The Model Car Thread

[Carnut]

While we wait for others to post up their models, here's a challenge for ya'all.  
Who can name the Kit that this was built from?

Make of Car
Year
Kit maker



Y' never know I may even be able to find a small prize for the winning entry.

Just a wild guess on my part, most of the car looks like a 46/48 Chevy Coupe custom, but the front fenders fairing back look a lot like a similar era Armstrong Siddeley.



Have no idea about kits involved.

[Carps]

I thought I was the only one who played with boys toys.

That's a very wide range of things to play with.  

One little problem. The laundry room is in the basement. Occasionally we throw the laundry down the steps. We aren't basket ball stars here and occasionally there is a missed shot. You guessed it. The models came off the shelf and were pretty much destroyed.

           
That's up with the best broken model stories I've heard.  Like the big cars busted plastic can be fixed, just takes a little time and effort.   Or it can be broken down and the parts used for building hot rod models.

Mine just sit on a shelf and gather dust.  Then Occasionally I'll pull one down, and dust it off.  That usually starts a chain reaction leading to a small duststorm.  

The cars had to be built from an Austin Hatcher Foundation "Muscle Car" kit.

I have only one such racer, built from a Boy Scouts kit sent to me by Sam Strube many years ago.  It's yet to turn a wheel in anger, coz there's nobody here doing that kind of racing..

[Carps]

A for effort Carnut!

However, it's built from an old AMT kit which makes it 'Murrican as they didn't do furrin cars until more recent times.

That Armstrong is a great example of what I love about American Hot Rodders, nothing is sacred or frowned upon, anything can be hot rodded.  Most Aussie rodders would not pee on one of those if it were on fire.  We are such a bunch of car snobs.

Now, to help put the model into some kind of perspective, the bumpers and tailamps are from a '50 Mercury.

[enjenjo]

Make of Car
Year
Kit maker

You already told me it was AMT, 1941 Plymouth coupe kit

[Carps]

Enjenjo wins the Cupie Doll!

After filling the front panels and searching for a suitable grille I came to the conclusion that nothing worked as well as the original in that large space.  But the headlamps had to go.  If I did it again I may not use the quads.



It started with me thinking the car looked a bit 'frumpy', so I took some round tube, cut it into quarters and with some sanding and filing created the line for the fadeaways.  The gaps were filled with flat styrene sheet.



Of course having gone that far, the top needed to be chopped.  So out came the razor saw and away I went.  No matter how hard I tried the back of the roof just didn't look right, it was low enough but too short.  So, I took the chopped Carson top from a Revell '48 Ford Convert and spent the next few days cutting and trimming it to fit.



With the big stuff out of the way I then started sanding and filling to remove the fender moulding lines etc. and make everything smooth.  



The front fender lip is small diameter plastic rod, moulded in and the rear fender openings were filed square to facilitate the installation of flush skirts.  The original plan was to use the original bumpers but I was struggling to find the right tailamps.  Then when I opened a AMT '49 Merc kit, looking for the Kustom Caddy bullets,  I test fitted the stock Merc Tailamps and the bumpers seemed to be trying to tell me something so I test fitted them and the choice was easy.

[Carnut]

Ok, this model car thread has ticked off one of my memories of my model car days. Think my very first kit was an AMT 57 Pontiac, heh heh, not sure if it was a convertible or hardtop. I keep thinking it was a hardtop, but back in 57/58 most all AMT kits were convertibles.

Anyhow, I tried to come up with some sort of way to post pics of my models and racked my brain to figure out what I could do. Then I realized I have some video of some of my early model cars and I might be able to screen cap those. So I've spent some time trying to do that.

The results of my screen caps leave something to be desired in 'quality' heh, heh, especially compared to what Carps has been doing above. The pics were originally taken with an 8mm Bell & Howell movie camera in 1960 and then transferred to VHS in the 80's and a couple years ago I copied them to digital AVI files, which I screen capped for these pics.

Not really trying to show any detail what so ever, the pics are just kinda there to help visualize my story about the models I had at the time.

First is the red 1960 Edsel Convertible. In those days the 'easy' mods to do to a car were the glueon fins, fenderskirts, lakes pipes and continental kits, dual antennas, mirrors and spots and various decals. No craftsmanship on my part, only the spray on Testors body paint and the gluing of the parts on with sticky fingers.

Heh, heh, I've never managed to become a craftsman of any sort.

Don't know why, but in my local area there were plenty of kits of 60 Edsels available. Pretty sure I also had a 59 Edsel Convertible Model, but it's not in my pics. It appears only my 'better' models were in the video.

   

The second model is a custom 60 Chevy El Camino. Kinda funny that both the 60 Edsel and 60 Chevy El Camino had a type of fin from the factory, but it was required to put on additional fins to complete the custom look. Heh, heh, and a continental kit on an El Camino seems a bit much now adays.

Then there was my first 'real' custom project with a 60 Thunderbird Coupe that I made into a Ranchero.



WooHoo what imagination. Think this was probably my first adventure into plastic wood body putty and sanding to shape.

I actually kinda liked to standardize on 1/25th scale AMT kits but somehow I wound up with some Monogram 1/24th scale kits. Here's pics of the 'Green Hornet' 1925 Model T Roadster hot rod with removable body.
As I remember it was more of a competition roadster than a street rod, but the kit did include a top.

   

And then there was the Monogram 'Black Widow' 26/27 Ford Model T Roadster Pickup. I have been selling a pic of a show rod built as a tribute for the 'Black Widow' on ebay. First pic shows both the 'Black Widow' and the 'Green Hornet' together, second pic is the ebay photo I'm selling.

 


Finally I have a pic of a 32 Ford Roadster in an oddball scale, pretty sure it was larger than 1/18 but not sure what, think it also was a Revell model.



During this period I recall getting a Hubley Diecast Metal assemble it yourself 30 Ford Model A ForDor Town Sedan. Don't know what happened to my original one, but lately I've been tempted to buy one off ebay just for the memories.

I never did get into the 'Big T' kit, think it was too expensive as well as too big for my taste.

So for today, that's my nostalgia trip for model cars.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

I built model cars when I was young. I built the  common kits out at that time  for a fellow that is now mid in the 50's.  The Red baron and other stuff like that.  Ed Roth stuff

Later when I was older and into guns.  I took these models out to the desert for target practice

I do have many of my model rockets I built as a teenager.  Saturn 5 model  still sits on the shelf here above the computer.  If I tried to launch these models now , I imagine they would shred into pieces

[Carps]

Cool stuff Carnut, thanx for sharing.

Tony, the good news is most of those kits have recently been reissued, you can build 'em again.  And maybe use those old Rockets for target practice.        

[Carps]

Hmmm, looks like this one needs to be bumped back to the top.

So, here's a quick and easy build.

It's a Revell Snap Kit, nicely moulded and scaled but the grill is so bad it makes the assembled model look like a toy.

So I removed it from the body (which is moulded in one piece) and substituted a grille from an AMT '33 kit.  
Not a perfect fit but with a little work it transforms a cheap looking model into something OK.  
Wheels and tyres are from another AMT kit and the paint is custom mixed copper and cold flake over yellow pearl.

[Carps]

Here's another one that sort of just came to me as I was trying to decide what to do with a body-less pro mod kit and an engine-less Lexus LS400 kit.

[Carps]

Looks like time to get this one back to the top.

Before building the '40 Convert I collected a bunch of bits to build my ultimate Deuce roadster.







It's been on the bech un-finished for too long, so since I was home the last couple of weekend I got stuck in and got a few things happenin'







Finally, last week I was done!

[Carnut]

Superb work as usual Carps.

But one must wonder if there is any subtle meaning creating it with left hand drive?

[Carps]

Nah, no subtle meaning.

Pretty much all the model kits in the world are made LHD.

Converting them to RHD is a chore as there's few parts available so it all has to be scratch built and cutting up another '40 dash wasn't on my list of fun things to do with this one.  

[jaybee]

Wow, outstanding work!  I built a bunch of the AMT 18 wheelers as a kid and was pretty proud of them, but nothing like these.  I have a fastback Mustang and a Chevy Nomad sitting on the shelf I probly ought to dust off this winter.

[34ford]

Here's the old thread

BTT