In 1985, collecting tjets was quite exciting.  I was unable to experience them new and the lack of catalogs and data about the cars made collecting 'fun'.  What cars would I find next .. what colors exist .. and the many variations in striping, roofs, etc just kept me going.  The models near the tail end of the series got very little sale and advertisement time and it took an Autoworld catalog that I received two years after starting serious collecting to find out they even made a '68 GTO!

Those days came to a close in the early '90s and I needed another way to keep the hobby exciting for me.  I wanted to create my own cars.  I really had no way to do this and I put the idea on the back burner.  Repairing existing cars took hold and I played here for several years.  Over the course of time I ended up accumulating ways of crafting new cars somewhat by accident.  I realized that I could first graft two halves of the same model together to save a car.  Why not graft different pieces of different cars together and create a 'new' car.  My first attempt was to make a Chevelle out of an El Camino.   I used the front end/re-attached quarters of the El Camino, a '67 Galaxie trunk lid/roof and a '68 Torino rear bumper as my grafting parts and I 'plastic puttied' them in place.  This acted as my base and I carved the pieces into shape. I did minimal sanding and you can see the result under attempt #1.  It took 3 months of on-again-of-again work and it had that toyish/crude look.  Attempt #2 with the a little bit more time invested but increased detail and much more sanding yielded a car I could be proud of. So .. what is the biggest difference?  I spent more time working off photos and a 1/32 model which I purchased.  "Sculpt what you see" said my art teacher in 9th grade.  Those words stay with me and I use them to the fullest.

Another method I realized worked well was to take a car that is 'close' and carve it up to look like a new car.  The Riveria works well here.  I carved it into a '62 Impala and then into a '62 Bel air.  This case I re-worked some Atlas bumpers to fit on my '62.  I used a bit of my plastic 'putty' technique to add to parts of the body that needed additional layering to get the final shape.

The next logical step was to combine both methods and craft a 'totally' new car.  The '66 corvair is one of several of my early cars that have parts from every corner of my basement.  First .. get that model! (Amt '66 Corvair kit).  Next, find parts from other cars that make sense to use.  Here we go: 

* Quarters/doors/fenders from '63 vette
* Trunk lid from a '67 t-bird hood
* Hood from a '62 Galaxie
* Detail vents from a '73 AFX Chevelle and tjet cougar
* Roof from a '67 Camaro
* Generic plastic strips bent to form the front and rear of the car
* Front bumper from my own '59 impala shrunk down a bit and grille eliminated,
* Back Bumper was homemade from plastic from a model car tree
* Taillights were exhaust tips off a chrome tyco-pro engine cut and inlayed
* Rear License plate backing was the backside of a '67 galaxie tjet door which is flat and already polished enough.  Inlaying this would allow me to have 'lowered' detail come out polished on the final piece.

Once we make our puzzle pieces .. we assemble all parts except the detail parts that might hamper polishing (I ended up adding homemade window posts on the fly).  Start carving your new body to match those photos/models that I have laid out in front of me.  Polish the body extensively and then add any detail parts.  In this case, I added the taillights and than used some airplane modeling tape (comes in very fine sizes and sticks well) as the door handle and just drilled a micro hole for the lock.

In '96 .. I pursued casting and I'm now able to duplicate the cars with relative ease (after five years of practice).  People wanted these cars and there simply is no way to keep producing them as individual works of art.  Of course this also lead to other incidental ways of prototyping as well.  Enter .. Squadron Putty.  This stuff has something called toluene and it sticks to everything and dries very fast.  This enables large chunks of layering to alter a cars shape.  The other bonus with casting is you can take a die-cast car and whip out a resin cast version.  These two methods allow for substantial changes to a base car to make a vastly different models much quicker.  But how do we polish squadron putty? Won't it chip in thin areas?

The answer turns out to be relatively simple in theory that is.  Just make a copy of it just like you copied the die-cast cars.  The trick here is to make a quality copy.  You can't use any mold release and the casting must be 100% air free.  Resin must be de-aired before use so only resin with a pot life of 20 minutes or so work well here.  If you cast them slow enough and allow adequate ventilation .. you will not need to pressurize them either.  Why go through all this?  Well, it will give you a product that can be sanded/sculpted and then polished to a mirror finish.  You can repeat this process over and over again.  Instead, you could use quick set resin with mold release but you will encounter noticeable shrinkage and you must fill any surface pitting that arises and then paint the piece before any polishing.

Examples are always the best way to put it all together.  The following shows my upcoming Mini Cooper in stages and uses a lot of the above techniques.

1):  I acquired several die-cast cars, photos from the web and a video.
2):  Found a donor plastic OO scale car (a station wagon) with relatively simple/flat features.  I chopped it up and 'plastic puttied' the puzzle pieces together.  Placed a generic flat plastic strip for the front and rear of the car.  I used quick set resin to ‘beef up’ the roof. Used Squadron Putty and filled in old detail (door etchings) since I wasn't going to use them. Placed significant Squadron Putty on the rear of the car to get a rounded look.  I ended up using two different colors of the S.P. (white and green).

3-4):  Make a mold, cast the car and start again. The 'appearing' window pillar in the middle was achieved by simply cutting out part of the rubber mold to allow resin to fill in there to make a crude pillar.  I sculpted the front fenders and a more accurate hood. I also added fender flares. Sanded and did overall clean up work on the shape and added some detail.  I then added chrome lights from a bumper from a tyco-pro. The grill is from a small portion of a 1/24 model kit grill work. Additional S.P. was added as well as some quick set resin to highlight hard in reach areas that I couldn't polish later (shown in white). I also add crude screw post using S.P.

5-6): Make a mold, cast the car and start again.  This time I improved my etched window rain guards around the windows and the door lines from the prior casting.  Polished it extensively, added front signals and some more quick set resin in the front.  I improved the screw posts and prepared for bumpers which will be added when I make the next castings. Rear license plate, taillights and door handles will be airplane modeling tape cut to shape.

The final piece you'll just have to see when it goes into production.

I'm sure all this information is quite a lot to swallow and there is a level of dedication needed to make a quality piece.  But it is doable in the average work area with minimal investment.  The above is a quick outline and you could use any portion to aid in your goals.

So .. you may be wondering about glass.  I fill the outside of car with resin (first fill the inside with clay) and then place the car w/outer shellupside-down on a Vacu-form machine and vent.  I then vacu-form the glass inside the car  to create a windshield.  I fill that with resin (can't shrink at all!) and then raise it to accommodate for webbing and then I have a windshield master which I can keep making windshields from.

Other cars that I've crafted can be seen at the above website as well as a restoration guide that goes over the first half of the article in much more detail.