Radical Kustom AMT ‘57 Chevy

[Joe Handley]

Here’s another crazy looking ‘57 Chevy I started, this time from the recent AMT Pepper Shaker reissue,  decided to just go overboard while doing something that looked period plausible, but plan on putting the Tesla Drive Unit style drive unit I asked about in the Q&A section in and will modify the floor of the interior as well as the chassis pan to look like it has a battery between the rails and the floor flattened out to take advantage of that. 
 

Here’s the pics though, a few you will be familiar with and once again, there is were no intoxicants or psychedelics involved here either, just the Bondic UV Resin

[slusher]

Cool custom your building, Joe..

[espo]

Interesting design elements. Looks as if you were trying a couple of different hood designs. I notice the headlights that the kit suggests mounting with the hooded portion on top but this is a Kustom so you could mount them sideways if it works for you. What sort of ideas are you thinking for the rear fenders ?  

[Joe Handley]

30 minutes ago, slusher said:

Cool custom your building, Joe..

Thanks Carl!

[Joe Handley]

21 minutes ago, espo said:

Interesting design elements. Looks as if you were trying a couple of different hood designs. I notice the headlights that the kit suggests mounting with the hooded portion on top but this is a Kustom so you could mount them sideways if it works for you. What sort of ideas are you thinking for the rear fenders ?  

The two different hoods were related to a different, blue plastic kit I bought shortly after R2 bought the rights and everything from RC2, only to find all the custom goodies were left out on that version of the kit,  The hood was a left over from that one and since that and the Pepper Shaker are basically from the same tooling, I just used the blue hood as a placeholder until I could do the same mods to the PS kit hood and then later divided it to give it the "pancaked" look. The flipped light inserts were just to try a custom treatment I've never seen on a '57 Chevy before and kind like, and the fins are to change the look of the car, same with the filling I did at the C-Pillar to change the shape of that, the goal is to make it barely look like the '57 Chevy it's built from.

[espo]

4 minutes ago, Joe Handley said:

The two different hoods were related to a different, blue plastic kit I bought shortly after R2 bought the rights and everything from RC2, only to find all the custom goodies were left out on that version of the kit,  The hood was a left over from that one and since that and the Pepper Shaker are basically from the same tooling, I just used the blue hood as a placeholder until I could do the same mods to the PS kit hood and then later divided it to give it the "pancaked" look. The flipped light inserts were just to try a custom treatment I've never seen on a '57 Chevy before and kind like, and the fins are to change the look of the car, same with the filling I did at the C-Pillar to change the shape of that, the goal is to make it barely look like the '57 Chevy it's built from.

Don't want to try and change your direction in this build, I remember a '57 that was customized for an article in Rod & Custom Magazine back when I could hide the little pages in my books at school. They used the center section of the hood from a '56 Ford to replace the gun sights from the hood on a then new '57 Chevrolet. The great thing about a build like this is you get to do it your way. 

[Joe Handley]

1 hour ago, espo said:

Don't want to try and change your direction in this build, I remember a '57 that was customized for an article in Rod & Custom Magazine back when I could hide the little pages in my books at school. They used the center section of the hood from a '56 Ford to replace the gun sights from the hood on a then new '57 Chevrolet. The great thing about a build like this is you get to do it your way. 

Huh, that'd a pretty good idea too, the shape is close enough that it would probably work pretty good to!, just don't have any '56 Ford kits to rob from for that.

[alan barton]

That's looking pretty cool Joe!  I have a full custom 57 in my future, using parts from the first issue kit left over from my childhood.  By far the most distinctive feature so far is the flipped custom headlight treatment - I can recall a number of full sized tri-five Chevies that had a similar treatment but I have never seen it done to a model before.

Cheers

Alan

[Joe Handley]

13 minutes ago, alan barton said:

That's looking pretty cool Joe!  I have a full custom 57 in my future, using parts from the first issue kit left over from my childhood.  By far the most distinctive feature so far is the flipped custom headlight treatment - I can recall a number of full sized tri-five Chevies that had a similar treatment but I have never seen it done to a model before.

Cheers

Alan

Thanks Alan, it was just something I decided to mess with and kinda liked the look, especially with the custom extensions included with the fully optioned version of these kits.  I'm even doing this with a couple of the Revell '57 Chevy Snap Tite kits I decided to mix together then fill the gap between the lights with the Bondic resin as well, that however, is getting turned into a sci-fi-ish flying car with all the work that's received

[David G.]

Interesting body mods, I'm curious to see how they work out.

David G.

[Devilleish]

That flat hood treatment has been in my head for a long time and I just recently did the same to my radical custom '57.  It's too much of a long-term project to start a thread on just yet in addition to being another custom AMT '57.  I'll keep taking pictures and wait a little longer.

 

[Dennis Lacy]

I’ve been back to look at this thread a few times now. The upside down headlight treatment is growing on me and I like the shape of the fins. Looking forward to seeing more. 

[Joe Handley]

On 7/3/2021 at 7:56 PM, Dennis Lacy said:

I’ve been back to look at this thread a few times now. The upside down headlight treatment is growing on me and I like the shape of the fins. Looking forward to seeing more. 

Thanks, there is going to be more work done, I may try to finish most of the Pantera and the Tradesman body for my Lunchbox, I need time to do some more planning on things for it, plus I still plan on doing an EV conversion on it and still haven’t decided what to do for the chassis yet.