Snake45 Posted March 20, 2020 Posted March 20, 2020 Last year I bought these two original AMT ’67 Impala promos off eBay, at about the same time. The eBay photos weren’t great and I wasn’t sure what I was getting, I just hoped that I would be able to get one good model out of both of them. I got—or at least opened—the white one first. The chassis was painted black and at first I assumed it was molded in white and someone had painted the interior blue. Then I realized that it had been painted white (with something very thin but good-covering) and was molded in blue. It actually looked pretty good except for the front and rear bumpers, which had been heavily brush-painted with some sort of silver (probably that old hardware store “chrome” touchup paint, which I believe is still available today). Ouch. No taillights, either. The blue one came as a complete body, glass, interior, and chassis, but no wheels/tires or bumpers. Hmmmm. I thought it might be possible to adapt the grille and front/rear bumpers from a current-issue ’67 Impala kit. (Why would I do this rather than just build the newer kit? I think the original old body is more accurate looking, that’s why.) Couple months later original, unused ’67 annual front and rear bumpers (with taillights!) came up on eBay and I was fortunate enough to score them both (same seller, two auctions). The price wasn’t much more than I would have paid for Modelhaus repros, if they were still available, which they aren’t, and the shipping was actually less than Modelhaus’s. Yay! Arrival of the chrome provided the impetus to dig the blue one out and start working on it. The glass was scratched and/or lightly etched in some way. Polishing with Trim nail sticks and Wright’s Silver Cream took care of about 98% of this. There are still a couple spots that look a bit “foggy” and it seems to be internal; no amount of polishing removes it completely, though I was able to improve it greatly. The body was polished with the Trim Nail sticks and Wrights, and took a pretty darn fine shine. The new chrome front and rear parts were detailed as necessary with matte black paint. Fortunately, the rear bumper came with original taillights. The body got standard Snake-Fu “chrome” detailing with my beloved Silver Sharpie. For wheels and tires, I used the '67 Rally Wheels from a Revell '67 Chevelle, and tires and wheel backs from a Monogram '70 Chevelle. I mounted them by jury-rigging some aluminum tubing, which worked better in the promo chassis than wire axles would have. It didn't come out too bad, considering what I started with. Finishing it encouraged me to dig out the white one and also drag it across the finish line. I had planned to polish out the fairly nice white paint on it, but a close look showed that it was EXTREMELY thin in places and I'd have probably polished through somewhere, so I gave some places a light polish with Wright's on a damp cloth and let the rest go. It's very possible that I'll strip it and give it a good paint job someday. The front and rear bumpers, as mentioned, were heavily brush-painted with some kind of thick silver, so into the Purple Pont they went. They emerged naked, clean and perfect a couple of days later, whereupon I sprayed them with Krylon Foil from a rattlecan, as described a while back in a thread up in the General section. These came out surprisingly well for the cost and effort expended, which was minimal. I'm very happy with them. Of course they were detailed with matte black as necessary. I didn't get taillights with this one, so made some out of sheet styrene covered with foil covered with Valentine chocolate red cellophane, just as an experiment. They look pretty good installed. I detailed the stock wheel covers with some Model Master Steel paint. I polished the glass and of course Silver-Sharpied the body chrome trim. I didn't do a thing with the interior of either model, other than just give the blue plastic a good cleaning with soap and water. Interestingly, the instrument portions of the dashboards are handled with a separate chrome insert piece—pretty cool! One other thing I did on both bodies was refine the lower corner of the rear side windows on the roof C-pillars. The molded shape didn't look right to me so I modified it by filing it back VERY carefully with a miniature needle file. I think the shape looks better now. I'm pretty happy with how these came out. Someday I'll do a “full build” of the “new” AMT '67 Impala kit. In the meanwhile, these look pretty good in that slot on the shelf. I have about half the time in both than it would take me to build one new kit, and both of them combined cost me about half of what a nice original '67 promo would have. Thanks for looking, and as always, comments welcome.
Tom Geiger Posted March 20, 2020 Posted March 20, 2020 Very cool survivors and nice work bringing them back to nice! Here's the original '67 in my collection. Both the 67 and 68 came to me via a collection someone gave to me.... yea, gave! Everything in that collection was poorly built promo style with aggressive glue... see the '68s front fender in the first photo. I will need to restore them one day!
Muncie Posted March 20, 2020 Posted March 20, 2020 The '67's look really good. Good work on the restorations. I had a real 1967 Caprice station wagon many years ago so I enjoyed seeing these. I agree the shape on the promos and annual kits is better than the more recent detailed kit. Thank you for posting the details on your work.
Snake45 Posted March 20, 2020 Author Posted March 20, 2020 2 hours ago, Tom Geiger said: Very cool survivors and nice work bringing them back to nice! Here's the original '67 in my collection. Both the 67 and 68 came to me via a collection someone gave to me.... yea, gave! Everything in that collection was poorly built promo style with aggressive glue... see the '68s front fender in the first photo. I will need to restore them one day! Very cool! Ewetwo recently traded me the remains of a '67 Impala convertible which I hope to rebuild--too far gone for a "rescue" job. The important body pieces are there but I might have to sacrifice a "new" kit for some interior and chassis/engine parts, oh well. Also, the windshield is REALLY in there and will probably have to be carefully cut out. Still looking forward to getting around to it, though!
stavanzer Posted March 20, 2020 Posted March 20, 2020 Awesome Resto work. The Snake-Fu is strong on these.
Hmann68 Posted March 21, 2020 Posted March 21, 2020 A lot of work in these, and looking great! I’m especially drawn to the white one, because I love that color combo ever since my dad bought a new ‘75 Trans Am in white with a blue interior back when I was 6! Someday I gotta try my hand at a Snake style resto on one of my old Monogram musclecars that have been in a box for 35 years. Nice work again sir!
Snake45 Posted March 21, 2020 Author Posted March 21, 2020 1 hour ago, ewetwo said: They look great Snake. Thanks! Last night, inspired by Tom, I pulled out that '67 Impala convertible you traded me and started trying to work with that windshield. That's gonna be some surgical-grade work to get that glass out of there without completely destroying the frame. And then I don't know if I have a suitable convertible boot. But I've already developed a Plan B: Maybe try to graft on the roof from a Monogram 1/24 '69 Camaro and make a Bel Air 2 door sedan out of it. What's here is just too good to waste!
espo Posted March 21, 2020 Posted March 21, 2020 Great save on these two Impalas. While it might have been easier to start with the reissued '67 Impala SS, sometimes you get to use more of your skills rebuilding something some else has given up on.
ewetwo Posted March 21, 2020 Posted March 21, 2020 49 minutes ago, Snake45 said: Thanks! Last night, inspired by Tom, I pulled out that '67 Impala convertible you traded me and started trying to work with that windshield. That's gonna be some surgical-grade work to get that glass out of there without completely destroying the frame. And then I don't know if I have a suitable convertible boot. But I've already developed a Plan B: Maybe try to graft on the roof from a Monogram 1/24 '69 Camaro and make a Bel Air 2 door sedan out of it. What's here is just too good to waste! I hope you can save it as a convertible Snake. There has been some 67 chevy ss items on eBay lately.
bh1701 Posted March 21, 2020 Posted March 21, 2020 Some great restoration work on these promo kits. I like the solution you came up for the taillights - plus I hope you got to eat some Valentine's chocolates, too! Bart
Bills72sj Posted March 21, 2020 Posted March 21, 2020 I like both of them. It is great you got 2 for the price of one in half the time too.
Snake45 Posted March 22, 2020 Author Posted March 22, 2020 6 hours ago, ewetwo said: I hope you can save it as a convertible Snake. There has been some 67 chevy ss items on eBay lately. I'm gonna try. "Plan C" would be to make a new windshield frame out of a "new" kit body. Gotta do some measuring. Oh, I didn't notice till last night that there's a big chunk missing from the lower driver's side of the windshield. I'll probably have to make a new windshield, one way or another.
Snake45 Posted March 22, 2020 Author Posted March 22, 2020 21 hours ago, Bills72sj said: It is great you got 2 for the price of one in half the time too. Ya gotta love it when a plan comes together! Thanks!
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