1955 Ford Crown Victoria Custom

[THarrison351]

Danbury Mint's 1955 Ford Crown Victoria Custom has very subtle, but tasteful modifications. It's painted in a beautiful metallic turquoise with excellent pin-striping front and back and the stock Crown Victoria top is painted white. From the front the most obvious mod is the toothy 1955 Desoto grille and the stock bumper is turned upside down. The hood is sans ornamentation and punched full of louvers. There are also twin dummy spots on the cowl and a sunken antenna. Factory chrome is removed from the body and a single, long, thin, spear runs the length of the side. The rear wheel wells are covered by large bubble fender skirts with a triple chrome strake intake. This custom also has functional capped lake pipes. The rear has custom taillights, chrome removed, and slashed baloney tail pipes below the custom rolled rear pan. Also, don't miss the  authentic Pharaohs Car Club plaque. The wheels have wide whites topped with triple bar Dodge Polara hubcaps. The most subtle modification has to be the suicide doors. There are no exterior door handles, so if you didn't know it, you couldn't tell. The all white interior has custom front seats with the standard tuck and roll upholstery. There's also a pair of glasses on the center console and a tiny Little Tree royal pine air freshener hanging from the mirror. The engine is a Triple Deuce carbed, Ford Y-block with chromed valve covers, water pump,  intake, and headers. The heater blower motor and plenum are chromed too. There's nothing special in the trunk, just a hubcapped spare. The chassis is essentially stock other than lowering and dual exhausts. I found this one at a discount because as you can see, the white paint is flaking off the chromed roof. This seems to be common and one seller was trying to sale his as a factory mistake that was never painted (you could still see tiny bits of overspray in the corners). Once it warms up a bit, I'm going to remove all traces and respray this one. I have an example of what it will look like after. On with the pictures.

Missing Paint

The magic of Microsoft's Paint 3D

Suicide doors

Where are my shades?

Smell that?

Tomorrow I'll post a car that was a concept from Chrysler that became a modern hot rod you could buy at the dealer.

[kilrathy10]

Too awesome.... I'm floored at how good this thing looks... I'd love to see one of these in the 1:1 set up like this.... Wow! This model is cool... I gotta get one... I'm more into modern cars, to be honest... Probably why I've never seen this car, but I really do like this one.... Man, I'm diggin' this car....

[randyc]

Wow!  Seeing these in your photos and descriptions certainly makes them tempting.  I have looked before but never been too excited, but they do look nice in your photos.  

Seems like a consistent issue for paint over chrome plating on Mint cars.  The 57 Cadillac has same issue on the doors in many cases.  It is fun to see how sellers try to pass that off as making it rarer or more valuable in some way. 

[Gramps46]

Now that is pretty amazing, thanks for sharing.

[cobraman]

Sharp car.

[THarrison351]

13 hours ago, randyc said:

Seems like a consistent issue for paint over chrome plating on Mint cars. 

I agree Randy. There seems to be one exception as far as I can tell. Oddly enough it's the stock versions of this from DM. I can find no evidence of paint cracking on the stock Raven Black & Snowshoe White, Buckskin Brown & Snowshoe White, and Sea Sprite Green & Snowshoe White 1955 Crown Victorias. I think the problem lies with the paint itself and maybe where and how the cars are stored. I have the black and white version and noticed the paint is not super smooth. Now that the white paint has come off the custom, I can see why. The chrome is textured. On the other color combinations, this painted area looks super smooth. Not sure if they polished the molds or changed the painting techniques. As far as the FM black 57 Cadillac is concerned, I agree. I have the LE metallic blue one and knock on wood, no issues so far. It seems I recall another painted chrome mint car shedding paint. But I can't remember which one.

[randyc]

Hmmmm, you're right.  I have the black/white one and didn't even realize the top was chrome with paint.   Never seen one of them peeling that I remember.  

[THarrison351]

I guess it's warmed up enough to go ahead and repaint the top on this. Plus I have a lot of time on my hand during this furlough. Had to think of a way to remove the paint without damaging the rest of the chrome or diecast. I do know this is not like plastic model chrome the kind that is basically vaporized aluminum electrostatically applied to the painted plastic. No, this is plated with a copper base and chrome on top. The good stuff. This basically means I can use a harsher solvent without fear of damaging the chrome, but I might damage the rest of the paint or windows. I decided on acetone. First though, I wanted to remove as much loose paint as possible. I have a bunch of aluminum (speed) tape from my years of traveling as an aircraft mechanic. Very sticky adhesive. I rubbed that down over the top and this was the result:

Kind of cool looking! I'm thing maybe temperature cycling is what is causing this paint to crack and flake off the chrome. I've only seen it on the custom Victorias with the white top. None of the other Danbury Mint Victorias have this problem. I know the black Franklin Mint '57 Cadillac passenger doors suffer this paint loss as well, but the blue ones don't. My fender skirts show fine cracks in the paint like old nitrocellulose lacquer tends to do. My pink '50 Ford custom shows the same thing on it's skirts. The paint's not coming off, but they are plastic parts. I'm just spit-balling here.

It took only maybe 30 minutes of cotton swabs and cotton balls to remove the rest of the paint. I protected the windows with tape. The area to be painted is textured. When it was painted it shone through the paint. I plan to smooth it with sandable primer.

I sanded the chrome to hopefully give the paint something to bite into. You can see the copper plate under the chrome.

All taped up and ready for paint. I think you can see the copper better in this picture.

Decanted Dupli-Color sandable primer and airbrushed on waiting to dry.

Sanded with 600 grit to remove any rough spots and make as smooth as possible. 

I'll let it dry and shrink before I airbrush a top coat. I hope the color I've picked matches as well as it looks. More to come soon!

 

[Gramps46]

Wishing you well on the new paint and thanks for the information on the paint layers. 

[Anglia105E]

You are doing a marvellous job on this really nice Danbury Mint model car, Tim........ and I am by no means any sort of expert on these matters, but something crossed my mind when you mention ' textured ' roof area, which you then decided to smooth with sandable primer...... could this have been a vinyl roof ? Maybe I have no idea what I am talking about, because you might be able to tell me that there were no vinyl roof automobiles available in the States in 1955..... I guess that I am suggesting this car might have been intended to have a textured vinyl roof !

David

[THarrison351]

The Fairlane Victoria was a  hardtop or pillarless top. The Crown Victoria added a chrome band where the "B" pillar would be and wrapped across the top. The Fairlane Crown Victoria was also offered with a transparent "skylighted" top on the forward half of the top. As far as I know, the aft half was always painted and most often in a contrasting color matching the lower half of the car's paint. I can't find any pictures of Crown Victorias with vinyl tops. I think the texture was an attempt to keep the paint from coming off. It seemed to work on all colors, but the white ones.

[Geno]

Great score Tim and an easy fix to make it top notch again. I need to get one of these as i love customs.

[THarrison351]

Fresh from the paint booth, er paint porch, or walk out I guess. I used some ancient stock 15-20 year old plasti-cote FM 8071 touch up spray paint decanted. I know it falls somewhere in that age, because when I worked part time at the parts store it was closed out from years ago, I was still in the military and the paint was old then. It looks like a good match, maybe a skosh lighter. Once it's fully hardened, I'll polish out the stuff that landed in it before it dried. 

All the tape and protection removed. Not perfect, but better than before.

Found this while cleaning my airbrush. It's a chunk of metal from the machining. It was stuck in the paint inlet port just below where the needle passes through. This is only the second time I've used this dual action airbrush. It didn't seem to affect the operation. I really like how it works compared to the single action I've been using.

 

[Anglia105E]

6 hours ago, THarrison351 said:

The Fairlane Victoria was a  hardtop or pillarless top. The Crown Victoria added a chrome band where the "B" pillar would be and wrapped across the top. The Fairlane Crown Victoria was also offered with a transparent "skylighted" top on the forward half of the top. As far as I know, the aft half was always painted and most often in a contrasting color matching the lower half of the car's paint. I can't find any pictures of Crown Victorias with vinyl tops. I think the texture was an attempt to keep the paint from coming off. It seemed to work on all colors, but the white ones.

Okay thanks, Tim

David

[randyc]

THat came out nice.   And yes,. most ot the Mint chrome I've messed with is the "good stuff", as you call it.   I did a similar paint on the burgundy 65 Mustang coupe from DM.   Paint was icky and sticky when I got the car.  Cleaned it with solvents and painted it white, which really makes the car pop more.   Wife loved it enough to declare it a "keeper".   

[Geno]

Man, that looks great Tim, fine job on saving it.