AMT 1963 Mercury Monterey Revival

[LennyB]

2 minutes ago, customline said:

Hey, I did that to a company vacuum pump. More than once 🤫

Did it to a Dremel about 30 years ago.

[LennyB]

Did some interior work as I needed to remove the console for the bench seat to fit. But as I was working on that I came to the conclusion I better mock up the chassis at the same time. Good thing I did, hadn't thought about it previously but as I'm using the chassis from the AMT 1960 Starliner it required a bit more surgery then just a consolectomy. The Starliner's chassis is also the floor of the interior. So out came the floor and then the inside of the firewall. Hence this is what's left.

 

But it does fit together in the end.

 

And our 64 Marauder arrived today with the decals.

 

This will give us replacements for the worn and tired front fender scrips as well as the trunk and fender badges. Plus some other usable items.

So now back to work...

[customline]

Yay 😄!  Hey keep the decals, I'll swap you a complete '58 Edsel w/ con. kit &skirts 🙂....or a still sealed '41 Plymouth! 

[LennyB]

8 hours ago, customline said:

Yay 😄!  Hey keep the decals, I'll swap you a complete '58 Edsel w/ con. kit &skirts 🙂....or a still sealed '41 Plymouth! 

What's a '41 Plymouth?

[customline]

On 9/30/2025 at 7:48 AM, LennyB said:

What's a '41 Plymouth?

Oh....yeah. I don't know where that came from.....

[LennyB]

Been making some minor progress on the Mercury. At present adapting the chassis from the AMT 60 Ford Starliner kit. The wheelbase is spot on and the chassis fits quite nicely in place. Had to shave a bit off the rear edges of the chassis so it would slip into the Merc body. I also added some alignment pins at the rear that will fit into the screw posts on the body.

I was in a painting mood this past weekend and wanted to get some color on something so I could get an idea of how the paint would look. Which by the way is Scale Finishes 1963 Ford Tuscon Yellow.

Sprayed the underbody with some red oxide primer and then dusted the edges with the body color. 

Finally added some body schutz to blacken the wheel wells in the form of Behr textured flat black spray. Probably put it on a little too neatly as it wasn't this clean at the factory. But then again this is the higher end Mercury😁

And then we have the frame sprayed gloss black and resting in place.

The top-side of the bottom-side is also the bottom of the interior. Just going with a simple black interior to set off the yellow paint. So the floor has been dusted with some black flocking.

The original interior of the Merc has really faint impressions of door handles. Those are going to be shaved off and replaced with a set or resin handles.

 

I also started on the engine which too is from the Starliner kit.

But that has a 4-speed toploader which I will swap out. Not technically correct as it didn't come out until 1966 I am waiting for a C-6 to arrive from VCG resin.

 

Last entry for tonight is a sample of the paint. I couldn't resist shooting the hood to get a real feel for the color.

Now the whole rest of the body needs the same treatment. Hopefully soon.😀

[LennyB]

Little by little progress is being made on the 'ol Mercury. Those resin handles are a whole lot of fun to work with due to their size. I think I dropped, lost and found them like four times. As they are so tiny it is a project to remove them from the sprues. There are 6 sprues per handle. I pained them with some Molotow chrome and found them a place to reside in the door panels. As I am finishing the kit with the top-up it's a bit of a wasted detail, but worth it just for the learning experience. I also fabricated a better arm rest to replace AMT's version.

The engine is starting to shape up ever so slowly as the block from the 60 Ford has a lot of detail to it and a lot of fine painting. Here it is mated to a resin C-6 tranny from VCG resins. The air cleaner is from the parts box, the kit air cleaner is a chrome open element but I thought this fit the 'vert better. I can see by the 1st pic I missed a couple of spots on the exhaust manifold and need to get the paint out again. Oh well.😑

 

 

Found the time to fix the passenger vent window and do a bit more cleanup on the body.

Nov for a quick little test fit of the interior bits.

 

And a quick mock-up. The wheels were for another project but I think I might keep them for this. WDYT?

[Trainwreck]

Fine job bringing this back from the abyss, don't know how I didn't see this earlier but I'm digging it now Len.

[Bainford]

17 hours ago, LennyB said:

Found the time to fix the passenger vent window and do a bit more cleanup on the body.

 

.

 

It's coming along nicely, Lenny.

Looks like the body has 5 o'clock shadow.

[LennyB]

6 hours ago, Trainwreck said:

Fine job bringing this back from the abyss, don't know how I didn't see this earlier but I'm digging it now Len.

William, it's been a long slow process, thanks for dropping in.

5 hours ago, Bainford said:

It's coming along nicely, Lenny.

Looks like the body has 5 o'clock shadow.

Thanks Trevor, I guess it needs a shave😁

[dino246gt]

Massive improvement on that interior.

And the Starliner "stuff" is a natural for adding so much detail, so much more than they gave us 60 years ago!

I'm sure it'll be a beauty!

[Fast289back]

Great save. Wondering where you got those resin door handles/window cranks from. Many Fords in my stash that can use the improved detail. 

[customline]

Yes. The handles look really nice, Len. The beard, not so much. The FORD on the rocker arm covers is evidence that you are guilty of an engine swap 🧐.  How do you plead? 

[LennyB]

On 12/6/2025 at 5:56 PM, dino246gt said:

Massive improvement on that interior.

And the Starliner "stuff" is a natural for adding so much detail, so much more than they gave us 60 years ago!

I'm sure it'll be a beauty!

Thanks Dennis, appreciate it.

23 hours ago, Fast289back said:

Great save. Wondering where you got those resin door handles/window cranks from. Many Fords in my stash that can use the improved detail. 

I'm actually wondering too. I thought I got them from Iceman but I don't find them on the website. So it must have been somewhere else. 

5 hours ago, customline said:

Yes. The handles look really nice, Len. The beard, not so much. The FORD on the rocker arm covers is evidence that you are guilty of an engine swap 🧐.  How do you plead? 

Guilty as charged, 😟 and you know it never even occurred to me. Guess I have to go back to the parts bin. 

 

But hey, I'm also guilty of swapping in the C-6 which didn't come along until 1966. 😯

[customline]

If you set the odometer to around 98,000, the engine swap is understandable 😉

Incidently, you have Mercury scripts on the decal sheet. They might fit the valve covers.  Maybe you could sand off the FORD and.....or not. 🤓

 

Edited 3 hours ago by customline