Back when I was twelve years old, I built a model of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's custom car "Mysterion". I entered this model in the "Revell-Testor 3rd Annual Model Car Customizing Contest". I was lucky enough to win my region. Along with the nice trophy, I also won a Yamaha motorbike. When my model returned to me through its travels, it was a bit broken. Later on I really don't remember much of of what happened to it. It may be that like others, the tires melted the rear wheels away and I must have just had to trash it. Anyway...
...here it is fifty eight years on and I have decided that I wanted to have a model of the Mysterion to go with my trophy so that my grandchildren will have some idea what the trophy was for.
This build is pretty much how I built the original model, with a few exceptions since technology has caught up with me. Those changes being the use of "MAD" distributor caps, aftermarket instrument gauge decals and Tamiya "Smoke" to tint the canopy. My original model only had braided fishing line for spark plug wiring glued to the top of the distributor caps. The "MAD" caps are very nice and so worth not having to drill tiny holes in the caps myself. Back then I didn't realize that the canopy was tinted, so, I thought that I would give "tinting" a try. Turned out OK.
The original model came with a packet of "flock" to do the interior with. This newer version of the model did not. So, I bought some from a hobby suppy outlet and was able to make it look just as I built the original.
Mostly the model went together very easily. The only exceptions were that the mounting of the body and the cyclops nose needed some shims in order to get a solid place to mount each piece.
Another lifesaver has been the invention "Molotow" chrome paint. I used the large container bottle which allowed me to use a brush to do touch up work and in most cases you can not tell the difference! I don't remember having to scrape so much chrome plating off of parts in order to get the proper mating surfaces in order to get the parts to stick together! There is a lot of chrome in this kit!
The kit did not come with oil filters for the engines nor alternators (along with a lot of other things that a car needs to run but there was no room to install), so, I did fabricate those and installed them in the appopriate places. You can see an orange "Fram filter hiding behind the framework on the left side.
Here are some more photos:
This was not meant to be any kind of super detail build, just, something close to my original award winning model from back 1965. And YES, I painted the original metallic green, because I liked the color!
PS - I still have all of the paperwork & (Telegram!) that was sent from Revell!