Claude Thibodeau Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 Hi! The great Steve Stanford authored a Rodder's Digest feature story titled RIVIERA REVERIES. He imagined a 66 Riv, with the rear window treatment of a 71. I gave it a try, using a 1/20 RC 66 Corvette rear window as a donor. Mucho modifications, but looks the part, I think. Hours of fun with styrene! CT
Snake45 Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 What a coincidence! After watching this week's episode of Gas Monkeys, I was trying to imagine what this very thing would look like. IMHO, it's not an improvement over the original '66 roofline, but please don't take that as a knock on your work, which is as always spectacular, and I'm very glad you took the risk. Thanks for thinking outside the box for the rest of us who can't (or are simply afraid to). Well done and model on!
1930fordpickup Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 looks like you had your hands full and didn't drop anything. Well done.
Claude Thibodeau Posted August 7, 2019 Author Posted August 7, 2019 Hi! Thanks for the comments! The most complicated part was "folding" a new glass... Ended up using thin acetate, to conform to compound curves in both axis... Gluing it in place was the worst. Used BONDIC UV setting glue pen. It held up well for 2 years now. As per Mike's request, more vies below. Including the concept sketch. Apologies for my pictures... I'm not good at that! CT
Snake45 Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 It actually looks better in your new pictures than in your initial ones.
Peter Lombardo Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 It would appear that we have a renaissance of Riviera's going on all of a sudden. Very nice, and very different. Maybe it is me, but to my eye the roof line looks a little "awkward" in a few of the first pictures because it looks like the section behind the rear window is too high giving it the appearance of an "air scoop" where the rendering shows the window flush with the body , but in the subsequent shots it appears to flow better, it must be the angle that the picture was taken at in the early ones. Interestingly, in the rendering of the conversion, the designer took the liberty to extend the center of the bumper and the point of the roof extension to exaggerate the window point to make the design flow better. That would be very difficult to build into the model.
cobraman Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 You have shown us yet another winner ! Very nice model.
Mark Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 (edited) I'd like to see the '71 styling shrunk down a bit and built on the '70 Monte Carlo/Grand Prix platform. That said, the '66-'69 body looks better with that rear window treatment than I would have thought. Edited August 7, 2019 by Mark Spelling
espo Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 Beautiful looking build. The finish on the rear window conversion looks like it could have been stock. Nicely detailed engine also.
Claude Thibodeau Posted August 7, 2019 Author Posted August 7, 2019 Hi! Thanks for the comments. To Peter's point, it was indeed impossible to get the glass to sit flush with the molding, as on Mr. Stanford's drawing. Ink and paper allow miracles, I guess. To the "pointy" bumper, I was tempted, but sanity prevailed. Maybe next time. As to the pix, I was playin with a new camera, and the bright sun tested my abilities with the adjustement to avoid "over-exposure". I have since discovered the trick, and I may do further better pix. The show table pix were done by a fellow modeler who posted his favorite cars on his Fotki. Many thanks... CT
Claude Thibodeau Posted August 7, 2019 Author Posted August 7, 2019 7 hours ago, Mark said: I'd like to see the '71 styling shrunk down a bit and built on the '70 Monte Carlo/Grand Prix platform. That said, the '66-'69 body looks better with that rear window treatment than I would have thought. Hi! The Riv being fairly wide, my first idea to graft the eternal 63/67 Vette rear roof section proved impossible: too narrow. Hence the same part, but from a bigger scale donor vette, albeit with many modifications. I suspect the models you describe would face the same challenge... CT
Claude Thibodeau Posted August 7, 2019 Author Posted August 7, 2019 8 hours ago, Peter Lombardo said: It would appear that we have a renaissance of Riviera's going on all of a sudden. Very nice, and very different. Maybe it is me, but to my eye the roof line looks a little "awkward" in a few of the first pictures because it looks like the section behind the rear window is too high giving it the appearance of an "air scoop" where the rendering shows the window flush with the body , but in the subsequent shots it appears to flow better, it must be the angle that the picture was taken at in the early ones. Interestingly, in the rendering of the conversion, the designer took the liberty to extend the center of the bumper and the point of the roof extension to exaggerate the window point to make the design flow better. That would be very difficult to build into the model. Hi again! After a good look at the opening pix... it might be the blackout contour I added to the rear glass that emphasizes your perception of "depht" for the rear of the glass. These contours on modern windows were not the practice back then... but since it was a custom, I felt free to make it a bit more contemporary. Voilà! CT
Belugawrx Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 Beautiful car and very ambitious modification ,well done ! One of my neighbours growing up, had one of those '71 boat tails in the garage, in gold... I fell in love with a car at 10 years of age Cheers Claude
Peter Lombardo Posted August 7, 2019 Posted August 7, 2019 40 minutes ago, Claude Thibodeau said: Hi again! After a good look at the opening pix... it might be the blackout contour I added to the rear glass that emphasizes your perception of "depht" for the rear of the glass. These contours on modern windows were not the practice back then... but since it was a custom, I felt free to make it a bit more contemporary. Voilà! CT Yeah, that must be the cause of the distortion. The later pictures definitely look like the roof line flows just like the rendering.... very well done. Personally, I like the black-out border on the windows you did.... I do it whenever I can on a custom.
Koellefornia Kid Posted August 8, 2019 Posted August 8, 2019 Always loved the work of Steve Stanford, he inspires me lot and I built some of his designs myself. Nice work on the Rev, I like it!
olschoolkid Posted August 9, 2019 Posted August 9, 2019 Very nice Riviera. I think it's a really neat concept that you executed well. I've always liked Buick Rivieras, but I never would've thought of combining those two styles.
Eric Macleod Posted August 9, 2019 Posted August 9, 2019 All I say is wow. This sure puts an exclamation point on the word ambiguous, but your execution is flawless. Nicely done.
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