1962 Valiant Station Wagon - 10/21 Progress

[Tom Geiger]

Porscheman gave me this worked over R&R 1960 Valiant wagon body and interior at my club meeting last weekend. It looks okay but...

Some numpty did a number on it, doing who knows what. It was built poorly to begin with, no prep at all and painted blue right on top of the resin. Wheel wells sanded flat, body sculpture lines ruined and all the drip molding gone from the drivers side. Then he stopped! I already have an R&R '60 wagon so it wasn't worth attempting to restore that. I thought about turning it into a sedan delivery, but the sanded body side ended that. Then I got an idea. (Like I needed another project)

Enter one Revell glitter metallic 1962 Valiant that has seen much better days. Assembled without any paint and junk glued all over it. I bought it many years ago for $5 so it was time to do something with it. Note that I did strip the blue paint off the wagon prior to cutting.

The first generation Valiants went from 1960 to 1962 and shared the same body. SMP did the 1960 that the wagon was based on, while the '62 is a Revell kit. The glitter thing was Jim Keelers brainstorm on how to sell kits in a second mid-year run. They did it once. As you can see, the big difference, aside from trim, between the cars is the tail lights. I did a ton of measurement checks and the two cars lined up very nicely for kits from different manufacturers back in the dark ages. So I started cutting...

I didn't take any progress shots, but this wasn't an easy task. The Revell car pretty much has the characteristic of cutting clear plastic windshields. So it was prone to shatter, which it did a couple of times. Then I started cutting the resin which was soft but brittle and yea, I fixed a few cracks on that side too. I went slow and took off a little material at a time. I finally got it all cut and set and it fit like it was made for it. All the posts lined up and everything fit pretty well.

Here's the two wagons together. I guess I'm going to need to build both of them to display together.

And an 'up on wheels' shot. I still have a lot of trim to add with round stock, but I'm well practiced on that. And there will no doubt be a bunch of clean up from the junk that was originally glued to our '62. And the good news is that the '62 has an open hood and a slant six engine.

I am very pleased with the results of my afternoon!

Edited October 22, 2013 by Tom Geiger

[Erik Smith]

That's pretty cool, Tom. You can't have too many wagons.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Great project. I love seeing bodged models saved and recycled into something unusual and interesting. Very nice.

[Porscheman]

Tom, I don't know, I kind of got used to the blue. I can't wait to see it done. Next meeting?

[charlie8575]

Nice job on that, Tom. Those first-gen Valiants look nice; if I could find one for a driver in the nice weather, I'd take it in a second.

Charlie Larkin

[Ron Hamilton]

Tom, you are too much. Maybe I will turn this one into a wagon.

I have already cleaned up the glue-burn, and the bodywork should not be all that difficult.

[DrKerry]

Love it Tom!! Saw it on the other board today!

[Tom Geiger]

^{A baby step of progress actually done Sunday morning. I got the drip rails replaced on the sanded side of the body. And the right side had a little piece broken off so I thought I'd be sanding it all off so all the rails would match, but I matched up the size and pieced it in with minor effort vs removing and redoing it all. It helps that whoever did the master, probably used Evergreen round for their work too.}

^{I was lucky that I had bought all the sizes of Evergreen round that would approximate trim and drip rails a while back. When I go to the hobby shop and I haven't spent enough (meaning I have some money left) I'll buy Evergreen bits I don't already have, if I need it now or not.}

^{Next step will be priming the body to see exactly what else I'm dealing with. You really can't see the repairs I've made on that translucent greenish plastic.}

[slusher]

Very nice work so far Tom..