This AMT 1/25 scale 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 hardtop is one of my earliest surviving model kit buildups. It was one of the last models that I brush painted the body only in the summer of 1971, before I assembled it. I paid a $1.50 for the kit at a store called Arlans that used to be located in the Manor Shopping Center on the southwest side of Lancaster City, PA, that year. That chain of stores no longer exsists. Around the year 2000, I tried to knock the thing totally down to repaint the interior, chassis, and engine compartment. As you can see, I was only partially successful. I could not remove the interior box from the body to repaint it in colors to match, so I let it go. I was afraid that if I would have used too much force, the whole assembly would have shattered,so I let it go with the chassis and engine compartment detailled only. It still is a very presentable model for being built over 40 years ago, by a 13 year old kid, (me). It is painted Pactra light blue, and yellow. (Ugly two-tone color combination, I know, but I had to make do with the paints I had on hand, as my parents did not let me go out and buy new paints for every new model kit that I bought.) Many years later, I found out that one of these cars played the star role in the 1958 Robert Mitchum movie, "Thunder Road".
Jim.