Well folks, here’s my last custom for 2015. It’s based off Rod Emory’s black beauty 1958 356 A “Emory Special”. It was a milestone custom for me as it’s the first cast I’ve ever taken down to metal, altered and then sprayed. Am I happy with it? For the most part, yes, but I’m a perfectionist and everything didn’t go quite as planned but after a solid 8+ hours spanned over the course of a week I threw in the towel and started to snap some pictures.
Let’s start at the beginning. I was thrilled when I found out Hot Wheels was releasing this cast as I am a Porsche nut through and through (hence user name), but like most who are into the Porsche scene we were thoroughly confused with the choice to go with the Magnus Walker branding when 1) he’s a 911 guy and 2) the Emory family coined the term Outlaw when it comes to these bath tub Porsche’s. As it has been pointed out previously, MW has been in the mainstream a lot more lately then the Emory’s so marketing most likely dictated the decision, but come on, we need to give credit where credit is due.
On to the cast itself. I have to admit, it’s just ok, I have my gripes. First off it’s a Frankenstein 356 Porsche, it has the front end of a B/C generation and the rear of an A generation. I get that it’s a custom Porsche, but no one ever has put a late front end on an early car to make it look better... that’s just plain backwards. So one of my first modifications was to fill in the late B/C lower openings below the headlights. This cast had fairly prominent cast marks so those got ground down and the corners of the car got rounded off. Next to go was all the window trim, frames, and drip rails as in the real Emory Specials. I added some fender mirrors donated from a Datsun wagon and the smaller driving lights from an Escort. I added some quarter panel louvers as in the real Emory Special using a triangle file. The rear fender wells got rounded and moved up 1mm just like the real car. The whole shell got a coat of primer, high gloss enamel and then a good coat of glossy clear. Next time around I’ll take it easy on the coat thickness as I sadly lost a lot of detail in the casting. The red interior was awful so it got primered and then detailed, nothing like detail master craig-oesterling but I tried my best. The half cage is made out of paper clip clippings. I didn’t get too crazy with the exterior detailing and honestly I wasn’t thrilled at my attempts to replicate the headlight grills and beam patterns on the forward lights. I wanted to detail the rear of the car but the most I could manage was the tail lights and some exterior engine lid hinges, the grills were lost in a sea of gloss black and clear coat. As for wheel choice I think these were the closest I could get to the right look for the car and as for ride height I think I got a little carried away, I didn’t mean for the front to be raked but like I said, I had to throw in the towel at some point.
I hope you all enjoy and I’m looking forward to customizing in 2016 with some old favorites and new releases alike!
