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I just wanted to start what has been one of my favorite threads on airplane modeling forums. It’s not meant to brag or prove has the biggest modeling budget; I just like to see what other people are buying... Today I got the ‘50 Ford p/u with the Ardun flathead I’v been lusting over, a Caddy 354 parts pack motor, and some HOK “Burple” candy paint Casey

Hi all, This project has been percolating in my brain for years. I finally got the kit about 3ish years ago, and I am now ready to tackle it. I spent a few hours last night going thru my stash and parts bins accumulating a bunch of goodies to mash up. The plan is to use a slightly toned down NASCAR chassis, I will keep the body somewhat stock, but shave some trim. I love the lines of this car! The interior will be a blend of lots of parts from various kits, and some scratch building. I will credit the late Juha Aurio (I hope I spelled that correct) for the inspiration of this. He built a beautiful blue custom that was in a contest cars magazine some years ago. My thought way back then was that I would do a simple curbside build, but with what I have learned since being on this forum, I feel my skills have improved, so I’m going all in. Before I go any further, my sincere apologies to purists, and those who disapprove of cutting up collectable or rare kits. I collect kits, but I collect them to build. I treat any kit the same, and I have almost no knowledge of “box stock”. So here we go! Starting point… The body is actually in very nice condition, so far the only flaw I see is a short shot on the driver side tail light area passenger side.. driver side… Shouldn’t be too hard to fix up. Chassis before any tinkering… The chassis needs to be narrowed and the front of the chassis (forward of the firewall) needs to be extended a scale 10”. Some of the inspiration I have found.. No, it will not be black!! No, it will not be a full roll cage NASCAR build. Man these look good dropped down tho!! It will be low, and will be very aggressive looking, but hopefully still classy at the same time. I already have a colour but not sharing that yet. I have several wheel tire choices, still need to narrow that down. I also plan on ordering some wheels this week, so my choices may actually expand. The engine will be a big block with a modern intake, or maybe twin turbos, regardless, it will have more than enough power to move this beast along. Still need to play with options once the chassis is further along. If it works out, I will use the Cadillac valve covers in the kit. I have all the ideas sorted out in my head, just need to start slicing and dicing to make it a reality. LOTS of details to sort out still, especially with the interior. This should be a fun one. As always, all comments welcome and thanks for having a look. Cheers, Steve

HI! Those of us who lived the 60's Funny-Cars great expansion will remember three dominant features: 1- cars looked indeed like the cars they represented, 2- They had a "theme" or nickname (Bounty hunter, LA Hooker, The Snake, etc.) and 3- Most could double as show cars, featuring the wild psychadelic "panel painting" & lettering techniques of the day. Meet NITRO MANIAC: a fantasy 69 Johan FC, restored from a glue bomb. The AMC 3 color paint scheme was stipped, the hood scoops shaved, the custom ft & rr ends kept in place but molded, and AMT's modified Trojan Horse M2 FC chassis slipped under the smoothed body (instead of the Logghe chassis of the kit). Scratchbuilt tin work, gas tank, chassis side-panels, barrel valve, wiring & plumbing, shifter, gas pedal and linkage, steering rod, etc. Home-made and parts box decals. Tamya's pure white, Silverleaf, Gunmetal, HOK Passion pearl, Testor's ice green, Mr.Hobby Topcoat clear, fully polished. Metallic gel pen pinstriping. Molotow's chrome. A paint experiment, and hours of fun with styrene! CT

Last conversion.

Hi again ! JoHan has never made the convertible version of the 1974 Cadillac Eldorado promo, only the Eldorado Coupe. So, after finding a damaged one for sale a few months ago I thought about giving that poor promo a new life, as a convertible. I have tried to push some details that Johan never did, as to carve on the model the front and rear choc absorber lines on the fenders, and to give the interior some life, with detailed front seats and door panels. The Caddy received a new paint and some new white walls. Don't know how to photo-etch or create decals for scripts and emblems yet but I'll come to that soon. Hope you'll like it !

This is likely the last I'll get done this year. My first try at a Johan classic, it was a pleasure to build. The chrome up-top stanchions were broken so I went with the top down, shows off the interior better anyway. Lot of chrome on this baby, I think it came out pretty good. Comments welcome as always and thanks for looking.

Johan USA Oldies kit. Exterior is Scalefinishes Olds Ming Jade w/ Testors Wet Look clear. Interior is Revell Reddish Brown, thinned and airbrushed with different lusters of clear. Comments, critique, questions, tips and pointers always welcome. Thanks for looking. Namaste.

Hi guys ! Here's my last built of the year. The '76 Eldorado is the last official convertible by Cadillac, and I've made this one from the JoHan's Coupe. New paint, trims, wheels, WWs, detailed interior.... I'll give her a better and more accurate hard boot cover next spring. Hope you'll like it.

Hi guys ! Sharing with you my newest build. Made from a damaged JoHan's 1971 Coupe Eldorado promo, this convertible is starting a new life. New metallic paint and clear coats, new wheels and white walls, detailed interior and dash, soft boot, etc... After a long sleep rusting in a barn, the caddy now enjoys the quite roads of Route 66 . A special thanks for the beautiful diorama made from a talented friend of mine. Times are hard now, so keep safe everybody. Cheers !

Going thru some photos & came across these. I don't think I've posted them before. Built more than 30yrs ago...

This project started back as a replica stock build in 1980 with a mint kit. Now it's finally almost finished as a mild custom! Sometime the roof got broken and I tried to fix it but those thin roof pillars were just too fragile. Junk '59 Fury to the rescue! The Plymouth roof is essentially identical to the Dodge. Here I've also stripped the chrome for a replate and started to shave off the extraneous trim from the body. Here she is in fresh Tamiya primer and fresh Little Motor Kar Co. replated bumpers. Still to be removed were the door handles and the large piece of ribbed trim with the "Custom Royal" nameplate at the leading edge of the fin. I decided to remove and reshape the taillight bezels, then have them plated. Custom taillight lenses came from an original issue AMT '57 T-bird kit. Tailpipe extensions were made styrene rod. The JoHan Dodge is quite accurate except for the rear wheel opening shape. Back when I started the project I reshaped the openings. Here you can see the corrected one compared to an unmodified kit... After sectioning the chassis to shorten the wheelbase slightly for a more accurate look, I added material to JoHan's flat chassis so that the model will have a finished look underneath and viewers won't be able to look inside the body through the wheel openings. Now it's in paint! Tamiya Pearl "Light Red" for the main color and a pink mixed from Tamiya Pearl Light Red and Tamiya Pearl White. Hope you like it so far!

Hi ! Here is my very first Cadillac conversion, made a couple of years ago. JoHan only produced Eldorado Coupes from 1971 to 1976, so I took a old "76' Eldorado Rancher" kit to make this specific version. As 1978 would be the final year for the full sized Cadillac Eldorado, I wanted to make the highest trim level. The "Custom Classic" was very distinctive with its 2 tones exterior body and also a duo-tone pillowed leather interior ( done with clay ). 2000 Classics have been built that year, only 25 with a sunroof, like my version. I unfortunately couldn't get the exact same colours at the time I built the model ( Arizona Beige and Demitasse Brown Metallic ) but I tried to get as close as I could. As she's my first conversion, some mistakes here and there..., like a missing "Eldorado" script on the front edge of the hood. Rear bumper and taillights have been modified, as well as the rear window. Shock absorber fender and trunk lines sculpted. It was so fun to do though , but putting the 1mm black line decals on fenders ?....no so much !

After picking this one up last week, I disassembled and gave it a good soaking in Super Clean. The chassis and interior were coated with the customary model paint smothering. But the body and glass are in great shape! The only thing ever applied to the shell were decals, same for the glass. Lots of ample glue piles under the hood and in a few other spots. I think another soak and some careful cleaning this resto will be under way. I'd like to use these wheels and tires, the extra bumpers, scoop and decals are bonuses.

Picked up this open box model from a widow who lost her husband recently. He had many built and unbuilt, but my budget was just for 5 out of the lot. I have owned a few real caddy's in my day and my dad always had one as a family car growing up. We never had a convertible though. Anyhow, I decided to go with Rustoleum Gloss Berry Pink for the exterior and Rustoleum Candy Pink for the interior. Found some nice felt to use as carpet at Michaels for 33 cents. JoHan's models seem to be well fitting in my experience and this was as well. Was an open box, so a couple things were missing, but I fixed that. The wheels are rollers, which meant that it was easier to drop in the weeds because of the straight axles. Used bigger whitewalls and rims from my parts box. No gloss coat on here. I used Pledge/Future Floor wax and it came out nice. Also, I did the windshield trim with a chrome pen instead of BMF. Did the engine in the same pink as the interior. No awards will be won here, but had fun building another shelver. Thanx for looking.

Hi everyone. My nickname is Joca and I'm of Brazil. This is my first post here, hope you enjoy the photos. Any comments and suggestions are welcome. This kit was a 1/25 Jo-han gluebomb. I disassembled all the parts I could with some brokens in the way. Decided to give a new personality for this classic I have started cutting the fenders and channeling the body. My first attempt to do that. Don't have much time to dedicate to the hobby this will be a very slow work. Thank you for your time and attention. Best regards.

Johan 64 Cadillac kit. Customized the interior with bucket seats front and rear. Paint is Rootbeer with pearl clear and several polished clear coats

Just finished this 1964 Caddy - "Da Cad" If you've ever built one of these old Johan kits, you know of the few pit-fall items to correct, one being the tiny taillights that do not fit correctly and missing the top cap. Did a lot of detailing to the grill/bumper, drilled out the molded-in headlights and installed some very nice resin replicas from Germany. I did update the look of the stock Caddy with pro-tour seats and three round aluminum gauges. Updated 20" wire-style wheels and lower stance give it a look I like. The paint is Testors RootBeer with pearl-clear accenting and lots of polished Wet Look Clear coats, it's one of my favorite paint jobs. The BMF gave me fits on this and isn't as perfect as I would like, but frustration gave way and it is what it is. Drilled out the molded in head lights, replaced with some very nice resin pieces from Germany. Printed a Cadillac emblem and used it on the hood and truck Added some details like handmade accelerator and brake peds. Door pulls and updated the guage pack using aluminum tubing

Showing a Johan kit I put together for a good friend of his real deal '63 Max Wedge Super Stock Polara.

Decided to get this one going. I've been too busy playing with snap-together kits and want to get back into more challenging stuff. What I've achieved so far... Tamiya Gloss Black with Flat Black vinyl top... Burgundy interior... More coming...

I bought this model on ebay from USA. The wheels were too small, the decals were dust and the wheelopenings where wrong, but it is a SUPERBIRD. It also stand much too tall in the front. I grinded away the exhaust, fixed the wheelopenings, added details to the suspension, made a quickfilleropening and detailed the engineroom and interior. Ihavn´t put on the sponsordecals yet because I want that "right out of the store"-look. I built the daytona back in 1971 out of an MPC box. That one was for real and I built i right out of the box. Now I become happy every time I look at those two "winged Wonders".

Johan kit, decals from Firebird Designs, Tamiya paints.

I've been busy again after a break of many months, trying to get 5 or 6 cars painted before winter sets in. I'm having to learn the art of painting a model again, it's been so long! This is the third time I've painted this one and I'm still not happy with the vinyl roof - the Zero semi-gloss black looks like sandpaper and has buried the script for good. But I'm pressing on and hope I can do the scripts and badges with some decals I have. The main color is factory correct Almond Green from Gravity. (OK, factory correct if it was an Aston Martin.) I cleared it with Tamiya TS13, which also didn't go that well but a lot of sanding and polishing brought it round. I managed to polish through the paint in two small areas and hope a touch up will hide that. Still some work to do on the body and then comes the interior.

I've had this 74 Caddy for a number of years and noticed the a-pillar had broken and the model looked rather sad and dirty, so i cleaned it up and detailed it with bare metal foil and detail touches, like the tail lights. it's a Johan promo. i've not detailed the interior or chassis, but i did replace the chassis securing tacks with screws. a bit of Novus polish really brought the metallic green plastic to a nice shine.

This is a daring project for me since i`m not as skilled as many of the guys on this forum. You might find it odd to convert the top of the line model to somthing lesser. This car is the one who got me all started,or how i got infected with the v8 virus. I was 10 year old,this was back in the late 80s,and my aunt boyfriend bought this car,it was the first one to take me to US car shows around here. I still remember the rumble it made,and i can say even by today standard of performance,this thing really pulled hard. From what i remember it had power steering and power brakes and not much more,it was imported by a Norwegian sailor in the 60s. I assume the car was light blue metallic original,but got a later respray of white,it was blue on the inside. The most impressive about the car was the drivetrain. 394 Sky Rocket hight ultra compression did it read on the air cleaner,i cant confirm this was original for this,but it said to have 330hp,also dual exhaust and 4speed auto. If the tarmac was moist and you floored it around 30-40mph it would fry the tires. This made a impact on me back then. Ok,enough emotinal history and nonsense,this is the 1963 Starfire i got cheap from a guy here in Norway. It was a decent build up with all complete parts. It was not easy to put the saw to it but if you never try,you never learn. I used the roof,a-pillars and wiper panel from the AMT 64 Impala. Sanded off the wipers since they are mounted diffrent on the Oldsmobile. I was lucky to be offered the correct front end from a fella on this forum a year back,i belive it was intended for a station wagon. Another guy you might be familiar with,Fireball Modelwork did offer to do an attempt at making photo-etch scripts for the whole car. One guy i know from Germany is going to make the air cleaner decal,isnt internet amazing? I`m not sure if i`m going to give to much into the interior,but the buckets are out,and i`m at this time serching,or i could say i appriciate any suggestions for a nice bench. Well,here are some pictures of the progress. How it is now. Still some touch up to do,and also mount the Dynamic trim who run from the back bumper top forward to the front fenders. The engine as far as i can see is identical in the 1:1 as in the Starfire,it just needs some paint and new decals. Here is the 1:1 car twin.

Hi all, Feel free to delete this thread if it's been mentioned...I checked and didn't see anything directly. ----------------- Appealing to the wisdom of the more experienced here...if I could get the JoHan 202 EZ-Build Turbine car for $20...would that be a good deal? Anybody build this one before?