My return to the model car hobby after an absence of about fifteen years coincided nicely with the re-release of the Futura, and I snapped up the first one I could find. By then my building techniques had improved significantly, so then began one of the longest “kit contemplation” periods I’ve ever experienced. I had the kit for about four years before I finally got around to building it. Click on any of the images for a larger version.  
 
Part of this was because I couldn’t quite decide what I wanted to do with it. I initially considered using it as a basis for a full detail replica, but after a fair amount of research, I decided that this wouldn’t be a very practical approach. There isn’t a lot of information available about the Futura, because most of the records were destroyed in a fire at Ford Motor Co. in 1962. A lot of conjectures have been made about the car, but many are just that…conjectures. So, lacking what I considered sufficient information, I finally decided to build it box stock. Even so, this still required a fair amount of research, and my primary source became the December 1996 issue of Collectible Automobile magazine, which contains a large feature story on the Futura. A secondary research source was the Internet, and I found a lot of additional photos and information through a number of Web searches. Finally I was ready to begin.

  
  The first step was to prepare all the parts, remove flash and take care of any minor imperfections. This was surprisingly easy, especially in view of the age of the original tooling. For the most part the reissued kit was very clean, with very little flash to contend with…not bad for a 40+ year old tool!
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Next came the painting. This was no simple feat for a number of reasons. Very few color photos of the Futura exist, and most of those are quite old and the colors have faded and/or shifted. But using those as a basis, along with the Collectable Automobile article, which described the color as a “pearlescent, frost-blue white” I had an idea of what I wanted to do.		  
 
Because of the way the kit was engineered and the way it builds up, it wasn’t possible to pre-assemble the multi-piece body prior to painting. I was concerned about possible minor color differences between the individual body panels, so I decided to mount them all on a large sheet of cardboard so they could be painted simultaneously.

 
  Click to enlarge To make sure I could easily get to all the surface areas of each part, I cut pieces of Styrofoam, thick enough to make sure the parts would be well above the cardboard surface, and used double-sided pieces of masking tape to mount them.
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This technique came in handy because the cardboard acted like an artist’s palette throughout the painting process. I was able to hold it and turn it to various angles to make sure I had uniform coverage on all the parts. The only precaution I took was to make sure the parts were securely fastened down so they wouldn’t fall off. The two main interior parts were also included, because according to my research, part of the Futura’s upholstery was color-keyed to the exterior paint.