Jim Hurtabise '71 Chevelle

[restoman]

I picked this up a few years ago as a built gluebomb.

Stripped the brushed-on orange paint, fixed up the missing pieces around the headlight buckets, levelled out the many sink marks from the previous glue job, scribed some panel & reveal lines, and spliced in a section for the rear valence panel.

Sprayed it in white base coat with a coat of 2k clear, and did the deck spoiler, chin spoiler and hood stripe in spray bomb red.

The decals are from Mike's, if I recall correctly. They were the only set he had.

The chassis is sitting in its' gluebomb glory, waiting its' turn for rehab. Might be a while before I get to it.

I mainly wanted to get the body & decals done while the decals were relatively fresh.

Comments always welcome.

[TarheelRick]

Good looking beginning.

[afx]

Paint and decals look very nice.

[Johnny Canuck]

Thread title identifies driver as Jim Hurtabise.

Decals over passenger door appear to call him Jim Hurtubsie.

What's the deal with messing with Jim Hurtubise's actual name?

 

[Pierre Rivard]

The body looks mighty fine Mike. What's the plan for the chassis, just use the MPC stuff or going for a more accurate reproduction?

 

[restoman]

On 5/15/2023 at 12:31 AM, Johnny Canuck said:

Thread title identifies driver as Jim Hurtabise.

Decals over passenger door appear to call him Jim Hurtubsie.

What's the deal with messing with Jim Hurtubise's actual name?

 

Big thumbs on a small keyboard... ?

Good catch. I applied the decals and never noticed!

Edited May 16, 2023 by restoman

[restoman]

7 minutes ago, Pierre Rivard said:

The body looks mighty fine Mike. What's the plan for the chassis, just use the MPC stuff or going for a more accurate reproduction?

 

I haven't really decided. I'd like to stick with the kit chassis, but it's messy...

[restoman]

The chassis...

[Johnny Canuck]

On 5/16/2023 at 7:14 AM, restoman said:

Big thumbs on a small keyboard... ?

Good catch. I applied the decals and never noticed!

Well, you're absolved of guilt on the misspelt decals over the door. Those are MPR decals and they've spelled his name "Hurtubsie". 

Maybe it's an inside joke over a weight issue the driver might have had?

[restoman]

On 5/18/2023 at 11:18 AM, Johnny Canuck said:

Well, you're absolved of guilt on the misspelt decals over the door. Those are MPR decals and they've spelled his name "Hurtubsie". 

Maybe it's an inside joke over a weight issue the driver might have had?

Yup, that's the decal sheet I used.

[dragcarz]

Very cool project, you might want to try a monogram thunderbird chassis under it. 

[Mattilacken]

On 5/23/2023 at 3:22 AM, dragcarz said:

Very cool project, you might want to try a monogram thunderbird chassis under it. 

Or the monogram chassis, for the later style chevelle they are a better fit in my opinion.

[MarkJ]

I had this kit back in the day. A few years later I used the chassis as a donor for a Monte Carlo body and made a Bobby Allison 72 Monte Carlo. There were no aftermarket decals back then that I knew of so I painted the numbers and sponsors on the car. It really looked bad but I still have it. the wheel base was wrong too, so that made it look even worse. We sure have it a lot better today than back then.

[MarkJ]

Don't mean to hijack your thread but I just had to share this build from 51 years ago so everyone can get a good laugh over it. My wife has made me save it all these years and now I'm glad she did. Its the model I described in the thread above this one.

[Art Laski]

On 7/22/2023 at 6:09 AM, MarkJ said:

I had this kit back in the day. A few years later I used the chassis as a donor for a Monte Carlo body and made a Bobby Allison 72 Monte Carlo. There were no aftermarket decals back then that I knew of so I painted the numbers and sponsors on the car. It really looked bad but I still have it. the wheel base was wrong too, so that made it look even worse. We sure have it a lot better today than back then.

A Salvino's chassis will work as well. I have a similar project in the queue using the Hurtubise kit body and I'm going to use the Salvino's Olds chassis. Looks like it lines up well, but not sure of all the challenges just yet.

[MarkJ]

Should be a fun build, Art. Looking forward to seeing it.

[Shark]

1 hour ago, Art Laski said:

A Salvino's chassis will work as well. I have a similar project in the queue using the Hurtubise kit body and I'm going to use the Salvino's Olds chassis. Looks like it lines up well, but not sure of all the challenges just yet.

Don't know how accurate you want to be, but GM cars back then we're truck arm cars and the Salvino JR Olds is a leaf spring chassis. To correct that, the AMT nascar's are pretty cheap and you can use the rear suspension under the Olds chassis. Another option would be to use the AMT 70's Monte Carlo chassis as a lot of the teams including Bobby Allison started with that.