1962 Chevrolet Bel Air

[om617]

Hello. Long time since there have been a wip for my part,more or less been watching all the great builds on

here,and a little sourcing parts and future retoration objects,so very little building. The other day i thought

i`d pull out one of my favorite cars,the 62 bubble top Bel Air. Some say it has an incorrect grille,but i`m not

bothering going into it,it`s still a very nice kit,and as usual i could not go stock,well the person who sold it

to me did not include the original wheels anyway,only the 5spoke who follow the kit.

I have more or less sorted out the stance,then used some hours trying to adapt the cowl hood,also instead

of the 409 this will get a massaged 454 with twin carburators on a high rise sorta manifoil. This might change

as for when i see if there is room for the set-up or not under the cowl. I sometimes change along the way. I do

have some resin steelies with more modern Chevy hubcaps from Missing Link i might be using.

Idea for colors are as for now between these:

1. White body and wheels with champagne roof and interior.

2. Champagne body and wheels with black roof and Interior.

3. Black body,wheels and red interior.

4. Light blue body,wheels and white roof and interior.

Feel free to suggest what you think will look the best. Anyway,here are some pictures of the mock up.

[DynoMight]

Give any thought to a Champagne body with a white roof? That might look okay.

Right now the black and red has my vote. Might be a little ordinary, but hey. Still will look cool.

[slusher]

All your ideas sound great but this is the one I liked the best but your build....

White body and wheels with champagne roof and interior

[W-409]

This is an interesting project even though you're not using the 409. The stance looks pretty good to me and as far as the color choices go, I'd go with black exterior and red interior. That color combo is hard to beat on these X-Frame Chevys.

[crazyrichard]

hmm nice build !!

[espo]

These are great looking cars. Most of them were one color, tutone was not that common on these when new. You could look at the MCW Automotive paint web site. They offer all of the factory colors and may give you some options that you may not of thought of. This is a great kit and I'll enjoy watching your build.

[impcon]

Looking good! How about the stock, factory turquoise with an aqua interior? Or white with the aqua interior? Of your suggestions, I'd say Champagne ( solid colour ) with a tan interior - a subtle but very attractive combination. The Champagne colour is very attractive when shiny and nice and while a black interior would look good, I'd suggest the tan as the colours should flow well together lending a somewhat classy appearance. Also, it would be unusual given that these seem to usually end up red or black it seems. Softer colours can really suit the right car and the '62 Chevrolet is one of them. Hopefully, you'll stay away from the baby buggy wheel look and go with more traditional rubber - complete with narrow white walls. This is a nice car - sure be interesting to see what you do with it.

[om617]

Unfortunately i cant experiment with any factory colors before i invest in airbrush so my choices for now are a little limited.

No baby buggy wheels on this one,so much i can promise lol. Fiddling with the engine now,and consider going back to the

409,but not sure. I`ll try post up some more pictures later on today.

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas so far.

[espo]

Not sure what issue of this Bel Air you have. It has been reissued several times. The reason I bring this up is that most of these I remember working with had additional speed parts for the 409 if you were to use that engine. I remember a cross ram type manifold for two carbs. and even headers. You might try some computer searches to see color combinations.

[om617]

This is the issue with the blue car on the box. No headers to be found but a cross-ram and some nice Offenhauser rocker covers.

Here is the mock up of the engine in the car,this gives room for some neat air-filters i have laying around,even if it rise high now.

[om617]

Little more progress on the Bel Air,inside is done. I found out the shifter was gone,so i had to replace it and make it look as original

as possible. It`s not the first item that has been snagged from this kit I tried my best with foil on details,also i used decals from

Scalemotorsport on the seats to make them stand out a little,the pattern isnt correct. Also i used some flocking on the floor,could

not really make my mind on carpet color,so black it is. Here are some pictures.

The chassis is more or less done,engine the same,but i need to put on a bracket for the alternator and make some final touch-up.

I could not find the fuelpump for this engine,also i could not see it in the building sheet either,so not sure if i`ll just have to leave it

out,it does not really show when things are put together.

As usual things change as it goes along,but here is the final colors. I have to put on some coats of clear and then foil it. I have not

decided on wheels yet,i guess you will see when it goes under glass. This is how it looks for now,i think it will nice with the two tone.

Thanks for looking.

[slusher]

Looking really good. You did a real good job on the interior..

[DynoMight]

Color looks great! That will look real good under some shiny clear and some foil! Interior fits right in.

[donb]

Looking real good Tommy. Nice progress.

[TFchronos]

Very nice work and color choice.

[om617]

Thanks.

Put some coats of clear on it today so maby some pictures later. Also i`m done with the front section where radiator and battery

are mounted. Consider leave the engine compartment body color,i notice the original cars have the firewall bodycolor and the

inner fenders semi gloss black.

[gtx6970]

Are the seat pattern decals in this issue ?

[om617]

The seat pattern decals are from Scalemotorsport.com. Some of the best decals i have ever used.

[espo]

Looks great. Your fuel pump would be on the passenger side lower front of the engine block. In most high performance applications at the time people would often use an electric fuel pump and use a block off plate to cover the mounting point on the engine, if that is of any help on that.

[1 bad55 stan]

Great color,Nice engine work too!Good Job thus far Tommy.

[om617]

Thanks for the feedback.

Had a bad accident but i hope i will be able to fix without stripping the body. As i was fitting the body to the chassis i wanted to use

tiny drops of glue so it sit together like i want. Happend before when i lift by the roof you can feel the chassis slip. Anyway,this drop

of glue found it`s way onto the body,from the molding behind the door and ran all the way down. This glue aslo makes the paint go

off when you wipe it off I think i will attempt mask from the molding up,then respray the lower part one more time,since it`s metallic

it`s fixable,but quite the throwback. I hope my neighbours did not hear me when it happend lol.

I did an attempt at open up the side windows,not all the way but like they look rolled down a bit. Some pictures.

[om617]

Putting up some resistance,but thought better to try fix then give up.