The world is a funny place.
The older I get, the more I realize how limited our thinking can be. Unless we have travelled or read widely, we can tend to forget the geography we learnt in school, and slip into thinking that all the world is as we see around us. But how different other countries can be, in so many and varied ways.
Case in point: the seasons. As the days grow shorter and weather cools around me, for you guys up north it’s coming into summer. A bit of a mind-bender, that. Rich suggested convertibles as a theme – which seems natural when you think about it from a northern hemisphere perspective, but simply hadn’t occurred to me. Okay then! Time to put that top down!
Yesterday was a lovely autumn mid-twenties day (mid-70s F), and as we passed a Focus CC convertible in city traffic (no time to grab a pic), my daughter wondered aloud why he didn’t have the top down. Good question. Maybe they only had a quick drive to the shops, and thought it wasn’t worth pushing the button? Maybe they didn’t want to leave it with the top down? Maybe it was broken?
I remember Mother telling me back when she was a girl, Grandpa never put the top down on their late-twenties Chev tourer. I never saw it, so don’t ask me which year it was. I showed her photos of each year (as you do when you’re a car nut) but she couldn’t pin it down. I might not have a twenties Chev, but here’s a ’27 T Ford:
What, you don’t want to rough it that much? Well…
Okay, I’m cheating. The top on this Ferrari California is up, but it could be down,
There, is that better?
Okay. I’ll have to be a bit selective from here on, or we’ll be here all day. Given a choice, I’ll usually build a hardtop. Possibly that may be because I saw so few convertibles growing up (as in none that weren’t sports cars), and possibly it may be because I hit my teens about the time the ‘fuselage’ look was coming into vogue, and the roof played a more integral part of the design. So I was a bit surprised to find how many convertibles I had.
If I leave out sports cars, which I’ve covered before, and prewar cars, which I’ll get to later this year, this assignment becomes more manageable. Especially once I put aside T-tops; I’ll cover them another time. Along with sunroofs. And off-roaders. And cars like the 2CV which have a roll-back fabric roof. And a lot of other stuff…
So, postwar American drop-tops it is, like the ’49 Ford above.
One of my favourite cars, this stepdown Hudson is a ’52.
An American friend sent me this ’55 Chevy kit. It took a while, but I’d like to think I did it justice.
I did say no sports cars, but the ’57 Bird was more of a cruiser, surely? I like them anyway, so in it goes.
Okay, there, with a ’58! Definitely no sporting pretensions now!
’58 Cadillac goodness.
More Cadillac goodness, this time a ’59.
Love these ’61s, they look light on their feet, er, wheels.
The ‘62’s tail looks a lot heavier. Don’t get me started about ‘63s.
’62 Studebaker. But of course I barrack for the underdogs.
There, two seats. Um, nice, but this ’66 T Bird still is not a sports car…
I can think of one guy in particular who’ll want to see more of this ’66 Olds…
… so here you are!
Another heavy cruiser, this ’70 Bonneville.
And this golden ’72 Oldsie 442 brings this story to an end. No idea what we’ll cover next time, but I’ll see you then!
Ah ………… what scale are these? 1/24th ?
Mostly 1/25. Some folk make a big issue about the scale difference, but not me. The ’58 T-bird and the Cadillacs are 1/24.
It’s always a delight to view your amazing work. The color combo on the 55 Chevy is the best I’ve ever seen.
My eyes tell me the colors on the ’55 Chevy are an ‘injustice’! LOL! Too late to unsee it…
The ” ’62 442 ” is a ’67 or ’66… ’62 would be Jetfire or Starfire… (I had a Jetfire)
My buddy has a ’51 Ford hardtop coupe. He owned it 40 years before someone at a cruise night told him: “You do know that’s a convertible, don’t you?” He didn’t. Turns out ’51 was one year only available bolt on top (probably worth $5K alone now). It was the only way to get a hardtop coupe. Since all 4 windows roll down on a convertible. Otherwise you got a ’51 2 door sedan.
An artist drew a sketch of a customize ’62 T-Bird that was shown in Hot Rod Magazine. They loved it. Another buddy of mine with a body shop built that car as it was sketched. They super loved it and he, the car, or some mention of them was in seven straight issues of the Magazine (I have them). As I recall, they also made it their Car of the Year. ( I have a special affinity with H R Mag. as we were both born in Jan. ’48 ) Here’s that car:
https://www.hotrod.com/features/73838-1962-ford-thunderbird-convertible
And as a model:
Rando, my typing is terrible. It doesn’t matter how many times I proofread something before I send it in, there’s always an error that slips through. And I do know better. I’ve had to correct two typos in this reply already. When I looked sat this on my screen just now I thought “Oh no!” and hoped nobody would notice, but – there you go. Yes, it’s a ’66. (And 6 is nowhere near 2…).
The ’62 Thunderbird is one of those cars that just nailed it as far as looks. I remember seeing one as a kid (I’m in Australia) and just being blown away by the sleek futuristic-looking not-a-sports car. So when the AMT kit came out (with the optional parts for the Sports Roadster version) I had to build one.
Oops, that was my typing to blame. It will be fixed up shortly.
Thanks, Cang. As you see from Rando’s comment below it’s a bit edgy, a bit polarizing. I can live with that. In real life and under certain lights the blue on the rear has slightly more of a greenish tinge which ties in the green of the front. But it is a strong contrast, I’ll admit.
I liked the bullet Birds when I was young (and they were new), and your ‘62 with the tonneau/headrest setup reminds me why. I think The Stig likes it too. The 442’s are pretty nice as well; in fact all of them are. Nice.
Thanks dman. For me the bullet Bird, especially with that tonneau, tapped into the futuristic vibe in a way no other Bird did, almost like a show car/concept car for the road.
Wow, Peter. These are really nice. Excellent model choices, always so well executed, and presented. Thank you for sharing such great, creative work!
Thank you for the encouragement.
I love looking at the background of your photos where more cars are parked. That self park lot behind the 58 Caddy has some nice items also. I wonder what your daily parking rate is.
Nice work. Fave of this bunch is the 59 Ford.
I think the ” ’58 Caddy ” is actually a ’57 Eldorado. Eldorados at that time tended to get hints of the next year’s model/tail fins/design. That’s why the tail fins on that car look like they’re embedded into the body bulge instead of following the typical ’58’s body’s lines.
The gaudy extra chrome also says ‘Eldorado’…
Rando, it is actually a ’58. The ’57 was similar but this has the ’58 front end.
Lee, you’ve got me thinking. You’re not the only one who loves looking at the background. Maybe I need to do a story about cars in the background some time? When I showed that Caddy in my modeling groups I did get a fair bit of comment about the models in back, and there are some eye-grabbing colours there.
Like your 55 Chevy. Attached is my interpretation I completed 20 years ago.
Very tasteful.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that Focus CC had some kind of fault. Hard-top convertibles are fine until something doesn’t work right and the potential for breakage looks alarming if the timing goes out.
Of course no roof really shows off the interiors in models. Much easier to appreciate the detail you’ve put into them and a lot of these are very colourful.
It was the first time I’d seen a Focus CC; I hadn’t even realised they sold them here. We’re not really much of a convertible country, probably because the sun down here has a real kick to it. While I have seen a few hardtop convertibles around, l’ve never seen one with the top down, most seem content to have the windows down and leave the top up. Yes, the mechanism would have many potential failure points.
Bernard, I’m glad to show off the interiors. I don’t strive to put extra detail into a convertible’s interior, but sometimes it just happens!
Sorry, this is the photo I meant to include.
‘
Lovely!
I love the color of the Olds that is the lede and ending photo. A beautiful model.
Also, your 1962 Studebaker had me initially believing that you’d set that up as a proper right-hand-drive car for your part of the world. Closer examination indicated that I was wrong. Then again, that got me to wondering if there were any actual RHD Studebakers, as this seems like something that Studebaker would have done. Sure enough…. It’s not a convertible, but a 1961 hardtop. Close enough.
https://www.studebakercarclubnsw.com/61lrk-ht-sl01.html
Thanks for the great pics and another delightful rabbit hole, Peter.
Always glad to provide a rabbit hole, Jeff. Other CC writers do it to me often enough!
The paint on the Olds was a happy accident. I started with a gold base and overlaid some orange-tinted clear with a bit of extra yellow.
Whie I do occasionally dabble in RHD conversions, the only one here today is the ’58 T-bird. Studes were sold here new, but only the sedans and they weren’t all that common. I remember the police using them (smallish car, powerful V8) as pursuit cars. They have a very enthusiastic following, so I suspect that one was brought in later and converted.
All beautiful! It was because of becoming cognizant of CC’s worldwide readership that I started paying attention to the flip-flopping of the seasons from what I had taken for granted. Wow. Your water also spins the opposite direction down the drain (thank you, “The Simpsons”!).
I think that part of what’s great about convertibles as scale models is that you don’t have to lift it up to your eyes and squint in order to see the detail on the inside. Looking at the difference in styling between the ’58 and ’59 Cadillac shows just how much the emphasis on the tailfin had been taken to the utmost extreme.
We had a lot of migrants in the area where I grew up, Joseph, so from a young age I was quite accustomed to ‘things being different up there’. Not only the differences in languages and accents, but the things they told about where they were from – though nobody mentioned plugholes! This was added to by being given a huge 1930s geography text (with a ‘That’ll keep you quiet!’) which had about ten pages on life in about 50 different countries. Fascinating! (Especially when I found the picture of “The latest type of Motor Car, 1934”)
But I still forgot it was Spring up there until Rich reminded me.
Yes, convertibles do show off the interior well. I don’t usually put extra effort in, only sometimes.
I don’t know that I could ever pick one favorite Cutlass, but ’72 is definitely in the running, so that one certainly caught my eye. Love the color.
They all look good, but you have my admiration for finishing the ’59 Skyliner. The best thing about the various reissues of that kit may be the lesson in how much better things got over the years. At one point I went quite far into the weeds trying to figure out ways to improve the accuracy of the top mechanism and the hinges and such. The farther I got, the more I realized how much they had to compromise to make it work at all. I suspect if I had just built it from the box, It would have been done a couple of decades ago instead of still in the projects pile. 😉
Thanks Dan. That entire generation of Cutlass were all good lookers, my favourite of the entire GM A-body fleet. The Revell kit is fairly recent, and excellent. They’ve also done a hardtop now, but the fastback one, not the Cutlass Supreme.
That Skyliner must have made lots of kids take up stamp collecting or something. So many parts don’t quite fit right, or just manage to get in the way of other parts, and stop them working. Or break when you put a bit of stress on them (eg. roof flap hinges). But I did manage to get the roof functional on that one. And I would’ve been in my mid-teens at the time! Magic, or something…
You’ve outdone yourself, Mr. W. These cars are gorgeous. It’s hard to pick a fave — that Hudson, the ’55 and ’61 Chevies, the ‘Birds? No, it’s that Cutlass. The Gold exterior/Wine Red interior just works, and the white top lets the upholstery pop(!) .
These are just fun posts. Sometimes I catch myself wishing I could put my hands on the cars (but I’d be too worried about causing some harm).
Thanks again, sir.
Now how did I guess? As soon as Rich mentioned convertibles, I thought of you, and that car. That’s why I gave it two pics.
I claim no credit for the colours, they came from the Holden range for ’66. I’ll often ‘misappropriate’ local colour schemes to American cars. The local sedan pops with a white roof, so I figured the white top boot would work on this much bigger convertible; black would seem too drab.