'68 Fury Wagon: Chassis and drivetrain

The theme of an upcoming model show being Grocery Getters, I dusted off the resin '68 Fury Wagon from Motor City Resins. The idea was to build it as a slightly beaten daily driver with select upgrades, and I was going to start with Ross Gibson's lovely hot rod Slant 6 until I discovered that the base engine in the Fury in '68 was the 318.




Wanting to avoid the obvious go-fast upgrades, such as Hemi or a Viper motor, I dug out the base motor from the Li'l Red Wagon, which doesn't look like a Hemi. Period correct red engine paint highlights the pair of double pumper Holleys taken from the excellent kit of the '61 Starliner.





With the engine complete, the next step was to mate the rear interior tub from the resin kit to the front floor pan stolen from the '67 Coronet Foose kit, while stretching the Coronet chassis 5 mm to match the longer wagon wheelbase. A lot of cutting, hacking and 5-minute epoxy sessions ensued to compensate for the excessively simplistic chassis that came with the resin kit, and to add the 5" to the wheelbase that differentiates the coupes from the wagons and pedestrian 4-doors. First step was getting the wagon bed to sit down over the Coronet wheel wells.  



Thick resin bits. The resin body was warped but a hot water treatment seems to have mostly fixed it; it might need a second treatment.





Next was to cut the wagon interior, Coronet interior, and chassis, and insert the 5 mm extension.





Brass rod of 2 mm diameter and lots of 5 minute epoxy to keep it all straight.



It's all lining up OK so far. Some added interior trim will be needed, and the Coronet interior panels will need to be trimmed to fit. Maybe I'll convert the wagon to 2-doors by moving the B pillar rearwards and re-scribing the doors. C-pillar could be deleted to make it all nice and clean. 



Stay tuned! This is coming along.