40 Willys Pickup Gasser

[FoMoCo66]

Finished this guy up tonight. Really happy with it and how it sits!

Starting with the motor, it's the kit Old’s mill with a couple of changes. First off, I needed to change the blower and intake setup. I went with a bigger 6-71 blower housing and the 4 port Hilborn injection from the Moebius 65 Chevy II. The headers from the kit point outwards but I wanted something that pointed down onto the track, so I made my own out of solder, heatshink, and evergreen. I also had to do a bunch of scouring of the internet to find photos, found some pretty good ones and I managed to get all the fuel lines pretty close to accurate. This kit kinda stumped me on the cooling, it has a boat style water pump that I could not find any photos on so I winged it. The fuel pump had to be shoved on the back of the water pump as well. In the end I think it is pretty darn accurate for what I could get my hands on.

Onto the chassis, If you notice in the photos those wheels are turned. I fabricated and modified the front suspension to make it steer. The kingpins were drilled, steering link modified, drag link fabricated, and starring box added and modified from the revell 32 ford kit. The rear end is the kit quick change, naturally. On the wheels and tires, the wheels are kit wheels from the newer releases, stripped and painted 50/50 Testors graphite and flat steel which gives a pretty good cast magnesium color. On the tires, the fronts are the kit front runners and the rears are the old goodyear blue streak slicks, different from what's in the kit a little because they have the “Goodyear” text on the sidewall.

On the body I did a little experiment with Tamiya's clear colors. The base is Tamiya x-34 metallic brown with Tamiya x-26 clear orange. On the clear coat I used some Rustoleum crystal clear enamel paint, decanted and sprayed through my airbrush. 

The interior was painted black, perfect for this mid 60’s gasser. The kit rollbar had to be raised a little so it was just on the roof. I also attached a fire extinguisher with some very thin striped wire. The steering wheel was painted gold with the clear orange on top to replicate a moon steering wheel vibe, and you can't forget the sewing pin shifter, one of my favorite things to do.

Here are the things I know you were waiting for after all that rambling.

Heres the WIP:

Thanks everyone for looking, as always, I love to hear your thoughts and questions.

Elliot.

Edited Wednesday at 02:45 AM by FoMoCo66

[Street Rod]

That’s one sweeeeeeet Willys right there! Ready to hurt some feelings at the track, lol. Great detail work and the paint suits the truck very well. I’m gonna use that color combo in the future on something.

[bondo bill]

I'm diggin that build

[ChrisR]

Very nice.

[Zippi]

That is some nice looking eye candy there Elliot.  Mighty fine looking.

[FoMoCo66]

9 hours ago, Street Rod said:

That’s one sweeeeeeet Willys right there! Ready to hurt some feelings at the track, lol. Great detail work and the paint suits the truck very well. I’m gonna use that color combo in the future on something.

Thanks man, I can think of many cars this color would look good on.

8 hours ago, bondo bill said:

I'm diggin that build

Thank you Bill!

6 hours ago, ChrisR said:

Very nice.

Means a lot Chris.

47 minutes ago, Zippi said:

That is some nice looking eye candy there Elliot.  Mighty fine looking.

Thank you very much Bob, the fender modification was actually inspiration taken from your build.

[Kanada Kustoms]

Great looking build... Love those pickups!

[slusher]

Beautiful Willys pickup!

[Mike 1017]

Nice clean detailed build

[Sledsel]

Came out great!

[Hemifever]

 Very well done. That color is awesome, and a great paint also.

[Sketch1982]

Absolutely beautiful build!

[M W Elky]

That’s a really nice looking Willy’s it goes to show you what some careful assembly great paint and a good parts choice can do . The AMT Willy’s is one great kit . In my opinion the far better pickup when compared with the Revell kit .