Revell 1/25 1957 Ford Custom "Tudor"

[Tarasdad]

While we wait for our air conditioner to be fixed - or for temps to drop enough to make working in the garage a viable proposition - I've begun working on my latest acquisition, the Revell 1957 Ford Custom (aka Tudor (Two-door)). This is a newly retooled kit (relatively, 2012 tooling date) that literally fills the box it comes in. As with many car kits of this type you are given two options for completion, either stock or in this case a drag racing version. I've decided to build the stock version.

Photos of the box and kit prior to assembly:












One thing I'm less than thrilled about is Revell's habit of tossing all the parts trees into one bag. Well, most of them in this case, as the body is bagged separately as are the chrome bits, taillights, and the metal wheel pins and exhaust tips. I was quite surprised to see the latter as it's a real departure from what I've come to expect from these inexpensive kits. The instructions are typical Revell instructions, easy to follow but could use a bit more detail in some spots. Decals are high gloss, something to keep in mind as some of them will need to be flat coated, such as the whitewall decals for the tires. The tires themselves are well molded in either rubber or a soft vinyl, I can't tell which.

Dry fitting shows far better parts fit than the last Revell auto kit I built, the 1956 Ford F-100 Ed Roth Pickup. Revell did a great job on the retooling for this kit as parts fit together with barely visible seams. The fit of the hood to the body is so good that I may have trouble once I paint it!

[Tarasdad]

Assembly starts with the engine. There is a decent amount of detail, although with a bit of time and effort it could easily be superdetailed with spark plug wires, correct mounting brackets and the like. I'll leave all that to someone else.




Once painted and with the other parts added it looks quite nice:






I still need to add the air cleaner cover but that won't go on until later in the assembly process. I did skip ahead a bit and assembled the interior, just because I wanted to see how it looks:



The paint is Tamiya XF-8 Flat Blue, which is a very close match to the Dresden Blue in this color brochure for 1957 from Ford:



The flash on my camera washed out the color a bit, it's actually much darker in person. The grey areas are decals that I sprayed with Testors Dullcote. The door handles and window cranks are Model Master Chrome Silver. Adding the decals and the detail paint really liven up what is otherwise a pretty drab interior.

[Desertfish]

I have also been impressed with Revells latest offerings of car kits. I'd even go as far as to say that I currently prefer Revell over Tamiya kits. They are much cheaper but contain more plastic, the detail is amazing and the parts just fit so nicely.

Anyway, nice start on this build. I do like how you've livened up the interior. Looking forward to see the progress on this one.

[Tarasdad]

Pics of the latest progress, taken a couple of days ago.

Finished interior:


Frame and engine mounted: (Forgot to take a pic of the frame and engine assembly before installing it - oops!)



Preview with body installed:


Haven't been able to get too much work done on anything the last week or so, been feeling a bit under the weather. Happens when the seasons start to change as my arthritis doesn't react well to sudden shifts in temperature and humidity. Basically everything I have built is waiting for a bit cooler weather so I can get some airbrushing done. F-15E, A-10, USS Arizona, F-100 Pickup and this one all need major painting that I can't do indoors airbrushing enamels. If I had acrylics in the proper colors it wouldn't be an issue but enamels have to go to the garage. The uninsulated, extremely HOT garage. Or cold, depending on the season....