Help needed in identifying car

[Roadrunner]

Is this a '71 Chevy Impala? This is one car that believe it or not, I forgot I had owned, until I saw this photo tonight. Body was beat up pretty bad, but it ran great, as far as I recall. I'd like to a model of it, painted up as I would have done it, had I had the funds at the time.

[jeffs396]

That is a '73 pictured...

[Roadrunner]

OK, thanks very much, Jeff. Now that you said that, I noticed that the 71 had corner lights (for lack of a better term) on the front end, whereas the 73 did not. I wonder if anyone ever produced a kit? I'm Googling now, but it's not looking very hopeful.

[Tom Geiger]

There was a kit of the '73 Chevy, a two door hardtop of course. It was done back in '73 and never reissued because the annual body tooling was modified to the next year's car.

We had a '71 Belair 4 door sedan in that same light green. As you said, it had the corner lights. And it didn't have those huge 5mph bumpers, 73 was the first year for those!

Edited April 15, 2015 by Tom Geiger

[Roadrunner]

Yea, Tom, the bumper was like a picnic bench all right. Great for holding a cold drink and tools while working under the hood though.

[Roadrunner]

Once again, yet another car I've owned that there appears to be no kit of.

[jeffs396]

The only kit (and promo) was of the Caprice, NOT an Impala. But as Tom said, a 2-door...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MPC-1973-Chevy-Caprice-Model-kit-Unbuilt-/231532534708?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35e86a1bb4

[Joe Handley]

For a minute there, I thought that was the car from the Victory Auto Wreckers ad!

But that car is still far too solid to be it

So, who else around here grew up watching this ad?

Edited April 15, 2015 by Joe Handley

[Atmobil]

Modelhaus has a 75 Impala four door sedan and a 73 Caprice wagon. Maybe it would be possible to combine the two?

[Roadrunner]

Modelhaus has a 75 Impala four door sedan and a 73 Caprice wagon. Maybe it would be possible to combine the two?

That's certainly a thought. It's odd, but there is not one single kit available that depicts any car that I've ever owned, in a stock version, not one. Perhaps I've just owned odd and/or unpopular cars.

[Tom Geiger]

and once you've sawed two Modelhaus kits in half, you have about what you paid for that 1:1 car invested!

[Roadrunner]

and once you've sawed two Modelhaus kits in half, you have about what you paid for that 1:1 car invested!

Yep, seems like something I'll probably avoid doing.

[Bob Ellis]

Well I think Atmobil has a good idea. I suspect if you just bought the 73 bumpers, grille and tail lights, you could shape or fit them to the 1975.

[Mike Kucaba]

For a minute there, I thought that was the car from the Victory Auto Wreckers ad!

But that car is still far too solid to be it

So, who else around here grew up watching this ad?

ME!!

[Joe Handley]

ME!!

Believe it or not, they still show that ad, right down to the 50's Caddys rotting in the mud!

[Roadrunner]

Well I think Atmobil has a good idea. I suspect if you just bought the 73 bumpers, grille and tail lights, you could shape or fit them to the 1975.

I think it's probably a good idea too, I'm just not sure I'm courageous enough to do it.

[Can-Con]

The back bumper of the '73 wagons is completely different than the other full size '73 Chevys.

So, you'll still need a back bumper and tailights. Usually that will mean buying a complete car anyway.

The gold/brown one is the '73. , , with the blue a '72, pinkish a '75 and burgundy a '76.

[philo426]

[Roadrunner]

Yea, I'm afraid a two door isn't going to make it. Not one of my favorites that I owned anyway, so I'll just do without. Thanks, fellas.

[Atmobil]

Yea, I'm afraid a two door isn't going to make it. Not one of my favorites that I owned anyway, so I'll just do without. Thanks, fellas.

Your not alone about having owned cars that are difficult to make models of. In my short 13 years of car ownership, there is only three that I can build a model of and that is my first: the 1969 VW beetle, I did build one from Hasegawa 67 combined with parts from Revell 1:25 68 and I plan on building a new one from the new tool Revell 1:24 68 combined with parts from the new tool Revell 1:24 70 cabriolet.

The rest of the list:

Mercedes W115? No. (I have owned two of them)

Mercedes W110? No. (I have owend three of them)

Mercedes W123? No. (I own two of them, in wagon form)

VW Passat 1993? No. (I owned two of them)

VW Golf II? Yes, with some modifcations on the Revell GTI kit I can build one.

VW 1303? Yes again, but the kit depicting it is really bad and will never look good.

I have also been wanting to build the cars I have grown up with, my father had a Toyota Corolla KE70 when I was born and that one can be built by modifying Aoshimas kit. Biggest mod needed is converting the dash to left hand drive.

When my sister was born three years later he got a Toyota Carina TA60 estate and that one is not only impossible to build a kit model of it is also impossible to find any form of model of it. After that he bought a Toyota Model-F (Spacecruiser) and that one is again very difficult to get a model of. I can in theory make a model from a very rare old kit of a Toyota Lite-Ace and modify it but it will be expensive and take a lot of time and skills. After the Model-F he bought a Ford Escort estate and that one is also impossible to build a model of and the current car he owns is a 05 Toyota Corolla and as far as I know their is no models of that either.

I think this is the same for most people living in Europe as there is almost no kits available of the cars that have been common on our roads.

[Roadrunner]

I agree, Gaute. Not one single car that I've ever owned in my life, has a comparable model of it, not in stock form anyway. The closest is probably the MPC '74 Pinto, and even it cannot be built with the same specific attributes as the car I actually owned;... close, but not quite the same. It's rather sad really, but I'll just have to fake it I guess.

Another one that I originally thought might be close, but is not, is the Lindberg 1:32 scale '75 Buick Century. Similar body style, but not exactly the same, and sourcing the correct factory wheels in 1:32 scale, would be nearly impossible, as far as I can tell.

[Atmobil]

This is a little off-topic but at the same time on topic. I wish either the kit makers or aftermarket producers would release partspacks for kits with parts to upgrade/downgrade the kit to a different spec model. Lots of cars out there share the same body as the cars that are in available kits but only need minor detail changes to make them in to a different spec car. Changing the exterior trim, wheelrims or hubcaps, tires and different grilles, headligts taillights and bumpers and so on.

Take one example, I want to build Al Bundy's "Dodge" from the tv show Married with children. In the show they called the car a Dodge but in reality it was a 72 Plymouth Duster (a lot like this one: http://www.moparclassified.com/cars-for-sale/1972-plymouth-duster-in-ca-15.htm#!prettyPhoto) and I got the AMT 71 Duster 340 and I got resin dash and grille (Maybe copies from old MPC parts) and tailights but what I really could have needed is the wheelcovers. I guess I have to try and scratch build them somehow.

[Roadrunner]

I agree 100%, Gaute. I'm considering attempting the same thing; buying a model that is as close as I can get, then convert or scratch the rest, assuming I'm up to that.

[Tom Geiger]

This is a little off-topic but at the same time on topic. I wish either the kit makers or aftermarket producers would release partspacks for kits with parts to upgrade/downgrade the kit to a different spec model. Lots of cars out there share the same body as the cars that are in available kits but only need minor detail changes to make them in to a different spec car. Changing the exterior trim, wheelrims or hubcaps, tires and different grilles, headligts taillights and bumpers and so on.

It's pretty much been standard practice for model companies to kit the top of the line car, mainly because that was the promo request from the car manufacturers. The best answer is the aftermarket. I know that MCW does a whole line of Biscayne 2 door sedans etc for creating drag cars. Other entities have done 4 door, plain jane and wagon conversions. The Model Car Garage has done lower level scripts on their photo etch sheets too. You can view these on their website so to know exactly which sheets contain these.

[Atmobil]

Yes, and I am very glad that some of the aftermarket people are doing such thing. I have some Model Car Garage etch sets for some of my kits and thats very great. But I still would like to see a complete coversion kit for a kit with all the parts you need in one box.

Take on example, the Revell 64 Ford Fairlane that was reissued some years ago with the stock small dogdish hubcaps and flat bonnet but still was very much the thunderbolt under that. What if they (Revell or some aftermarket person/s) made a conversion kit where you could get the a straight six engine, a smaller v8, bench seat, full wheel covers, decals for different interiorpatterns and photoetched badges on the body of several different types and maybe also a right hand drive dash and parts for that.

The reason I could have wanted to see this come from a bigger manufacturer like Revell is economy. For a aftermarket producer it would be expensive to resin cast different sets of hubcaps, seats and engines (and other parts) to put in a box where maybe only 1/4 of the parts are used but for a bigger manufacturer like Revell or AMT, MPC, Hasegawa, Tamiya and others it would not be so expensive to mold such parts in styrene once they have done the tooling and I think it would add extra sales to the kits they got as some people would that initailly would be turned off from the original kit because they can not build the version they wanted would now all of a sudden buy this kit and the parts pack. Ofcourse I do assume that the partspack would be cheaper than the kit of the car (and also in smaller boxes) as they contain less parts.

They do already do (and have done) partspacks with race engines and race tires and such but I could have wanted to see a partspack with more mundane parts.

Infact, I could have wanted to see a engine partspack with only straight sixes and fourbangers and other common "mundane" engines. Would also be great if they where detailed enough so that one could build them without cylinderheads and such as it would be great diorama accesories. Think of a garage/workshop with a couple a year old scrap engineblocks laying around in the bushes behind the building.