Johan 35 Mercedes 500k 1/24-25th

[Gumball]

  The kit was first built by non other than my dad way back sometime in the early to mid 70s. This kit has been kicking around for as long as i can remember, missing almost all the parts, collecting dust. After completing both the "Sunbeam Corvette" and the turbo Datsun race truck, I became eager to build something different yet still challenging. After looking though some old boxed filled with old, somewhat together model cars my dad built when he was a kid, I happened across this strange (yet beautiful) looking body recalling memories of a young me playing with this kit as if it where some hot wheels car. Come to think of it,  Little kid edition of me is probably the reason why most of the parts to this kit went MIA.

  Being a kit my dad built as a little kid, rebuilding it became a little more appealing to me, as well as my lack of knowledge of what exactly i was looking at making it a little more challenging. Considering that originally the only parts i had found was the body itself, my original idea was to scratch build both the chassis, engine, and interior. However after discovering what the car actually was, and discovering the chassis (partially intact, but still missing a lot of parts) leading me to change the name from "mostly scratch built" to "somewhat scratch built" as the engine, and parts of the interior being scratch built as well as considering some small-ish modifications to the chassis. 

  Throughout building this kit i have received extensive help to not only what kind of car i was working on, but providing reference pictures, the history of the Mercedes 500k, as well as providing various parts that were previously missing, parts that would be really hard to recreate from scratch. I really do appreciate everyone's help.

Original build link:

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Gumball

[Eric Macleod]

That came out beautifully. You have good reason to be proud if it!

[Gumball]

Thanks! im just glad the 1 or 2 tiny imperfections you cant see in the pictures! nothing too major, just tiny touch up areas where i should have added silver or black, drives me up the wall, but im afraid ill mess it up, so i aint touching it!

[Modlbldr]

Nice save. Great to have something like this linking your hobby and your father's hobby. I remember my Dad having some built up kits in the basement of my grandparents ranch and eyeing them as a kid. Sure wish I had them. I was so young I don't even remember what they were. Just remember the bare white plastic.

Congratulations on a nice build.

Later-

[Gumball]

32 minutes ago, Modlbldr said:

Nice save. Great to have something like this linking your hobby and your father's hobby. I remember my Dad having some built up kits in the basement of my grandparents ranch and eyeing them as a kid. Sure wish I had them. I was so young I don't even remember what they were. Just remember the bare white plastic.

Congratulations on a nice build.

Later-

Thanks! I couldn't agree with you more when it came to eyeing up some of the extra kits my dad has lying around. He could never get rid of them, and sadly he lost the time to build them anymore. Because I personally own very few kits compared to him, and some of his kits are far more interesting, we agreed that we would "share", so hopefully that means there will be more restorations like this in the future!

[slusher]

Very nice!

[Gumball]

11 hours ago, slusher said:

Very nice!

Thanks!