before remote control electric car and truck toys were invented.

Like the deep dark Blue color and finish. Neat detailing of the engine and the bed wood.

Beautiful looking finishes, especially the body decals. Amazing attention to the mechanical details.

Great looking paint color and finish. Clean looking engine details.

Beautiful looking Roadster. Like the engine and chassis detailing. Can you imagine how hard it would be to keep a real engine looking clean if painted white?

Beautiful looking "'50's" era roadster. Clean looking finishes and detailing. Like the stance.

Great save on this redo, especially the windshield area.

Great looking paint color and finish. Like the engine detailing along with the wheels and tires. These were the best looking of the then new Collonade GM bodies.

Great attention to even the smallest trim details.

Great looking build. This is a kit designed during the last century, but with attention to detailing still builds into a good-looking model like this. The opening doors can be faddily but are a nice option.

Beautiful looking paint color and finish. The interior and engine look well detailed and like the stance. The '65 and '66 Impalas were great looking cars and several of my friends bought '65's when they came out. I bought a new '66 Impala SS and really enjoyed it.

Great looking paint color and finish. Like the clean showroom style build.

Beautiful looking paint finish and trim. I also don't think Tom could have driven this with the top one. He may have even had to look over the windshield to drive. He more wore this car than riding in it.

Beautiful looking color combination and smooth finish. The copper color here is very much like one of the colors Chevrolet offered at the time. The chrome and body trim all look great.

Great looking showroom build. The color does seem to match what Chevrolet offered at that time and the white interior and half roof look like a good combination. Smooth paint finish and the trim details look very realistic.

The engine should become a little taller with the heads and intake manifolds installed.

A thought on your wanting to chrome the lid on the air cleaner. I have tried two different approaches, and both worked for me anyway. The first is to use bare metal foil for the top of the lid as the OEM air cleaners were painted black with just the lid chromed on the closed air cleaners. The second, and now my favored method is to use a Gundam Marker pen. These seem to be easier to control than the Alclad pens.

First off congratulations on finding this model. This may very well be a Promo, and I'll share why I think this based on things you mentioned. You mention that there are no provisions in the body to mount any of the kit's accessories. Looking at the picture of the frame you will notice that they have AMT listed as the manufacturer. I'm old enough to have purchased one of the AMT kits when they were issued in 1958. At the time AMT would bring out the new models in the fall. Snow flying outside and they bring the model of a convertible to market followed in the spring with a hard top version, seems reversed to my young mind at the time. The chassis in the kit version at least included small blocks for mounting the axels in either the stock location or a lowered stance. I don't know if this was present on a Promo, but I don't think that they would. The mounting of the chassis to the body was done in several different fashions at the time. The heat sealing of the four mounting points was what was most often seen on promos of the time. The kits I built offered either a metal screw or even a screw that the head was designed to only be installed and the slot wouldn't allow a screwdriver to reverse the screw or remove it once installed. This may have been used on promos as well. Either way it looks like you have a great basises for a '50's cruiser build.

I'm fairly new at using printed body parts myself. One thing I would suggest is a lot of sanding as part of the body prep. What I have found is that often there will be very fine lines on a flat or curved printed body part. These will not always show up under a light coat of gray primer. My thought is that a flat paint finish does not show these lines the way a gloss finish does. After a first or even a second coat of the gloss color they start to show when looking at the part at an angle. My suggestion would be to first sand the part going to even a finer level than normally done before premiering. Next apply a coat of whatever gloss finish you are going to use or even a light coat of gloss clear just enough to get a shiny surface if you're going to do a multi laired candy or pearl color. Then a light sanding with a 2000 or higher sanding cloth should reveal any under lying lines still on the part. I also think that starting with a higher fill type primer may help fill these very fine lines to begin with.

I like the idea of saving the spoons for future reference.

This will put a smile on your face. Great looking finishes and like the theme.

Beautiful looking paint color and finish. Clean trim. I agree with you about this being unable to hold a candle to the Revell '62 Corvette but remember the time frame of this designed in '62 and the Revelle kit design that is far more resent. This still builds into a great looking kit if the time is devoted to it.

I'll be looking at this build. Always pick up some new ideas on how to do things watching your builds.

Great looking paint color and finish. The trim looks cleanly done. Notice what looks like a full-length side window? The bonus figurine could be used in other displays as well.

Your attention to the smallest detail for accuracy really shows. All of the finishes look just like the real car.