1965 Dodge Coronet 500 by Polar Lights

[drodg]

12 minutes ago, jjsipes said:

Love the box art. No pre-paints please. I can take molded plastic as long as it's not in the Red Family. Gonna have to get a few of these.

I know can we have just white!    Maybe wsw tires too.  I am building a Polar Lights now with the vinyl wsw transfers from Pegasus and they are a tad fiddly to work with.  I could use a video on a how to!    LOL.  

Edited September 25, 2019 by drodg

[Casey]

4 hours ago, jjsipes said:

No pre-paints please. I can take molded plastic as long as it's not in the Red Family.

I'm guessing it'll be molded in white and black, like the Polar Lights '64 Pontiac GTO kit Round2 reissued a few years ago.

[Snake45]

I believe this kit is being reissued again soon. I just finished building one and thought I would share a few construction impressions. 

This is the most precision-eered kit I've ever seen. Take your time and ALMOST everything goes together perfectly. It's not really a snapper, but I'd call it a "press fit." The ONLY glue I used anywhere on it was gluing the engine block halves together, and then the front (timing) cover onto the engine. Everything else, I just press-fit into place. Even the exhaust pipes lined right up with the exhaust manifolds, amazing! 

Avoid the temptation to test-fit things. The pegs and their holes are so precise that you'll probably only be able to get them together ONCE without breaking them, which will complicate things. A thin layer of paint will interfere with fit, and will have to be removed from the pins. In fact, I had to do a slight bit of trimming/reaming on many of the holes to get the pegs in. Once in place, everything is tight enough to stay put. 

In final assembly, notice that there are two tabs that fit into the upper radiator wall, while the rear of the chassis also fits into tab slots at the rear of the body. DON'T install the front bumper until you have the assembled chassis installed in the body, as the bumper serves to lock the lower part of the chassis (subframe) in place. If the bumper is in place first, this will be very difficult to do without breaking something, or at least cussing a lot. 

Don't install the wheels and tires until you have the chassis in the body. I was dreading putting the wheels on the stub axles, expecting to break at least one, but they snapped right on easily--probably the easiest part of the whole build. 

BTW, the distributor is for a 6-cylinder. 

The ONLY parts interference I found in the whole build was between the front windshield mounting tabs and the firewall. I got everything together, but the chassis was bowed down and visible. I carefully took everything apart and trimmed the front edges of the windshield bosses and filed some clearance notches in the back edge of the firewall for good measure, and then everything fit just fine. 

The worst part on the whole build IMHO was the grille. The "open" areas are so shallow that I found it impossible to black-wash them, leaving the chrome, and get it looking good all the way around. I ended up just painting the whole open area semigloss black, as was popular back in the day.

The only things I painted on this one (I started with a prepainted issue) were the engine and the firewall. (And some minor detail painting here and there, of course.) I thought it should have been a one-day slap-together, maybe two, but it took me the better part of three days to finish. It's a good looking model for the time and effort expended, IMHO. 

The next one I build will be heavily modified as Dick Landy's AWB funny, but that will be a completely different story. 

I hope this post will be helpful to someone. Model on! 

 

[drodg]

37 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

I believe this kit is being reissued again soon. I just finished building one and thought I would share a few construction impressions. 

This is the most precision-eered kit I've ever seen. Take your time and ALMOST everything goes together perfectly. It's not really a snapper, but I'd call it a "press fit." The ONLY glue I used anywhere on it was gluing the engine block halves together, and then the front (timing) cover onto the engine. Everything else, I just press-fit into place. Even the exhaust pipes lined right up with the exhaust manifolds, amazing! 

Avoid the temptation to test-fit things. The pegs and their holes are so precise that you'll probably only be able to get them together ONCE without breaking them, which will complicate things. A thin layer of paint will interfere with fit, and will have to be removed from the pins. In fact, I had to do a slight bit of trimming/reaming on many of the holes to get the pegs in. Once in place, everything is tight enough to stay put. 

In final assembly, notice that there are two tabs that fit into the upper radiator wall, while the rear of the chassis also fits into tab slots at the rear of the body. DON'T install the front bumper until you have the assembled chassis installed in the body, as the bumper serves to lock the lower part of the chassis (subframe) in place. If the bumper is in place first, this will be very difficult to do without breaking something, or at least cussing a lot. 

Don't install the wheels and tires until you have the chassis in the body. I was dreading putting the wheels on the stub axles, expecting to break at least one, but they snapped right on easily--probably the easiest part of the whole build. 

BTW, the distributor is for a 6-cylinder. 

The ONLY parts interference I found in the whole build was between the front windshield mounting tabs and the firewall. I got everything together, but the chassis was bowed down and visible. I carefully took everything apart and trimmed the front edges of the windshield bosses and filed some clearance notches in the back edge of the firewall for good measure, and then everything fit just fine. 

The worst part on the whole build IMHO was the grille. The "open" areas are so shallow that I found it impossible to black-wash them, leaving the chrome, and get it looking good all the way around. I ended up just painting the whole open area semigloss black, as was popular back in the day.

The only things I painted on this one (I started with a prepainted issue) were the engine and the firewall. (And some minor detail painting here and there, of course.) I thought it should have been a one-day slap-together, maybe two, but it took me the better part of three days to finish. It's a good looking model for the time and effort expended, IMHO. 

The next one I build will be heavily modified as Dick Landy's AWB funny, but that will be a completely different story. 

I hope this post will be helpful to someone. Model on! 

 

Good and accurate building write up.  I built two this past year.  I have a 65 Coronet 500 1:1 in bright red and with just polishing the body the model  came out pretty close to the paint color of my 1:1 car.  I painted the interior, the engine and the firewall on my red build but did not paint much of anything on the white metallic one I built.  The cars make up a pretty good replica and I do think the one weak point is the grill.   I put some wsw decals on the tires and thought they came out good.  I think the original AMT/MPC  got the body better and the grill is better but the hubcaps are not correct for a 500 and the only engine is a race Hemi etc.  Also a tad more expensive to obtain.   

[Snake45]

Here's a couple pics of my 3-Day Snake-slap job of the (prepainted) Polar Lights kit: 

[Scott8950]

Looks Great snake, i have the red one also but im dropping a 330 chassis under mine and building the ramchargers coronet.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Scott8950

[Snake45]

4 hours ago, Scott8950 said:

Looks Great snake, i have the red one also but im dropping a 330 chassis under mine and building the ramchargers coronet.

Luckily, I didn't have to resort to "Plan B."   But I wonder if that would work better for my AWB Landy project? 

[Scott8950]

1 hour ago, Snake45 said:

Luckily, I didn't have to resort to "Plan B."   But I wonder if that would work better for my AWB Landy project? 

Absolutely! This is a what if car built with leftover parts. 

[Mark]

I've got to get back on this.  Polar Lights body with a fairly major alteration (besides the wheelbase).  Chassis might come from a Lindberg '64, or MPC '67 Charger (originally from their '65 Coronet, with alterations to the fuel tank area which will be removed anyway)...

[Casey]

*edit* The cheater slicks are not included in this AMT branded reissue. ?

 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Casey

[Snake45]

40 minutes ago, Casey said:

*edit* The cheater slicks are not included in this AMT branded reissue. ?

 

That's a shame. The wheels and tires in these kits seem to be a "system" and it might be troublesome to use slicks from some other kit, if that's what you had in mind. 

[Robberbaron]

*edit* The cheater slicks are not included in this AMT branded reissue. ?

I'm disappointed too.  Never had one of the original PL versions, but I always heard that the cheaters were the highlight of the original release.

With some of the body inaccuracies, I was on the fence about getting this reissue.  Without the slicks, I think I'll pass.  As others have mentioned, Round 2 is clearly cost-cutting by skimping on tires in a lot of their recent releases.  Problem is, when the tires are potentially the best part of the kit, they loose sales.

Also, didn't Dave Metzner (who worked for Polar Lights/RC2 before Moebius) state that this kit had a complete Hemi engine tooled up that never saw the light of day under PL?  I was hoping Round 2 would include that too. (not that really there's any lack of 1/25 Hemi's, but it would have been another selling point for this one)

[Snake45]

22 minutes ago, Robberbaron said:

*edit* The cheater slicks are not included in this AMT branded reissue. ?

I'm disappointed too.  Never had one of the original PL versions, but I always heard that the cheaters were the highlight of the original release.

With some of the body inaccuracies, I was on the fence about getting this reissue.  Without the slicks, I think I'll pass.  As others have mentioned, Round 2 is clearly cost-cutting by skimping on tires in a lot of their recent releases.  Problem is, when the tires are potentially the best part of the kit, they loose sales.

Also, didn't Dave Metzner (who worked for Polar Lights/RC2 before Moebius) state that this kit had a complete Hemi engine tooled up that never saw the light of day under PL?  I was hoping Round 2 would include that too. (not that really there's any lack of 1/25 Hemi's, but it would have been another selling point for this one)

I happily used the kit slicks in my recent build of a Day 2 street brawler. This was an older prepainted issue from the early 2000s. 

[Robberbaron]

10 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

I happily used the kit slicks in my recent build of a Day 2 street brawler. This was an older prepainted issue from the early 2000s. 

Looks good, Snake.  This would be the only way I'd be interested in building this one, too.

[Casey]

47 minutes ago, Robberbaron said:

I'm disappointed too.  Never had one of the original PL versions, but I always heard that the cheaters were the highlight of the original release.

The cheater slicks were included with the 2014 Polar Lights reissue of the '64 GTO, so it seems an odd decision to leave them out of this kit. 

[Snake45]

24 minutes ago, Casey said:

The cheater slicks were included with the 2014 Polar Lights reissue of the '64 GTO, so it seems an odd decision to leave them out of this kit. 

I was thinking they were. I have one of these in the stash I hope to get to in the near future. Gonna do it "Day 2" too, unless I decide to swap in a tunnel-rammed BBC and turn it into a full-on street goon. 

[Robberbaron]

4 hours ago, Casey said:

The cheater slicks were included with the 2014 Polar Lights reissue of the '64 GTO, so it seems an odd decision to leave them out of this kit. 

Wow, that was 2014? Time flies.  I have that reissue, but don't remember the cheaters slicks.

I'll have to take a look at them next time I'm digging through the stash.