Another Wacky Plan--Ideas/Suggestions Wanted-Needed!

[Snake45]

My recent thread on build ideas for a "junk" '70 Superbird generated so much enthusiastic response (thanks, everyone!) that y'all reignited another build idea I've been kicking around awhile. 

Last year at the local toy show, I bought one of these at a very good price: 

 

...and I want to put it on the street. The story line is that some Good Ol' Boy came into possession of an obsolete but largely intact ex-race car, and decided it would be fun to do just enough to it to get on the street, legally (more or less). 

So I got a JoHan '75 Cutlass to take molds from and sili-clone the headlights and their buckets--Problem One solved. 

Problem Two is the wheel openings. I can live with the rear ones, but the fronts are comically oversized for what I have in mind. I've given careful thought to rebuilding stock-shape wheel openings from sheet styrene and epoxy, but considering the shape, I have to admit that it would probably exceed my skill level (or my attention span, either way the effect would be the same). I can't recall any model bodies in my possession that have '73 Malibu-shaped front wheel openings, so I'm looking at what else I have that might work, even kinda-sorta well as sheetmetal/patch donors. 

Two possibilities come to mind: AMT '72 Nova and AMT '70 Chevelle. I have extra bodies of each and wouldn't feel bad hacking the wheel areas out of either and grafting them into the '73 fenders. Which of those two might look better? Or, any other ideas/suggestions? I'm not interested in buying another kit to sacrifice for this project, but I have all kinds of stuff already bought and paid for that might work. (And yes, I know that someone now has a resin stock body of this car, but I'm not interested in buying that, I want to work with what I have on hand, just as my fictional Good Ol' Boy might have.) 

Ideas? Lay 'em on me! 

 

[Mike Young]

I can think of one place to start, fender flares. That generation Malibu had wheel openings that stuck way out. Nova fenders stuck out some, but nothing like a '73 Malibu, and '70 Chevelle fenders are basically flat. Fender flares aren't perfect, but the ones on trucks and vans have that squarish shape you'll need, and they're not too hard to come by. Blend them in, scratch build some w/o trim, good to go.

White ones are 1/25 '70's to '80's Ford van, yellow are 1/24 '80's to '90's Dodge Ram

 

 

[Snake45]

VERY interesting! Fabulous idea! Thanks! 

[Can-Con]

I've thought about this before too. 

My solution would be to find another stock car body and use the rear wheel openings as a basis for the new front ones. The shape is very close between the front and rear so should need minimal bodywork to look right.

[Mike Young]

I just realized I had another idea sitting right in front of me on my work bench. A Monza!

This one is 1/25 and the wheel openings are kinda small, but I think there are 1/24 Monza's as well. I already got what I needed from it, so if you don't have one and you wan't to try it to see if it will work, you can have this one for the low, low price of, "Yes please".

 

[Snake45]

1 hour ago, Mike Young said:

I just realized I had another idea sitting right in front of me on my work bench. A Monza!

This one is 1/25 and the wheel openings are kinda small, but I think there are 1/24 Monza's as well. I already got what I needed from it, so if you don't have one and you wan't to try it to see if it will work, you can have this one for the low, low price of, "Yes please".

 

Can't beat that price. "Yes please!" 

The PM system here won't work for me. Shoot me an email and I'll give you my address: 

SnakeACP45 at AOL dot com

[Mark]

Maybe use a chunk of the Monza rear wheel flare to stretch the front one?

[Snake45]

9 minutes ago, Mark said:

Maybe use a chunk of the Monza rear wheel flare to stretch the front one?

Good idea! I'll take a look at both shapes and see which works best, and I don't think it would be a huge problem to cut and stretch either one. 

[Mark]

I too looked at converting the AMT Malibu body to stock (including the roof) some years ago.  First time around, I was looking at using a second pair of rear wheel openongs...this time, if I ever get to it, I'll probably use sheet plastic and epoxy putty.

I've been working through this whole "shutdown", but I have put the spare time to use doing repairs on bodies and parts that take a lot of patience.  The approach I would take with the Malibu is the same as I did with a '67 Fairlane, restoring cut rear wheel openings back to stock.  I work in one plane first, restoring the lost material to the panel and smoothing it up.  The Fairlane has one styling crease (should have two; AMT eliminated the lower one, why I don't know).  After getting new material into the panel to fill the cut wheel opening and clean up the styling crease, I then cut the wheel opening and added the flare, then puttied that in.  After getting the "fillet" from the quarter panel to the flare, I then thinned the flare to match the other side (which had the complete panel replaced; I had two left side panels but no right side).  Cleaning up the inside of the flare by trimming it level with the inside of the fender completes the job.