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I have to agree with sfhess about the P-45 Top Gear appearance. This is the type of vehicle that you would feel like you were wearing it when you're driving.

You're going to get a lot of information on this one from many builders. I use Tamiya Putty white for the limited use in the modeling that I do. I'm only correcting small body and chassis imperfections and very limited body shaping or heavy body modifications. Some of the suggestions you'll see are for a much wider range of work.

As a young man I owned several Service Stations at different times that included Shell, Union 76, and Mobil brands. The suppliers all handled these pricing situations in various was, non of which compensated the owner/dealer for the gas in the ground if there was a sudden price drop. The good old fashion "gas wars". Yes you would be a winner if the suggested retail price went up right after you had bought a load at the lower wholesale price. On the other hand if you bought a load, of gas, at the higher wholesale price and then the supplier puts out the lower suggested retail price you would stand to lose a lot of money. As an individual I would stay within a penny or two of the suppliers suggested price but I never let the stations retail price drop below what the last load of gas cost the station. The actual retail price on most areas was dictated by the surrounding stations and you would always try and stay no more than two cents higher than the lowest price competitor in your area. The suppliers also would usually give you a 24 to 48 hour heads up on any price changes that they were anticipating, and this was about the best I ever saw from the supplier as to helping the retailer on pricing matters. As a retailer you were able to sell your product with what ever markup you wanted, but the market place, what people would pay, would dictate just how much your going to make on a gallon of gas. At the time in the late '60's, you could hope for a 5 to 10 cents a gallon of price spread and hope you made enough to cover your station's rent, pay your help and make enough to live on. Where to big stations today sell snacks and drinks, sandwiches, donuts, beer, and some other shinny objects and you pump your own gas and clean your own windshield , check your oil and water, and pay for air for your tires if you even think to check them. In the old days all of this was done for you at no additional charge by an attendant who would also fill out your credit card and give you a receipt and thank you, and mean it, for your purchase and hand you a fist full of green stapes and one of those orange balls with a 76 on it for your radio antenna. . Our only hope at that time to turn a profit was doing service work, brakes, water pumps, clutches, batteries and tires. Long hours with relatively less pay than working a 9 to 5 gig in some other field. And so I chose another direction trying to earn a living.

Thank you for the pictures. Great looking Competition type builds and a lot of interesting paint treatments.

I followed your build on this and I know how much grief it gave you, but in the end it was worth it. The color you wound up with looks great as does the body.

This is a very nice looking kit, especially after your corrections to the roof and the added moldings. I don't remember ever seeing this one before. The Green color looks good with this body and a White Vinyl Roof.

The only thing I can add would be to do your testing on the clear parts tree, if you haven't already thought of that.

Model Master paints used to offer some Fabric Spray paint. I haven't bought any in a while so I'm not 100% sure if they still offer it. I still have a can of their #28136 Fabric Tan and their Gray color. The Tan color might be a little on the dark side compared with the picture. Krylon offers several different type of finishes. I have used their paint called Make it Suede. This is offered in many different shades. The #1241 Buckskin would be more in line with the photo. I bought mine at an ACE Hardware store but just about any Home Supply stare should carry it.

I agree, this "Hobby" can get a little pricey. As others have pointed out it all depends on how far you want to go with after market goodies. Also pointed out that its much less than the 1:1 hobby and I can vouch for that comment. I just try and build a model the best I can and cannibalize a few kits from my stash.

Thank you for sharing your pictures.

Great looking color and finish. I like the way you add the extra chrome trim to your builds. Biggs & Littles go a long way to get the stance, I like that also.

Beautiful looking 'Cuda. The stance looks great. Did you paint the black side panels or did you use the kits decals ?

I can almost hear the engine from here. I agree with everyone else about the paint work and the clean trim. The side windows, did you use a flat piece of plastic for those ? Great use of the old parts box on this build.

Beautiful looking finish. When I first looked at it I thought it might be the AMT '55 body, but looks much better. You joined the roof and the body well enough you would never know. The side trim is the only area that might tip off someone and only because Revell recessed the side trim in the body.

Beautiful looking build. I'm also glad you included some of your build pictures as it helps apricate all of the work that went into this model. I think you posted your build on the '57 Pontiac as I remember following that one. Interesting information on the 1:1 build back ground. In the mid sixties a friend of mine had a '54 Pontiac Sedan Delivery. As I recall it had the standard Pontiac flat head straight 6 and Hydromatic. He put a Cadillac engine out of a Cadillac Ambulance in its place.

Great looking Boss Mustang. I'm glad you pointed out that the finish is not painted otherwise I don't think any one would know. I did much the same thing a few years ago for much the same reason. The '65 El Camino was also done in Yellow plastic.

The trim needed a lot of masking tape, but the finish looks like it was worth it.

That rear bumper may have had it's mounting bracket bent from using the bumper as a step to get into the rear, maybe.

You might consider an adjustable Track Bar for the rear suspension.

That's funny.

I was poking around on his web site yesterday and he was stating that he wasn't taking additional orders at this time as he was trying to take care of back orders. This may account for the slow response to EMails at this time.

I never saw the show and really didn't know at first what everyone was so excited about. The four door hardtop Impala got my attention as a more main stream passenger car then what most kits are based upon. I'll wait until I can use my 40% off coupon at HL, and by then everyone will have picked it apart so I'll know for sure if I want one.

One thing I noticed about the "Petty Plymouth" when it was first issued had to do with the interior panels. On one side it had a sheet metal type panel that you would find in a race car, and if you flipped them over the other side has the normal passenger car interior panels. At that time we didn't actually know if they were going to offer a stock street car. A few months later they offered the street car with an engine that could be a 361, 383 or a 426 edge. The only Slant 6 that I recall, not that there might be others, was in the Lindberg '64 Dodge 330 two door kit. The kit had an option of the 6 or what they were calling a 383 V8. That kits Slant 6 is a very nicely done engine if someone is wanting to build one.

Very cleanly built. I look forward to seeing more of your builds.

My mother had a line she would use when describing someone that always complained. She would say "They would complain if they were hung with a new rope"