WIX '67 Chevelle SS396--Now with Snake-Fu! 1/25/18

[Snake45]

Bought this WIX '67 Chevelle at the local toy show in December. I thought the shape looked pretty good and the price was right. It turns out to be exactly the same size as a Revell 1/25, so it's 1/25. (It might have actually been reverse-engineered from the Revell body.) For $10, I thought it had a lot of potential.

The interior was riveted in with a shiny metal rivet that must be made of Kryptonite. A stone grinding wheel in my Dremel did no more than polish it! I ended up having to use a different grinding bit and grind away the plastic around it; the rivet is still in there. The smaller rivets holding the glass to the roof succumbed to a Dremel cutoff wheel.

Here's the entire interior, a real oddity. There are no sidewalls here or in the body. Note that the firewall/dashboard were molded in one piece with the floor, and then just folded/bent into position. The single racing-ish seat is molded as part of the floor, too. With the full roll cage, the interior seems to be NASCAR or dirt-tracky, which goes with the big numbers on the body, but the wheels/tires and overall stance sure don't look like that. If this body were painted anything but black, I'd just cut this roll cage back to a 4-point rollbar and paint the whole guts black, but I know from experience that a black-on-black model doesn't look very good. I'm thinking of seeing if the interior tub from a Revell '67 Chevelle will fit in without modification—if so, I'll use that with white seats and door panels. If not, I'll have to make some kind of side panels, then cut this seat off the floor and come up with a pair of suitable bucket seats. We'll see what happens.

The headlights are also weird. They're molded in pairs, backed by a big block, all in a light green tint like an old Coke bottle. And the thing was painted a light gray on the back. Last night I filed the two backs flat and then polished them; will try painting them white, or white behind them. Whatever I do has gotta look better than what I started with.

The tampo printing is TOUGH. It's coming off with non-acetone nail polish remover (which doesn't hurt the paint), but it's taking some effort. Getting this much off took me about 15 minutes last night. Good job to do while watching TV--I WILL wrestle the beast to the ground!

 

Stay tuned, diecast fans....

Edited January 26, 2019 by Snake45

[vintagercr]

Snake can you use regular Acetone to remove the tampo printing?  I have a JL Cuda that has a large red Hooker Headers heart on the door that I want to remove

[Gramps46]

Very unusual engineering  from my experience but then the only WIX diecast I have are done by ICONS and are nothing like this.  Or is this just the WIX advertising and not a WIX model?

[Snake45]

2 hours ago, vintagercr said:

Snake can you use regular Acetone to remove the tampo printing?  I have a JL Cuda that has a large red Hooker Headers heart on the door that I want to remove

I'm sure it would but it would probably also remove the paint. I wouldn't even try it. The acetone-free nail polish remover works great. 

Are you sure your Cuda isn't M2? Yellow with red and black stripes and the Hooker thing? I have one of those and am planning to remove that junk, too. I expect that the yellow paint will also have to be polished out after the tampo removal, but that's not a big deal. 

[Snake45]

2 hours ago, Gramps46 said:

Very unusual engineering  from my experience but then the only WIX diecast I have are done by ICONS and are nothing like this.  Or is this just the WIX advertising and not a WIX model?

Can't find ICONS anywhere on it. Does say ERTL Collictibles. Overall quality is not even up to an average Welly, Maisto or Motor Max, but the wheels/tires and overall body shape are quite nice and I think it'll look great after some 2nd or 3rd degree Snake-Fu. 

[randyc]

Some of the Ertls are quite clunky.   However, if you had a 67 GTO parts car, a Revell 67 interior, heck, you'd have a nice cheap diecast.    

Wix cars go from really nice to really weird.  I won't say bad.

Icons never did a 67 Chevelle, so you won't find it there.   I have an Icons and a Crown Premium GTO that I intend to compare on here soon.   Very nice cars and can be had way cheaper than the Mint versions if you don't need Mint cars. 

Good luck fixing it up.   Be interesting to see how it turns out.

[vintagercr]

22 hours ago, Snake45 said:

I'm sure it would but it would probably also remove the paint. I wouldn't even try it. The acetone-free nail polish remover works great. 

Are you sure your Cuda isn't M2? Yellow with red and black stripes and the Hooker thing? I have one of those and am planning to remove that junk, too. I expect that the yellow paint will also have to be polished out after the tampo removal, but that's not a big deal. 

Ok thanks.  You are right it is an M2

[Snake45]

Last night I got the rest of the unwanted tampo off, and it seemed to go much smoother than my first attempt for some reason. Only took me about half an hour to get it all off. 

Preliminary testing indicates that a Revell '67 Chevelle tub will fit in. Thinking of using the dog-puke-green one from the pro street kit and leaving my stock kit alone. I'll have to paint it but that's not a big deal. White side panels and seats, black floors and dashboard. 

It's not real apparent in the pic above, but the black rear panel (between the taillights) is a sticker, and not perfectly placed, either. I'll probably remove it, paint the panel, then cut out the SS emblem and replace that in the middle. 

Edited January 8, 2019 by Snake45

[Snake45]

Slapped together an interior from a Revell pro street '67 Chevelle. Since the bucket seats aren't stock anyway, I hit 'em with Testor White Lightning "pearl" to look a bit like vintage metalflake/pearl vinyl. Looks a bit better than what it came with, dontcha think? 

Elsewhere, I didn't like the lower body edges. They're molded much too thick and perpendicular to the ground, or even flaring outward a little (see original pics above) and almost looked like mini-aero effects. Not good! I attacked the ride side with my BAF (10" single cut mill file) and worked it down to shape. This took the better part of two evenings.   So on the left side, I knocked most of the excess off with a sanding wheel on a Dremel, which took about three minutes, and then hand-filed to final shape in less than one evening. Polished both sides up with fine sandpaper to a nice shine. I notice that some 396 '67 Chevelles had chrome rocker trim and some didn't, so it must have been optional trim. This one has 'em. 

[randyc]

Looking good - can't wait to see the end product on this one.

[Gramps46]

"The interior looks a little bit better?"   Come on now it looks a lot better and the rocker panels too.  Waiting patiently for the next installment.

[Snake45]

On 1/17/2019 at 9:07 AM, Gramps46 said:

Waiting patiently for the next installment.

Your patience is now rewarded. 

Finally got this thing buttoned up. Painting white behind the coke-bottle-green-tinted headlights didn't work at all (they still looked dark gray) so I hit 'em on the frontside with that acrylic craft white pearl. Not a perfect solution but 100% better. It turned out the Revell interior only BARELY fit in the body/chassis—I had to bow the chassis just a little as I screwed it back into place. Everything else was standard Snake-Fu--Silver Sharpie trim, grille blackwash, and so forth. 

Okay, it's not a Franklin or Danbury Mint, or a First Gear or M2 or even a first-rate Welly, but it's not too bad at all and can sit VERY proudly on the shelf with my Maistos, MotorMaxes, New Rays, and lesser Wellys (all of which are still pretty good—remember, I just don't buy “bad” diecasts). Hey, where else ya gonna get a diecast '67 Chevelle—in 1/25 no less! I've taken a kitschy, cartoonish toy and turned it into a fairly decent shelf model of a “Day Two” street fighter.

And here it is with the Revell kit I built in the early '90s (when it first came out), which I see at this point could use some cleanup and restoration and general love. The WIX stands up pretty well, dontcha think? Thanks for looking, and as always, comments welcome!

[Gramps46]

The transformation is pretty amazing.  Looking at it now I can just imagine the rumble of that big block.

If you want a suggestion, how about touching up the spokes on the steering wheel.

[Snake45]

1 hour ago, Gramps46 said:

The transformation is pretty amazing.  Looking at it now I can just imagine the rumble of that big block.

If you want a suggestion, how about touching up the spokes on the steering wheel.

Thanks! 

What's wrong with the all-black steering wheel? I installed one exactly like that on my first '69 Camaro back in the late '70s. LOVED it! 

I forget which one of these it was exactly, but it was one of them, or something very much like it. I do remember it was smaller in diameter than the the stock wheel. 

http://www.grantproducts.com/products/browse/steering-wheels/automotive/

Edited January 26, 2019 by Snake45

[Gramps46]

Understand.  I was just comparing it to the Revell.  My bad.

[Snake45]

3 hours ago, Gramps46 said:

Understand.  I was just comparing it to the Revell.  My bad.

Hey, no problem, no big deal. I do see what you mean, though--painting the spokes flat aluminum would add a little visual interest and maybe make it look a little more "finished." 

[Geno]

Rich, that turned out really nice from what it started out as. Great job.

[ewetwo]

Nice job. Those Wix are pretty nice.