Vista-ish Mustang wagon

[Farmboy]

I've had these two models for a while.  Neither one is a great build by itself (my actual 1:1 first car was the '66.  I towed it home in 1977.  Anyway, I felt no remorse cannibalizing either kit so here we go...

[Farmboy]

the first thing that need doing is figuring out the back end for the station wagon.  This is where a decision had to be made.  Keep the origianll "B" pillar slant from the mustang, or go with the angle from the chev?  Went with the chev. 

[Farmboy]

...and this is where I cut it.

[Farmboy]

and this is where I cut the mustang...  more to come.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Farmboy

[Modelbuilder Mark]

Really curious about this one. 

[milo1303s]

Ford Mustagawagon !!!

[DumpyDan]

Great idea, but that is just a tees you didn't even tape the roof on the Stang to give us a look at what it could look like.   Not playing fare

Edited April 21, 2018 by DumpyDan

[PARTSMARTY]

6 hours ago, Modelbuilder Mark said:

Really curious about this one. 

X2

[Farmboy]

there were 3 factors to consider in the graft.  I can only imagine how tuff this would be to do in metal.  Firstly, there's the width, secondly the length, and lastly, where and how to join to the mustang roof.  Here's what I did:  The actual width of the wagon roof was, for my purposes, basically spot on!  The bugger was the splay or spread of the window frames,  This made it necessary to remove a section from the rear and gently massage the pillars in to a narrower, more vertical stance that would agree with the hips and rear end of the 'stang.   I started by sawing the bottom of the frame and snipping away a little at a time. No measurements,  just trial and fit over and over till I got it right.  If you look at the bottom left, you can see the stress is turning the plastic white.  This was the most radical point of bending as it had to remain horizontal after getting the side pieces to line up.  I ended sawing a small 45 degree notch on the inside to ease things a bit and filling it later.

\

 

[Farmboy]

looking at length, well...it is a station wagon after all.  I did quite a bit of research on real life mustang/wagon conversions and they all suffered from the same thing.  They all looked like Pinto wagons.  They all looked like they had a wagon piece forcefully added to them.  I noticed also the roofline of almost all these vehicles followed a downward curve toward the tail, and almost all had a smooth roof from front to back.   The finished product looked....uncomfortable.  These are my personal observations incidentally.  Here's a look at the overhang.

I thought of shortening the roof and side windows but that would defeat the point of a station wagon.  I also thought of moving the whole issue forward but then the side pillars would be past the door frame.  What I did was cut the rear off the mustang immediately behind the wheel well.  This was the most likely spot as it had straight edges top and bottom, no curve to worry about.  I then set the roof in position where I wanted it and marked the with on a piece of sheet styrene..and voila..

Note the angle cut in the roof.  more on that later.

 

 

The roof is overlaid on the mustang roof, note that the mustang roof has a downward slope I don't want.  This explains the angled cut as I had left the mustang roof too long under the wagon roof causing the front part to bend down.  Cutting it to just over 1/8th of an inch or so solved the problem.  I wanted a 'big' look to the car so instead of making a long flat roof, I went for the two level VistaCruiser look minus the windows up top.  I think the look works.

This is how I got the double step.  There is a raised section on the wagon roof. Instead of cutting straight across as seen here and trying to hide the seam, I hid the join in plain sight with a piece of tape following the angled raised section.  That gave me the roof top, a narrow step down, and the mustang roof beneath that.

 

 

 

lots of work to do yet.    more to come

 

 

 

 

 

[thatz4u]

interesting....

[GerN]

Good stuff!  I particularly like the thoughtful approach and the explanation.

[Snake45]

Very nice work! I'll be watching this one. 

I've wanted to do one for years. I'm thinking of cutting the top off one '66 Mustang (and making it a convertible) and adding it onto the other. I think some real ones have been made this way, and I think it accounts for the downward slope, which doesn't really bother me all that much. Can't decide whether I want to do it as a wagon or a (no side windows) sedan delivery. Also haven't decided how I want to handle the B-pillars, but kind of thinking of laying them back, like the fastback. "Back in the day" in the old Car Model magazine, someone made a SD Mustang out of a fastback body, and it looked pretty cool. 

But enough of my rambling. Drive on! 

[Farmboy]

This is purported to be the one and only factory Ford Mustang built for Ford in Italy as a test shot when Ford was deciding on different designs for the new pony car in '65.  Note the sloped roof, relocated gas door and trunk extension.  It appears they removed the rear window piece and simply moved it back leaving the rear quarter windows and B pillar with minimal modifications.   I had actually made rear quarter side windows for my build but decided it cluttered up the look and removed them.

 

[DumpyDan]

Thanks Mike for all the photo's and walking us through what you did.  Now if I only had a 65 wagon glue bomb to cut up........wait I might. 

[Brizio]

Nice project!

[Snake45]

4 hours ago, Farmboy said:

This is purported to be the one and only factory Ford Mustang built for Ford in Italy as a test shot when Ford was deciding on different designs for the new pony car in '65.  Note the sloped roof, relocated gas door and trunk extension.  It appears they removed the rear window piece and simply moved it back leaving the rear quarter windows and B pillar with minimal modifications.   I had actually made rear quarter side windows for my build but decided it cluttered up the look and removed them.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking along those lines for mine, but I'm gonna move the rear window even closer to the rear end and have it so it would be lift-up (not working, just simulated). Still undecided about the B-pillars--do them like this, or just have them follow the side window line? (Might look too much like a Vega wagon that way.) Hmmmm.....

[Farmboy]

omg, my mom had a vega -- 2 speed auto!  I remember driving it lol.   Anyway, a couple of views of the body before bodywork;

even the best laid plans..... the 45 I had cut in the rear window frame corner to help with horizontal alignment let go.  Momentary drawback.  Oh, and the pretty knife gash across the rear panel,  a small adventure into 'out there' styling lol!  See also that the plastic insert is 'v'd into the fender line.  It gave me a rough guide of where to file and blend the top piece in.

Here you can see some of the interior bracing around the sheet plastic inserts.  Even then, I managed to open the seam a couple of times as I was adjusting the bottom of the wagon piece to the mustang fender. I wanted to keep a groove begtween the bottom of the window frame and top of the fender line.Super glue and good old tube glue to the rescue.  It hasn't been cemented it this pic yet so it appears crooked but  it really isn't.

Here's my solution to a smooth transition from back plate to lift gate.  A section of plastic stir stick from a coffee shop.  It's in scale and gives it some strength to hold the back end secure during the sanding and handling.  I'll fair it in to the rear end as a beauty line.   Laugh, but I think it works!

The messy stuff begins.  More to come.

[Farmboy]

A word on the interior.

I have no photos of the interior process though maybe I should have, I just honestly didn't give it any thought at the time but here is what I did in a nutshell.  I cut the mustang tub slightly past the door edge so the cut lined up with the wagon's B pillar.  I removed the rear of the wagon interior and butted it up to it to complete the tub making sure I cut it longer than needed, trimming to fill the length of the interior body.  The vertical side joins were covered with half round styrene rod.  The wagon tub and rear seat (a separate part) have to be narrowed to fit the mustang width.  Again, a cut and fit process.  A piece of styrene covers the floor  in the rear of the wagon ...cut the rear seat in a near central seam to simplify the cut/glue/fill process.  The floor pan for the mustang kit was used with no cutting needed as the wheel wells didn't change position, but, the molded-in shock/differential assembly pokes up and  had to be ground down from the inside so the new wagon part of the tub sat level. A part of the floor at the mustang/wagon tub join also had to be ground away for clearance but the rear seat covers the surgery perfectly.  It sounds complex but it's straightforward cut and fit stuff, and it's not the only way to do it I'm sure.  The floor pan can be extended with a piece of styrene at the rear if one wishes.  I used the custom rolled rear body  pan so the opening is minimal.  Your wagon glass won't fit.  I made mine from clear stuff (acetate?) that was part of a chocolate Easter bunny package for a niece.  The mustang windshield fits however it cracked while I was snipping it from the rest of the unit.  The one time I didn't use my dremel to grind it apart!!  Anyway, made it from the same clear stuff as the other windows.  It relates. By the way, comments, observations and questions on the build are welcome.

[Draggon]

That's looking real good. The way you did the top, plus extending the quarter panels makes it so much better. 

[Geno]

I agree Glenn. Mike, what you have done gives the whole design a lot more cohesiveness than what Ford actually done on the real car. Great job.

[Farmboy]

.....the primer queen

Still have the 289 badges to remove.  I was going to leave them but no.  Also have a gas door to scribe in the fender.

Comments and observations welcome

[disabled modeler]

Cool project....I am a certified wagon nut.

[Anglia105E]

You are working wonders here Mike.... this is such an interesting project for you and a very tricky conversion I can see that. Looks like the whole idea is coming together as you want it to. Some time soon I am attempting to convert a 1936 Tamiya Toyoda into a 1957 Austin FX3 London Taxi, so I am watching your work in progress and hopefully learning something from your techniques and methods. I shall continue to follow your posts on this fascinating topic.

David

[Oldmopars]

I am loving this conversion.