BIG PONTIAC resurrection post.
Resurrecting an old 1/8 Pontiac that I first assembled in around 1992 when I was an early teen . I got this for christmas and as my model skills were, lets say minimal, all I did was polish the plastic body, painted the engine . I broke the hood decal during assembly, It had the usual hood warpage that these had.
Over the next couple it years after I built it, it got worse and worse. Regular breakages being so big in a small bedroom with a teenager .
So I decided to dismantle it and try and restore it. That was a bad idea as I had no idea how to do it. So it sat in pieces in a box for about 4 years covered in orange peeled paint and a blob of putty on the hood where I tried to fill in the warpage .
Since then its endured 5 house moves. Has sat for two years on a window sill in an attic getting sun baked, and covered in spiders.
Sat in an old wooden shed at the bottom of the garden for 4 years, where it did become home to a massive spider .
I then tried to restore it around 2002 but the windshield snapped in half and the hood broke in several more places. I decided to call it a loss, but was reluctant to get rid of it.
So it sat in the shed again till 2010 when I moved house. There I stored it in the garage on a concrete floor under a work bench. This garage had a leaky roof...a very bad one, and the floor used to flood so this poor Ponitac spent a lot of time half underwater in winter..
I moved house again, and kept it on top of a work bench next to my modelling stuff using the big interior tub to hold drill bits and scalpel blades etc . This is where I used to strip paint so it used to get splashed with paint stripper all the time.
So now it had a shattered hood with pieces missing from it, a crushed rear wheel, cracked rear window, split windshield. A large part of the wind shield frame had detached. Crack up the rear fender, another crack on the roof and very filthy tyres from being exposed to various garage atmospheres etc
Now I had given up all hope and the only thing that kept from binning it was the fact its travelled through life with me, from early teens to now my mid 40's.
Anyway, fast forward a couple of year to 2023, and I have discovered how to make windshields from clear plastic. So I took some unused covid face shields from work, to use. Ok I thought, I can solve the windshield problem at least.
Then in Feb this year I bought the revell re-issue of this car. Then two months later found the original monogram version (this version), in mint unbuilt condition on Ebay. So decided to buy that. So now I have 3 of these 1/8 Pontiacs.
Anyway, as luck would have it, the Monogram version I bought came with a spare 81 turbo hood, three spare tyres, a decal sheet for the 81 turbo, and the wheels.
This has been a saviour for this project. I'm going to turn the Revell re-issue into an 81 Turbo using the spares that came with the Monogram issue . Which leaves a 79 Hood, wheels and three clean tyres for this old girl.
As I don't need two 79 Trans Ams, I'm turning this project into an Esprit.
So, in the 30ish years I've owned this, it was built up for about....2 of them. I think its time this old girl had a nice break .
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr" target="">
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr" target="">
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr" target="">
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr" target="">
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr" target="">
Big monogram trans am by Modelmadness, on Flickr