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Posted (edited)

Yeah, you read that right. 

So I had bought an old JoHan 64 Rambler for parts of the 6cyl. It was a pretty wasted and busted glue bomb missing a lot of parts. 

I couldn't bring myself to throw it away!

I needed to build a weird car for a theme in my club, that fit 2 different criteria. Competition Other, and Purple. 

I knew that I wanted to use a Nascar chassis under something but didn't know what. I tried a few different bodies and wasn't happy with any of the fit. Then I thought, well what about that crappy little Rambler I bought for parts???

The Corner Carving Rambler was born!

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It's an AMT Pontiac Nascar chassis and drivetrain, and the JoHan '64 Rambler body. 

It required a certain amount of body work to bring up to a somewhat presentable standard. The vent window was repaired, the rear panel between the trunk and glass had a piece missing completely!

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the rear taillight panel was broken in several places and poorly repaired 

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the quarter panel had been completely broken off at one time and glued back on. This wasn't actually all that bad but required a little leveling.

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The cowl was also cracked in two spots as well. 

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So I began my lazy bodywork by using silly putty to take a mold of the panel behind the glass that was broken so I could get the profile. I built up a pile of silly putty and used Bondic to make a replacement panel. 

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with that glued in I began to file and sand on it.

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After a coat of primer I was nearly done. I worked on it more after this photo but didn't take any more pics. 

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I had no taillights for this thing either. And I wanted it to sorta be a car that would look like it had working headlights and taillights and be street legal. So, what do you do when you need taillights? Borrow one from a mint unbuilt kit and cast them in silly putty and Bondic!

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My new kitten "Cheddar" always wanted to see what I was doing...

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I built the chassis and roll cage and got it painted and assembled because I knew I'd have to open up the wheel openings

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The old JoHan body was pretty brittle but I managed to get thru the wheelhouse carving pretty smoothly.

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This box of assorted files and flexboards really helped!

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It was time to get it in color, and my base was a gunmetal gray Tamiya, and I didn't get any good pics of the main body but I painted it Testors Purplicious. Taillights were painted in Tamiya clear acrylic red.

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I didn't finish in time for the club meeting but I stilled showed up. I still have a lot of work left to do. The last photo is a cropped pic I took of the entire table of purple cars. 

More to come... eventually. 

 

Edited by JTalmage
Forgot to place a photo
  • Like 4
Posted

I LOVE your build! Take two things that don't usually go together, and mash them up anyway - - - great recipe for fun and creativity! Thanks for posting :) 

Posted (edited)

wow, I have the same rambler kit, I need a body as the driver side A pillar is toast. 

Edited by wrenchr
Posted

Real nice save. One of my favorite things to do in this hobby is rework somebody's bodged mess into a decent model.

I really like what you've done here, and appreciate the reminder about the Q&D Silly Putty/Bondic parts replication trick.  :D

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

I kept suffering paint issue after paint issue with my old can of Testors one coat purplicious. So I had to strip the car. 

Back to the drawing board, and so much for finishing it by Friday. 

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Posted

I am a AMC guy ....so cool project with a rare kit!!! Great tail light process too. And your helper buddy is good lookin!!!! Mine.....watching over display case.

 

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Posted
31 minutes ago, bobthehobbyguy said:

Cool project. Great concept. 

I think it worth the effort to adjust the roll cage. Everything else looks great.

The body will sit a little lower once fully secured. 

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