Thanks fellas!!
Ok gang. This build is finally coming to a close after right at 10 months. I want to thank everyone who ran or participated in this Group Build for their kindness and patience along the way. I'm a slow builder already but then you throw in the passing of a loved one and it really takes the gas out of any motivation for hobbies for a while. I kind of hate seeing this one end as mom was following me on this one pretty closely before she passed a little over 3 months ago. With that being said....this one's for you momma.
This whole build started last July after I saw the kit re-released by Round 2. I've had visions in my mind for years of building a 1967 Mustang Fastback model as it would have been if I had one. I've had the pleasure of owning three 67 coupes and always wanted a fastback in real life. My last Mustang was the best of the three because it was built from the first two cars and I had managed to score a 351W from a 69 Mach 1. She also had a 4spd manual transmission and 3.55 gears.
The first car I had I managed to purchase from my home town. It had a 289 2bbl with an automatic tranny and 2.79 gears. It wasn't fast but it was a good lookin' car. On one of my many trips back to Ft. Hood from my home town in North Texas I hit a deer and destroyed the front end of the car. (going off into the ditch is the WRONG thing to do when dodging animals I found out). The deer was only the beginning of the damage....while dodging the deer I didn't look on the OTHER side of it and dove into a concrete drainage system. This car....was done.
Car #1: Acquired 1989-Decommissioned-1990
I found Car #2 in a wrecking yard and rescued it. Man.....that car was rough looking BUT.....it was a GT and had all the options to include tilt away steering which was a very weird option but definitly good on the cool factor. This car also had a standard transmission from the factory. No engine or tranny was in the car when I bought her for $100 but I quickly took care of that. The 289 was carried over from Car #1 and I got a close ratio 4 speed tranny for this one. Later on I bought the 351W I was talking about earlier and freshened it up and dropped it into this car and drove it for a few more years before somebody pulled out in front of me at Ft Hood. I dodged but not before I hit him with my drivers side door in a side skid. Jeez....
Car #2 before the wreck: Acquired 1990--Decommissioned 1991
and after the wreck:
The tilt way column that I was talking about. This was supposed to help with driver ingress and egress. Definitely different:
I did get the opportunity to lay my hands on Car #1 and Car #2 after 30+ years. They are both in the same wrecking yard in my home town within 15 feet of one another. Car #2 is in the foreground and #1 is just behind it. For what it's worth they are still together and still not crushed out.
This is where Car #3 comes in. Acquired 1991--Sold 2002
I bought her for $600 at Fort Hood and towed her back home. I had two other parts cars now to draw parts from to make this one the best car out of the three and one that I would have for 11 years. Me and my best friend built this car over a course of 5 days from this at day one:
to this at Day 3 of 5 moving under her own power.
The next two days involved finish up...bumpers, trim, interior and all the cool stuff to make this car driveable.
The end result:
Now....all of this is where the inspiration for my build here came from. I wanted to build a fastback with all of the things that I had in this last car with the only difference being that I wanted factory style wheels on this one. And so, I set out on my venture.
I purchased this kit....and went for broke.
Color is Acapulco Blue from MCW Finishes, Wet Look covers the clear coat. The pad printed tires in this kit are a God send and thanks to Eric Oberhaufer at AMT the change out from the Firestone Super Stock tires that this kit came with got changed out to the Wide O Oval tires you see in the following pictures. Model Car Garage covered most of the PE items that you'll see on this car with PE kit # MCG-2032. Joel at Iceman Collections provided the Cobra air cleaner, HGW Models provided this 1/48 scale REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT tag hanging from the rearview mirror and the CPC 64F (the same tag that was on Car #3) license plate and plate frame were provided by Thomas at Speedway decals. Throttle linkage, air cleaner wingnut & washer, fuel lines and brake lines were all either fabricated or drawn from PE parts bin. Throttle return spring is an element from an automotive turn signal bulb. Plug wires are from Lex's Scale Modeling and the 650 cfm Holley Double Pumper carburetor was from Shapeways.
The hood scoop is from the AMT GT-350 kit and was graphed onto the stock hood. I also cut out the area of the hood where the scoop was to allow the air cleaner to sit up inside of the scoop from proper hood closure/ seating.
Outside door handles are from Fireball Modelworks, Alclad applied to both and pinned in place.
A good amount of work had to be done to get the front suspension lowered achieve the stance that I wanted and the front wheels had to be moved in ......significantly... to go inside of the wheel wells where they belonged. The rear suspension had to be raised so a light re-aching of the leaf springs is all that took.
This kit is a good kit overall but there are some notable areas that need mentioning. Firts off ...the good. The base engine was well represented with only a carburetor change out needed to spice things up a bit. The interior is also well represented with good detail. The aluminum plating on the dash face is a BEAR to replicate on this one as is the door panels. If anyone's interested in how I pulled that off let me know and I'll be happy to tell you how I managed to get through it.
80% of this build was pretty straight forward BUT....the fit between the nose piece and the drivers front fender on these kits is very hard to get flush. I spent all KINDS of time trying to fix the issue and STILL ended up with a slight gap. Test fit--sand-test fit--file--test fit and MORE TEST FIT is required to get this part right. The fuel cap sticks out way too far because it's thicker than it needs to be. I took sandpaper and stuck it into the contours of the tail light panel and sanded it down to what I felt like was the proper thickness. The front and rear bumpers had little braces going down on either side of the license plate area and I don't care for those so I cut those off of both bumpers, stripped the chrome from them, cleaned 'em up and worked the Alclad magic on both.
I'm pretty happy with the turnout overall as it's just the look I wanted to get from the build. Thank you guys for following along, encouraging and commenting along the way.
Finishing shots:
