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| The Coronet was the high end of Dodge’s B-bodies. Andy built his Coronet by modifying the 1/25 scale AMT Super Bee kit. |
The Coronet was top of the line in Dodge’s B-bodies. Nineteen-seventy was the last year for this model, and the 425hp Hemi R/T was the ultimate in this series. The R/T package included beefed-up suspension and drive-train components. Bucket seats were standard, and the interior was trimmed with wood grain and leather. The raw power of the Hemi and the R/T package was softened by the luxurious interior – truly a fist in a velvet glove. This was the ultimate boulevard cruiser. So let’s build one!
To the best of my knowledge the 70 Coronet R/T had never been released in kit form. There was an old MPC 70 Super Bee, but that was a base model, and came with the 383 engine and the non-vented dome hood. AMT re-released a version of this Super Bee kit in the early 90’s and it came with the vented hood, complete with the Ramcharger intake and double hood scoops, which would be necessary for a Hemi-equipped vehicle in 1970. The kit also included a nice Hemi engine.
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| Wood grain was added to the dash, center console and door panels to upgrade the kit’s Super Bee interior to Coronet standards. |
The Coronet and the Super Bee were basically the same vehicle with only a few cosmetic changes that had to be scratch built. The most prominent difference is the tail panel and tail lights. The Coronet had a flat tail panel with the triple tail lights on each side that were a further tweak on the late 60’s Coronet tail lights. The Super Bee had a convex tail panel with single elongated lozenge shaped tail lights on each side. The other prominent external difference between the Coronet and the Super Bee were the non-functional side scoops between the door and the rear wheelwell. These carried R/T badging when appropriate.
As you can probably guess by now, the base kit for this project was the AMT 70 Super Bee. I scratch built the tail light panel from Evergreen sheet. I cut out the embossed DODGE logo from the Super Bee tail panel and glued this into a hole cut in the styrene sheet. The individual tail lights were made from 28 gauge wire wrapped around a jig carved from styrene rod – basically a square rod with the corners rounded off. Three of these wire hoops were glued onto a suitably shaped piece of styrene for each side. These two assemblies were then glued onto the larger piece which had the DODGE logo. The entire panel was covered with Bare Metal Foil, and clear red was used for the lens, clear white for the backup lamps and everything was covered in flat black. The chrome lamp surrounds and the DODGE lettering were revealed in chrome by scraping away the black paint. The only inaccuracy in this tail panel is that there should be an R/T logo below the DODGE script, but there wasn’t room since the DODGE script is actually smaller on the Coronet than the Super Bee. I couldn’t work out how to shrink the script so I left off the R/T emblem on the tail panel.
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| Andy modified the Super Bee kit’s convex tail plane and lozenge shaped, single piece lights (top) to the Coronet’s flat tail plane and triple tail lights, as well as adding the non functioning side scoops in front of the real wheel wells (bottom). |
Next, the side scoops were made from sheet styrene. The scoops are contoured to follow the sculpted body side and are not square boxes. I made the top and bottom of the scoops from 0.060” styrene sandwiched between inner and outer sides from 0.030”. I precurved the sides by rolling over a round metal rod and then glued the four pieces together. I then sanded a round contour into the top and bottom pieces, which was why they were made from thicker pieces. I cleaned up the inlet with an X-Acto blade. The R/T decals came from the Monogram 69 Charger kit.
The rest of the model was assembled pretty much box stock. I upgraded the interior to Coronet standards by adding wood grain trim to the dash, center console and door panels. The upholstery pattern is different on the door panels for the Coronet, but since I was doing a black interior it doesn’t show, so I cheated and used the Super Bee panels. The AMT kit comes with a 69 Coronet dash for some reason, and this looks closer to the 70 Coronet than does the 70 Super Bee, so I used this dash. I detail painted the dash by dry brushing white and silver over the flat black gauge faces, and used 5 minute epoxy for gauge glass. The Magnum shifter came from a Challenger kit.
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| The Hemi engine comes with the Super Bee kit and was detailed using electrical and jewelry wire. Andy scratch built the carb linkage, heater, battery cables and other items. |
The Hemi engine comes with the Super Bee kit, and was detailed using electrical and jewelry wire. No aftermarket parts were used. You can get jewelry (beading) wire from craft stores such as Michaels, and it comes in silver and gold in gauges as thin as #32 (0.007”). This wire is perfect for a variety of uses, including making hose clamps. I scratch built everything including the throttle and carb linkage, throttle return springs, carb venturis, resistor packs, heater, coolant and vacuum hoses, battery cables from wire and plastic strip.
During this build, I worked out why AMT gives you such nicely detailed hood hinges and springs. You can’t close the hood if you use the kit supplied Ramcharger setup! The Ramcharger duct-work is too wide and hits the washer bottle on one side and the battery on the other side. Of course, Murphy dictated that I wouldn’t find this out until I was in the final assembly stage after everything was painted and decaled. Because of this, I narrowed the Ramcharger duct by taking out 1/16” from each side between the air cleaner gasket and the intake horns with a razor saw. It’s not too noticeable and now the hood fits on with the air cleaner in place as well. Underhood detail decals came from the Last Detail and Fred Cady.
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| Andy built the side scoops from 0.060” and 0.030” sheet styrene. The R/T decals came from the Monogram ‘69 Charger kit. |
The model was mainly painted with Testors Modelmaster colors. The body was primed with gray Plastikote and then painted Modelmaster Sublime, which is a very good match for the original color. The interior was Testors Acryl black. I used various sheens on the black to add visual interest to the interior. The different sheens came from gloss and semi-gloss clears, and also from rubbing the flat black with a soft cloth or finger. I used this last method to make wear marks on the seats and headrests. The carpet was black flocking from Detail Master. Seat belts were scratch built from black cartridge paper with Bare Metal Foil buckles. The vinyl roof was a combination of flat black and semigloss black misted on from about 5’. With the rest of the body suitably masked off, I put the model on the ground and stand over it with the rattlecans. By the time the paint hits the model it is almost dry and it has a pebbly texture. When the paint is dry you can rub it with your fingers to give a shine to the top of the texture. This really gives a good impression of a scale vinyl top. One-sixteenth inch Chartpak tape was used for the seams (applied before the paint).
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| The tail light panel was built from Evergreen sheet. The DODGE logo is from the Super Bee tail panel. The individual tail lights were made from 28 gauge wire wrapped around a jig carved from styrene rod. |
The body was clear coated with Modelmaster Boyds High Gloss clear and rubbed out with Detail Master cloths. These cloths come in six grades of mesh ranging from 2400 to 12000. Final polish was with Novus #2. Several different washes were used to bring out details in the engine bay and chassis. The chassis was painted flat and semi-gloss black and dry-brushed with various colors to represent the grime of a daily driver. The tire lettering is dry-transfer from Shabo.
This model was great fun to build and fills a void in my Mopar collection. It’s especially gratifying when someone sees the model and says “where did you get a 70 Coronet?”
Andy Kellock began modeling in 1965. He joined IPMS/Australia in 1977 and joined SVSM in 2000. Andy’s modeling interests include cars from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s as well as aircraft from the period between World War II and Vietnam.
