'40 Willys Pickup Gasser

This kit is another rerelease of an older AMT kit, with new tires and decals added to a poorly designed and molded kit. The result is a kit that requires a great deal of work and patience on the modeler's part to achieve a decent result. I did lift the front end of this model to get a more typical and (to me) pleasing stance for a gasser. I also used blue gel for the rear window, rather than the red included with the kit, because I think it looks better with the orange paint. 

I could not get the tilt-up hood to fit as designed, so I rebuilt the hinge, and also cut the rear part of the fenders from the cab, and mounted them to the hood to make the fender line look better. I broke the left fender during final assembly, after the decals had been applied, but rather than repaint the entire hood, I decided to simply spray the repaired area with primer. The resulting hood still doesn't fit exactly right, but looks better than OOB. I also should have raised the letterbox scoop a bit to improve the overall appearance.  

The only weathering I did was to add rubber dust from pre-race burnouts, and a bit of soot above the header outlets. 

I scratch-built a drag chute for the rear, as well as its control lever in the cab.