Good news!..........the Round 2 1:25 scale model of Christine is finished! The model was fun to build, although it had a few scary moments.......the big one was when the chassis was joined to the body. A lot of contortion had to be done to get the body to slide into place. One key was that the rear fenders are not attached to the rear fascia.....it enables you to spread the quarters apart to get the tabs to fit into place. It does sit well......I used no glue in this process.
The red colored plastic does present issues with painting, primarily in the form of ghosting. The finished model does look good though, and that is the testament in how the molds stood the test of time.
As mentioned in an earlier blog, I bought it with the intent to build it into a pro modified drag car, but my wife voted it down, wanting to see the model the way it was. My digging into the history of AMT and this subject startled the heck out of me when I found that there actually was a model of such a car out there. It was among the Revell offerings, a 1:25 scale model of Richard Earle's Christine, a Pro Modified drag machine. Why they referred to it as a 'shoebox', I have no idea as of yet, but the term is also used for the Revell model of the Jukebox Ford, another Pro Modified racer, likely from a series that Revell produced. I haven't done any research to see how many are in the series, or what the subjects are, but they are interesting. I wanted to buy another Christine Pro Modified, to experiment with another body style {another subject}, but they must be rare, because the prices I'm seeing are a but much. My wife must have overheard my sputtering, because she too started looking too. But it was for the movie car.......and not the pro modified.......but she came up with another car from another model from the AMT era. In 1983, ERTL acquired AMT and merged to become AMTERTL. ERTL was right up there with Tonka, with their selection of construction and farm toys. They came out with a series of 'classic' car and truck model kits, from their original molds and some retooled, giving them more detail. It was definitely a winner! Seeing the kit......and not being labeled Christine, I was intrigued and ordered the kit. Now.......earlier in the building of Christine, on my favorite forum site, I teased about other cars that might make interesting Pro Modified racing models. I showed a picture of this car.........
Car buffs recognize it as a Chrysler 300c........can you imagine this car on a drag strip near you??? I love the cars of this era....they have such style and.......and.......fins! I had fantasized about getting a model and scratch building it into a racer......I would never have thought! While ordering this model:
I saw this model:
Can you imagine my elation! I have both kits in my possession...the biggest draw is that they are both molded in grayish white plastic.......should be a lot easier to paint. AMT finally disappeared in 2012.......their molds dispersed into the wind, with Round 2 Models acquiring the bulk of them. More and more of the kits are beginning to show up on store shelves and internet sites, so if you've built them before, you can now join me in reliving your childhood and revel in the nostalgia that these kits will bring. I'll show you these kits in the next blog, or as I get to them. At the moment, I have so many projects on the go.......we'll see what happens.
