1937 Chevy Coupe Bonneville Box Art Build

[alan barton]

I had never owned this version of the AMT 37 Chevy coupe and was always inspired by the box art showing Tim Boyd's model.  It reminded me of a beautiful Tom Daniel centrespread on salt cars in a mid seventies issue of Rod & Custom magazine. When this version arrived in a local hobby shop I thought it was time to rectify the situation and it was actually completed less than three months after I purchased it - unusual for me.

I had good intentions of doing it box stock but that didn't last long! I decided to make a one piece nose using the custom hood, custom grille and salt lake fender fillers, just to give it a more competition look.  The big block in the kit is not the greatest of all time but at least it fits!  I couldn't live with the funky bugcatcher so replaced that with a Revell Willys Hilborn scoop.

The toughest part was getting it low enough - the dropped axle is a good start but it was still nowhere near low enough for a salt car so I glued the springs under the axle instead.  It has almost no bump clearance but I wasn't going to drive it anyway!

The supposed Moon discs were very unattractive plastic discs so I replaced them with the very best aftermarket Moon discs I have ever seen, from Darryl Pipcorn of Parts by Pip in Victoria Australia - they are flawless!

I'm saving the Stovebolt 6 for a 32 Chevy roadster salt project.

I built a contemporary rollcage of sorts for the interior but to be honest, with full glass installed it is almost invisible.  And for a bit of a flashback, I used the shimmery self adhesive material from an ancient Cruisin USA series 49 Merc kit to give an engine-turned aluminium look to the door panels - again, almost invisible!

Hope you enjoy it - comments and questions welcome!

Cheers

Alan

[stavanzer]

Very Sharp Build!

It was nice to see the Bonneville version come back out.

[Andrew McD]

Very nice build!  I always enjoy your work.  Sure, maybe some of the fine detail work is hard to see on the finished product but like the insides of a fine Rolex watch, you know it's there. ?

[David G.]

That is sweet!

A good, solid looking build. I like the prism tape too.

David G.

[Pierre Rivard]

Cool!

[Muncie]

Awesome, I can hear it running on Lake Gairdner right now!

[alan barton]

Thank you all for your kind comments. Nice to see Steve knows about our Aussie version of Bonneville! 

I couldn't work out why I couldn't see my post until I realised that I had inadvertently placed it in the WIP section instead of the Under Glass section!  Oooops.  Sorry moderators, I will be more careful in future.

Cheers

Alan

[Kenmojr]

Nice build and professional photography as well.

[bisc63]

Just stumbled across this  one. That's a real beauty!

[ksnow]

Sweet racer. Looks really sharp.

[MarkJ]

Wow, never thought I would actually see a Bonneville build in this Bonneville thread. Yours is Awesome and excellently put together. Used to see pictures of these cars in Motor Trend magazine back in the 50's and 60's when I was a kid and used to peruse the pages finding out about all kinds of competition vehicles. Those were always black and white photos. But magazines were about the only thing we had back then except for Wide World of Sports and CBS Sports Spectacular on TV which were also in black and white.