Fat Brian

The terrible headlights and surrounding area of the front end.

I'm looking for options to build a 64 Polara 440 or 500. My first thought was to swap the roof from the Lindberg Belvedere to the 330 body but after taking some measurements it won't fit correctly. Has anyone used modern kit guts on the Johan body? Do the Lindberg grille and bumpers fit the Johan body? Does the Lindberg Belvedere glass fit the Johan body? I don't want to pay collector prices for a Johan kit just for most of to go unused.

Does he have anything to fix the front end?

Honestly, I've completely switched to Mr Color, Tamiya, and Vallejo brush paints. They're just so much better it's worth the expense.

That's the thing, the average run of a kit today is 5k pieces. You might see 10k on a new tooling that's expected to really move. The only way they're going back to the well on the Mustang kit is if they decide to do a GT one day. Personally, I think that's highly unlikely because it under cuts kits they've already got, the 1/24 93 Cobra R and 90 convertible kits.

The 69 Charger, 57 Fairlane, 69 Mustang, and 70 Torino have all had revisions to their bodies or parts after release. Only the Charger was as much work as what the Mustang would need. Once the windows are in the Mustang it doesn't bother me as much. I also sanded the edge of the roof a bit thinner and it helps some.

If you want to go really low there's the "suicide perch" where you move the spring perch in front of the radiator. This also lengthens the wheel base.

I second Steve's coat hanger method. As an added bonus you can hang the body upside down to minimize the chance of something landing on it while it's drying.

Unless the box survives the building process in particularly good shape and I'm looking for an extra box for something they usually go in the trash.

It's the same basic kit, body, interior, and chassis all the same. The pink car has stock parts and the fake fender vents, the black car has all the race stuff.

I crammed a 427 in one but had to shave the spring mounts paper thin and use very tight exhaust manifolds. If you cut the spring mounts out if the inner fenders and switched to a Mustang II style front end more stuff will fit.

Yeah, the 65 or 66 Galaxie kits are about as close as you can get. The 65 chassis is more detailed overall but has the exhaust molded in, the 66 chassis is more basic bit has separate exhaust. I'm leaning toward the 66 chassis for a 68 LTD and dressing it up with some parts box bits.

There's a lot of gray area here. Even with printed parts they are rarely direct replacements for kit parts so there is almost always a degree of fitting required to make the finished product shelf-worthy. I think I fall on JC's side that it's an entirely different skill set but still a creative activity. I know when I built 3d models I put as much time and effort into it as I did a traditional model, the process was just entirely different.

I use a really fresh Xacto blade to slice the bracing off the parts the go back and clean up the little nibs.

Ok, I got it. That's going to look great in my GT350R.

Hey Charles, any ETA on the cross ram SBF?

I only saw the single carb intake in this one and only the cast aluminum valve covers. I might try to pick the decal sheet up though.

I went and busted out the calipers on this because you piqued my curiosity. The Monte roof is about 1/4 inch too narrow and the rear window shape isn't even close. I think a better option is the roof from the AMT 70 Impala. It's only about 1.5 millimeters narrower than the Revell roof and it has the correct C pillar shape. You'll need to cut the rear window frame out of the 66 roof and shorten it and graft it on to the 70 roof. Overall it seems pretty do-able. Here's the 70 Impala for comparison.

I agree, the AMT 67 GT350 kit is easy to get and by far the best choice as a donor. I was just speaking to the commonalities between the 67 and 68 kits because I've been testing stuff to build the best possible 68 GT500KR.

The dimensions of the AMT 67 and 68 are pretty close, the 67 guts go in the 68 easily. The issue is you'll have a 67 nose and 68 taillights. It will also take a bit of work to figure out where to cut the nose off.

Yes, the AMT headlights are taller than the Revell parts. The AMT front fascia also leans back at a steeper angle than the Revell nose. So the lights don't fit without swapping the entire front end. Really, you need to save the AMT lower bumper air dam to keep it a GT so there's some creative cutting needed to make it work.

The TS line is the glossy paints intended for cars, AS is typically armor stuff and is flat or semi gloss. The PS paints are for polycarbonate RC bodies. X is for acrylic brush paints. Those are broad categories and there may be a few oddball in any line.

Just to give you another option, if you've got a steady hand and can work quickly you could try brush painting it with Molotow. If you do it it needs to be the last thing you do, one stray finger and you'll ruin the finish on it.

One of the more recent issues of the Revell W900 semi kit, the flat top not the Aerodyne, has some very Heavy Metal style murals in it.

You could build the Little Red Wagon wheel stander and use the L700 cab with the Louisville race car hauler to build something like this.