Well well well! What have we here? Just when I think I’m getting to the end of buying and assembling cars, your friend and mine “ratherboring” (aka Model Motoring) has to go and do this!
We (likely) all know that most of the original (early 2000’s) MM copies of the ’55 Chevy have become insanely expensive; I’ve managed to acquire 3 excellent examples but the prices on them are so high now that when I find one for sale, I balk. That’s a shame because I never got either the candy green one or the orange one, both which were on my wish list. But not to despair, because now you can buy them as kits in one of 6 basic colors for only about $20 ea (give or take some tax)! And while its true that most of these colors are-well, basic-the white ones should be pretty easy to prime and paint! I feel some new builds coming on!
Part I: The Road Crew
So, to start, I thought I’d buy 2 of these for The Road Crew, in the very Halloween apropos combo of orange and black, to see what kind of quality I was getting. Well, I’m happy to say its very good! You don’t get the cool inkjet detailing of the factory made versions, so you’ll have to either add your own or live without it, but the fit of the window inserts and chrome pieces is excellent and the plastic seems to be high quality; these are very satisfying kits!
For my first assembly I did the “basic black” one and chromed it up like a Bel-Air, and I bought a set of Vincent “cone”-style wheels, which I’ve never used before, to give it that stock “sleeper” look. Now I admit my detailing isn’t the best-I worked the chrome pen with all the skill I have but trying to keep the pen tip on a raised line is very difficult. But hey, it’s a kit, so better home built than no-built, I always say. I was pretty happy with it, but it looked little too “sleeperish” with the black body on the black chassis. I thought it needed something more, but rather than spruce it up with some fancy wheels and tires I opted to keep the stock look and acquired a T-Dash chassis in turquoise to replace the early non-trac-mag Johnny Lightning chassis I originally tried it on. That really brought it to life, and it got finished off with one of my miniscule vanity plate decals.
For my next addition I wanted to do something for the more “muscley” side of The Road Crew, so I opted to do the orange one like a Two-Ten (meaning: leaving the chrome off of the line on the front fender) and I fitted this one’s Johnny Lightning chassis with a set of narrow Vincent Crager-style wheels. I had to grind even the short axles at the rear to get them to tuck under the body, but I made them fit by pressing them on as far as they would go until the backside of the wheels touched the chassis. I elected to leave the front bumper off this one for a “meaner” look, knowing that I can always add it later if I so choose. Oh man, did that come out great! So much so that I grabbed another of my little vanity plates, this one from my home state, to finish off the deck lid!
So, I liked this new kit so much I immediately ordered 4 more, 1 more in orange and 3 in white so I can paint them! And all 4 of those are bound for the Ultra-G muscle car racing fleet! Can you say “Two Lane Blacktop clone?” Yeah, of course you can; that was probably the first thing you thought of when you saw this post! I’m already working on one, and in upcoming posts over the next month or so, we’ll take a look at how my planned painted custom jobs came out!
Nearly 70 years on and still the COOLEST CARS EVER MADE!
I just love the orange one! Congrats!