Ace-Garageguy

The Avanti body tooling (it was fiberglass) and design rights went through several hands, and the car was produced by several companies after Studebaker's demise. Some versions were equipped with small-block Chevy engines. The last incarnation of the Avanti II was being produced in very limited numbers not far from my home in Georgia as late as 2007. The company went under, and I haven't followed developments since. Raymond Loewy, a very sucessful and well known industrial designer (he did much beautiful work, from steam locomotives to pencil sharpeners) is widely credited with the design of the Avanti, as well as the other groundbreaking Studebaker, the 1953-4 Starlight / Starliner. There have been several slippery Avantis built for Bonneville, which makes an interesting basis for a model. There were also some Stude-built supercharged cars. The AMT kit has opening doors, and some elements of the interior are somewhat under-scaled.

Absolutely perfect weathering. Looks like all my 1:1s now.

Great looking build. There's a lot about this model that really appeals to me. Sure wish they still ran cars like this every weekend.

I just looked at my Monogram '56 'Bird chassis, and the only part of the exhaust system molded in on miy issues is the mufflers and a section of pipes inside the chassis X-member. It would be relatively easy and straightforward to remove only this section of floor and replace it with sheet styrene. If you happen to have a Monogram Predicta kit lying around, it also has an appropriate chassis (based on a '57 'Bird), and the molded-in exhausts are outboard of the frame rails so it MIGHT be easier to modify, but I'd go with the original chassis. While the Mustang chassis might fit sort-of, it is for a unibody car, and the 'Bird is body-on-frame. If you care at all about engineering accuracy, it would be a tremendous amount of work in 1:1 to mate the 'Bird to a Mustang. Still, it is possible and might make for a very interesting updated concept.

I always thought this was a beautiful body design. Understated and elegant, but still powerful and agressive. Your build does it justice.

Wow. I really appreciate your attention to detail and historical accuracy. Beautiful stuff.

Looking forward to watching this progress......

Your engine wiring looks good, as noted above. The Ford Y-block had the plugs under the headres and you did the wiring just right. Nice work. Is this the Monogram 1/24 kit? I've never built it, but I have several built-ups on the shelf waiting to get re-worked. I'm wondering what is the fit issue you're having with the engine in the bay. Is the distributor fouling the firewall?

I like it like it LIKE it. I like the flames precisely because they don't predictably go with the rest of the build, but I think they do work, and set it apart from being just another pretty resto-rod. it looks like the edges have a little blue that picks up the interior color too. And even though the curve of the flame doesn't match the curve of the wheelwell, the curves are related, and I think the particular layout of the flame pulls the eye away from the heavy nose of the car, which can be overpowering on these. I like those directional wheels too. Even though I find them too busy for a lot of cars, there's so much going on with the Edsel styling that it needs some visually strong wheels. In short, great looking build !!

The roof works well. Love the seat inserts.

Wow man, that's a cool as it gets. Somebody ought to 1:1 this one.

I'm intrigued by the Iron Butterfly moniker. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, man.

Yes indeed, very very beautiful both.

Well, by now it looks pretty certain that this build wasn't good enough to win anything in the Gearz contest. Good thing I built it to please myself, eh? I would like to sincerely congratulate the winners. I'm happy that the contest did inspire me to finish something, finally, and that was a huge turning point for me. Again, congratulations to all the Revell / Gearz winners.

A model that is truly worthy of being called "spectacular".

I'm Jonesin' for more pictures....really need to see that beautiful paint done. However, I DO understand lazy very well. Great build.

I like this one, fo' sho'. Is that shifter linkage from the Comet kit? It looks pretty slick.

If you look halfway down page 2 of this thread, there's a shot of the rear-end setup before modifications. It's a generic Nascar truck-arm style rig with a reinforced Ford 9", available sometimes as part of a donor kit from GMS Customs on ebay. One of the reasons I decided to use it was to give me room to route the exhaust system after the severe lowering job. The leaf springs would have been in the way, and it would have taken a LOT more chassis mods to make that setup work.

I really envy you having some builds of your dad's, and I love these old AMT kits. They have something undefineable that's worth displaying just as they are. I really wish I had some of the models my own father built. He didn't do cars, but I remember a bright yellow P-47 done as a trainer. I don't know if there were actually any yellow P-47Ds, but it was a real thing of beauty to a kid, and it inspired me to try to approach his build quality.......which of course I couldn't.

Thank you Casey. That's quite a compliment. A bunch of chassis work.....had to c-notch the frame so much to get the stance I wanted that the frame rails needed extending upwards over the notch. Here they're beginning to get roughed in. There are also holes that need to be dealt with and the iinner fenders need to be extended upwards to clear the tires. New panel to go up-and-over the new rails and clear the pumpkin and new raised tunnel. Inner fenders have been extended .100" with styrene strip, and pockets for the coil springs are fabbed in. Semi-complete rear suspension with the new "sheetmetal" in place, and springs living happily in pockets. Top of the chassis showing the rear mods and the new front tubular crossmember. It was necessary to fab this type in order to clear the new front pan. The revised front suspension shown much earlier will work with this setup. Also, the firewall has been opened up more, allowing additional engine setback. I think I may need all the room I can get ahead of the engine. The piece of angle stuck to the block is just for temporary setup. This is pretty much the final mockup of the new nose treatment. ....and here's a better shot of the rough tail design, which mimics some elements from the front. ....and the taillights. I decided to go with the kind of rocket-ship look that this car seems to want, but with a little restraint to keep from becoming cartoonish. The lights, 4 of them to echo the quad headlights, are vintage Revell Parts Pack pieces I've been saving for something special. The peaks in the center of the pans will be softened slightly to better match the curves of the hood and rear deck. They won't be eliminated though, because I like the tension the slight mis-match of some of the design elements creates in the overall theme.

Yes, very interesting project, and I'll be fascinated to see what you do with it.

Last time I got any mail that started with "Greetings", it was from the draft board. Congratulations.

First, THESE ARE NOT MY BUILDS. I got these cars a while back in with a bunch of stuff from ebay, thinking they were all gluebombs, and parts-cars. Apparently the builder's family was liquidating his model collection after his death. When I unpacked these two and saw just how nice the stance was, and the little touches like the radiused wheel wells on the '40, I didn't have the heart to cut them up or part them out. I thought it might be nice to post these two models on the forum in case he never got the appreciation he deserved, and also in case anyone recognizes them and can give them a name. Neither car has engine or suspension. The '49 is a Flintstone resin shell, and the '40 is AMT.

That's a ton of great looking bodywork. Nice.

If you can get CA to hold that wire in place and also not "smoke" the surrounding area, you're a far far better man than I am, and should probably be a brain surgeon. If you can gently -ever-so-gently file a groove for the wire to lay in (hard to do on a painted seat, I know), you could possibly drill holes under the cushion to tuck the bent ends of the wire into, and then wick in a little clear acrylic to secure everything better. The wire would have to fit pretty well perfectly to work like this, however.