I bought this AMT '51 Chevrolet Fleetline back in 2003, or thereabouts. It was something of an impulse purchase. I'd been feeling a pull in the model car direction for some time, and among the model airplane kits on the second-hand table at Old Guard Hobbies, were a handful of cars, too. This homely Chevy had a price tag of $6. For six bucks, I wagered I could have a little fun. It was not a subject I knew or cared about, so if it all went to hell, so what? When I got it home, I started slowly sticking it together, and felt an excitement I'd forgotten. I'd built a few cars as a kid, but very few. Old, old memories of closely following instructions came back. I did NOT know what every part was, simply by looking at it. It was obvious a plastic car experience was not corrupted by worry vs. fun like airplanes had become. After getting a lot of the basic parts together, I realized I might have discovered something significant. I started looking at car kits with anxious eyes, and bought a few more that I knew I would care about. Eventually. First though, I had this Fleetline to deal with. I painted the interior my own invented scheme to go with what I expected would be a dark blue body. I painted most of the chassis, then came the unwelcome news my wife would almost certainly be losing her job. She did, and it would mean moving. Modeling, especially the fun stuff, came to a halt. The Fleetline got boxed up for happier days.
Settled in our new location, it took some time to get the modeling operation up and running again. With bill-paying jobs to focus on, my fun stuff got a low priority. In our new neighborhood we found a discount store encountering hard times. (In '07 -- '08, who wasn't?) They had a model kit section and marked down what they had considerably. I picked up four or five more AMT cars for "someday."
A few years ago, I did go back to this thing to paint the body. This I did, airbrushing with Testors enamel and rubbing out the result. I was not impressed with the shine, or lack thereof, and put it all away again. Then three weeks ago, I found a Monogram 1/24th '65 Corvette at a second-hand store for $3, only slightly started. I took that home, got all fired up with a car kit again, and forced myself to stop. What about the Fleetline? It's still a viable kit. Don't I owe that old thing the attention it deserves? Finish what you've started -- something I've been reminding myself for some time now. So I went back to my original car project.
One of the first things I did was repaint the body with Tamiya dark blue, wet-sanded and polished that out. Huge improvement over the Testors blue. I returned to the interior and added bare metal foil where needed. One of the things that bugs me about most of the model cars I see is no attempt to add depth to interior details. I added some minor washes and oil shadows in an attempt to make things appear slightly more three-dimensional. My reference has been primarily images found on the internet. I want to do it as a basic stock vehicle. I'm leaving the interior colors alone, simply as a nod to my initial efforts over a decade ago. And the fact is, I've had a hard time putting the thing down since my return to it. I've nearly doubled my original hours count into it in the last couple weeks. It's almost pure relaxation. Just an experiment for myself going quite well so far.
I plan to keep chipping on her to the finish line now, just to put a car in the completed column. Will it be the start of a new trend? Stay tuned.