Junior's High School Hot Rod

[CorvairJim]

Here's a fun Glue Bomb rebuild I did about a decade ago Another version of this model was recently posted which brought this one to mind. I got the model for about a buck at a local flea market, and it was a big-time disaster. It was brush painted silver... inside and out. The hood was glued shut, probably to keep the loose engine from falling out. The three remaining wheels were glued to the chassis. It was the prototypical "P.O.S. Ford". I decided to build it like some high school kid with a minimum wage job but Mustang aspirations would have done it, while he was in the middle of actually doing the job. Here's the story: When "Junior" got the car, it had taken a front end hit so he had to replace the front clip with junkyard parts. While he was at the yard, he picked up replacement doors for the right side too. The engine in the Galaxie was on it's last legs with a terrible bearing knock and no compression to speak of in two cylinders, so he replaced it with a small block from a wrecked Mustang. The front bench seat didn't fit with his idea of "Sporty" so he grabbed the buckets from the same car. It also gave up it's front hubcaps and a few other bits and pieces. The exhaust system was pretty much entirely rotted away, so he did away with the mufflers and just installed dumps that exited in front of the back wheels. He thought that was really cool until the first time he got pulled over for making too much noise!

(Two quick notes: 1) I apologize for the lousy quality of the pictures - they were taken with a very old digital camera. 2) I also apologize for the "Motortopia.com" subheading on the shots. The originals are in my old computer and would be a real problem to retrieve since that machine isn't even hooked up anymore.)

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The two doors on the right side had lots of rustout on the bottom edges, but he was lucky to find that there were multiple '70 Fords in the yard for him to pick and choose the best panels from. The beige front clip came from one car, the red front door (with it's black interior trim panel) came from another, and the back door came from a used-up taxi. (Markings courtesy of the Monogram 1994 Caprice Taxi kit) Too bad he couldn't just unbolt a replacement quarter panel while he

was there too! Maybe he should have picked up a radio antenna while he was at it. The aftermarket stereo obviously works, judging by those big ol' speakers on the package shelf...

It looks somewhat better from this side - It's only two-toned! Still, the paint is showing it's age, it's got it's share of bumps and scrapes, and the gas filler door is M.I.A. Hi might not have gotten his custom rims for the front yet, but he's got 'em on the back... for what they're worth!

Under the hood, all is not well. He's had to do so much tuning on the carb that he doesn't even bother to put the air cleaner back on it anymore. That sits in the back seat. Notice that "Junior" is a Ford man to the bone. He has to have that Ford Motorsports plate proudly displayed on the bumper, even if it is kind of bent up and held on with baling wire! And he really ought to do something about that busted headlight...

[Nick Winter]

Jim, that's really neat, I love it, looks like somebody backed into a pole at some point too.

Nick

[Adam deCoste]

Theres a few cars at my school that look like that but with more rust lol.

[CorvairJim]

With some of these builds where it's been a few years since I did them I sometimes forget just what I did with them. Yeah, ol' Junior backed it into a light pole in the high school lot his first day there with it, and it sort of sprung the right side of the trunk lid a little bit (I cut it with a razor saw, heated it a little and 'tweaked' it just a tad... ). It was so bad that the lock cylinder jammed and the key broke off in it, so he punched it out and now opens the trunk with a screwdriver. I also remembered that I removed some of the side trim (right front door and qyarter panel) and drilled out the clip holes.

That completely illegible "Ford Motorsports" front plate is just a license plate decal I came up with someplace or other. I just applied it to a piece of a used disposable aluminum pie pan, trimmed it to size, and bent it up the way I thought it should look. The 'baling wire' that holds it on is just the wire from the inside of a sandwich bag twist tie, from the days before Ziploc. The multi-color blob in the lower left of the rear window is a hand-painted Grateful Dead "Steal Your Face" skull and lightning bolt sticker. Oh yeah, the center of the right front wheel cover is missing...

These free-form "Wrecks" are a lot of fun! I don't have any real weathering skills (Dr. Cranky I'm not!); I just try to make it look as realistic as possible, maybe just a bit worse than you or any (or any sane person, for that matter) would actually driveon the road!