AMT Green Hornet Black Beauty 1/25 Adding the Missing Gas Tank

[EricT]

All,

 Anyone notice that the Chassis Tooling for the New AMT Green Hornet Black Beauty kit is missing a Gas Tank ? I did and although you would probably not look at the under body that much, I thought it was best to add one. I tried to fit some spares and found that the best one was the Gas Tank from the Revell 1957 Word Wagon kit. There are two complete tanks in that kit. One is smaller for the Sedan version, and that one is perfect for this fix. You will not be using the larger tank it will be for your wagon. I used the Bottom Tank part without the curricular sending plate and after attaching some sheet polystyrene to cover those rectangular holes in the rear of the Chassis, I attached the tank bottom to the chassis with the brackets toward the rear of the chassis. To make the tank larger and closer to the look of a 1966 Chrysler Imperial gas tank, I cut off both side ends of the upper tank part. the First segment only on each side, and attached them to the each side end of the mounted lower tank part. This extends the tank one segment on each side. Be sure to sand the parts to smoothly fit before attaching. I added two pieces of Evergreen Polystyrene "L" angle to make upper tank brackets. Here are the photos of my Black Beauty Chassis, now with a Gas Tank. If you don't own or want to buy a Revell 1957 Ford Wagon kit, you can find these gas tanks on eBay for about $6.00. Look for Revell 1957 Ford Sedan gas Tank 1/25 Scale. I think the chassis looks much better, Any comments ?

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by EricT

[Sledsel]

Nice job.  Personally I may not have worried about it since the entire frame is incorrect.

[Rob Hall]

1 minute ago, Sledsel said:

Nice job.  Personally I may not have worried about it since the entire frame is incorrect.

Since it represents a customized TV show car, I figure there really isn't any 'correct' or 'incorrect'... 

[Sledsel]

4 minutes ago, Rob Hall said:

Since it represents a customized TV show car, I figure there really isn't any 'correct' or 'incorrect'... 

LOL..... Right!!! Maybe the TV car had a fuel cell and frame ties..... We may never know.

Looking forward to getting this kit to do a custom Imperial

 

[Mark]

Imperials didn't go to Unibody construction until '67.  The '64-'66 generation car was a facelifted again and again '57.  The car didn't sell well enough for Chrysler to plump for a ground-up rework until '67.

The tank on the kit chassis probably represents an armor plated unit.  You wouldn't expect the Green Hornet to ride around with an exposed run-of-the-mill gas tank, would you?

[EricT]

Mark,

 My intention was to build the actual TV car that Dean Jeffries built, Not necessarily the car as owned by Britt Reid, so to speak. We can imagine a lot of things like for example, If this car had all this armament, Bulletproof glass etc. Wouldn't Britt Reid have had his car built with Dual Exhausts?  He would want the most horsepower possible for all that additional weight, right? But we have a single exhaust in the kit, which is what the Imperial Jeffries used probably came with from the Factory. I agree, that the chassis is incorrect. I put my 1964 AMT Imperial up to compare, one of them is wrong, since they do not match. Also, the Oil pan is shallow and the Transmission sump pan too big. The Torsion bars are too shallow also. Not going to spend a lot of time making corrections. A 440 engine would have been great, but Round 2 is catering more & more to younger modelers, like Level 2 kit's. This kit is not perfect, but makes a striking shelf model when finished.

Eric

Edited November 29, 2023 by EricT
additional info

[Richard Bartrop]

4 hours ago, Mark said:

Imperials didn't go to Unibody construction until '67.  The '64-'66 generation car was a facelifted again and again '57.  The car didn't sell well enough for Chrysler to plump for a ground-up rework until '67.

The tank on the kit chassis probably represents an armor plated unit.  You wouldn't expect the Green Hornet to ride around with an exposed run-of-the-mill gas tank, would you?

So the chassis under AMT's Chrysler 300C would get you close?

[Mark]

The 300C chassis seemed to compare well with an early Sixties Imperial chassis I checked some time ago.  The floorboard will need a bunch of work though.  The 300C has a Powerflite transmission; later Torqueflites don't need a floor hump quite as big.  I can’t see messing with the chassis on these cars, stock or not, as the greasy bits aren't the focus point of them.  I'd concentrate more on the interior, getting the right depth and detail, myself.

[Sledsel]

On 11/29/2023 at 3:47 PM, Mark said:

Imperials didn't go to Unibody construction until '67.  The '64-'66 generation car was a facelifted again and again '57.  The car didn't sell well enough for Chrysler to plump for a ground-up rework until '67.

The tank on the kit chassis probably represents an armor plated unit.  You wouldn't expect the Green Hornet to ride around with an exposed run-of-the-mill gas tank, would you?

Thank you Mark, I am a Ford guy with some decent Mopar knowledge. I was not sure when the Imperial went unibody. I know my friends '67 is unibody, so I assumed.? 

Damn, I learned something today!

[Richard Bartrop]

22 hours ago, Mark said:

The 300C chassis seemed to compare well with an early Sixties Imperial chassis I checked some time ago.  The floorboard will need a bunch of work though.  The 300C has a Powerflite transmission; later Torqueflites don't need a floor hump quite as big.  I can’t see messing with the chassis on these cars, stock or not, as the greasy bits aren't the focus point of them.  I'd concentrate more on the interior, getting the right depth and detail, myself.

Yeah, obviously, the early Hemi was long gone by the '66 model year.  I know AMT's '49 Mercury has a later model Chrysler engine and transmission as an option, but I can't really vouch for how good it is.   Of course, when it's your model, and your time, what you want to do is entirely up to you.

.   Now the "real" Green Hornet, as opposed to the TV prop, is supposed to be chock full of bleeding edge tech, so what's under there would be entirely up to your imagination.  Maybe Kato managed to shoehorn a 426 Hemi into it, with a set of the experimental four cam heads you sometimes hear about for some extra oomph.  It's entirely up to the builder.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Richard Bartrop

[EricT]

I wonder if anyone will attempt to cut out the hood and add an engine?