How many model car builders do we have, here at Port Halcyon? I've been away from the hobby nearly 20 years, by now, but have every intention of diving back in, once I have a decent space to work in. Of course I've added to an already extensive collection, over the years...ranging from bits and pieces, to stalled (yes, unfinished) projects, and several still sealed kits. With my extensive parts collection, my style was (is) mostly kit-bashing - if a part is already available, I'll use it - but, by the time I graduated high school, in 1987, I was starting to get into a bit of scratch building, to include modifying parts from other kits to fit a particular project. In keeping with the 1969 and earlier theme of this forum, I'll only highlight past projects that fit within the allowed years.

Of my stalled projects, I'd started building a Pro Modified 1949 Mercury coupe, which mostly consisted of dropping the '49 Merc body onto the frame of one of the Pro Stock kits that was available at the time I'd started the project. The thing that stopped me, at the time, was that the wheelbases didn't match, and I didn't have the money, at the time, to just go out and buy another AMT 1949 Mercury Coupe kit, just so I could hack out parts of the rear fenders to widen those on the body I was working with. In a way, I guess I could consider myself somewhat of a visionary, as I'd started this project several years before there even was such a drag racing class as Pro Modified. Of course, if I was thinking along the lines of "wouldn't it be cool to build a drag racer that is, essentially, an antique coupe body on a modern Pro Stock chassis," then other gearheads out there would be as well.

Prior to the Pro Mod '49 Merc project, and definately influenced by the movie Cannonball Run II, I was going to build a Pro Street 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300SL gullwing coupe. I got as far as actually buying the AMT kit, along with AMTs '33 Willys Gasser. In the movie, the "owner" said he was running a 383 Hemi (blown and injected), but I figured I'd go with the 427 SOHC "Cammer" instead, for my project.

Some time before the Benz project, I'd started building a Pro Street 1929 Ford Model A Roadster (AMT) for a potential 4-H project. In building and test fitting various components, I'd got this one all the way to a rolling chassis (or had I been building a coupe or sedan, instead, I could've just blacked out the windows, and had what's known as a "slammer" - a model for which the overall look counts more than actually worrying about a drive train for it), but couldn't decide which of my many available engines from other kits to use. With time running out (starting from the day before), to have a model building project to enter in the county fair, I ended up building the T-bucket styled 1927 Ford Model T Touring (AMT) that I've mentioned in another thread here.

One project I'd started, when I was in the Army, was an east coast style modified stock car, but with a 1932 Ford coupe (AMT) body. I'd narrowed the body to fit the frame of an AMT Grant King Sprint Car kit, as well as converted it to a "3-window" coupe in the same manner that would be used with a real 5-window Ford coupe...simply remove the door pillars between the door windows and the opera windows/quarter windows. What stopped me here, was after I'd cut out what would be the canvas top on the real car, I cut out the roof section parrallel with the vertical sides of the rear window, then cut a section from the length of the body. Needless to say, I ended up cutting that piece of roof section too narrow, and the narrowed coupe body didn't quite go back together as planned. From there, I just never did get around to buying another '32 Ford coupe kit, and that this particular kit has been out of production, several times, over the past 19 years, hasn't helped renew my spark to finish the project.

Finally, one of my "goofier" 4-H projects was a 4x4 1957 Chevy Bel Air (Monogram), which I think was the first time I'd ever kit-bashed (using parts from other model kits, to build something other than the choices shown on the box, for those that don't know). I remember that the Chevy 4x4 kit I used was also by Monogram, but I can't even begin to remember which model of Chevy 4x4 the kit was.

I'll make a promise to all of ya, here and now (and assuming Port Halcyon's still around), that as soon as I get back into model car building and actually finish the above mentioned stalled projects, there will be pictures. Of course the first few pictures will be of a project in the state that I'd left off on it, then I'll chronical the various stages of finishing them. Once I get these finished, then I can share with y'all two new projects, in the form of a la 60s-70s style AA/FA dragsters. So far, I have (both AMT bodies) a '32 Austin Bantam roadster body, and a '37 Fiat Toppolino coupe body. Those could be fun projects to chronical pictorially..."here's what I'm starting with"...and it's just a model car body in the picture. Since I'll be building both as AA/FA dragsters, perhaps I should also build up a drag strip starting line diorama to display them on. I've never done a diorama, so it'd be a good "there's a first time for everything" project. 

Matt