The Black Nash

As a kid, I remember riding in our 1950 Nash Ambassador from northwest LA (near Shreveport) to the coast of SC (near Georgetown).  It was a BIG black car with front seats that would fold down.  My mother would ride for miles on end in the middle of the front seat supported by a small part of the left half of the front seat while the three kids played on what ended up being literally a level mattress in the rest of the car.  Behind the driver's seat was a cooler with a little padding to match the back seat cushion.  Often the travel was at night to avoid traffic and the summer heat -- no AC for sure.

So, it was only appropriate for a 1956 scene to include a BIG black Nash Ambassador:

This kit has been in my possession for a while, like the Southern Railway boxcar, so while nursing for the wife continues, I pulled it out and put it together.

Tough to get a good paint job with a brush, but from a distance the finish looks OK.  Two comments worth mentioning:

First, just because the box plainly says, "Peel & Stick White Walls" doesn't mean that the modeler will use them.  Just after a somewhat sloppy job of flat white painting on the tires, the little sheet of peel and stick white walls in the kit was examined to see what it was.  Doh!

Second, the kit came with a small piece of Lexan  to be cut to fit and glued into the car interior for window glass.  That's easier said than done. . . .  So, just the windshield and rear window are Lexan.  The contours of the openings do not lend to flat sheets of plastic.  But, the instructions also mentioned using Micro Scale Krystal Klear.  None of that handy, but a bottle of Micro Master Clear Parts Cement & Window Maker was.  Instructions suggested collecting cement on the end of a paint brush and rolling around window opening, withdrawing slowly.  A paint brush handle was not going to fit in the vent window, so a round toothpick, pointed at only one end, was substituted -- used the blunt end.  It worked amazingly well!  The "windows" are not perfectly flat, but at least give the impression of glass.  Not very well evident in photos, but the windows without Lexan all have cement windows except for the front door windows which are "rolled down".

Now to decide where this Ambassador goes on the layout.