1958 Thunderbird "Flight of Fancy"

[Peter Lombardo]

Back in 2002 I picked up the Revell ’58 Thunderbird Convertible kit mainly because it was a new release. The truth is, I never really cared much for the style of that car. I know it reflected the typical styling cues of the Ford lineup of that era, but to me it just didn’t work. I love the ’55 thru 57 two seat’ers and have to admit to really liking “torpedo†style of the early 1960 models, but this interim style has always left me cold.

So I brought the kit home and left it somewhere in my huge stash of kits that may or may not ever get built.

A few weeks back, I dug the kit out because I wanted to see if I could make a vacuum form copy of the bubbletop unit. It worked and I put the kit back in the pile, but now it was on top. A few weeks later, my son showed me a “glue bomb†Dodge Stealth he picked up and a light bulb went off in my head.

I made a vacuum formed copy of the body and roof and removed the roof from the body. I then placed the roof on the Thunderbird body and thought it might actually look pretty good together.

So my plan here is to finish cleaning up the window openings and to set the roof down “into†the body. This will be converted into a two seater with a little extra space behind the futuristic interior I am planning for this one. You know the style, laid back tuck and rolled seats, a long center console and maybe a cantilevered steering wheel set up with a big flowing dash panel. I grafted on the kit supplied hood scoop extension.

I will clean up the “goofy†little trim pieces on the body to further smooth things out here.

The doors will be modified at the top to have a cleaner line where the “a†pillar joins the body. I grafted on the rear roll pan which will be smoothed and cleaned up. I plan on a smooth front roll pan and I need to do something interesting to the headlight area, I am just not sure of what that will be yet. I think some nicely molded in side pipe units below the door with the exhaust outlets just in front of the rear wheel wells.

I plan on dropping the car down as low as I can get her and I think I will buck my current trend of using large wide mag style wheels and go with a traditional wide whitewall tire with a “period†correct wheel cover.

I also plan on doing some kind of crazy paint scheme to play on the many lines, creases and accents of the late fifties design.

When this is done, I am aiming for a strange juxtaposition of 1950’s “fin and flair†style and 1990 “slick and smoothâ€.

I have also begun work on the wood buck for the customized “stylized†Studebaker Commander

which will have a two part vacuum formed body and a roof, oddly enough from the Dodge Stealth, only this will be the opposite of the Thunderbird in that it will have a Vacuum body over the chassis, engine and front wheel drive set up of the Stealth along with the roof from the Stealth grafted on.

The Thunderbird has the vacuum formed roof added to the plastic body of the Bird.

Edited May 30, 2010 by Peter Lombardo

[george 53]

Lookin REAL good Pete! You an Dave Susan are probably two of the MOST" Outside the Box" Modelers I've ever seen! Jairus did something akin to this in one of his Drawings for the Mag a few years back, only he used a 62 T'bird . Still looked GREAT to me! That ol Stealth roof really does flow really smoothly with quite a few body styles! Maybe THAT'S why I always liked that car! I like where your goin with this Pete, keep us updated! That lil Studie ain't lookin too shabby either!!!

[Eshaver]

Peter, first I can see the Raymond Lowery influences in the Thunderbird with the new roof added . You definetly have a unique eye for the off beat and somewhat whimiscal . Uh this is meant to be a complent to all those of you in Rio ............ Ed Shaver

[jedimastergary]

Looks like a cool custom love the idea of classic meets modern

I think it looks cool will be watching to see how it comes out

[rustybill1960]

Nice!

Thank You for sharing

Later

Russ

[Tony T]

Sounds like a cool T-Bird! Looks like a great start, too.

[RodneyBad]

Anything your gonna do is surely Gonna look Cool.

Can't wait to see how this turns out

[Peter Lombardo]

News Flash!!!!! Modeler accuses himself of pilfering Intellectual Content!

So this morning while drinking my morning cup of coffee, I was looking around the internet for any pictures of 1958 Thunderbird's. You know, I am always open to ideas, and if it is a really good idea, I am not totally apposed lifting some portion of it. I am in advertising, and there is a very old, but dear saying in the industry (well, at least I have been told this on numerous occasions) “Every good ad has been stolen, well, at least some of it hasâ€. ( I am listening to Neal Young’s “Harvest†album while I am writing this….I forgot how great that album is. I had the “8 trackâ€â€¦.remember 8 tracks?? Of this album way back in 1971 when I was in the Navy…I used to play it all the time in the chart room when I was not on watch on the Bridge when we were steaming around the Gulf of Tonkin chasing Aircraft Carriers.)

Anyway, I am looking around for any additional ideas or painting ideas and low and behold, look what I found. Strangely enough, I think it looks the same coming or going.

This is a 1959 Thunderbird….same as the 1958, much the same as the ’58 and ‘59 Vettes are virtually the same with the basic exception of the “washing machine†on the hood of the ’58. Anyway, this may be an Australian car or perhaps an English car because it is a right hand drive unit.

The obvious similarity to the car I am building certainly would have me wondering? I mean, I think I will have to launch a full investigation. It begs the question…..Did I steal the intellectual property of someone else? Did I see this car in a dream and not realize it when I stuck the Stealth roof on the 1958 I am building? This looks to me to be a late 50’s early 60’s GM roof, or at least a portion of one. I think it looks pretty good on the car, although I think the Stealth one will look equally as nice.

“Heart of Gold†just came on…man that is really a good song.

I guess I can’t paint mine orange and use wire wheels on it without having guilty pangs.

Anyway, I have the roof on, and much of the putty sanded, but there is still a ways to go on the smoothing front.

I think I will use the chrome front bumper on this but I will have to de-chrome it to match the rear bumper.

“Old Man†is now on…I really liked that song back in 1971…still sounds good.

I will cut out the molded in grille and add some mesh to it.

I think, I am thinking that I may extend the grille opening outward a bit…we’ll see how that looks.

[george 53]

Ahhh don't worry about it Pete! It looks better to me than that first one! It looks like they welded two 60 Buick roof rear halves to gether to make it. Yours looks better!

[Tony T]

"Harvest" is a great album. Some of Neil's best work!! "Harvest Moon" is pretty good, but not the same 'edge' as "Harvest".

Your T-Bird idea is much better. Like you said, the '59 roof looks like a GM roof coming and going the same way...

Hey, if it means orange (or gold) and wire wheels are out, then at least you have a ton more options to choose from!

[diymirage]

we have a saying where im from

"beter goed gestolen dan slecht bedacht"

roughly translated it means its better to have stolen something good then to have thought up something bad

[Ken]

I found the article on that custom.

http://www.customrodder.com/features/0503cr_custom_thunderbird/index.html

Seems the roof is a blend of 59 caddy backlight for the windshield and reworked C-pillars and an undescribed second backlight for the actual backlight of the car. It is called in the article Australia's wildest custom.

After actually reading the article, the backlight on the car is another 59 caddy backlight.

Edited April 6, 2010 by Ken

[Peter Lombardo]

Ken, thank you very much for finding that article. I only found the one picture and it only referenced that it was a right hand drive car. I thought it most likely came from Australia. I love the fact that the article answers many of the questions that I was asking myself. I thought the fin was extended a bit and I suspected that the headlight and taillight surrounds were also extended a little. I was thinking that I could not fit the rear seat in my car because of inadequate headroom but I think it will be ok after I test fit it. We'll see.

[Peter Lombardo]

In between working on the Dual Cowl Concept pattern and the Chrysler 300EX Concept, I have made a little headway on the 1958 Thunderbird custom coupe. If you recall, I grafted on a vacuum formed copy of the Dodge Stealth roof on to the Thunderbird body.

I made Acetate windows and cut channels into the top window pillars with thin strips of styrene to hold the windows tight into the openings while the glue dried.

I hand painted black borders with Tamiya semi gloss black on the inside of the windows.

The interior is pretty basic with black carpet which is flat black paint with black embossing powder sprinkled on while the paint is still wet.

The seats are white with a bright bluish purple insert. I designed this to look like the bright metallic iridescent vinyl material from the sixties. You know, that bright shiny stuff customizers always used on the custom cars of that era.

The rearview mirrors are resin copies of the Prowler mirrors. I added thin strip styrene to all of the fins and body contours to extend them a little and give them a slightly stronger presence.

The front bumper is the chrome stock unit with the opening removed which will be filled with a photo etched piece cut from a blank.

I added a complete bottom rolled pan to the bumper unit to fill it out.

The hood scoop has the kit extension grafted onto it but I added a section on the top middle of it to give it a slight dome look and to help the hood clear the 3 deuce carbs. I have yet to rebuild the new hood hinge since the plastic hinge that was molded on only lasted a few days of my rough handling…oh well.

Speaking of the carbs,

the engine is the kit unit with lavender sparkplug wires and purple fuel lines which will be connected to a fuel block on the firewall later.

The molded on lake pipes are the two pieces of “V†shaped bracing from the interior section of the kit.

I used putty up front to mold them to the body and the outlet is a piece of Aluminum tube cut at an angle.

The headlights will be “MU jewel units suspended in clear epoxy which will fill the entire opening where the headlights go.

The taillights will be the two round units on the chrome base and then encased in clear epoxy too.

The paint is the most involved area of the build. The car was primed and sanded. Once smooth, it was painted appliance white and lightly sanded. Then it was painted with pearl white. Two coats lightly sanded and a third was then applied. Once dry, I mixed up a custom batch of Jacquard Interference blue purple mixed with reddish lavender powder in clear lacquer. This was sprayed in a fine pattern all around the edges of the body contours. This took many coats to get enough coverage. Once dry, the entire car was over sprayed with a gold interference powder mixed in with clear lacquer. The term “interferenceâ€, in this case refers to the fact that it changes color depending upon the angle you view it at. Once this was dry, I gave the body multiple coats of clear.

The car sits very low on the chassis and very low to the ground (sorry, no picture included of that yet). I really love how the roof looks on this body. This build is nice diversion from the mold bodies I am building which require my complete attention when working on them.

[customsrus]

I did something similar but I used a 90 era camaro top. see attached. By the way nice start on your bird. I always enjoy watching your builds.

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=16648&view=findpost&p=143527&hl=58 thunderbird&fromsearch=1

Edited June 1, 2010 by customsrus

[Tony T]

Great looking paint! This is coming along nicely!

I had a bicycle banana seat with that blue shiny vinyl with silver metallic sparkles on it as a kid!!