Wow- small details go a long way! Keep it coming!
HMC #36 - Ecto 1, I love the 80s!
So I’ve been trying to model each panel as a separate piece since well… they are different pieces. That will probably work for most of the car but that modeled piece at the end of the fender that the headlight mount attaches to is pretty much an extension of the fender. So I deleted the previous try and extended the fender out, got it right and then separated the 2 pieces. Glad I did because it was looking like poop. 
I also realized that the light that came with this environment was set for 300% so I switched to an area light instead of a distant and dropped it down to 100%. Whites are not nearly so blown out now. I’ll tweak the textures later once I get more modeling done.

Looking great so far 
I came by this video while looking for ref of the car I’m doing and I think it may help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70WmjPn_Vq0&list=UL
About 2minutes in
I found that side view but I think you already got it


and this link
if you scroll down you will find some detail
Wyatt, could you post some clays, or shiny material with no environment? There seem to be some wierd lumps and bumps on the wings, and i can’t tell if it’s the wing or the lighting
Appears to be unsmoothed render with env. possibly? Would explain the refractions at poly edges or maybe the FG is low-
Holy cow, that is a good reference. Thanks!
Sorry for the slow updates. I hit a particularly tricky set of curves I was trying to work out and I didn’t want to add any more geometry as it was flattening out the smooth profile.
Anyway as requested, here is a wireframe. As you can see, nice and smooth.
The weird lumps and bumps you see are a combination of the environment lighting and the material. I modified it to look like a funky paintjob and bondo. Still WIP though.

Little bit more done but it’s slow going. I’m in training all this week so haven’t had much time to work. I hope to get more done this weekend.


Looking really good! I may try this method next time- Complete a section at a time instead of roughing it all out then detailing.
I would think it makes it difficult to get your edge loops lining up cleanly from one mesh to another though…
No denying it but it is doable. Still, it helps in this case because the car needs to look quite a bit less than perfect. 
Latest update. Lots of refraction in the headlights so I’m likely to disable that in future renders until the final. Still this rendered in about 4min. I have a bit more time to work on this during the holidays so I hope to make better progress.

Wyatt, my friend, please dont get bogged down by the details.
Do the main body of the car and then go for the details.
Thanks for the encouragement Roberto but between the holidays and the huge amount of end-of-the-year projects I just haven’t been able to dedicate the time I need. I hate not finishing but that’s how it goes sometimes.
That is not a bad idea.
I bet a ton of people would love to work on all that crazy stuff on the top of Ecto1 while you concentrate on the body.
-R