1957 Chevy Bel Air 4 door Sports Sedan Hardtop 1/25 scale model-Revisited!

Beings that since I posted about this model back in 2010,  it has become my most popular post.  I thought I would revisit it with better, brand new digital photos of this model, that I just took, today. Now you can see this 1984 built AMT/Jo-Han scale model in somewhat more detail. It is a little over 8" long in 1/25 scale.

For these photos, I took the clear cover off the display box, and took the model outside to photograph it.

For a model that I built 28 years ago, I think it came out nice, and it still is very presentable! It is far from perfect but scale model kit builds of this body style of '57 Bel Air 4 door hardtops are practically non-existent.

 That is why I combined an AMT 1957 Chevy Bel Air 2 door hardtop kit with a Jo-Han/Ex-El products 1956 Pontiac Star Chief 4 door Catalina hardtop reproduction dealer promotional model to make this model.

Door lines on the body needed to be filled in and rescribed. Door handles needed to be shaved off and rebuilt in different spots.

The interior cavity opening in the body needed lengthened to accommodate the longer interior box and 4 door hardtop roof.  The back half of the interior box needed to be totally cut away, including the complete removal of the coupe rear arm rests, reconstructed, as well as lengthened, including rebuilding the package shelf, new rear door panels, new arm rests, as well as extending the width of the back seat, and making the coupe split back front seat into a sedan type solid back front seat. The window assembly came from a junked AMT original AMT 1957 Pontiac Star Chief Catalina 4 door hardtop friction promotional model. It fit my body shell without my having to modify it. I also added a turn signal lever to the steering column, as this is missing from the AMT kit. In that time period 1956 and 1957, Pontiac and Chevrolet shared the same hardtop roof sheet metal.

  The AMT '57 Chevy kit has the hood bar molded in as an integral part of the bumper grille assembly.

  

For this model, I cut the piece free from this assembly and attached it to the front of the hood as per the actual car.

A close up shot of this detail

This model is a replica of a yellow and white '57 Bel Air 4 door hardtop that I owned from 1980 through 1983. My dad made me sell it because he said that it was junk, and it would never be worth anything. I had alot of misgivings about this, but I was still "just a kid that did not know anything". so I did not really have a choice.The choices I did have were, either sell the car, or my dad would have booted me out of the house. There was no way that I could afford that, so I sold the car at a tremendous loss. My building this model was a consolation to me.

I thought you might enjoy seeing these images of this what I consider to be a nicer body style than the two door hardtop. I tried to open the hood to photograph the fully painted and detailed engine compartmet, but it was stuck shut. I have not opened it in about 15 years, and I was afraid if I would have used too much force, that I would have damaged the model. So I let it go.

                        So enjoy the images that I was able to take of this one of a kind model car.

Grille, and Chevrolet coat of arms on grille bar.

Let's zoom up on this view!

                                                 Oh, them cool '57 taillights!!

Here is the original post from 2010.

http://jayveejayaresjunk.blogspot.com/2010/11/1957-chevy-bel-air-4-door-sports-sedan.html

Jim.

"The Hot One"- AMT's 1/16 scale 1955 Chevy Bel Air hardtop build up from around 1980

Here is a model that I built a couple of years after I did my orange and white AMT 1/16 '57 Bel Air. This model came out much nicer than the '57 did, as I took more time to build this one, and I had made the switch from Pactra to Testors paint. I had to, as Pactra had just gone out of business, and their paints had all but disappeared from all the hobby shops that I dealt with. Those shops all restocked with Testors paints, except for one. I don't know how they did it, but they carried the full Pactra line until around 1982. Then it dissapeared from them, too. This model was one of the earliest models, once I had the color paint work done, I clear coated the body, for more of a wet look gloss. Both doors and the hood  still work as they should. I had some problems with the doors, with the paint blistering from putting the clear coat on too soon after I painted the dark red on them, so I had to strip, and repaint them. That is why they are slightly darker than the dark red on the rest of the model.Other than that, this is still a gorgeous model, for my having built this 32 years ago.

Here are some random images of the thing, including some shots of the sparely detailed engine compartment. Other than it being there, I left it in it's unpainted orange-red plastic state, but I did paint the transmission silver, as well as the carburetor. I also painted the air cleaner, generator, starter motor, distributor, fan, and fan belt pulleys black.I also took the time to paint the master cylinder silver, too. Other than that, I did nothing else to the engine compartment. For the interior, I just added flat white to the bare orange red colored plastic seats, and sidepanels to give it a two toned red and white interior. I  did fully detail paint the dashboard,though.

The model is spray canned painted Testors dark red, and I believe Testors tan, with Testors "Glosscote" clearcoat to finish it off.

I just recently printed up these "1955" license tags on my computer for this about 5 years ago. I had already had these red painted plastic tag blanks mounted on the model, though, since I built it, in the first place, in the hope I would put some kind of decal or glue on some kind of license graphic in the future. Which I finally did here.

Now that I really look at these images of this model is I now remember how I really got frustrated at the fact, that when I was in the final stages of assembly with the thing, no matter what I did, or how hard I tried, I could NOT get the rear bumper to mount level on the car. So I had to settle for a look that looks like the driver of this car backed into somebody else's car at parking lot speed, and bent  the whole bumper up at the bracket mounts on both sides of the car at the same time. So the results are a bumper that hangs down at the front ends of it. To me, it looks like crap, but that's life, sometimes.

Interior shot. Sorry, I guss I should have opened the doors so you can see the seat and dashboard better. The thing was, I kind of had to hurry up, as I photographed the model on my actual driveway, and my wife was away. I didn't want her to come back and squish the model and me laying on the driveway to get the images that you see here.

Two engine compartment shots. It does have some detailling, but very little plumbing, and no wiring. What for? the model doesn't run, anyway!

  Two nice profile shots.

As with the '57 model, this model is about a foot long.

  Three-quarter passenger side-front view shot.

  

 Here is a shot of  the model in my hand. See image below for full shot.

This last image is a picture my daughter took of me, complete with my scruffy 1975 haircut and all, holding the model, after I finished my photo shoot.

Jim V.

1976 buildup of AMT's 1/16 scale '57 Chevy Bel Air hardtop coupe: One of my favorites.

One of my favorite old 1957 Chevy models (I have about 20 different '57 Chevy models, total) is this big 1/16 scale AMT '57 Bel Air coupe kit which was re issued in late 1976, which was when I built this model. It originally was designed for the doors to open and shut, as well as the hood. I couldn't get the doors to stay closed right, so I glued them shut around 1980. The hinges on the hood broke, so I made the hood function by gluing kite string on the back corners of the hood, and glued the other ends of the string to the corners of the cowl.

It is painted 1970's Pactra "insignia orange" and white. I painted the engine Pactra "insignia red", which is incorrect,but I didn't give a rip  back then, as I only painted engines back then in these bigger kits. The interior, for most part, I left the bare white plastic, but I painted the seat insets, floor, the door panel insets, and the dash top, flat black. This model is close to a foot long, and for the time it was issued, has more detail than their standard 1/25 scale kit. I painted all the bright metal trim on in Pactra chrome silver paint, to finish it up. Beings as I was still kind of an inexperienced model builder, there is some glue melt damage, as well as paint mess-ups. It has also suffered some damage over the years, but I was always able to repair it, to a degree. I think the model still looks nice, for it's age.

It may be a little scruffy, and tired looking around the edges, but as far as I'm concerned, this gives this model a sense of old historical character, like it has been around for awhile, which it has.

Below are more images that I just took on this past Saturday, April 21, (2012)

Jim.

1957 Chevy Bel Air 4 door Sports Sedan Hardtop 1/25 scale model.

Here is a model of my all time favorite collectible car that I have owned. This is an exact scale model of my first '57 Chevrolet Bel Air 4 door hardtop that I got by trading even up with a buddy I worked with in 1980 for a 1965 Corvair Monza convertible that I was restoring at the time, but I wanted a '57 Chevy more than I wanted a Corvair. When my dad found out that I did this, he was not too happy, and eventually he forced me to sell the car because he said "That big ugly yellow canary will never be worth anything, get rid of it or move out!!" I could not afford to live on my own yet, so I sold the car, after I spent about $700.00 more in 1980 dollars in the start of it's restoration in parts and services. I even got new floor braces, and replacement floor pans for the thing, a rebuilt 1965 Chevelle 283, a rechromed rear bumper assembly, new stock wheels, and hubcaps, and new glass for the driver's side front door. That did not matter, my dad still made me sell it, and I took a beating financially on that car, as I only got $500.00 for the thing, in March of 1983!! Needless to say I was very upset at my dad for forcing me to sell the thing. I still get upset at him for making me do this, as a restored '57 Bel Air 4 door hardtop can now fetch as much as $30,000!! I tried to tell my dad this, but he really does not even want to here it. So be it. When I came home with a 1965 Cadillac Calais coupe later that summer, he liked that car, so everything was at peace on the surface, for the time being.

That is another story for later.

After the '57 was gone, I set out to build a scale model of the thing in around 1984. I used two AMT 1957 Chevy Bel Air 2 door hardtop kits, and one Jo-Han/Ex-el products promotional model re-issue of a 1956 Pontiac Star Chief 4 door hardtop, which uses the exact 4 door HT roof that the 1956, and 1957 Chevys used in the actual cars. So I cut the roof off the Pontiac model. Then After I removed the 2 door HT roof off the Chevy body, I cut the interior hole longer on the cross panel in front of the trunk lid, by making that panel narrower, so it would accomidate the longer modified interior box. I removed the back seat coupe arm rests, and made the rear seat itself, longer, made back door interior panels, and removed the notch that the front seat had, to make a solid front bench seat back, like a fixed sedan front seat would be like. On the body, I shaved off the coupe door handles, filled in the 2 door coupe door lines, and sanded it smooth. Then I scribed the 4 door HT door lines, and sculpted 4 new plastic door handles for the car, and glued them to the doors. After that was done, I glued the Pontiac 4 door roof on, tweaking it quite a bit to get it to fit. Next, I dry fitted the "glass". After that,I dry fitted the new interior box. After I got everything to fit satisfactory, I did all the paint work, and was able to assemble the rest of the model, as per the stock AMT kit's instructions. Oh, yeah, on the front grille, I cut out the grille top bar, and attached it to the hood, like the real car is done.

Even though, I did this model 26 years ago, now, I think it still came out really nice, considering all the work I had to do to the thing to get the results I wanted . And that is a scale model of a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air "Sports Sedan" 4 door hardtop!

Please check out this new update post I did about this model, as you the viewer have made this my most popular post, so I decided to do new photos of the model, and more info on how and why I built it.
Here is the link.

http://jayveejayaresjunk.blogspot.com/2012/08/1957-chevy-bel-air-4-door-sports-sedan.html

Addendum;  February 3, 2013.

To the  people of the '55-'56-'57 Classic Chevy Club France, I sincerely thank you for your kind remarks on your forum. I wish I knew French so I could join your forum and talk more about this model, which I built 29 years ago in 1984. I am thinking about building a second 4 door hardtop in India Ivory and Canyon Coral (pink) as I now own a real one in this color scheme. Your remarks, again are much appreciated!--Jim.

Jim.