2013's Fabulous Five

[Brudda]

All Great builds but.........I love the ambassador

[smellyfatdude]

Thank you all, I appreciate the compliments.

While I didn't turn out as many finished "little toy cars" as the year before, I do feel like I traded quantity for quality. Simply because a couple of these kits were top notch, the way they were made. Of course I loved working on all these projects, for different reasons.

With little to no chance to paint indoors in the winter anymore, and a winter that just wouldn't go away, I started with a body that had been painted the summer before, the Moebius ' 55 300. With the exception of the engine pieces, every other part of this build, including the interior was painted by hand. The quality and fit of this kit . Well just build one, you'll see what I mean!

I came home from the lhs with this in April, a Tamiya Alpine. Winter was still hanging on, and everything was painted outside, two feet of snow on the ground. It was one degree above freezing, when I sprayed the color coats on the body. The precise fit of the parts on this puppy, is unbelievable.

After that ' 70 Monte project flopped, we at least had enough nice weather I colud start working on this Ambassador, and yes I'm drawn to it too! If you take it for what it is, an excellent display model with a toy like chassis, they're still nice cars to look at either in the 1:1 world or in scale. And who would've thought that Gremlin kit had some engine pieces that were not only more accurate, but turned the thing in to a sublime screamer?

I've wanted to build one of these for years. before I finally got a ' 62 Galaxie Sunliner. While this one again has a simple chassis, it just needs a little love and some paint to look nice. This kit is actually older than I am . . . . . doubt that'll ever happen again!

The ' 70 Torino was such a simple kit to build, the only issue with the way it was engineered was that the interior tub sat too far forward. Problem? The panels insdie didn't line up with the outer door openings, and with the glass in the tub couldn't be pushed up far enough. Solution? Elongate the hole on the alignment tab molded behind the package shelf, with the Xacto knife. Result? Tub can slide back, to where it should sit. Yup, that was it! The parts trees, and even the instructions in the ' 71 kit look nearly identical. So, for what was in a sense a practice kit, my Torino turned out pretty good!

I believe I'd probably be wise to start the new year once again, getting busy on something where again, I've got the body already painted.

I'm going to try and do as close a copy in 1:25 that I'm able to of a friends' ' 66 Chevelle SS, a car he owned back in high school. The Chevy Engine Red is almost identical to the dark orange his 1:1 was, and I'm pretty sure I've got a 327, and all the correct speed parts. I've even acquired some resin wheels, to duplicate the slotted mags his car had. Wish me luck, and happy building to all of you,in this year ahead!

Edited January 4, 2014 by smellyfatdude