Welly 72 Trans Am Finished With Tire Decals

[THarrison351]

There sure is a lot of talk on Welly diecast lately. I purchased a blue Trans Am a few months back because it looked well proportioned, wasn't white and was cheap. I'd like to get a lot of the Welly diecast but we don't have Rite-Aids in Wichita. The couple of other stores mentioned, do have a few of the NEX displays with the lame 73 Mustangs and late model pick up trucks. 

So I'm in the process of detailing my Welly. Here is what I'm starting with:

Side

Front

Back

Interior

Engine

Chassis plate

It blows up pretty good:

Preliminary paint. I plan to paint the interior blue.

Drilled the exhaust.

Painted the grill and the turn signal lens. I know they're supposed to be clear with amber bulbs, but when I painted the stump amber, the lens still looked clear. There is just a light coat of clear amber. I think the camera really enhanced the color.

These tires look like they belong on a truck from the side However, the tread pattern looks like a radial. I can't wait to detail the wheels.

Edited October 1, 2018 by THarrison351

[Gramps46]

Way to go Tim.  Please keep us posted on your project.

[vamach1]

Lame 73 Mustangs???

[smhardesty]

I'm going to follow this closely. I've just had my interest in diecast drastically increased. I can barely wait to see what you do to this. I saw the exact car on eBay last night.

[Snake45]

43 minutes ago, vamach1 said:

Lame 73 Mustangs???

Maybe he meant this one: 

[vamach1]

17 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

Maybe he meant this one: 

It's a standard 1972 fastback with regular grille and chrome bumper that was not available in any kit.  Swap the wheels and grille, redo the interior  and paint and Grabber blue and white and you can make a 72 Sprint with the Keith Marks decals.

[THarrison351]

I mean it, along with almost every 1971-1973 mustang in plastic or metal is lame. Something, usually the grill, always the engine is wrong. I think Danbury mint made one good representation with their 1971 Mustang Boss 351/Mach 1 w 429. You will pay dearly for a nice example though. I built one of the Testors Mustangs with the ahem... Boss 429s many years ago. The grill is wrong on that one too.

Only picture I have. It's packed away.

Edited August 30, 2018 by THarrison351

[vamach1]

4 minutes ago, THarrison351 said:

I mean it, along with almost every 1971-1973 mustang in plastic or metal is lame. Something, usually the grill, always the engine is wrong. I think Danbury mint made one good representation with their 1971 Mustang Boss 351/Mach 1 w 429. You will pay dearly for a nice example though

Agree the AMT an MPS kits were lame due to the wrong engines, exhaust, chassis to name a few things.  The DM diecasts are superb and showed the great potential of what could be done with the proper plans.  I've tried to combine the plastic kits with parts copied from the DM Boss but progress has been slow on completing one.

[THarrison351]

Yes, and I'd love to see some proper steel wheels with trim rings and the proper poverty caps. Not the Mercury styled ones. This works on 70-71 Torinos too. Like what you saw on the original Eleanor.

https://www.imcdb.org/v004972.html

[THarrison351]

1 hour ago, Snake45 said:

Maybe he meant this one: 

 

59 minutes ago, vamach1 said:

It's a standard 1972 fastback with regular grille and chrome bumper that was not available in any kit.  Swap the wheels and grille, redo the interior  and paint and Grabber blue and white and you can make a 72 Sprint with the Keith Marks decals.

 

Hey, I know it's only $10, sadly the mold is getting a little long in tooth. With what Welly is selling now for the same price we could use a replacement or some updates. It might have a nice chrome bumper, but those headlight buckets. The rear track looks like late 60s-70s Chrysler A-bodies. Oh yeah, the tail light panel on the Welly/MotorMax car is as bad as the pick ups I recently completed. 

[vamach1]

34 minutes ago, THarrison351 said:

I mean it, along with almost every 1971-1973 mustang in plastic or metal is lame. Something, usually the grill, always the engine is wrong. I think Danbury mint made one good representation with their 1971 Mustang Boss 351/Mach 1 w 429. You will pay dearly for a nice example though. I built one of the Testors Mustangs with the ahem... Boss 429s many years ago. The grill is wrong on that one too.

Only picture I have. It's packed away.

Yes - those Testors ones were just a cheap diecast version of the 73 fastback with a 72 grille.  The Mach1 had a mix of 72 and 73 decals and the Boss did not have the correct chrome bumper and of course the wrong engine.  Sadly the could have done a stock 73 Mach1 with the right grille and decals but they missed that opportunity.  The vents in the hood are wrong, the rear spoiler is too high and I have never seen those hubcaps on a Mach1 or Boss.  That did not stop them from selling a bunch though.

[THarrison351]

The grill doesn't represent any car, but I made mine look like a  71 Mustang Mach1 because of some reason. The tail panel Mach1 marking was wrong for all years.  All Mustangs could get what those hubcaps are supposed to be. I have an old Mustang book from the 80s that has all the differences what could be on each year what couldn't be with what and even if it wasn't available the dealer could add if the customer wanted to pay for it.

https://www.7173mustangs.com/showthread.php?tid=17350  scroll down about half way

I think nowadays every 71-73 for sale has Magnum 500s on them. Its kind of like the 65-66 Mustangs all have the styled steel mag wheel and all the 67-69 have GT wheels or Magnum 500s. You hardly ever see the stock hubcaps.

 

Edited August 30, 2018 by THarrison351

[vamach1]

No Welly ones in these pictures but here are AMT, MPC, Motor Maxi, Testors and the Danbury Boss and Mach1 along with Missing Link parts.

Edited August 30, 2018 by vamach1

[Snake45]

Vamach1, I do believe you just won the Thread Hijacker of the Year award! 

[THarrison351]

56 minutes ago, vamach1 said:

No Welly ones in these pictures but here are AMT, MPC, American Graffitti, Testors and the Danbury Boss and Mach1 along with Missing Link parts.

If you have the American Graffiti Mustang, it and the MotorMax are the same. And now that I have hunted all over the net, I don't think the 71 Mustangs that were loose in the NEX display were even Wellys, I think they were MotorMaxs because I can't find any 71-73 1/24 Mustangs from Welly

44 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

Vamach1, I do believe you just won the Thread Hijacker of the Year award! 

Hopefully this will be the end of the Hijack. I don't mind. It's fun to see what other people think.

[vamach1]

55 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

Vamach1, I do believe you just won the Thread Hijacker of the Year award! 

Sorry but I get defensive about my favorite Mustang years.  Back on point - there are some alternatives out there that people may overlook in the toy section since most stores do not sell kits anymore.  Perhaps these cheap cars can drum up interest in a younger generation.  Another thread showed all the prepainted AMT kits Walmart sold for a short while.  It would be great to see more of that  again to cut down the amount of build time for people with little time or short attention spans.  Un oh - did I hijack two threads in one post? 

[THarrison351]

Well, I just realized something else that was off and will need to be addressed. Welly in their infinite wisdom went cheap on the tampo print. The stripes were printed the same way on both the white car and the blue car. In other words they used a tampo print to fade the outer edge to the center. This only applies to the white car's black and blue stripes. The blue car's black and white stripes are solid, no fade. 

Welly's

 

Edited August 30, 2018 by THarrison351

[randyc]

Yes, those wheels come out great with proper detailing.   I may take mine apart someday and do a next level of detailing.   Fuzz the floors, detail the interior, etc, like you are.   I really like where you're heading with it.  Look forward to seeing more as you get things done.  Don't stop the updates.  

[THarrison351]

Painted the interior blue with my brand spankin' new Paasche VL double action airbrush I bought from HL on clearance last month. Love it, never used a double action before. Barely used any paint. My old Paasche single action was great and I liked to use it occasionally. I just don't like the clean up exercise. Color is Testors (Model Master) Nassau blue metallic in their lacquer color system decanted.

Detail painting next

[randyc]

Wow!  That's great!  I have a 67 Welly I am detailing for a friend and was thinking that same thing.   That's mighty tempting after seeing your photos.    I was thinking of the white seat/black carpet version as well.   Or I could do white seats/blue carpet.  Was that an option on the birds?  Mopar offered that combination.   Have to see if I feel like taking it that far when I get to the bench.  He's left it up to me for how far to take the detailing.  All we know for sure is wheels and grille.   But yours is absolutely spectacular!  

And you'll love the VL.  My VLS is 22 years old.  Lost the red thing years ago and if it had any etching on the body, it's long gone.  All that's original on mine is the body.  I think EVERY other part has been replaced.  Cleanliness is key though.  

[THarrison351]

OK, I'm no expert, and the Internet has been a poor source of information for interior information. As best I can tell, 72 Trans Ams were available with the standard (vinyl) morrokide seating trim in six colors: blue, ivory, saddle, green, beige, and black and not a ivory, seat black carpet or blue carpet combination. The optional more upscale combination cloth and morrokide seating trim was only available in beige and black. I haven't seen any colors but blue or black. I have seen the color combination you want in a 1973 Trans Am. Which is kind of funny and leads me to the second part of my post. If there is any more info from the better informed, I'm open to answers. 

Here is picture of the under hood of the diecast. It is surprisingly well detailed for a $10 diecast and fairly accurate...for a 1973 Trans Am. It shouldn't have finned valve covers but that's not the only problem. The angled bars from the radiator support to the fenders were added in 1973 because of the new 5 MPH bumper laws. I had seen pictures of  70-72 Firebirds and knew this was a mistake, so I cut mine off. Oddly when I was looking for more pictures of something else, the picture below the diecast popped up and now I know where they got it from. So if you want to strip the exterior paint and repaint it as a 1973 TA with a 455 SD under the hood, it will be correct but the interior will be wrong.

1973 Trans Am fender braces and single snorkel on air cleaner

1972 Trans Am no fender braces and dual snorkels on air cleaner

I'm slowly getting some of the detail painting done and will add more pictures soon.

Edited September 3, 2018 by THarrison351

[THarrison351]

Listening to some movie soundtracks, (Donnie Darko, Once, Kodachrome, Singles, and American Graffiti)  I did finally manage to get some painting done tonight. I think I'm done with what I'm going to do on the chassis plate. My steel paint is dried up. So, silver for everything bare metal. I still need to do the master cylinder and finish the battery under the hood. The interior is finished except the instrument plate. Tomorrow I foil and detail it in black. The wheels turned out OK for a blind guy using 3x readers looking through a 10x lighted magnifier, one eyed. The tail lights and tailpipes were touched up with a Molotow pen. Tomorrow, I detail the chrome on the body with the pen or foil. I haven't decided yet.

 

[smhardesty]

It's coming along just great. Those wheels look super. I'm thoroughly enjoying following this. Thanks for all the photos.

[randyc]

Thanks for hte info on the interiors.  Since my buddy is a non-paying guy, I just buttoned it back up in black.   If he'd offerend me something ( a sheet of BMF, maybe?), I might have taken it farther.   BTW, the headlights on the 67 'bird are awful.   I don't have enough extra lenses to let 4 lenses sit on someone else's shelf.  

Yours is looking great.  Inspiration if I ever go to the next level on mine.  

Keep it coming.

[THarrison351]

Thanks for the praise.

The '67 'bird would be this one below? I did some detailing, painted the interior, but can't remember the headlights.This picture was taken many years back and I don't remember why. It's packed away in a box until the room it's stored in is converted to a bedroom or we move again. See following picture.