Levitating 1969 Barracuda

       

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Original Kit:
1969 Plymouth Barracuda
Made By:
AMT/Ertl (kit #38275)
Scale:
1/25

 

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Customized 1969 Barracuda used in the music video for Levitating
Levitating Barracuda grille Levitating Barracuda flank Levitating Barracuda interior Levitating Barracuda engine Levitating Barracuda top Levitating Barracuda rear

 
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I've always had mixed feelings on fastbacks: there's no question about their place in automotive history and status as an iconic design. But more often than not, if the option is available I prefer cars as notchbacks or, in this case, convertibles. But the only option for a '69 Barracuda kit is the old MPC fastback, so when I wanted a model of the car featured at the beginning of Dua Lipa's Levitating I was going to have to either pick up a resin transkit or do some major body modifications. Cheapness won over laziness this time around, so I got to work.

To make the conversion, I started with saw cuts across the top of the windshield, at the base of the roof, and across the back deck about 3-4mm in from the trailing edge. I then made a new deck out of thick styrene sheet, further reinforced on the bottom with blocks of styrene at the corners and epoxy around the edges. This was going to require a fair bit of sanding plus scribing a new trunk seam, and I didn't want any surprise cracks showing up later. I also cleaned up the top edge of the windshield and the inevitable mold seperation lines and flash that come with older toolings like this. Everything was then painted Tamiya TS-87 Titanium Gold. The undersized grilles were left out in favor of PE mesh with scratch built headlights and the kit's parking lights. A combination of BMF and Molotow Liquid Chrome was used for the rest of the trim. The windshield was out of the kit, but because of how thick the glass was I opted to replace the wing windows with flat stock.

The interior needed a fair bit of reworking as well, since it was going to be fully visible. My first task was to correct its height, using the same trick I used on my Riptide Corvette: vertical cuts were made at the door panels and driveshaft hump, and flat styrene was added to the bottom of the bucket to increase the overall depth by a scale 2+ inches. The edges between new and original plastic were cleaned up, and the floor was carpeted with a few light coats of Krylon's "Make it Suede" texture paint. The front seats were all one part that included a center console, and the rear seat was a full width fold-down bench, making none of the seats usable for this project. I was able to reuse the front buckets by cutting them off of the console, reshaping their bases, and adding headrests from Revell's '69 Charger kit. The rear seat was entirely scratch built, and the side panels were narrowed for the convertible top. The dash was straight out of the kit, and the whole thing was painted Tamiya TS-69 Linoleum Deck Brown with silver, black, and dark brown details. The boot was modified from something I found in my parts box, enlarged and reshaped to fit then painted to match the interior.

The chassis and engine were pretty much straight out of the box. My only changes were a new belt assembly to replace the somewhat malformed kit piece, a parts box air cleaner to match the chrome valve covers, ignition wires, and a new set of wheels and tires to match the car in the video. The wheels were former Starsky & Hutch Torino Ansens, with parts box tires and sidewall lettering from Fireball Modelworks. The final detail was a rear license plate featuring the name of the song.

 

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