The motor head in me

Way back in the days of my youth, automobiles held a first place on my list of what is important in life. I was fortunate to be able to have at my disposal an old barn that was perfect for a bunch of teenage boys to pursue their mechanical dreams in. What emerged from that barn was a lot of dirty fingernails and bruised knuckles but on occasion a vehicle that any young man of the day would be proud to cruise in. Today time, money and space limit what I would like to be able to do with an old car or truck but my modeling enables me to fulfill at least a part of my dreams. What I will be presenting here in this session is my take on a few old rigs that I came up with in 1/87. A favorite in the scale is the 1937 Chevy coupe pictured above. It comes from Sylvan Scale Models and is a resin kit that I did a rather conservative build of here. A last wipe of the windshield and this fellow is about to take his dream ride out on the road.







The movie "American Graffiti" has been attributed with the rebirth of the hot rod phenomena in the U.S. by many and it definitely had an influence on me I'm sure. Witness the yellow 'duece' above which is a plastic kit from Jordan that I decided to do as a replica of the one featured in the movie. The red one on the right is another take on the same '32 Ford coupe from Jordan.


Staying with the '32 Ford, this time a tudor coupe in a cast metal model. I began to experiment here with painting a transparent paint over a solid color. The base coat of gold was done over the entire model and then the fenders were sprayed in transparent green from Duplicolor that I decant from the rattle can into my airbrush cup. The engine here is scratch built.


I then began to experiment with other techniques involving the transparent paints and in the case of this 1935 Pontiac, another Sylvan offering, oversprayed the top of the gold base with red for a quite unusual effect almost as if it had a red light shining down on it.

Considering my efforts a success with this, I continued further. I chopped and lowered this '50 Chevy pickup from Busch and gave it a coat of bright orange, and just oversprayed the front clip with the red transparent and added some custom painted wheels from Herpa and a tonneau cover.


I waited for a long time for Clare Gilbert at Sylvan Scale to come through with his promise of a Willy's coupe but he didn't disappoint when it finally was released. I found a box of nail polish when my youngest daughter moved out of the house that I used for the paint here. The wheels are from a Fresh Cherries Pinto wagon that were cheap 1/87 scale offerings available at Walmarts.








Being impatient as I am, I couldn't wait for Clare to come up with the panel truck version of his '37 Chevy so I kitbashed an old plaster model back end of a Ford to come up with what you see in red and black on the left. It was only shortly after that Sylvan released the accurate Chevy panel truck that you see in need of restoration on the right. I would like to point out the chrome work on this model done with a soft lead pencil that I found was pretty effective.

Well I hope you have enjoyed this offering which has featured only a few of the hot rods that I would dream of doing in real life. There are many more sitting on the shelves of my office here and pehaps I'll get a chance to show more soon.