Here is a car that I owned for almost a whole generation. It had everything. Great looks, good handling as well as performance. I owned this car from August 26, 1988 until this past Friday, December 23, 2011. I had to basically get rid of it as we really did not have anymore outdoor storage space for it, as my kids are getting their driver's licenses,and I need more room for their cars. I basically was forced to sell it for scrap, even though I did not want to, as it has been sitting outside for so long, it was beginning to return to the Earth from which it came. When I bought it, it had 64,000 miles on it. When the 305-2 BBL carburater V-8 engine blew in the beginning of 1998, it had 166,000 miles on it. That's 102,000 miles I put on the thing in about the 9-1/2 years I drove it. It was the most reliable car I drove up to that point.
In 1989, we used this car on our honeymoon up to Mystic, Connecticut, about a 1200 mile round trip. The car performed flawlessly.
As the car would age, I did have things repaired on it as they wore out, but the car basically kept on "plugging" away! In 1990, I had new rocker panels, inner and outer welded into the car. In 1993, the engine got a new timing chain and gears. Around 1996 or 1997, I fabricated new quarter panel bottom ends , in between the rear wheel openings and back bumper. By the end of 1997, I noticed the rear bumper was begining to droop on the thing. Here, the rear frame rails were all but totally rotted away, from behind the rear axle mounts, to the back bumper. The body mounts were bad, too. So my mechanic sent the car to a welding shop, and they fabricated new rear frame rails, new rear body mounts, as well as new mounts for the gas tank. This made the understructure of the car good as new, and kept me from scrapping the car right then and there.
Then one month after I had the car inspected and back on the road, on the first day of work of the new year, 1998, the camshaft let go in the thing, basically destroying the engine. After all the work I put in the thing, I was heartbroken. Needless to say, I had to find a replacement car for it quick, and I found a maroon 1984 LTD Crown Victoria electronic fuel injected sedan. You, know the kind of car that the police used as interceptors. That's another story, though.
Here is one of the first good pictures I took of the car in 1990, after I replaced the vinyl mylar chrome coated bumper strips.
These two pictures were taken at the Lancaster, PA Airport, also in 1990.
This picture here, with my wife in the car was taken in 1992, on our newly purchased home lot, before we built on it. We were there that day to see how far the well drillers got in drilling our well. Three years after our place was built, we had our first child. I needed a car with more doors, so I bought, and fixed up a 1980 Chevy Malibu Classic station wagon, and I left the Monte sit for two years. After those two years the rear frame went bad on this wagon to the point where it could not be repaired, because the frame on it had rotted out all the way back to the rear doors, threatening the stability of the whole rear axle assembly. The only way to save that car would have been to get a whole new frame for it, and that would have cost more to do than the car was worth, so it was scrapped in the end of '97. That is why I tried to revive the Monte Carlo. But a month later, the engine destroyed itself.
Here is one of the first good pictures I took of the car in 1990, after I replaced the vinyl mylar chrome coated bumper strips.
These two pictures were taken at the Lancaster, PA Airport, also in 1990.
This picture here, with my wife in the car was taken in 1992, on our newly purchased home lot, before we built on it. We were there that day to see how far the well drillers got in drilling our well. Three years after our place was built, we had our first child. I needed a car with more doors, so I bought, and fixed up a 1980 Chevy Malibu Classic station wagon, and I left the Monte sit for two years. After those two years the rear frame went bad on this wagon to the point where it could not be repaired, because the frame on it had rotted out all the way back to the rear doors, threatening the stability of the whole rear axle assembly. The only way to save that car would have been to get a whole new frame for it, and that would have cost more to do than the car was worth, so it was scrapped in the end of '97. That is why I tried to revive the Monte Carlo. But a month later, the engine destroyed itself.
After the engine let go in 1998, I was bound and determined to keep this car, and replace the engine in the thing, when I got the money to do so. I stored the car , outdoors on our property in the meantime.
In 2002, we added an addition to our house so that my son could have his own room. Because of all the construction that was going on, I needed to move the car off property for safe storage. My mother in law offered free garage space at her farmette that she was still living at, even though all my brother in laws married, and had moved out.
Running on 5 cylinders, bless its "heart", the car ran good enough, albeit horribly the 5 mile drive to her place, under its own power. It put out a vapor "contrail" like a jet plane does like you would not have believe. It got there. That was the last time I drove it. I was able to keep it at her place until 2009, when she had to auction off her place, and all her stuff, because she had to move to an assisted living community, as she was getting well into her mid seventies, and having some memory problems. So I had to have the car "rollbacked" back here to my place.
This is where it spent the remainder of it's days, rusting away, and sinking into the earth. I was never able to get it repaired. The money, when I got some extra, always had to go somewhere else. Kids braces, our newer cars needed repair, property maintenance repairs, etc. Sadly for me I was never able to ressurect this car.
In the above picture, which I took last year, 2010, you can see that I removed the header panel ornament, and all the car's emblems to keep them from getting stolen. I also removed the hubcaps, (wheelcovers). A couple of years before that , I removed the vinyl top, and it's surrounding trim pieces because the vinyl on the roof had deteriorated to the point where all it was doing was trapping water between the vinyl and the metal roof, making it rust faster than the rest of the car. So to keep it from totally rotting through, I removed it, and put the trim pieces in the car's trunk.
Back to 1991. Around this time, I found an original issue MPC promotional model of the car already painted up in the "Camel Metallic" brown that my car was painted. So I tore this model apart, and detail painted it up to make the exterior look exactly like my car. Because I still had the car in great shape, the real one, that is, I was able to get the exterior of this thing to looking really close to the way my actual car looked. The only difference is this scale model came with the optional enclosed full wheelcovers, where my actual car has the " Open finned" wheelcovers to simulate that this is an alloy wheel, but it was actually just a hubcap over a regular stamped steel 14" wheel.
The MPC models did not come with hood ornaments, so I made one out of pieces of scrap chrome plated plastic "flash", shaped as needed with an X-acto knife, touched up the edges with silver paint, and glued it onto the header panel of the model.
The whitewall stripes were painted on the tires, which I believe I got from another model car kit, because the original MPC blackwall tires that came with it were to scale much too tall, and fat.
This is where it spent the remainder of it's days, rusting away, and sinking into the earth. I was never able to get it repaired. The money, when I got some extra, always had to go somewhere else. Kids braces, our newer cars needed repair, property maintenance repairs, etc. Sadly for me I was never able to ressurect this car.
In the above picture, which I took last year, 2010, you can see that I removed the header panel ornament, and all the car's emblems to keep them from getting stolen. I also removed the hubcaps, (wheelcovers). A couple of years before that , I removed the vinyl top, and it's surrounding trim pieces because the vinyl on the roof had deteriorated to the point where all it was doing was trapping water between the vinyl and the metal roof, making it rust faster than the rest of the car. So to keep it from totally rotting through, I removed it, and put the trim pieces in the car's trunk.
Back to 1991. Around this time, I found an original issue MPC promotional model of the car already painted up in the "Camel Metallic" brown that my car was painted. So I tore this model apart, and detail painted it up to make the exterior look exactly like my car. Because I still had the car in great shape, the real one, that is, I was able to get the exterior of this thing to looking really close to the way my actual car looked. The only difference is this scale model came with the optional enclosed full wheelcovers, where my actual car has the " Open finned" wheelcovers to simulate that this is an alloy wheel, but it was actually just a hubcap over a regular stamped steel 14" wheel.
The MPC models did not come with hood ornaments, so I made one out of pieces of scrap chrome plated plastic "flash", shaped as needed with an X-acto knife, touched up the edges with silver paint, and glued it onto the header panel of the model.
The whitewall stripes were painted on the tires, which I believe I got from another model car kit, because the original MPC blackwall tires that came with it were to scale much too tall, and fat.
The red taillight lenses were removed from the model, as well, and I hand painted the silver frames, as well as the white backup lights on them, then after the rest of the body was done, I re-installed them back on the model. Sidemarker lights were also painted on by hand, both the amber on the front chrome headlight/parking/sidemarker assembly pieces, and the red back quarter panel markers, as well.
The vinyl top mouldings were made from some very narrow cut pieces of lightweight posterboard strips, then glued in the appropriate places for the Landau top, then all the area, including the moulding was painted with the same flat beige paint that I used on the interior as well. The door side impact mouldings were made in the same way. The moulding that separates the vinyl area from the painted area that runs over the top of the roof was painted silver as on the actual car.
The wide lower body bright mouldings were simulated using aluminum tape cut to fit, on the model.
The outside mirrors came from a 1980 MPC "Class Action" 1980 Monte Carlo kit. Could not find a paint to match the metallic brown exactly, so I just used a gloss brown paint on them.
The body was clear coated, and buffed before I applied any trim, or trim paint.
Some overhead shots of this reworked MPC promo.
Even though this does not have near the in depth technical detail as the recently released Trumpeter kit, it is still possible to detail out these MPC promo's very nicely.
Here, you can see the detail silver paint work I did to the back end of this model to make it more realistic looking.
Dashboard and steering wheel shot. Although you cannot see it in any of these images, my car had a bench seat in it whereas this model has bucket seats with a center console, and automatic floor shifter. My actual car had a very nice beige cloth interior in it. When I got rid of the car, the seats were STILL in supple, and PERFECT shape, I might add.
The vinyl top mouldings were made from some very narrow cut pieces of lightweight posterboard strips, then glued in the appropriate places for the Landau top, then all the area, including the moulding was painted with the same flat beige paint that I used on the interior as well. The door side impact mouldings were made in the same way. The moulding that separates the vinyl area from the painted area that runs over the top of the roof was painted silver as on the actual car.
The wide lower body bright mouldings were simulated using aluminum tape cut to fit, on the model.
The outside mirrors came from a 1980 MPC "Class Action" 1980 Monte Carlo kit. Could not find a paint to match the metallic brown exactly, so I just used a gloss brown paint on them.
The body was clear coated, and buffed before I applied any trim, or trim paint.
Some overhead shots of this reworked MPC promo.
Even though this does not have near the in depth technical detail as the recently released Trumpeter kit, it is still possible to detail out these MPC promo's very nicely.
Here, you can see the detail silver paint work I did to the back end of this model to make it more realistic looking.
Dashboard and steering wheel shot. Although you cannot see it in any of these images, my car had a bench seat in it whereas this model has bucket seats with a center console, and automatic floor shifter. My actual car had a very nice beige cloth interior in it. When I got rid of the car, the seats were STILL in supple, and PERFECT shape, I might add.
In my eyes, the styling of the third generation Monte Carlo was the best it ever got, even though the original factory build quality of the body, and substructures of the car were crappy. I still wanted a scale model to remember it by, and I have it in this little 1/25 scale model!
Jim.
