1965 Riviera Snakified

[Snake45]

Found this Welly “1/26 scale” ’65 Riv at a Toy & Train show. It was dirty and tired-looking, with several scratches on the body, but the size and shape looked good, it seemed complete, and I thought it had potential, so I paid the $10 ransom and rescued it.

It doesn’t show up that well in these “before” photos but the headlights/bumper didn’t fit too well on the left side. There must have been a gap of .020”, maybe even .030” at the top of the left headlight pod. Unacceptable. Also, the taillights weren’t colored in any way, just chrome in the bumper.

I disassembled the thing, cut the front bumper off (it was heat-mushroomed on), then filed the mounting holes upward until the headlight pod properly met the fender. While the body was off, I painted the headliner black to match the rest of the interior.

Some of the scratches looked quite deep, and I was sure I was going to need to touch up the silver paint in places. But the paint was a joy to work with, it polished out beautifully, and I was able to get almost all the scratches and boogers off with about 20 minutes of polishing.

Painted the taillights Model Master Clear Red Acryl (lovely stuff), and detailed the wheels and grille with Black Chrome Trim. I was going to knock the black off the grille bars with a toothpick, but it looked so good all-black I just left it that way. I can always do the toothpick thing later if the mood ever strikes me.

The black “vinyl” top also had a bunch of scratches and even a few chips/flakes. I touched these up best I could with Black Chrome Trim. I know the vinyl top should have chrome trim around the bottom edge and around the rear window, but for the time being, I just left these borders black, as was seen on vinyl tops on some ‘70s cars. I did do the drip moldings with Silver Sharpie, though, and Sharpied some of the other chrome trim such as the vent windows.

I spent a grand total of maybe two hours of Model-Fu on this thing. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and it looks great on my shelf, at least until I get a “real” model ’65 Riv built.

[bismarck]

Nice!! I always liked that body style of Buick. Great save!!

[oldscool]

Nice resto Snake.

[AzTom]

Good Save!