I have a special attachment to this kit. Since high school I have owned a 1971 Charger. It was my first car, and a lot of my family history is tied up in it. When the kit came out a few years ago, I immediately bought two. One to build from the box, and one to build exactly like mine.
For comparison, here's what mine looked like back before I started tearing it down for some structural work.
While it looks great, it has never had a full restoration and it is in need of new floorpans and a trunk floor. Which means basically taking most of the car apart. So it's been in the garage awaiting the day (probably in my retirement) when I can get started on it again. It's pretty much down to a shell with an engine. Maybe something else to blog about once I start working on it again....
Anyway, on to the model. It's an AMT/Ertl kit, and they do some really nice car models. This one is no exception. As I always do, I dive into the engine first. This version I will build largely from the box, and it comes with a big block 440 engine.
One thing I will use from my parts bin are these 1971 Plymouth sport side mirrors. These were optional on the Charger if you paid for two door mirrors. I will paint them to match the body, but they could be chrome as well.
Since I still have plenty of the Petty Blue spray paint left, I decided to paint the Charger that color. But I do want a really nice finish on this, so I will be clearcoating and polishing the body on this one.
Sorry for the lousy color in this photo...not sure what happened here. This is after two wet coats of blue and three of clear.
Once the chassis had dried I started adding the suspension. This also got clearcoat but no polishing needed since it's the underside. I'm trying to replicate what a restored car might look like. Factory Mopars usually got an undercoat and then a little bit of body color would overspray onto the floorpan. A lot of restorers go the extra mile and paint the underside to match the body.
Here's the body after two coats of color and three of clear. I went ahead and glued in the core support since it needs to be body color as well. The radiator will be painted by hand later.
One other thing I wanted to add to this model was amber high beams. They were available but not everyone had them. I think they look pretty neat so I painted two of the headlamp lenses with transparent yellow Createx acrylic to get the right look.
The bumpers on the 1971 Charger could be chrome or body color. I decided to stick with chrome on this car. A little detail painting with black and silver finished out the grill details.
I let the paint on the body and hood cure for about a week, then started wet sanding and polishing the paint to smooth out any imperfections. I started with 3600 grit sanding pads, slowly working my way up to 12000 grit wet sandpaper. Once all the blemishes and dust particles were smoothed out, I started polishing the paint with Novus Plastic Polish. This got me a really nice smooth finish with lots of shine.
I still need to do a little more work on the body but it's coming along very well. I did cut through the clearcoat in a couple of very small places but I think I can touch it up without too much trouble.
I wanted to see how the decals were going to behave so I went ahead and applied the hood blackout and stripe decals. It took a little bit of Micro-Sol but they settled down nicely.
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