DustyMojave

I bought gas for prices like those shown above. My senior year in high school I bought gas at the best price I ever paid: 19.9¢/gallon for regular. Gulf station in San Fernando. "Gas War" signs at the Gulf, the Union 76 across one way and at the Shell station the other way. Since I got my VW Bug filled up, I got a free glass. It finally broke in the dishwasher a couple of years ago. Then a couple months later I worked in a Mobil Station in the San Fernando Valley while I was going to college. 24 hour station in Sherman Oaks on Sepulveda near Ventura Blvd. 35¢/gallon. Still full service in a neighborhood where many of the regular customers were celebrities. Robert Young, Merv Griffin, Dick Clark, Steve Allen and Jane Meadows, Laker announcer Chick Hearn "gave" me his Porsche 911 once. He never liked it. Would have been happier in a Cadillac, but his daughter had talked him into it. So he pulled in one time and as I walked over, he got out and asked if I wanted the Porsche. I said "Yes!". He tossed me the keys and said "It's yours." and walked over to the phone booth. I filled it with premium gas, washed the windshield and back window, added a quart of oil. Then wrote the credit card bill. Handed it to Chick as he walked back. Then after he signed the receipt and handed it to me, I gave him the keys. Then watched him drive my Porsche away. Then the "Gas Shortage" hit (according to the news people anyway). Price jumped to 64¢/gallon while our markup from wholesale remained the same. Then we had lines of customers up to the top of Sepulveda Pass. About 2.5 miles. I had been managing the 4pm to midnite shift when the gas delivery arrived about every 3rd to 4th night. So it was my duty to receive the delivery. Check the volume in the tanks before and after. Check the paperwork to be sure it agreed with how much gas was delivered, etc. The tanks would typically take about 2/3 to 3/4 of the truck full of gas. The with the "shortage", we changed from 24 hour operation to opening to sell gas at 8:00AM, pumping 'til the last drop dripped from the last nozzle about 10:00AM. The mechanic continued to work, and tires, wipers and batteries and such were sold the rest of the day, but I went off to college classes. Then in the late afternoon I returned. Cleaned up the lube bays and the pump islands. Serviced and cleaned the restrooms, counted the till, inventoried tires, batteries, oil, maps, etc. And was there to receive the gas deliveries EVERY night! The tanks would always take every drop the truck brought because we had pumped them dry. So we not only did NOT have any shortage, instead of selling about 6,000 gallons in 3 days at 24 hours, we sold 9,000 gallons of gas in 2 hours a day. No shortage in my view. People got in fist fights in the lines, at least 3 times guns were drawn in the driveways to settle arguments. One night while I was cleaning up, a Chevy with cardboard taped over the license plates pulled in and 2 guys with masks on their faces and guns drawn got out. They demanded that I fill up their gas tank. I told them we had NO gas at all. After repeatedly telling them that, I finally offered to turn on the pumps and let them try to pump gas. So one guy went into the back room with me and watched me flip the switches for the pumps. They were clearly marked. His buddy tried to pump at each and every pump. Didn't get a drip. So they jumped in their car and took off while I called the cops. The gas tank truck arrived about an hour later. I usually filled my own tank in the dark with the station lights turned off, right after the truck left. Then turned off the pumps and locked up for the night.

I agree that the AMT holds up surprisingly well against the Revell. I also feel that Tulio has done an excellent job of building and comparing these 2 kits. Thank you Tulio for this. I plan to build another 40 Coupe and another Sedan Delivery and will probably be building the Revell Coupe this time and for the Sedan Delivery I think I'll use the Revell chassis under the AMT body shell. The better front axle and the separate exhaust are the primary reasons to choose the Revell chassis for my builds as I will be building hot rods. I've attached a picture my dad took in the late 50s at El Mirage Dry Lake of his buddy Tom Beatty's belly tank and his 40 Sedan Delivery push vehicle. Note the 40 Deluxe grille and the painted Standard headlight bezels. It usually had the hood on it covering the blown Olds engine.

I always steered clear of this kit back in the 60s because I had gotten the deuce roadster that had a 2 piece body shell. Left and right halves. Nice concept, but NOT well done at all. I expected this to be the same. While it's obviously not quite as good as the recent Revell 29 on deuce rails, I see I should have bought a few of these back then. Nice job!

I want to build this kit as a 40. Then I want to build another with an AMT 36 3 window body on it. 36 needs juice brakes anyway. But it seems odd that Revell left the 6 volt battery with the Halibrand wheels. Even in the early 50s converting to 12V was popular according to my dad.

Beautiful Tulio!

Sweet!

Great to get young modelers started out. It can be hard to pry them away from electronic devices.

You called THAT! Nasty tasting stuff. But I agree. It's always made for beautiful race car livery.

Nice!

Definitely a kit I want in my display case. I'm more than a little fond of Group 4 and Group 5 race cars. It would look good next to my Jaegermeister BMW 320i Group 5. To Terminator-Fox, you've done a nice clean build here. Any comments on the build other than that you're happy with it? Materials used, paint, etc.?

All of the pics I put up on this and the build thread are from El Mirage Dry Lake. The monthly events there from May through November except for August are run by the same people as the runs at Bonneville. SCTA (Southern California Timing Association) runs the events at El Mirage. The same folks run Bonneville Speed Weeks under the name BNI (Bonneville Nationals, Inc.). You can get info about their events at their web site: http://www.scta-bni.org/ Last week was the last SCTA event of this year. I could see the dust as I passed by El Mirage on the way to another friend's home to drop off my son so they could take off for the Baja 1000 race. The friend and his truck worked as "Chase". My son was a co-driver in a 5-1600 Baja Bug with the friend's son. They took 2nd in class after having led for a few hundred miles. They lost a couple hours stuck in deep silt on the course and never recovered the lost time. That could be another thread maybe in the "Reference" section though. Tom Beatty and my dad were old pals and Barney was their old boss after World War II. Dad drove Barney's track roadster, and they both worked in Barney's speed equipment shop. In the 50s Tom set up his own shop making blower drives, custom drive shafts, hot rodding customer cars and doing other such performance stuff.

I'm lovin' it! It came out very cool. Belly Tanks still run at the lakes. The yellow car is the Kelly & Hall belly tank with yours truly in the driver seat for the pic (I suppose that shows that I'm fond of belly tanks). The white car is the Redi-Strip Special. These are modern belly tanks, but you've done a fine job of building a vintage style belly tank. Just a note about the photos I posted in the "On The Workbench" of this build of Tom Beatty's belly tank. In the late 50s photos by my dad that I posted the lakes wheel covers were Moon discs, easily modeled by using Parkes salt discs. The original wheel covers were as shown in Tom's 1952 book about how to build a Belly Tank. That's the 3rd image below. Those "nipple" wheel covers were lids for wringer type washing machines.

I always liked Mavericks from the start. They are on a Falcon/Mustang chassis with a 5" shorter wheelbase. Quite a sleek body shell. With the 302 V8 engine and the chassis hot rodded as one would do to a Mustang, they can be quite a quick car. Because they're a little smaller and lighter, they can outperform a Mustang with the same prep. And I always liked their look. I have a Johan that I built as a Pro Stock when they were 1st issued and a Johan Comet that I'm building into a phantom SCCA A/Sedan using a recent issue AMT '67 Mustang chassis shortened to fit.

I recall seeing a Chevy/GMC 6 in a row with a blower back when, maybe early 60s. It was a round bottom blower housing, sitting on its side, with a manifold extending about 8" out from the side of the head (very probably a Wayne head). I remember Kay SIssel's altereds with 6es too.

What material did you use to fill the gaps? It looks like thin sections from another kit of the same car. The original is a very cool car. That last shot of the chopped roof is very cool too! It looks like it needs very little filler or sanding.

I was never a "Kustom" guy. But in exploring things around me and trying things even if I thought I did'n't like them, I built the original kit back in the mid 60s. Built a handful of other Kustoms too. Nah...Not for me. But I long had thoughts about what could be done with the parts to build a hot rod. For instance, I always liked the combination of '29 cowl and 27 back of cab. And the little red ram hemi has always been a cool engine, even if it's way to little for top fuel dragsters. They're still great for a smallish lightweight hot rod. Kinda like how I'm fond of Ford V8-60s for midgets. That original one got pretty badly damaged in an earthquake in 1971, and the remains got set aside in a box. So when AMT brought out the new tool Ala Kart. I bought one. Looked it over, and things just didn't seem right. The engine definitely looks different from the original which always looked right to me. The newer one didn't. I have plans for the cab and a few other parts, but not as many parts as I thought would be usable for my ideas. It's still sitting in the kit box in storage. It'll be interesting to follow this thread even though I'm not a kustom guy.

Since posting that question, I was looking at Kong heads and a great many other items on the Shapeways site. They do 3D printing, casting and such. Hundreds of pages of stuff. https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/vehicles/?q=&sort=popularity&facet[pdcId][0]=455&facet[isCustomizable]=0&facet[price][min]=1&facet[price][max]=2500&facet[price][from]=1&facet[price][to]=2500&s=0#more-products I believe the Frenzel blower and Kong heads parts are made by Shapeways for the seller. In most cases, it appears that you can buy them from the vendor, or you can buy them from Shapeways.

That Pale Rider is a very sweet coupe. I like where you're going with your build here. And I like that you post pics from my neighborhood, even though you're across the country. I can see the hill in the background from my house. And the Kong heads....Kong Jackson was an old friend of mine. Where did you get those heads?

I love this car Dennis. And since you say the Barney Navarro heads come in the Revell '48 Ford, I'll have to get one of those kits. I'm not real fond of 41-48 Ford or any other cars of the era. But since my dad worked for Barney and drove his track roadster race car in the late 40s, I SHOULD HAVE some of those. Then that engine will have to get a Tom Beatty blower drive setup to go with it, since Tom worked with dad at Barney's.

I have to agree with the others Tulio. Beautiful work. My older brother's 1st car was a '56 Ford with a 292 V8. I have a 1:1 1961 F100 with a 428 Cobra Jet, so I have to admit that I could go with the FE in a '56. Not a smoothy engine like is SO COMMON for most of the customizers now. Maybe even the right kind of bucket seats, but the dub wheels with electrical tape tires would NOT be acceptable to me. And I would not be able to build one that way for someone else. Chip Foose style turns me away. What you show here gets my approval.

Peter, Rex and Gary...Beautiful models!!!!! I've seen Rex's stuff at Road Race Model Cars forum recently and been aware of some of Gary's stuff for a while. Now Peter shows some at least as good. I have a collection of them too. Most of my early builds from the 1960s were damaged to varying degrees in an earthquake in 1971 (that I just watched images of the damage a few blocks from my then home that day and another 23 years later on a BBC show via Netflix). I still have most of them stashed away in boxes with intent to restore all of them and add new ones. None are intact and on display these days. I haven't built a Ford GT since that quake, but have been feeling some inspiration lately. In fact I recently bought a Fujimi 1075 1968 version and have been hunting parts to full detail it. Harold Bradford's kit looks to be the best, but I haven't been willing to spend the roughly $100US to buy one of them. Too many other fish to fry to throw that much resources into just one model. For full detail builds from the Fujimi kits, I perceive the difficult part to be the gear box. Engines are pretty EZ. Headers aren't that bad, but I've been having trouble finding 1.75 to 2mm solder difficult to find lately.

HAHA! They DO look nice. I have blue belts like that in my Baja Bug now. Just wanted to point that out so others would know.

Nice Jeep. The 3-piece riveted together wheels are rather incorrect for most GPWs and MBs. But not for ALL of them. MOST that you see in old movies and war photos had the more common 2-piece wheels. Italeri used the same wheels as Hasegawa but got the hubs wrong. MPC got the centers more correct, but with 15" rims and wrong tires. My best man of 35 years ago owns a 1942 GPW that I took him to buy in 1975. It was mostly stock then other than the wheels and a Buick V6 engine. He still has it. A little more modified now 42 years later. The unit ID on it represents his dad's USAAF B24 bomber group unit stationed in England during WW2. Vic's was originally a Navy Jeep. In prepping it for a re-paint in the late 70s, we found it had a couple of layers of paint over the original Navy gray against the metal. It has the ID tag on the right side of the dash as mentioned above. I wouldn't call it a "VIN" tag, but it DOES ID the particular vehicle in much the same way. The number on that tag is on the CA registration.

I love Cobras, and I love VW bugs. But not in the same car... OTOH, they have very close to the same wheelbase...

Nice job Phil!!!!!!! Not to speak poorly of your model, but for reference for others and your own future reference...the seat belts in the 1960s had black webbing, not blue. But you ARE right to use black spark plug wires. You were right to install the rear side interior panels as well as the inner door panels and mostly stock dash. Only the gauge insert section of the dash was allowed to be modified from stock. I think you can probably figure that such a car is on my own list of those to build, considering my reference info and pictures of the 1:1 Shelby Trans Am Mustang I worked on restoring that I provided to help you build yours. A decent 65 -66 Mustang notchback could be built using the AMT '66 body shell and the AMT '67 fastback chassis. The '67 Mustang chassis just might be a more correct wheelbase than the original annual 1966 kit, based on my recent experience with building a '69 Barracuda phantom trans Am race car using an MPC annual kit body and a recent issue Duster chassis, both of which should have the same wheelbase.