Moebius AWB Mopar Assembly Line - Strickler's Car

[papajohn97]

This the first of the new Moebius '65 Dodge AWB A/FX cars that I built using the box decals. I used two resin Holley Carbs in place of the kit Hilborn FI to depict an earlier version of this car. I thought I this build would be a "dry-run" of this new Dodge kit but I made mistakes on the other three I subsequently built so sometimes one kits enough! Moebius did a great job on these AWB Dodges but I think the AWB Plymouth is like 10% easier to assemble. I found the chassis to body fit at the rear was really tight and took some finesse and tweezer crow bars to get positioned correctly. I used Gopher four point racing harnesses on all five builds but only on the drivers seat, conventional seal belts on the passenger side. I replaced the thick fuzzy belt material that came with the Gopher belts with finer adhesive-backed fabric from Scale Motorsports. The stainless steel Gopher photoetch was challenging to remove to the frets.

[bondo bill]

another fine build

[ChrisR]

Looks great!

[catpack68]

Excellent work John! The engine detail looks really good.

Edited Saturday at 01:01 PM by catpack68

[bytownshaker]

Looks fantastic John! Those carbs look great where did you get them?

[papajohn97]

3 hours ago, bytownshaker said:

Those carbs look great where did you get them?

Thank you Edgar!

I ordered these Holley 3116's from Fireballmodels.com ("Chief" Joseph Osborne), he offers a terrific line of reasonably priced resin upgrades for 1/25 model cars. I lost one of the door handles for my Mr. Norm build and was rescued by him with some beautiful replacement early Mopar handles. Highly recommended!

Edited Saturday at 10:59 PM by papajohn97

[bytownshaker]

Thanks John, I'll gonna make an he has some awesome stuff.

['70 Grande]

This is a stunning build! Super clean and everything looks so "right"!

It never occurred to me that this car had the large openings cut into the engine compartment's inner side panels... was that done for reducing the weight or for some other reason? 

[slusher]

Beautifully done!

[Brutalform]

Another fine build, John. Your attention to detail under the hood, is beautiful. IIRC, there is a mention in this kits instructions, to remove a bit of material from the floor pan due to the tight fit. I really enjoy your builds. 

[papajohn97]

On 10/12/2025 at 5:17 AM, '70 Grande said:

It never occurred to me that this car had the large openings cut into the engine compartment's inner side panels... was that done for reducing the weight or for some other reason? 

Thank you Mark! I believe these square "cut-outs" within the side-walls on each side of the engine bays were the openings that remained when the shock towers were cut and shifted forward the 10" for the front wheelbase change.

I'm surprised the engineers at Amblewagen didn't patch these two openings with welded sheet metal, maybe they figured it provided a  slight weight reduction at the front end and that there was little concern about maintaining body stiffness?

Edited yesterday at 01:52 PM by papajohn97
Added photo

[Rattlecan Dan]

Sweet! Beautiful engine detailing. Great gobs of realism.