Ocean's Eleven Ford Falcon Futura

       

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Original Kit:
1963 Falcon Futura
Made By:
AMT (promo)
Scale:
1/25
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Ford Falcon Futura used in the movie Ocean's Eleven
Ocean's Eleven Falcon Futura dashboard Ocean's Eleven Falcon Futura interior Ocean's Eleven Falcon Futura rear

 
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Rusty's '63 Falcon ragtop may not have had the star power of the rest of Ocean's Eleven, but it was great to see an unaltered classic in the film. It had been on my wish list of movie cars for a while, but the only available starting point was a promo that just kept getting rarer and more expensive with each passing year. I finally lucked out, finding one that was - near as I could tell - buried somewhere outside of Vegas since the '70s. The windshield frame, windshield, steering wheel, and rear bumper were all broken and missing, the left rear corner of the body was broken off, and it needed a thorough cleaning.

After disassembling everything and giving a good wash in Dawn, I got to work fixing the damage. The body corner was repaired by gluing a piece of sheet styrene inside the body overlapping the hole, then using that to build off of. With a few sheets of plastic to match the thickness and some superglue as filler, the damaged area was all but gone. The windshield would have been a much more difficult problem if not for Round 2's recent reissue of the AMT '60 Falcon Ranchero kit. While the Ranchero and Futura don't quite have the same windshields, there was enough of the broken base left on the promo to give me the right angle and general size. I cut out the Ranchero frame and matched it to the Futura base, filling in the seams with more superglue and adding back the vent window frames after they had been cut to fit the new angle.

The Ranchero also provided the correct steel wheels with small caps, steering wheel, column shift, headlights, rear bumper, and front seat. I had not originally planned to replace the front seat, but after seeing that the Ranchero's bench matched the movie car perfectly it just had to happen. I carved out both seats, added a back to the bench seat, and reshaped the sides so that it would fit the Futura's bucket nicely. Unfortunately, this now mean that the rear seat pattern was all wrong. So I used the Dremel to carve out the shape of the insert and made a new pleated pattern with sections of round stock (much like I did for the interior of the Hairspray Corvette). This got me close, but the round stock made the pleats a little too well-defined. To better match the front seat, I cut a strip of aluminum tape to size and carefully pressed it down over the pattern. This softened the gaps, and made for a near-perfect match.

In the movie, the car had a nice patina look that I wanted to capture. The body was painted Testors Flat Black, then polished to give it an uneven semigloss finish. The trim was done with a combination of Bare Metal Foil, Liquid Chrome, Paint, Sharpie, and colored pencil. I intentionally left some of the grille damage alone, since the wear and color fit the movie car. Inside, Tamiya TS-23 Light Blue was applied over dark green, then the inserts were done with several light mists of multiple colors to give it the proper woven look. Everything was Dullcoted and weathered, then the trim was painted with some Testors Metallic Silver. The chassis was done with a similar combination of paints and weathering to give it a used but still roadworthy appearance. Finally, a set of screen-accurate plates were added and the Falcon Futura was ready to hit the strip!

 

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