papajohn97

Fabulous recreation of Grump’s first Camaro. The detailing and realism of the engine bay is an A+. I have the Slixx decal set for this one and am hoping that Revell re-pops this kit before I get too old to build and paint model cars, the ones on eBay are crazy $$$ ($80 - $100 with tax & shipping).

Wow Zip! You completed a ton of kits this last year and all beautiful top grade builds! My favorites are the El Camino, the orange ‘37 gasser and that ‘50 Chevy truck with the swamp cooler. Can’t wait to see what you post next year!

Very nice builds! Particularly love the lowered bird & ‘stang!

Now that’s the car I want to borrow when I burn up all the firewood this winter and need to make a quick run out for more! Beautiful job Pat on this cool outlaw 356. These Fujimi kits are not easy ones to assemble and it looks like you got all four tires in contact with the road and the ride height adjusted just right. Bravo!

‘23 was a pretty fun year for me for building car models. Despite being away from the man cave for a few months due to travel and recovery from surgery, I managed to complete the eight kits below (along with two aircraft, one tank and one ship). The bad news: I probably added three times as many unbuilt kits to my stash! 😵‍💫 Need to crank up the production numbers in ‘24! Much thanks to everyone for all the input and encouragement I’ve received on this forum. Happy holidays guys and keep the glue & paint flowing in ‘24! Cheers, John

What a cool idea and clean well-executed result. That Moebius cammer is one of my favorite 1/25 engines, looks like it was meant to fit into that super large Starliner engine bay. Love it!

Hey Mike, fellow post-prostatectomy car model friend! I had my robotic surgery in April as well and also celebrated my 6 month “non-detectable PSA” blood test in Oct, what a relief! We are both lucky to be alive in these days of robotic-assisted laparoscopic nerve-sparing surgery! Congratulations to us both! Cheers, John

Wow! Fantastic job Thomas on this hammerhead Tyrrell. The additional fasteners, wiring, springs, switches that you added really brings this build up to an MFH kit level. What paint/ technique did you use on the Cosworth block to make it look so realistic as a casting?

Great job Mario on one of my most favorite cars. Your street diorama photography is amazing!

I really enjoyed and learned a lot from your recent Bonneville convertible WIP and am so happy to see you’re doing another one with this Lemans. It’s incredible to me to see the results you get from starting with such old basic kits, simply amazing skill and artistry! This comment made me laugh. When I go to show a family member or friend some old social or travel related photo taken on my phone, they laugh at all the scale model related pics I have. If it weren’t for my cell phone, I would totally loose track of what I built and when! I’ve also started putting reference photos of each project I do (or intend to do) into digital albums which helps me find pics quicker. Thank goodness I have a 2T cloud capacity!

Enjoying your progress so far John on this classic. Very neat tidy paint & assembly results so far on the chassis. I built the Italeri Mercedes 540K a few years ago and remember the challenging of painting and assembling the body in pieces, hoping you’re able to bring it all together without damaging the red paint. Love these 1/24 Testors / Italeri/ Monogram classic kits, they are a nice change from the AMT/ Revell auto kits and are a good base to add extra detailing.

Amazing job that you’re doing so far Andy on this “Rubic’s Cube” kit. I noticed there are very few builds posted of this kit and now I understand why! I don’t ever recall seeing what one of these EB’s looked like with both doors open. After consulting a listing for one that was auctioned on bringatrailer.com, I learned that they included a weird angled vertical strut extending off the chassis on either side of the front seat: It looks like both doors engaged/ locked against this side strut. I’m not suggesting that you need to incorporate these struts in your build (you have enough to do with all the other mods!) but I just thought it was interesting how the designers/ engineers handled suicide doors on a four-door hardtop. I look forward to seeing how you conquer this beast!

Incredible result from this Lindberg kit, particularly the metalizing (Alclad?) paint work on the engine, front grill/ lights/ horn and wheels. I’ve recently gotten inspired to build the 1/24 classic auto kits and have been shopping for most of the old Monogram kits - I may have to add this Bugatti to my wish list.

Nice job Phil, love a 300 in red (I posted the green one last week) and the detail painting in the engine bay is particularly nice. The silver (stainless steel) paint at the rear of the roof is reminiscent of Chrysler Imperials of the late 50’s. Love this AMT kit and yours makes me want to build another one in red.

Absolutely! I can see Don Draper (Mad Men) cruising through Manhattan in this beast (although I think he drove a blue Caddie coupe IIRC). Thanks Tim. Painting the inner areas of these chrome headlight inserts actually wasn’t that hard to do. I punch out round tape masks for each of the headlight bezels using hypo tube punches (made years ago, I use these a lot for rounds/ fillets in masking) and then just applied liquid masks around the parimeter of each insert. I then airbrushed the green base paint and then removed the masking and did a few Molotow touch-ups where the chrome plating was damaged. Thank you all for all the other observations and nice comments above, it’s always very helpful and encouraging for me to share builds on this forum! John

This was a fun quick effort mostly built OOB of a kit I read good things about. The green I used is called “Parade Green”, a Chrysler factory color in ‘57, for which I used MCW base lacquer with Gunze Mr. Color GX100 lacquer clear coat, all other colors done with Tamiya acrylics. I tried wicking red paint into the circular recess in the kit chrome wheels but it was impossible for me to achieve a clean concentric result so I punched some rings out of masking tape and airbrushed them with gloss red Tamiya acrylic and then just stuck them on like stickers, much better result! The one problem I had with this kit was getting the front chassis + interior to fully seat within the body. Most likely due to error(s) on my part. I ended up having to squeeze the front end assembly together (causing the chassis to bend upwards), bond it with liquid cement and CA and tape it tight overnight. Not the first AMT kit that I have had this issue with (looking at you ‘62 Bel Air!). Despite this issue, I’m happy with the finish and really like the look of this shade of green on this car. Cheers, John some outdoor shots:

Thank you guys for all the nice comments! I’ve been shopping online for more of these Monogram classic kits and thinking about picking up the Jo-Han Caddies as well. I’ve read that these classic car kits never sold well compared to other car kits so I’m surprised that they are so plentifully after 50 -60 years and most are still available in the $25 - $40 range. Another reason to buy and build more of this genre!

After visiting the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, CA a few weeks ago, I got inspired to build one of these old 1/24 Monogram classic car kits from the ‘70’s. Despite lacking the crisp detail of more recent kits, I must say this one went together really nicely, looks relatively realistic proportion-wise and was fun to add a few details to the engine. The chromed wire wheels that came with most of these kits scream “toy” to my eyes so I think painting them (to look like many of the actual 1:1 restored cars) really helps. Anyways, a nice break from building drag cars and so much fun to paint and assemble, I’ve picked up a few more from this series to do in the near future. Cheers, John

Magnificent model Pierre! It’s like you took some of the best techniques used on weathered AFV scale models and applied them to a hard driven race car. Build and post more like this please!

Here’s the 1:1 that was at the Nitro Revival meet at Irwindale today (along with hordes of other vintage fuel altereds, AA fuelers, gassers and lots of old fellow geezers). You did a good job on your model capturing the spirit of this crazy scary machine!

What! No magazine cover????? Just kidding! Another gorgeous early sixties super stocker! Thank you Mike for cranking these builds out so quickly, applying rare decals to your builds and posting them so frequently. I love this Revell kit, need to keep an eye out for other decal possibilities so I can do another one. Bravo Mike!

Very nice build and amazing job on the decals - came out looking like a Larry Watson masked panel paint job! I’m hoping to see the current 1:1 version of this car at the Nitro Revival at the Irwindale 1/8 mile strip this weekend. I’ll post a pic or two if I see it.

I’ve been there more than once or twice, CA can be a real hand grenade when you accidentally get it on your fingers without being aware of it. Look’s like you’re recovering nicely. Really love the black over red color combo on your Impala and your interior came out so cool. These ‘59 -‘60 Monogram-Revell Impalas are among my favorite auto kits, they are such a great canvas for paint, detailing, foiling. The styling also still looks as futuristic as it did when I first saw these cars on the street as a kid. Great job John!

Thanks Wayne, I agree with you that S&M appeared to initially use the shorter Hilborn FI velocity stacks that were originally spec’d with the 4-speed and Hemi hood scoop on earlier appearances of this car but then I ran across this photo that is scoop-less and the stacks seem to be taller (at least they appear to be pretty close to my model!). My model omits the fuel tank mounted on the front grill, the Keystone mag wheels on the front, the metal headlight covers and the center racing stripe and smaller Plymouth name on the hood. The fact that these ‘65 - ‘66 A/FX - match race cars changed from week to week (and sometimes during a single weekend meet) makes them particularly interesting (and forgiving!) to model.

Oooh! Very nice job Mike on a challenging kit-bash project. Look’s like this Slixx decal set is no longer in production which is a reminder to the rest of us that when you see a set you like, grab it quick even if there’s no matching kit to go with it. That barracuda fish artwork is so cool.