As much of a thrill as it has been to have my own car replicated in 1:18 in high-end fashion, I always feel I can make any diecast just a little bit better. The look of the car that Lane's replicated for the maroon '65 Chevelle is how I have the car in completely stock configuration for shows. When I cruise with the car, I typically have a larger front sway bar, a rear sway bar and '69/'70 SS wheels with wide Goodyears. Since I have a number of copies of this diecast (go figure!) I decided it would make sense to use one to replicate my car in it's "street" confirguration.
I've never been a big fan of the stock '65 SS hubcaps but they have grown on me over the years, but I really think this car looks outstanding with a set of the '69/'70 SS wheels on it. The previous owner had put them on my car back in 1969 and a set of the wheels have been with the car ever since.
While the tires I used were not an exact match to the tires I run on my 1:1, they are Goodyears and they give the impression of what I run on the street pretty well. While I was in the process of modifying the car to accept these wheels donated from a Lane's '70 Chevelle, I took the opportunity to also raise the front ride height a bit to level out the car. I think I might make this mod to all my '65 Chevelle models, it really does improve the look of the stance and it's easy to do.
As incredible as the engine compartment is on these cars, I did manage to improve on it in a number of ways. First, I removed the power brake booster as my car does not have power brakes. A bit of silvery color was added to the battery cable terminals and the fitting in the top of the water pump. I straightened out the plug wires to more accurately approximate how they are routed and I chromed the fuel filter bracket which was inaccurately painted black. I think losing the power brake booster was the single largest improvement.
The majority of the overall changes were made to the undercarriage. I added the Z16-style shorter tail pipes that do not include the resonators and I added boxed rear control arms and a rear sway bar scavenged from a Z16. Some of the additional changes to the chassis are the wheel swap and ride height lift of the front end mentioned above. I also painted the nose of the starter silver after I took thise photo. Additional detailing was added to the bolt heads on the transmission crossmember and the transmission mount. The body area between the frame rails and the rocker moldings was showing body color so it got painted satin black. I did have to open up the rear wheelwells a touch to clear the wider tires.
The orange stripes on the driveshafts of these models were placed on the wrong end so I repainted the driveshaft, replaced the orange stripes at the transmission end and added the stencil painted part number in yellow. These numbers are less than 1/16" tall and were a bit of work to apply. The photo doesn't do them justice but I can't get my camera to focus much closer than this.
On the interior side of things I painted the shifter boot black, filled in the extraneous hole in the driver's door and removed the rear seat belts. Once the rear belts were removed I had to touch up the paint on the seats and fill the holes left from where the belts were attached. Rear seat belts were an extremely rare option and my car does not have them.
