This is the classic 1932 Ford Coupe, but done the way I'd do it:

• chopped roof
• 1968 Corvette suspension, front and rear
• blown, dual-carb'ed, mech ignition Chevy 327
• side pipes running from chrome headers
• fat wheels and tires all around

So far, this is my masterpiece, and my modeling skills have grown by leaps and bounds while I've been working on this car. The roof chop turned out very well, and I made front and rear glass from thin clear plastic from a package lying around the house. Parts from five kits have made their way into this car so far.

This is the next step in my experimentation with the 1932 3-window coupe. I thought the "Little Duece Coupe" was great, but definitely too tall (although that's inherent in the look of the "highboy"). So I set out to begin working toward building as low a '32 as possible. Stockpiling lots of copies of Revell's '32 Coupe, I began building a "pig" as a mock-up to just explore getting the suspension as low as possible. This isn't intended to be a finished model, but just a set of experiments.

I looked for the best independent suspension parts for front and rear and decided that the Viper offered a set-up that best matched the 32's chassis and dimensions. I spent hours lining up the '32 and the Viper parts before cutting and mating the Viper's suspension parts. To make sure everything lines up, I put all the body parts together as a shell, and experimented with a slightly greater roof chop than on the first '32 I did.

I've used the Viper's inner fenders as external fenders. Note the notching of the side pieces of the hood necessary to accommodate the upper arms on the front suspension.

I've put a thick coat of blue paint on the pig, just to see how it looks in a semi-finished form. The pics at the end compare this stage of the experiment to the standard high-boy set-up.

 57 Z06X

October 2003

Mabe I'm prejudiced because it's the year I was born, but I've always thought the '57 was the most beautiful of the first generation Vettes -- simple, smooth, classic.

This car has turned out better than just about any of the models I've worked on so far. (It's also the last one on which I'll use enamel to paint the body! Laquer is sooo much better.) The basic concept is to meld the best elements of the old and the new, mounting a 1957 Corvette's body onto the "chassis" of a 2001 Z06, so that all of the running gear and suspension come from the modern car. The fit is near perfect: The Z06's wheelbase is slightly longer, thus the elongated rear wheel wells. Otherwise, the fit is amazingly close -- lots of trimming had to be done on the peripheral areas of the Z06 pan and interior shell, but the motor fits snugly under the '57's hood. I had to use the '57's radiator, mated to the Z06's fan assembly (since the '57 depended on a fan driven by the motor). I also removed the one exterior design element I've always found annoying about the '57, the non-functional scoops on the front fenders, filling in the spot where the went with putty.

These pictures show the car very close to completion. Some details remain to be worked out, such as the front grill and the interior of the doors. Note the license plate -- printed from a graphics program, and then magically turned into a 1/25 scale part!.

Blown 67 Stingray

October 2003

The last of my mid-year Stingrays for a while, and the model that finally drove me away from enamel for body painting. (You're looking at the second body and the result of about five complete strippings and sanding -- even with all that there's tons of orange peel.)

This is a relatively "period correct" late '60s street rod -- Crager mags, side pipes from a '68 Vette. It's a little anachronistic, though, because I've left off much of the chrome that bedecked the original car, a move that a late '60s sreet rodder probably wouldn't have had the aesthetic sense to do.

The motor is the centerpiece of this model. It combines compenents from many 60's-vintage kits, including the combination of pulleys and other compenents to make the engine realistically "streetable", all snugged into the stock engine compartment (including the tight fit into the stock fan shroud -- which took a lot of work). The blower's scoop is a one-of-a-kind creation fabricated from parts and plastic stock.

This is the car of my early adolescent dreams:

• blown, dual-carb'ed, mech ignition Chevy 327
• lots of detail in the engine bay
• custom grill (still being conceived)
• fat wheels and tires all around

This car is still in process. So far, I've bought SIX of these kits (using parts in the Deuce and the '34), so I've got lots of pieces to work with (including extra bodies to make up for mistakes along the way). I've combined parts from the two versions of the engine that come with this kit to make a more realistically "streetable" car, including the stock fan belt along with the blower belt.

Box stock, but lots of attention to detail.

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