65 Galaxie 500 XL

I saw a picture of one of these in a muscle car book several years ago and have been wanting to build a replica ever since. It is such a sleek and sexy design and those stock wheel covers look downright kustom with a set of white walls.

I picked up a kit at the hot rod show, but was very disappointed to find the stock wheel covers were missing. Luckily DV8 has come to my rescue and they arrived in the mail today, so this build is on!

Something like this, but mine will be red on red and I may put a venetian in the back window...

Velvet authority?? Cruise-O-Matic?? The yanks really have a way with words,don't they Mate of mine had a black one of these too many years ago,at least i think it was one of these, what a big beast it was.

Yeah those old ads are a crack up! Smoother than a Rolls Royce - yeah right!!

Despite some initial reservations, I am starting to think this is actually a really nice kit… Most things seem to fit together pretty well and the kit supplied bonnet and boot hinges seem to work OK.

I’m trying to get this one painted before the warm weather ends and have started prepping the body. The kit has an opening boot, but no real ‘lip’ as such, so have added one using some strips of sheet plastic.





Have done the same thing up the front and now everything sits pretty well.







Have also spent some time re-scribing all the panel lines and generally cleaning everything up. Will try to get some primer on tomorrow and maybe some colour on next week.

Kewl I have the same kit, tho I'm building mine red with a white top, gonna keep an eye out for this one, great start

Got some paint on today. This is Powerplus Monza red and top coat clear over Tamiya white primer - all rattle cans.





I did my usual foil before paint trick on the emblems and scripts, but I rushed it a bit and the paint was still too soft to come off cleanly, so it's not quite as crisp as I would have liked. I also ran some Tamiya smoke in the emblems before clear coating.







Glad to have some paint on before winter!

Nice one bryce, do you use the smoke straight or thin it down a little? Nice colour, almost a little "fruity"

Looking good Bryce.

Looks good. But you gotta stop with this factory stock stuff!! your giving me the itch to build something stock

She's coming along nicely Bryce..

Nice. Great colour.
It might be the camera or the software (or maybe my eyes) but it looks almost what I call dog d##k pink.

Do you polish back the paint off of the foil or use a cotton bud & thinners?
I've seen both ways suggested but haven't been brave enough to try the thinners method incase I wreck the rest of the paint.

zenrat wrote:Nice. Great colour.
It might be the camera or the software (or maybe my eyes) but it looks almost what I call dog d##k pink.

...................I'm really starting to worry about you !!!!!

zenrat wrote:Nice. Great colour.
It might be the camera or the software (or maybe my eyes) but it looks almost what I call dog d##k pink.

Do you polish back the paint off of the foil or use a cotton bud & thinners?
I've seen both ways suggested but haven't been brave enough to try the thinners method incase I wreck the rest of the paint.

No it's just plain old bright red. Just looks a bit lip sticky under the rangehood lights.

I scraped the paint off the foil using a blade and a toothpick and then used some steel wool to polish it up. In the past with enamel I have just used cutting compound as part of the polishing process, but as I wanted to clear this one I needed to get the colour off first. In hindsight it would have been better to scrape it after each coat - I think that would be easier than trying to get multiple coats off in one hit. Lacquer when fresh is sort of like a plastic coating and can be hard to remove cleanly as it sort of 'peels' off rather than breaks off. I wouldn't go near uncured lacquer paint with thinners - you will end up in all sorts of mess.

Bryce wrote:Lacquer when fresh is sort of like a plastic coating and can be hard to remove cleanly as it sort of 'peels' off rather than breaks off

Tell me about it. I've been putting together a Tamiya Alpine Renault and the tolerances are so tight great sheets of paint peeled off everytime I tried to fit body to chassis.
Enamel - yes, I polish it off with Meguiers Scratch X without a problem. But it's with lacquer it's harder work (although eventually you get through the paint) which made me wonder about thinners.
In theory if the cotton bud is almost dry and is a new one then it should be possible to just skim the surface of the raised area. If you're carefull. It's the being carefull bit I have trouble with...

Back onto this one while the weather is too cold to sit out in the garage and finish all my other projects. No such thing as an easy build for me though, so I’m taking the path of most resistance on my way to a factory stock build for this one…

I wasn’t real happy with the way the chassis fitted into the body, so I pulled out the ’66 Galaxie kit and tried that. It works much better and has the advantage of separate exhaust (albeit moulded to the diff), but the disadvantage of an axle through the engine. So in true kit bashing fashion I chopped them both up and combined the best bits of each.



I also didn’t like the fact that this kit uses a convertible interior, so chopped out the offending parts.



Then I used some kitchen foil to make an impression and cast some panels in resin.



It’s now a fairly simple matter to cut out the right size piece and superglue it in.



Will also need to widen the rear seat to the appropriate size for a hardtop now too.



After all this is done should be able to paint up some bits and whack it all together if the sun ever comes out again…

Sun was out today Bryce...
..for about 23 seconds.

I too have the cold damp building in the shed problem. I've discussed building at the dining table but apparantly that's not allowed as it's needed to hold gardening books, seed packets, landscaping designs etc.

Its coming along great. I have been relegated to the shed but the problem up here is the Wet season sorry summer. Got cold here last night 19 and 30 during the day. lol this time of year reminds me why I left Tassie.

Hmmmm, gotta take mine out and look at it, now...

So I'm back onto this one now until it stops snowing and I can head back out to the shed and do some painting!

Have finished reworking the interior including widening the rear seat, and widening and re-contouring the rear speaker/parcel shelf area. Pretty happy with how everything is looking, but will be hard to know how good a job I have done until I get a coat of primer on. After consultation with Paul I have decided that if I have done a good job interior will be white and if I have done a bad job it will be black!









I have also been filling in the boot floor with scrap plastic for a realistic appearance and also re-working the front inner guards to get the chassis to sit more inside the body - I didn't like the way it hung down so low beneath the car - looked weird to me...





Hopefully I can get all these bits painted next week and get into some assembly. Should come together pretty quickly as I am working on everything simultaneously. Yeah right...

Some fantastic work coming along here Bryce. Good stuff
Adam

Looking good, keep up the great work

Some good corrections happening there Bryce.

Nice job on the mods Bryce, white interior would look classy.

Thanks guys - appreciate all the nice comments. If there is significant interest, I could be persuaded to cast these in resin before I finish the model.

Was working on arm rests last night - I reckon this car must have the longest arm rests in automotive history! They run almost the entire length of the front door.

Also found this pic on the net this morning while looking for reference photos for the interior. How cool does this look? Might have to track down one of these caravans to go with the finished model...

Nice work so far, especially on the interior. I really like building this kit, even if it does have some frustrating inaccuracies.