1963 Super Torque Ford

[Brockc]

This is very very cool

[MarkJ]

Thanks, Brock. I must be getting old because this one is taking a lot more time than previous similar builds. Oh well, no need to hurry. I'm not on any kind of time restraints. 

[Vintage AMT]

Mark, those smooth valve covers are in the Revell T-bolt kit, just in case you didn't know.

[MarkJ]

On 8/13/2023 at 6:57 AM, Vintage AMT said:

Mark, those smooth valve covers are in the Revell T-bolt kit, just in case you didn't know.

Thanks for the info, Robert.

[MarkJ]

Just a few more things to do to get this thing assembled. The wheels don't seem to be the baby blue they usually appear to be. I have a picture of Fred lieing next to one from the actual southern 500 car taken from a YouTube video of the race itself and the color seems to be a light blue/gray metallic.

[slusher]

 Nice engine Mark, are you ging to make realistic head lights and vents where you drilled out you drilled out your headlights?

[MarkJ]

7 minutes ago, slusher said:

 Nice engine Mark, are you ging to make realistic head lights and vents where you drilled out you drilled out your headlights?

Carl, yes, I will be making covers for the head light pods and park lights. I'm not familiar with the vents you are talking about. I have a paper hole punch that makes perfect covers for the headlights, but you have to remove the bulging headlights for them to fit on the edge of the headlight pods.

[Pierre Rivard]

Don't give up man, almost there!

[MarkJ]

1 hour ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Don't give up man, almost there!

No way, Pierre. Not this close to the end. So far, I have never stopped on a model and not finish it, even when I know it's not going to turn out very good, like this one. I never could get this pearlized paint to turn out right. Needless to say, I'm not doing any more of these. Thanks for the support.

[MarkJ]

I'll be going with gray wheels. The only images of this car I could find were from a Youtube video of the race and nowhere in the video do the wheels look blue in any way. Added some decals to the dash. I could not find any still color pictures of this car from the 63 Southern 500.

[Keef]

It appears from photos I’ve found of this car that it had what appears to be a baby blue shade on the wheels

[MarkJ]

Keith, you are not catching my drift. The car normally had baby blue wheels, but for this car, the 1963 Southern 500 car, it had gray wheels and a pearalized white paint job that almost looks like a very light silver. The pictures you have posted are not from the 63 Southern 500. One is not even from 1963. But thanks for the input.

[Keef]

4 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Keith, you are not catching my drift. The car normally had baby blue wheels, but for this car, the 1963 Southern 500 car, it had gray wheels and a pearalized white paint job that almost looks like a very light silver. The pictures you have posted are not from the 63 Southern 500. One is not even from 1963. But thanks for the input.

Ahhhhh I gotcha now…. I need to learn to read more and speak less ??

[MarkJ]

9 hours ago, Keef said:

Ahhhhh I gotcha now…. I need to learn to read more and speak less ??

Thats perfectly okay, Keith. I'm just glad to get some feedback. I finally got the body attached to the frame and just need to attach the wheels and tires so I can get this baby decaled and the final touch up done to it.

[MarkJ]

If you're using the kit I'm using and want the body to fit better on the frame you need to remove the tab as I have shown in the picture below that has the two holes in it. You can keep the tab on the rear bumper. The grille also fits better if you do this modification. If you don't the engine does not line up properly with the radiator and sits too low in the engine bay. It's the typical amt type problem you will run into with their kits,

 

Edited August 21, 2023 by MarkJ

[presnell]

Mark I saw the car at a short track in 63 and compared to the other cars it looked channeled even tho it probably wasn't and it had light blue wheels, I remember listening to the Darlington race over the radio and them talking about the the special paint for that race. You are doing a GREAT job!

[MarkJ]

3 hours ago, presnell said:

Mark I saw the car at a short track in 63 and compared to the other cars it looked channeled even tho it probably wasn't and it had light blue wheels, I remember listening to the Darlington race over the radio and them talking about the the special paint for that race. You are doing a GREAT job!

Thanks Jim. I have another image from the you tube video that shows the difference of Fred's Ford to Junior's Chevy which was a bright white. You can tell Fred's Ford is a little darker with the pearlized white paint. and Fred's ford has gray wheels not light blue. Its a color image because Junior's roof number is red.

[MarkJ]

 

The image above was the start of the race showing Fred on the pole and Junior starting second and it has Southern 500 63 across the image.

[MarkJ]

If you want to watch the video, I posted the link below. It's cool to see how different the crowd looked back then. Nobody wore t-shirts and bubba caps. They mostly wore button down short sleeve shirts and fedora hats if they wore a hat at all. You can pick up a lot of reference material about the cars watching them pit during the race.

 

 

[bobss396]

There were a lot of odd versions of what we thought were the same car seen everywhere. I'm researching a Richie Evans Chevy coupe modified, ran into a site with 8 pages of photos, there were some very obscure cars I had never seen.

[MarkJ]

21 minutes ago, bobss396 said:

There were a lot of odd versions of what we thought were the same car seen everywhere. I'm researching a Richie Evans Chevy coupe modified, ran into a site with 8 pages of photos, there were some very obscure cars I had never seen.

So true Bob. Thats why if your lucky enough to find a YouTube video it can solve a lot of questions you might have about a particular race.

[bbowser]

NASCAR has a new website, classics.nascar.com where you can stream races all the way back to the beginnings.  Some are just highlights but many are complete.  Great resource!

[MarkJ]

1 hour ago, bbowser said:

NASCAR has a new website, classics.nascar.com where you can stream races all the way back to the beginnings.  Some are just highlights but many are complete.  Great resource!

Thank you so much for that tip, Bruce. I'm sure it will come in handy.

[bobss396]

Kim Haynes was a good guy to follow 20 years back, he did great restorations of old Cup cars. 

[MarkJ]

30 minutes ago, bobss396 said:

Kim Haynes was a good guy to follow 20 years back, he did great restorations of old Cup cars. 

Yes, Bob, there are only a couple of us left to do the 50's and the 60's. I always wanted to do The Fonty Flock 1952 Oldsmobile winner of the 1952 Southern 500, but kits or resins for that car are like gold to find. And I'm sure Salvinos will never get into those decades.