Best '32 Ford Phaeton?

[Roadrunner]

Between MPC, AMT and Revell, who makes the best (most accurate) '32 Ford Phaeton kit?

Thanks a bunch,

[Force]

If you want a 1932 Phaeton you have to go for the AMT kit, Revell has only done Tudor Sedan, Roadster, 3W Coupe and 5W Coupe body styles and the MPC 1932 kits aren't that good and they did not do a Phaeton either.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Force

[Mark]

MPC did do a phaeton, in the Switchers series.  It was a combo kit with their two-door sedan.  The MPC body is a bit taller at the cowl (not "sectioned on a slant" like the old AMT bodies).  It does fit the Revell "1996 kit" fenders and chassis with some work.  The MPC interior is weird however, it is very shallow because it is designed to be used in both the channeled and full-fender versions.  

The currently available Round 2 sedan delivery kit does NOT include the phaeton body.  It was in a reissue of the Switchers kit about fifteen years ago. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

If you want a reasonably accurate '32 phaeton, you only have one option, really.

The old MPC kit is toylike, and the frame is nothing like a real '32 Ford.

And as Mark alluded to above, all the AMT '32 Fords are too short, height-wise, at the cowl. 

BUT...the AMT phaeton body shell can be reworked to fit the very nice Revell fenders and frame (though the engine and running gear are not stock, so if you're after a car as ol' Henry built it, there's a lot more work to do).

As far as the body goes, this pink AMT Victoria body, on the right, demonstrates how much material has to be added to get it the same height as the much more correct Revell body.

  

After adding material, shaping it, and re-scribing the lower door lines, it will fit quite well...though you may need to rework the rear fenders at the tail, under the rear body panel.

 

[alan barton]

The AMT tub can be built up into a nice model but it definitely has a lot of issues.  The tapered section that all AMT 32s suffer from, a very toylike windscreen and the whole kit dates back to 1959 origins which means it doesn't have any where near the sharpness of a modern era kit.

The MPC 32 tub is also rather toy like and to my eyes is too narrow at the rear. The cowl is too square and the firewall is all wrong and it also has a toylike windscreen.

Some years ago, I did a body conversion for a friend who owns a real 32 tub street rod.  I grafted the rear doors and tub of the AMT body to a Revell cowl and front doors. As I recall I cut the revell body from the lower corner that touches the front of the rear fender, diagonally forward and upwards toward the rear of the front door.  This gave me as much as possible of the good Revell body and just enough of the AMT body to make it a tub.  I recall that it worked out really well but it was long before I was taking photos of my models.

Fun fact - the AMT body is actually Australian.  It was reputed to have been scaled from LA Roadster club member Dick Scritchfield's rod.  Dick had purchased the body from Australian Custom Rodder magazine publisher, Eddie Ford.  The most obvious difference is that the Aussie body is one piece while the US body is three piece like a Model A.

Here's the AMT kit I finished last year. It uses the old Monogram 32 roadster windscreen.  There is a thread on it here that you might like to search for.

[Mark]

I've got an MPC body adapted to the "1996" Revell fenders/chassis.  I too was looking at  joining it to a Revell highboy roadster front half, but might set the MPC tub aside and start over with an AMT phaeton body.  None of the manufacturers seem to agree on cowl shapes and contours, which makes fitting a hood problematic.  The Revell highboy roadster cowl would solve all of that.

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 minutes ago, Mark said:

I've got an MPC body adapted to the "1996" Revell fenders/chassis.  I too was looking at  joining it to a Revell highboy roadster front half, but might set the MPC tub aside and start over with an AMT phaeton body.  None of the manufacturers seem to agree on cowl shapes and contours, which makes fitting a hood problematic.  The Revell highboy roadster cowl would solve all of that.

The AMT hood tops fit the AMT cowls, of course, also fit the Revell grille shell well, and are the correct length.

Use Revell hood sides.

Simply adding material to the AMT shell and rescribing door lines seems much easier to me than trying to get a lot of different body parts to line up correctly.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[Roadrunner]

Great info here. Thanks a lot, fellas. I have the old Switchers kit, and want to build the Phaeton from it as a tribute to what was my favorite model car model that I ever built, so will be using the provided components, just as I did when I was a kid. I even recall that I'd painted it with Testors metalflake blue, which rather surprisingly, is still available after all these years. I'd still like to build another one as well though, as I really have a "thing" for the Phaeton,, so was trying to determine which kit, of the MPC, AMT and Revell Phaetons, would be the best all around, specifically to build as a street rod.

[Mark]

The AMT and MPC phaeton bodies are pretty much the same width at the back.  Both seem a bit narrow back there.  There's a decent photo spread in the December '72 issue of Rod & Custom that seems to confirm this.  So neither body would be completely satisfactory as-is.

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

4 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

...so was trying to determine which kit, of the MPC, AMT and Revell Phaetons, would be the best all around, specifically to build as a street rod.

Except that Revell didn't make a '32 phaeton.

They made a '32 3-window coupe, a 5-window coupe, a roadster, and a sedan...all sharing much of the same tooling, including running gear and frames. 

These Revell kits are perfect for a street-rod, as they have nice tubular dropped front axles with disc brakes, and a Ford 9" on coils out back.

No phaeton body, however...which is what we were all getting at above...how to make an AMT body fit the Revell fenders and chassis.

Maybe the Revell phaeton you were thinking of was the 1930 Model A? Possibly? The A is an entirely different car from a '32, so it's really not going to work for what you want to do...although it might be worth a try, as it's 1/24 scale. The A is a physically smaller car than a '32, but the Revell '32 Fords are 1/25 scale. The scale difference just might get the '30 body close enough to pass on a '32.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[Roadrunner]

It's odd how a person gets something in their head, as I was dead sure I'd seen a Revell Phaeton kit somewhere. In retrospect, I may have been thinking of the Revell 1:16 scale kit.

[maltsr]

26 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

It's odd how a person gets something in their head, as I was dead sure I'd seen a Revell Phaeton kit somewhere. In retrospect, I may have been thinking of the Revell 1:16 scale kit.

Yes, the 1/16 kit was released as a '34 Ford Phaeton and also a Tudor Sedan.

[Mark]

And the Revell 1/16 kit was a '34.  I never had either of the 1/16 kits, but they looked really good.  I'm surprised neither has ever been reissued (the tub would look good with the sedan's fenders and less trendy looking wheels and running gear).

The AMT body, with some tweaks, would look okay on its original fenders and chassis.  I'm surprised nobody has done a more accurate one in resin to fit the newer Revell '32 though.

[slusher]

On 2/23/2020 at 7:08 AM, alan barton said:

The AMT tub can be built up into a nice model but it definitely has a lot of issues.  The tapered section that all AMT 32s suffer from, a very toylike windscreen and the whole kit dates back to 1959 origins which means it doesn't have any where near the sharpness of a modern era kit.

The MPC 32 tub is also rather toy like and to my eyes is too narrow at the rear. The cowl is too square and the firewall is all wrong and it also has a toylike windscreen.

Some years ago, I did a body conversion for a friend who owns a real 32 tub street rod.  I grafted the rear doors and tub of the AMT body to a Revell cowl and front doors. As I recall I cut the revell body from the lower corner that touches the front of the rear fender, diagonally forward and upwards toward the rear of the front door.  This gave me as much as possible of the good Revell body and just enough of the AMT body to make it a tub.  I recall that it worked out really well but it was long before I was taking photos of my models.

Fun fact - the AMT body is actually Australian.  It was reputed to have been scaled from LA Roadster club member Dick Scritchfield's rod.  Dick had purchased the body from Australian Custom Rodder magazine publisher, Eddie Ford.  The most obvious difference is that the Aussie body is one piece while the US body is three piece like a Model A.

Here's the AMT kit I finished last year. It uses the old Monogram 32 roadster windscreen.  There is a thread on it here that you might like to search for.

What wheels are those?

[Roadrunner]

6 minutes ago, slusher said:

What wheels are those?

They do look pretty classy at that.

[slusher]

1 minute ago, Roadrunner said:

They do look pretty classy at that.

Sure do..

[alan barton]

Hi guys,  I'm going to have to dig very deep in my memory here and others on here may be able t help. They definitely came off a Monogram Camaro that I bought in the early eighties.  This was a red car with very street machine style graphics and I THINK but cant be sure that it was called Street Stalker. It was the Gen 2 body with the sloping front and full wrap around rear window, say 77 or so?  Maybe someone else can fill in the gaps. 

Those wheels  always struck me as looking like Borrani wires. The wires in the sidemount spares are something else, I am thinking Monogram Deuce roadster, the yellow edition with black flames on the box art.

Hope that helps a bit

Alan

[Force]

The AMT 1965 Buick Riviera has nice wire wheels and the spares kind of looks line them.

[Misha]

I recently built the AMT Phaeton and found Alan Barton’s comment to the origin of the one piece body to be the Aussie version. For my build I scratch  built most of the interior, attempting to replicate the sectioned American version by using a panel behind the two bucket seats that were modified into a bench seat. The chassis and powertrain were also modified by fitting the R/M front suspension and Ford 302 from their Deuce series. The working luggage rack was also scratch built with an MPC trunk. Always have liked then Phaeton body style and quite happy with the tourer build.

Cheers Misha

Edited February 27, 2020 by Misha
Added photo

[Roadrunner]

5 hours ago, Misha said:

I recently built the AMT Phaeton and found Alan Barton’s comment to the origin of the one piece body to be the Aussie version. For my build I scratch  built most of the interior, attempting to replicate the sectioned American version by using a panel behind the two bucket seats that were modified into a bench seat. The chassis and powertrain were also modified by fitting the R/M front suspension and Ford 302 from their Deuce series. The working luggage rack was also scratch built with an MPC trunk. Always have liked then Phaeton body style and quite happy with the tourer build.

Cheers Misha

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it.