This is a kit I built for a guy at work. He was a manager at UPS for years and years until the office politics started getting to him. He decided a career change was in order and went back to school for a certificate in computer programming and now he's here. When this kit came out I said to myself, Pete needs one of those. I picked one up as soon as I saw it.
The kit is pretty detailed. Much more so than the old MPC kits I built back when I was a kid and King Richard Petty was still on the track. I believe the chassis is "generic" in that it's the same for all Revell stock car kits. That is actually accurate. For research material I bought a "Motorbooks" book on how they build the real deal and in fact, there are only about three chassis builders who make virtually all of the body pans and roll cages. They are very standardized and the only differences between a Chevy and a Ford and a Dodge are the engine, transmission and the shape of the body. NASCAR has rules that dictate how almost all of the rest of the car is built and which components are allowed. As for the body, not a single speck of it has any relation to what you see in the showroom except for the shape. The bodies are hand shaped and welded from sheet steel, fabricated directly onto the roll cage. The noses and tails are usually plastic moldings that are supplied by the various car makers but aren't the same as those on street models. So much for the "stock" of stock cars!
I used Model Master aircraft grey for the interior. That may not be accurate for this particular car as I read that there was some question about it being red on the aforementioned NASCAR message board, but, the vast majority of NASCAR interiors are light gloss grey in order to show any fluid leaks. The white is Boyd's. I think it's the best gloss white around. The "UPS brown" is a home brew of gloss black, yellow and red. I think I ended up getting the shade right but it needs a little more red if you compare it to the numbers. Pete says the number's color is correct so I missed, but not by much. Pete says that the color is called "Pullman Brown" and was chosen way back when UPS first started because it doesn't show dirt as much as other colors. It looks pretty good at arms length. Pete didn't know it was coming; he was rather speechless. That's one of the best parts about modeling, I think! Dave DeLang
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Photos and text © by Dave DeLang