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With the engine being the focal point it would almost be a shame to put any more body work around it.

That would be nice. I like to see how different builders do their engines, chassis and interiors.

Those were the days. AMT especially offered many options in every kit. You didn't have to wait for a reissue of a kit to get some build options or better decals. The bodies had excellent trim and the interiors, while being the bucket style, were still well defined. The only draw back might be the chassis and engines that you weren't always sure they belonged to the model you were building. Some of the chassis issues probably were from being based on the basic dealer promos of the time.

Great job capturing the '50's look. Very nice paint work and with the White trim really stands out. I wouldn't be concerned about the rear slicks. You may have heard of the "Pie Crust" slicks of that era. Most of these street and many of the Drag Strip tires of that period were recapped tires. The recapper would add spacers with the tread pattern to the center of the mold in the tread area. They would use a wider section of rubber to add to the tread area of tire carcass before putting everything in the mold. There was a few different sidewall designs at the time but the "Pie Crust" design seemed to be the most popular.

I'd like to see more of this build. I like this paint color combination, not something you usually see.

Very clean looking stock Corvette. The paint finish looks great and this is a color not often seen which is also nice.

The Head Lights would work good for a '30's or early '40's 1:1 street Rod.

For the seat inserts and all of the Interior and Dash, check under the After Market/Resin section on this sight. At the top of the list is the After Market Suppliers. Go down to the Keith Marks Decals and click on that sight. He offers every color of seat insert that Chevrolet had in '59. He also offers decals for the gauges. He has interior decals for just about any car and some trucks plus photos of stock vehicles to compare and also to see just how the colors should run thru the interior for a stock build. A suggestion on the Continental Kit. The OEM style that Chevrolet used was an add on in the center of the rear bumper, just kind of hangs off the bumper. In the kit the locating and attachment points leave a little to be desired as to their strength. I would suggest using attachment pins for added strength. You may already be using this method for attaching other parts, but I thought just in case this might give you a better opportunity to position the rack for the Continental kit properly to the bumper and not have it fall off at a later date. The Copper color is a great choice and great looking. Chevrolet offered both White and a very light Beige color as secondary colors and they looked good either way. Hope this information will be of some help to you.

I agree with the whole Retro thing and we see it now as much as ever. Not sure if that was what Chrysler had in mind at the time. I just remember many rude remarks concerning this styling feature.

Now that's funny.

I'm not into the Continental Kit look myself, but I also realize that many due like them. I saw in your picture that you had it laid out so I just thought you may be going that way. You hadn't mentioned your builds direction, and mybe that may change as you get into it. We've all done that a time or two.

That's my Lodge Brother down at The Possum Lodge. We have all used Duct Tape at one time or another, but no one could out do this man. And then there was his "different" cousin or nephew.

This is a great kit and I enjoyed building a couple. Are you going to use the Continental Kit in your build ?

Another thought on the '56 Chevrolet. There are several very good Resin kits that offer body styles that you can't get in plastic. The Revell kits offer the best donor chassis and interior parts for such a build. A little thing to remember if you should go that way, not all Resin bodies are done as well as the Revell kits. This would require a little more effort on your part and somewhat intimidating at first.

I was talking about the models built for the show. They're interesting and maybe this is a new building trend that I"m not aware of. I just don't recall see shows with any in the past and sometimes different regions have different things that influence what people build.

You would have to be a really good salesman to sell the benefits of that toilet seat in the middle the Imperial's trunk lid.

I had to repair a few Christmas ornaments again this year. Always seem to be able to match the paint colors and fill the missing pieces around the breaks. For those of you who may remember the old Red & Green TV show from PBS they had a saying. "If they can't find you handsome at least they can find you handy".

Thankyou for sharing your photos. A lot of interesting builds. Destruction Derbies must to popular in that area.

The center cut would have been my suggestion. As you pointed out the flexibility of the old Cord plastic could be an issue, The area between the Windshield and the back edge of the Cord hood lineup well now. While the center cut maybe the easiest to do the problems might just be at the front when you spread the nose, again the flexibility of the old plastic and what will happen with how the front grill bars line up ? The idea of cutting and adding a wedge on either side of the top of the hood might be the best way to go to minimize the grill distortion, also small relief cuts on the inside of the corners would minimize the stress on the front end. The backside could be reinforced with some Styrene angle pieces. Depending on the size of the wedge cuts you would want to reinforce them also. Bits of flat stock or even use Styrene T molding as this would offer support on both sides of the cuts. Hope this will be of some help to you. I'm enjoying watching this build.

From what I have read about the Pontiac OHC 6 cylinder it shared virtually nothing with the Chevrolet engine. The exception might have been with the Piston Wrist Pins maybe. The engine block was a cast iron design with the engine skirts actually extending below the Crank Shaft centerline. Up until the Pontiac engine was developed most OHC engines used chains or gears to drive the Cams. Pontiac worked with suppliers to develop the Timing Belt to drive the Cams and this has become the present day standard method of driving the Cams. Much of that technology came from the belts being used to drive Super Chargers at that time. The base engine with a compression ratio in the 9+ range and a single 2-barrel Carb. was standard. An optional version was offered with a compression ratio in the 10 + range with higher lift and longer duration Cams and a 4 barrel Carb. and included a better Exhaust Manifold also. Just some interesting trivia.

I kind of like the Cord front end idea. The only constructive suggestion I could offer would be to level the body and the front end. The body appears to be going up hill and the Cord portion of the front end is going down hill much like a normal VW drop off. Should you want to just level the body in relation to the chassis then the front end would really drop off.

Great looking engine bay detailing, and the windshield fluid bottle looks correct also.

The Cameo Carriers that I recall were offered in just a few color combinations. The '55's seemed to be mostly White with Red accents and Red Interiors. They may have offered the colors reversed but I don't remember seeing them. At some point I remember a Black Cameo with White trim, but this might have been something the owner had done. The other combination I remember, and this may have been a '56 or '57 design, was a Turquoise color with White trim. This is a good kit and about the only thing I can recall being a problem was the fitment of the provided windows and the window openings. I'd enjoy watching your build so please consider posting it here.

I remember the fins of the '59 GM cars, and they were considered the leading edge of design, or "what are they thinking" depending on who you asked. You're correct about the '60 models dialing it back. With the overlapping of designs under development makes me wonder what all was going on in the design studio. Think about what they offered for sale in '58 and then the '59 & '60 models followed by the slimmer '61's and then the '62's started to fill out a little from there. Not just Gm, but also most of the other models offered by other manufactures of the time. The styling of all cars seemed to move very fast starting in the mid 50's into the early 70's. This may have helped sell a lot of cars since your new car today looked very dated before you could even pay it off on the then more common 36 month loan.

The rear bumpers on this design are stylish but the mass of the bumper between the rear wheel well opening and the more traditional bumper ending near the rear tail light would add a great deal of weight. This looks like a '58 Chevrolet design and the '58's did have styling in this same area with much the same appearance but done in normal sheet metal. The raised upper ridge of the bumper was matched by a ridge in the lower quarter panel and the Impala models added some chrome hash marks to accent it further. The three piece rear window treatment seemed to work on the Olds and Buick models in '57, but that was gone on their '58's. Between the obstructed rear vision, expense of the feature, and buyer resistance I think all played a part on the design going away. While it's only my opinion, I thought the design added to the Olds and Buick design at the time. I think another reason for it going away was that GM was moving toward an airier design starting with the '60 models. Looking at the roof designs they used at that time they greatly increased window area in all designs so the three piece design wouldn't work and would look very dated as well.