'72 GTO Glue Bomb Rescue

[Snake45]

Finished this one up a couple months ago, but just got the pics taken yesterday. Bought this '72 GTO cheap at the local toy show about six months ago.

It looked good (for a quickie “rescue” project) at the time, but when I got it home, the paint turned out to have a few runs and other flaws. I wet-sanded and polished them out but burned through in several places. Model Master Arctic Blue seemed to be a near-perfect match (or I'd have just thrown the thing back in the box at this point), and it seemed like an excellent chance to try out my new fine-tip DA airbrush, which cost me all of $20 at Walmart (Chinese knockoff of a Badger 150). So I airbrushed only the burned-through and thin spots, then polished the touchup spots and tried to blend them with the old paint. About 75-80% of the original paint is still seen on the finished model. It's not perfect, but it looks kinda like home garage (or high school shop?) accident or rust repair work. If you're interested, you can see the paint damage and touchup work detailed here:

The paint sorted out (it looks better in real life--in the pics, the original paint looks much sparklier than it really is, for some reason), everything else was pretty much first degree Snake-Fu. The interior, which was painted blue and black, got a squirt of Krylon Satin Black—no further detailing (just not worth the time or effort on a project like this). I used everything from the original glue bomb except the rear wheels and tires. I decided I liked the fat front tires (on Cragars) that it came with, so I matched them up with deep Cragars from the AMT '72 on the rear shod with some wide treaded tires (I think from an AMT '69 Cobra) instead of my normal street bomber slicks, and lowered the comically jacked rear end to a more reasonable angle. So the thing has more of a NASCAR/road racer/GT vibe than my standard drag-inspired street goon. It still fits nicely into my imaginary late '70s-early '80s phantom car club, “The Retrobates.”

Someday I'll build a “nice” '72 GTO. Until then, this one fills the slot on my shelf. As always, comments welcome.

[slusher]

Turned out great Snake! 

[disabled modeler]

Dig it Snake..!  I have a soft spot for the GTOs...we once owned a 70,71,72,73,74.   We had a lot of cool old Ponchos in the family once.

[cobraman]

Much better .

[donb]

It does look pretty cool. Nice work. 

[Hmann68]

Another fine job, sir! Man ya gotta love Cragars on the old muscle cars! Looks tough with those fat tires in the back too?

[iamsuperdan]

Your rescues are always fantastic!

Serious question for you. I think I've only ever seen you post rescues. Do you build new kits too? Or just like the challenging of saving the old ones?

 

 

 

[Deuces]

Looks great Snake...... ?

[Snake45]

14 hours ago, iamsuperdan said:

Your rescues are always fantastic!

Serious question for you. I think I've only ever seen you post rescues. Do you build new kits too? Or just like the challenging of saving the old ones?

 

 

 

Oh sure. Looking at my notes, I see I've finished six "new" kits this year (that is, never worked on by anyone other than me), though a couple of them were completions of long-time Shelf of Doom residents. But I like both the challenge and the (relative) speed of the glue bomb rescues, and it looks like I've done 11 of those so far this year. I've also done about 17 diecast pimpouts/detailings this year. 

I haven't yet posted all of these. I hope to, though, before we get too deep into all the "What A Glorious Year For MEEEE!" "year in review" posts.