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It's a great feeling when you finish a model that you really enjoyed working on. This is a 41 Chevy pickup 1/25 kit from Revell. I made a few modifications.... I have been making these hover themed cars for a few years now. This pickup truck is number 6 of my fleet. I really enjoy the DieselPunk, retro style. Lots of heavy steel, grime and mechanical gadgets that appear to serve a purpose. I typically use older cars with large protruding fenders. This way I can add lots of hardware under the wheel wells. The truck has two large turbines that are attached to the frame, under the bed. These would be for forward propulsion. The turbines at the corners of the truck would be for take-off, landing and turning. Since the two large turbines under the truck would need plenty of air, I made the large intake vents in the truck bed. One intake on each the side of the truck bed as well. I love the grill of this truck. It has a very menacing feel. The turn signals were made from styrene tube. I melted some clear amber sprue for the lenses. I had a second identical kit, that I borrowed a few other pieces from. The kit comes with 1 windshield wiper that goes on the driver's side roof. I used the wiper from the second kit on the passenger side. This unfortunately made it so that I had to mount the visor at a much higher angle. I really wasn't happy with it sitting up high on the roof, so I cut two reliefs for the wiper blades to go under. Now the visor sits at a proper, cool looking height, and it got some neat little air flaps. I wanted something interesting under the hood. I made this generator looking thing and it fit the look of the truck. I kept adding bits to it until I ran out of room. I mentioned big turbines. This is where the monster began. I made these twin turbines for a 71 Hemi Cuda that I was going to make into a hover car. I tried them under this truck and I instantly switched full time to this model. The interior was good fun. I made a floor center console and added 2 long manual shifters. One red handled and one white. I added a few more flight controls and a throttle lever to the right of the driver's seat. The steering wheel resembles a flight yoke. I made a access plate that could be removed to work on the large turbines.The second plate is hinged and lifts for cooling. Most of the wires and hoses are styrene rod. Thanks for looking!!!

I had started this back in March. It was going to be a rusted out, heavily weathered old pick up. I was actually going to make a model with wheels for a change! I experimented with layering thin layers of paint, for the weathering. I wasn't happy with the way it was turning out and ended up putting the kit away for a few months...... Broke it out a few days ago and decided to make it into a jet truck, what else? I'm not sticking with this color, it will change. Just need to figure out where this whole thing is going to go....Is it a work truck? A delivery truck? Built for speed? I'll be trying to figure out a color scheme for the next few months....I'll probably end up repainting it a few times over. I love that fat exhaust I'll be replacing the little fins around the 2 rear exhaust. I made these temporary just to see how they looked. For me, the most difficult part of building one of these hover cars, is the action in the wheel wells. It's difficult to find parts that fit into the space and still look as if they preform some kind of function. I used half of a V8 and the air cooled cylinder block of a VW plus some styrene tube to make a V-TOL type take off system. I'll be adding more bits and pieces as I go. I still have to figure out what kind of front steering/propulsion I'm going to put on. This is usually the second most difficult part. Thanks for looking. I'll post more as i go.

Here's my next hover vehicle. It's a 1968 vintage VW Beetle with some Diesel Punk flair. I had planned to make a jet board (instead of a surf board) to go on the roof rack. This proved to be difficult, only because I can't seem to come up with a jet board that will match the ascetic of the car. For now it's just a cool roof rack that turned out 100% better than I had imagined! I just finished this model about an hour ago. I quickly took some photos using a homemade cardboard light box. Got the photos on the computer and realized that I weathered everything on the model, except for the antennae and the frame of the license plate. These were the last two items that were scratch built today. In my excitement to finish, I forgot the weathering process.....I'll get some more photos up soon. Under the front hood is the fuel tank and some random loose wires. Under the engine cover........huge intakes. Very fun build. Thanks for looking!

I started another hover car. It needs a clever name. I'm all ears if anyone has a good suggestion. Vintage 68 Hover Bug........ This started out as a hover race craft. I envisioned bright graphics like you'd see on a formula 1. If you guys have seen any of my other posts, you'll know that my finished models usually look quite a bit different than what I begin with. Styrene shavings and cat hair for that " just finished a race look" I added some fins on the top, cut from another VW Bug's rear trunk lid. I wanted it to have a lowered stance while in flight. I had pictured a black, white and red racing graphics with racing numbers and sponsor decals. I imagined it as if it had just finished a race. Heavy soot from the turbines. Grease and oil on the engines. Maybe a little damage from other hover race craft. The fins on the top, direct air into the rear engine cover via hinged vents. I remember as a teenager, the cool VW Bugs at my high school always had their rear hood lifted for air cooling. Similar thing here, except the vents lead to some massive air intakes on the back of the engines. I got stalled at this point on the graphics and decals. I spent weeks trying to come up with race style graphics. Was I going to use decals? How am I going to get good paint lines with multiple colors? This was all out of my zone. So I started looking into vintage style...... I'll be painting the inner rims bright red. The center caps will be chrome. The front will have white painted similar to the rear white walls. I will be weathering it. It's a daily flier! Slight rust. Slight paint fade. Dirt in the crevasses. Soot. Good stuff.

I finished this beast last night. I'm very happy with the finished model. The turbines are all scratch built from styrene rod. The front wings are made from the front seats. The rear louvers are from a Hemi-Cuda. I gut the body down the center and removed about 1/3 of the plastic. Sealed off the old passenger door. The windshield visor is hinged and moves freely. Although, I did end up putting in a support post. I thought it looked much better.

Hello fellow model builders. I've built 2 jet powered hot rods over the past two years. I'm very proud of both models. Each turned out far better than I had imagined they would. I had a ton of positive comments on the forum and I really appreciate everything that was said. Thank you guys for the support. The comments were great! There was some interest in starting a community build. I thought I'd get it started. There's only one rule. It has to be powered by a turbine of some sort. Now, I'm no turbine expert......and I'm sure that the turbines that I made would probably not really function...but they look like they would, right? It has to look like it can fly via turbine power. Any year or type of vehicle is ok. I have since started 2 new jet cars. Both are VW bugs. Both should be very different from one another. I want this bug to be like a race craft. I might put numbers and a racing paint job on it. This bug is going to have a single huge turbine out of the rear and some sort of wings out the front. It's going to be crazy.

1. The 'Junkster' Pod Racer Hi all. It's been a while since my last build. I have started on another build taking another break from truck building, while gathering thoughts for my next one. I have several in mind but I am trying to figure out which one to choose and how to proceed. 'Till then, I am working on a pod racer. Yes, another one. For some reason I have a think for these machines. I also planning on a big spaceship build after this build. We'll see. Anyways, Here are pics of the progress so far. We will see how it turns out. The concept of this build is simple. It is an older model that has been rebuilt from scrap using various metal and machine components, hence, the name, The 'Junkster'. So It is going to be weathered to show the old age and extensive usage. Fits me just right. ----------------------------- 2. Most of you guys may already know what parts I am using here already. It's from a 1/32 F-15E fighter jet. I had no drawings, just planning as I build. I have lots of parts(lots), as you can see in the pics blow: ....................................................................... 3. This will be the body of the engines. Or should I say the fuselage. As you can see, I've already started adding the details to it. Majority of the parts are taken from other kits. Makes things easy for me, as time is always of the essence.