1978 Dodge Monaco, California Highway Patrol.
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[email protected]
This was an MPC brand kit, first I've done, I'm
usually partial to Revell ones. I found the
instructions not as thorough and as easy to
follow, and the fit of the parts not quite as nice
as the Revell kits. In particular it seemed like
the engine block was a bit warped, and the whole
thing lays in sort of crooked despite my best
attempts. I was happy with some details I did on
the interior of this car. There were a lot of cop
bits inside there to do: radios, first aid kit,
about 5 assault rifles and shotguns, and a car
phone that takes up half the back seat.
I think I made a lot of mistakes on this build. I
had trouble attaching the front firewall to the
front of the dash, and so it was jamming up
against the wheel wells when I tried to mount the
body on the chassis. I had to file down some
parts to make it go on, but it's still not right
to my eye: the front end rides high and the rear
end sags. I ended up having to use epoxy glue
instead of plastic cement in a few places to make
it the body hold on the chassis even as flawed as
it is. I never had this problem in other kits
before. I lost the rearview mirrors somehow, and
so I had to put on some other pieces that sort of
looks like mirrors. And the kit came with two
sets of wheels, a wide set and a normal set, and
somehow I missed the normal ones and so I sawed
down the wide ones to make the tires fit on them.
Waste of effort, and it doesn't look quite right.
And I pay attention to how wheels look on a car,
so it was a disappointing result, to me. But
overall, it looks good to me on the windowsill.
I love the shape of these old cruisers, big ol'
seventies cars. These '78 Dodge police packages
had a massive 7.2L (440cid) "RB" motors in them.
(Not a hemi.) Although the whole car for '78 was
a bit downsized from the older Monacos, is my
understanding.
--
"It's got cop tires, cop suspension, cop
shocks..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKmuKjpKPIo
These old dodges are a great car for when you're
on a mission from god...