Decals Update – #002

Going into the new year with some more new sets, desperately trying to finish one series of a model before going to the next and more or less leaving it in progress forever. Since December 2nd, there’s sixteen new sets and as I type this I’m literally finishing off two more.

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New Sets – 1976-1980 Chevrolet Monza

One of the biggest to-do’s on my list for well over two years was to do the Chevrolet Monza, they’ve kind of become super illusive these days and I always got turned off by the 60$+ MPC kits that are already opened or started and even the promos were more often than not sitting around the forty bucks range, so it just… never happened. But then I got lucky, a Dutch seller had a ’77 and a ’79 Monza 2+2 promo and I found a 99% finished ’78 Monza MPC kit that was just… in pieces. It was missing a lot of parts, some tires, one of the tail lights, the rear window louvers, so forth, but for decal designing that would do just fine.

Left to Right Top: ’77 Monza Spyder, ’77 Monza Mirage & ’78 Monza GT Prototype(Z29 Code)
Left to Right Bottom: ’80 Monza Spyder & ’77 Monza Mirage BORT “Rapide” Prototype

So far I’ve got all but two of the Monzas I wanted to do ready and able, the one that is pretty much a ground up design from just grainy, crappy photographs is the 1980 Spyder, which I shit you not is damn near impossible to find. Thanks to the Monza Homestead, I found some excellent info on some really, truly elusive Monzas and Monza concepts, like the BORT Rapide, the first running prototype of what would eventually become the ’77 Monza Mirage GT and the ’78 Monza Scorpion, a dealer option decal upgrade on 2+2s that honestly no-one seems to have any idea about where they came from, or what they originally truly looked like – that one’s coming soon, it’s a hell of a lot of work doing that one.

The next big list of Monza, or rather H-Body list are the various Buick Skyhawk editions, like the two Free Spirits, the Roadhawk and Nighthawk. Maybe down the line the Oldsmobile Starfire editions like the Firenza GT, Starfire GT and so on.

New Sets – 1969 Chevrolet Camaro

Ever since I discovered that the ’69 Camaro Baldwin by Revell could only be built with the white stripes in mind, I figured this had to change. But other things kept taking precedence and it just fell to the back every time, until now. I bought the Yenko Camaro and Baldwin Motion Camaro kits by Revell and grabbed my old Revell of Germany ’69 kit to get as much stuff to nail the decal sheet the first time through. I effectively did the same thing with these sets as I did with the ‘Cuda, making all of the emblems, logos, air cleaner decals and such for every version that I could copy and re-use on any of the other sets, so this means you get enough emblems to do any of the Camaros with any set and it’s the extra bits and the stripes that make the set unique.

Left to Right Top: ’69 Camaro Z/28, ’69 Camaro SS DX-1 Stripes & ’69 Camaro ZL-1 COPO #9567 Concept
Left to Right Bottom: ’69 Camaro SS, ’69 Camaro ZL-1 Z/427 Concept & ’69 Camaro SS Baldwin Motion L-72 454

So the general Z/28, SS and RS stripes are there as well as the unique DX-1 option, but also the Baldwin Motion 454 and 427(which is coming up next), the ZL-1 COPO #9567 concept and the super rare one of a kind Bill Mitchell one-off ’69 Camaro Z/427.

Updated Set – 1970 Plymouth AAR ‘Cuda

Speaking of the aforementioned ‘Cuda, I re-did the ‘Cuda AAR set for the model world legend Tim Boyd so it wouldn’t just be more accurate but also have the exact amount and similarly sized blocks on the stripe to the real deal, and most importantly it follows the body curve like the real deal, unlike the Revell AAR ‘Cuda stripe.

’70 ‘Cuda AAR

New Sets – 1970-1971 Ford Torino

Couple of more of the… more random completions, I finally got around to finishing the ’71 Torino Cobra and the ’70 Torino King Cobra and actually started on the ’72 Torinos like the Gran Torino Sport and the Torino with the laser stripes. I wanted to get these out of the way before getting to the Mercury’s of the time, like the Cougar and Cyclone.

’71 Torino Cobra & ’70 Torino King Cobra

New Sets – 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass

Last month I re-did the whole Cutlass Hurst/Olds set to include the whole interior, far better resolution and quality body stripes and so on, and then I discovered the prototype 442 W-30 for ’85 that was part Darth Vader FE3-X and part 442 and… it needed a decal sheet to commemorate the damn thing existing. I also did the whole FE3-X set as well, given the Revell kit has far too thick stripes for the body and the gold emblems aren’t quite gold, so why the hell not. I’m also doing the ’83 Hurst/Olds as well and the ’85 442 just to complement the whole line-up.

’85 Cutlass 442 W-30 FE3-X Prototype & ’85 Cutlass FE3-X “Darth Vader” Prototype

And… that was it for now! The designing goes on still, and I also revamped the Decals page to be a bit less of a hassle to read, it’s more compact and less heavy to load in. It also now has all the prices in the list rather than in a separate PDF file, so hopefully that clears the whole thing up a little bit, I won’t lie – the damn page was a bit of a mess. Also, happy new years, still!