Ace-Garageguy

^^^ See post immediately above ^^^

'28 Nash "Advanced 6" maybe? 6-bolt steel disc split-rim wheels, proportions about right, some details reasonably close, large car with a 6-cylinder engine... Another thing some big Nash cars had was a door hinge dead in the center of the door panel between the upper character line and the door bottom, visible here as a white reflection (below). No other cars of the period I've looked at have a hinge in that exact location (which matches your photo). Though the car above, a '28, appears to have 4 door hinges, ONE of them is in the center location I've noted. The photo below, a '26 car, definitely has a single hinge in that location. The curve of the cowl top/windshield base also seems to be an excellent match for your photo.

^^^ Reminiscent of the 356 B-based Carrera Abarth. Some sources credit Zagato for the design below, while others cite Scaglione.

Glad you guys liked the vid. If you didn't notice, one of the coolest things is the explanation of how modern digital interpretation of old photos and drawings was used to develop hammer-forms that the body panels were made over in the traditional way. To get the commentary in English, you have to enable the "closed captioning" thingy at the lower RH of the screen.

The Clearly Scale 5-speed ZF gearbox shown earlier appears to have been molded directly from the 1/25 scale unit in the Revell Shelby Series I kit. I've already researched building a detailed Pantera, and the rear frame section from the same Shelby kit, which includes lower control arms, makes a good starting place. From the same kit, the rear upper control arms, the front frame section (modified slightly), the front upper control arms and spindles, the rear suspension uprights and halfshafts, the radiator...all look close enough to what's under a real Pantera to be useful if absolute dimensional accuracy isn't the object. Most of the Pantera kits are billed as 1/24, and the Shelby kit is 1/25, so that's an issue. The rear of the Pantera structure consists of two parallel rectangular longerons (running from the firewall to the rear body panel) that support the engine mounts, rear gearbox mounts, and lower control arm mounts. Their only connection to the body is through the inner fender panels, which have some hat-section stiffening members applied to the undersides where reinforcement is required at the coilover and upper control-arm attachment points. The rear of the structure is not particularly well engineered from a torsional-rigidity standpoint, and is the reason the real cars twist so much as delivered. Cobbling up acceptable inner fenders from inner fenders salvaged from front-engined models, and a little sheet styrene and bondo, would not be terribly difficult. There is also a fiberglass trunk liner that drops in over the gearbox, and is retained by twist snaps at the locations of the bright metal receivers around the perimeter of the decklid opening.

The "radiator hoses" run to the A/C condenser with the yellow fan. The actual coolant hoses run under the car, as the rad is in front. The bolt-in crossmember stabilizes the upper control arm and spring-shock coilover attachment locations, and is typically replaced with something beefier on most cars. The chassis on the Pantera is notoriously flexible, the stock part bolts to slotted brackets (visible on the inner fenders here), so the adjustment tends to move around no matter how tight you get the bolts.

I've been picking up the occasional bomber AMT '40 ('39ish) Tudor for some strange reason. I have ideas for several builds based on these, even though they weren't particularly loved when they were plentiful. The much better detailed Revell guts fit well, which avoids a lot of laborious work upgrading the semi-blobular AMT underpinnings and engine. This little guy is very rebuildable, and came cheap. I'm hoping the wheels are salvageable, as they're decent looking 16" steel rims that work for a lot of hot-rod applications. The Protar Ferrari 250 GTO kits are considerably more expensive than last time I looked, but this one wasn't too bad, was sealed, and came with an extra set of (not great) tires. What I particularly wanted to see were the much-touted wire wheels. While the spokes are indeed very fine and will look great assembled, they lack the adjustment nuts that the 3D printed wheels from Model Builders' Warehouse get right. This should make a difference to a knowledgeable builder who's actually familiar with real Borannis, and I'll shortly have a set of the MBW parts in-hand to do a critical side-by-side comparison. The kit appears to be quite a gem really, with a body shape that, at first glance, should be close enough for a possibly racing-damaged-and-repaired car. I'm not seeing the "body shape is just flat wrong" that several internet opinions have parroted, but on closer examination, I may be more disappointed. The engine, gearbox and chassis look better than the Gunze version (which doesn't have much), and the Testors/Italeri version (which also has pretty decent wire wheels). I've already started the Gunze kit as a Chebby-powered bastard, but I need to do something about the awful non-prototypical squared rear wheel arches. I'm lacking the Fujimi version, but that should soon be rectified, and I'm kinda thinking of doing the Italeri, Fujimi and Protar versions simultaneously, noting the differences with research on the 1:1s as the builds progress. We'll see how the time works out on that.

Absolutely. Great looking build. Always a treat to see somebody build a car I remember vividly from my yoot. Spinning the album as we speak.

Couple things... 1) The windshield you want is called a Hallock. It's kinda similar to a DuVall, but different. Hallock DuVall The DuVall in this kit (below, often very cheap, if you buy the pre-decorated version...and it's a goldmine of other parts as well) can be cut down to look like the Hallock. The shot below shows the DuVall (from the kit shown above) sitting on an AMT '29 cowl. It's a little wide for the '29, but can be made to fit fairly easily by filling a little on the cowl. You'll also notice the '32 hood shown on this mockup is too wide for the '29 cowl, which is why you'll need to narrow the rear of a '32 hood. 2) Jantrix is right about the flathead in the Revell '32 sedan kit. It has finned heads similar to what's in your friend's car, a '32 grille shell, and a hood. The hood will need to be narrowed at the rear to fit the cowl of the '29, but that will get you pretty close...and it should be the right length too. It's also a goldmine for other parts. Between the Revell '32 and the Revell '29, you should have enough bits to get the suspension pretty close to what's in your friends car too, at least in front, where it shows.

A V8's a tight squeeze in the real car. Your right elbow is constantly bumping the engine cover if you drive with the seat all the way back. A V-12? The 600 BMW V-12, possible. Due to its close bore spacing and smallish bores, it's about the same length as the Ford 351C. Other V-12 engines? Right off hand, I'd say probably not without lengthening the wheelbase, or heavy engineering involving a gearbox arrangement like the Countach uses. There was a prototype DeTomaso V-12 engine built, but it's probably too long for a stock Pantera.

Just be advised that though these two engines should be identical, they are not. The one in the Magnum wagon kit is significantly longer than the unit in the Challenger kit. It's been a while since I checked the actual dimensions, but IIRC, the engine in the Challenger is the correct one.

Once you've seen it, you never forget it.

Ah, but sir...several 426-based Hemi-powered Panteras have been built. The first one, IIRC, was done in Sweden, and has been through several iterations. https://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-1204-526ci-hemi-pantera-hempantera-version-2-8/ http://www.hemipanter.se/ http://moparblog.com/hemi-pantera/ Another one...

Looking great so far. I didn't even know that kit existed. Thanks for the heads-up, too.

I've never lusted after a garbage truck before. WAY cool.

Some really wild stuff. Some I've never seen before too. Real cool. Spy Machine/Sinister Purpose looks like it'd be a handful of terror to drive.

Love it.

No, the Revell kit DOES NOT have a hood, and the spacing of the grille shell from the firewall on that kit may be noticeably longer than what you'll want for the car you're doing. But have no fear; building a custom hood to fit any combination of firewall and grille isn't too hard. None of the hoods I had fit this '29 firewall and the Miller-style nose, so I made up templates for the two by tracing on .030 styrene and gluing to a rough hood. Then fill it up to the right level with a 2-part filler like Bondo Professional spot/glazing putty.

If you have a power-drill, you can turn soft wood, shaping it with sandpaper glued to a rigid block. Also, don't overlook common household things that might have the right taper. I just scouted around the kitchen for a couple of minutes and found a mustard bottle, a submarine-dressing bottle, and a couple of knives that could all supply a taper for a trans tunnel. For forming straight curved sections, X-Acto handles work great too.

Thank you too, sir. The shots below show a PVC and styrene mockup I made on the model bench, with the Unimat, to fit a spherical bearing in the firewall of a real '66 Chevelle I'm finishing up. The firewall had already been smoothed and painted candy-blue when I got involved with the project, and the pass-through for the steering column was in the wrong place...slightly, but enough to bugger the firewall. Happily for everyone concerned, I was able to juggle everything just enough to avoid repainting the firewall, but I had to get a dead-on fit for the eyeball. The plastic mockup allowed me to work the end of the upper column and shaft lengths to fit it, and to re-position the steering rack as well (which happily also allowed me to correct a bump-steer problem). I'll duplicate the plastic in aluminum, and we're done.

Thanks, guys.

Absolutely. And to take that idea and run with it a bit, you could also cobble together several pieces from kits into a positive mold, and then vacuum-form .010 sheet over it all. The temperature required to vac-form styrene will temper it too, obviously. What I actually ended up doing to get the taper of the trans cover was to turn a piece of wood dowel to the taper I wanted on the Unimat, (determined from the dimensions the mockup came out to be after careful eyeball-fitting), wrap and tape the sheet around it, and dip it.

Not a lot going on, as this old girl's been patiently waiting her turn to get back in progress. One reason is that after assembling all the new body panels and body shell on the suspension, I wasn't entirely happy with the stance. Since stance is hugely important to me, I kinda stepped back and decided to wait before moving forward again. I'm OK with the front end, but the rear looks high and the axle looks too far forward to me in this shot. Deciding exactly what happened took a little looking backwards at earlier build photos, and they don't tell the entire story. To actually be able to tell what's changed...exactly...the photos you're comparing need to be taken from exactly the same angle and height. Compare the shot above with the two shots below and you'll see what I mean. The angles are slightly different, so the actual position of the axle is difficult to ascertain. And the absence of the bellypans in the upper shot changes the initial impression the car makes too. The shot immediately below seems to show the axle farther back, with the curve of the top of the tire tangent to the curve of the body line. The next shot, however, appears to show the axle a little farther forward, and the body higher relative to the tire. The point of this post is that, as stance is extremely important in forming the first-impression of any car, model or full-scale, it's necessary to get your dimensions dead-on early in the game so you can trust them, build to them, and not need to be constantly re-thinking what you should have done in the first place. I failed to get really good measurements on this one early, and it's taking some effort to find the stance sweet-spot now...and will most likely entail modifying some suspension parts I had thought were pretty much done (except for final finishing). Lesson learned...again.

Thanks for the interest, gentlemen. Bernard, thank you too. To answer your question, the floor proper is the .020" stock, as is the rear of the tunnel. The forward section ended up being the .010" stock. To form the curved trans cover and the rear section took some experimenting and a few failures to get a decent final result. In short, you first need a very accurate card-stock template that can be bent to a curve with fingers. Then make a styrene part that duplicates it exactly. Aftermarket styrene stock, whether sheet, tube, or rod, can often be heat-formed and tempered to hold its shape. Depending on the size and shape of the part, it only takes immersion in boiling water for 10-30 seconds to do the trick. Then cool the part in cold water. To get accurate and consistent results and smooth curves, it's necessary to secure the part you're forming to something that will hold its shape. I first tried taping the part to a section of styrene tube that had already been tempered. That worked reasonably well, but wasn't good enough. I ended up making a more elaborate form, but didn't photograph it. It's just a matter of trial-and-error, and rarely takes more than 3 attempts to get it right. Last shot shows the original card-stock template, one of the not-good-enough parts, and the final assembled floor. I found that .010 worked best for the forward end, and it was better to cut the relief for the shifter after the part was formed. The parts are quite delicate and fragile, but once assembled they stiffen up considerably...though it takes very careful file work to avoid cracking .010" sheet once it's tempered.