WHY DO YOU BUILD MODEL CARS?

[E St. Kruiser50]

Hey all

It's really fun looking at all the different model car design idea's and talent here. Some of us talk about being an artst, for some of us building model's is about self-expression, or relaxing, or a love of cars, or competing to win and be recognized, which to me is fine, and some of us like to have something we can get better at, or express ourselves mechanically or with our knowledge or maybe your escaping the humdrums or turmoils of life, into the safety of denial

Bob Paeth used to design and build to express a sense of humor sometimes, like with his "Ghia Pet", with live gowing vegitation on a VW Ghia - LOL. That was so funny.

Now I'm not asking why your on this forum, that's a different topic. This is why do you build model cars, whatever you make them out of.

All of you here build great stuff, and I mean all of you, even if your new here, let us know so we can get to know you better.

Thanks all - Dave

Edited November 24, 2008 by Treehugger Dave

[CAL]

Hey all

It's really fun looking at all the different model car design idea's and talent here. Some of us talk about being an artst, for some of us building model's is about self-expression, or relaxing, or a love of cars, or competing to win and be recognized, which to me is fine, and some of us like to have something we can get better at, or express ourselves mechanically or with our knowledge or maybe your escaping the humdrums or turmoils of life, into the safety of denial

Bob Paeth used to design and build to express a sense of humor sometimes, like with his "Ghia Pet", with live gowing vegitation on a VW Ghia - LOL. That was so funny.

Now I'm not asking why your on this forum, that's a different topic. This is why do you build model cars, whatever you make them out of.

All of you here build great stuff, and I mean all of you, even if your new here, let us know so we can get to know you better.

Thanks all - Dave

That's a good question I have no answer for.

I like cars. I like building stuff. It's an escape, therapy, relaxation, no particular reason.

[Guest 66dragfreak]

Well Dave, for me I guess it's just something that I've been doing since I was 8 or 9. I never grew out of building or left the hobby either like so many have. I build mainly because I can't afford the cars I build. Of course if I hadn't bought so many models over the years I could probably afford a Roadrunner or Daytona!

Seriously though, I build simply because I love the hobby and it's a sense of accomplishment when you take a box of parts and build something out of them. I find that I build cars that I wish I could own in real life and I find I try to build them they way I would if the car was a real one too. It's a passion for the automotive hobby that fuels my fire and the comraderie of the hobby that sustains me through thick and thin. It also helps that I have a wife that sits right beside me and builds with me. Most of her builds actually turn out better than mine too, but that's another topic for another time.

[Tom Jackson]

I am a car Junkie. I build for many reasons mainly To relax ,and create the messed up ideals in my head. Since getting back into building 5 years ago I have meet many nice poeple. Building is another wasy for me to get all the cars i want to own but can't .

Edited November 24, 2008 by Tom Jackson

[Lownslow]

it was either that or juvenile detention

[E St. Kruiser50]

Great to hear from all of you.

Hope to hear from some other's

Thanks guy's - Dave

[Jantrix]

Some people are either right brained (creative/artistic) and/or left brained (analytical/clever). I seem to have a bit of both, like most of us here, I'm sure. The ability to imagine and then engineer and then create, satisfies me in ways I can't begin to describe. I grew up in a car family and grew to understand my fathers love and appreciation for the automotive world. So when he handed me my first car kit at age 10 or so I took to it and have been in love with the hobby and the genre ever since. I've gotten my share of ribbing from co-workers and friends over the years, but I don't let it bother me. In fact that doesn't happen as often anymore as I've started putting my latest builds up on my PC desktop at work. It's kind of funny how many of them will stop and check it out when they think no one is looking.

[RodneyBad]

Very good question.

I recieved my fist model at 11-ish yrs old.

I liked building it.

got another one.

I think it helped my focus and kept me out of Trouble.

With 2 other brothers helping dad work on 1:1 cars, there wasn't room for another.

So I built

then bought

bought some more.

A few more

built

bought

bought

Etc...

29yrs later, it is still the same thing I did as a kid.

It's my own little World, My reality, My escape.

Edited November 28, 2008 by Zukiholic

[LVZ2881]

Quite a few reasons, and the more I think about it, the more I come up with.

1. keeping in touch with my childhood, I'll be 32 in Feb, so its fading faster and faster....

2. The satisfaction of completing something, and the feeling of creating something realistic out of a bunch of white, grey, (enter color here) plastic..

3. The creativity of it....I was a pretty good automotive artist when I was younger, but got away from it...

4. Being able to own all the cars I want, in the colors I want, because I will never be able to do that in 1:1

5. Its a constructive hobby, and keeps me away from the street races..and it also keeps me from spending money on my 1:1 IROC...which I actually need to do to get it running after a 5 year head gasket job that keeps spiraling out of control. I only have approx 8 hours worth of work to get it running, but need $1k to get it driveable and on the road, and thats money I dnt have to spend right now...

6. It annoys my parents that I still do it!!!

[chebbysteve]

Just like so many others in this hobby, I build models of the cars I would like to own, but cannot afford. I've done it for years through many 1/1 fads and styles. It's just interesting to see your own ideas in 3-D right in front of you. And its a good way to relax from the rigors of daily life. Thank God for the hobby and the nice people in it.

Edited November 24, 2008 by chebbysteve

[Pete J.]

Excellent question and one I suspect is as unique as the person. Should generate a lot of differant responses. For me, it is the act of creation. I was raised on a farm and always had a lot of creative/engineering/mechanical things going on. As I transitioned to a more urban life style I missed that. Model building is a highly creative diversion that satisfies that need to build/make/create something that has my unique imprint on it. I build cars because they interst me. I love the research that goes into each one and I like becoming a expert on each of my creations. Very statisfying. I also like having a skill level that I can always build on, no matter how accomplished I become. There is always that next project which is a challenge. I remember when it was a challenge to keep the glue blobs off the car. Now it is the challenge of making ever more accurate detail. I doubt that I will ever get there, but the ulimate goal is to start one of the machines up and run it through the gears. A worthy goal is one that is just out of reach. And yes, I like the satisfaction of people asking "How did you do that!!" Oh, and I also like the occational odd piece that I create just to exercise the imagination. Here is one of the stranger ones.

[randx0]

I'm a glutton for punishment! I really enjoy the fabrication and modifying of parts ,discovering old parts that I haven't seen before.There is just a look and feel to a well built model that has always grabbed my attention.I'm also pretty sure that realistically this is the only way I will get my hands on a lot of the cars that i like.

[84vanagon]

I did/do it for fun/relaxation/diversion.

My cousin built an AMT '62 Valiant Styline kit for me. That was the start.

The first model I "built" was a '63 T-Bird 'vert. Mom cut off the windshield frame because I wanted the bubble top. Then I advanced to brush painting. Mostly inteiors/or bodies only. My first spray job was the AMT annual '66 Riviera (Testors red).(oh the salad days....!)

The '60's to '85 were bliss, until I joined the MCMA. Then I found out that mould lines, seams, and orange peel WERE TO BE ADRESSED! At the SouthWest Challenges Mark Gustavson (Love ya Mark-no dig here!) Was screaming "lacquer paint"!!!

My head was beginning to hurt! In '88 I started my current job at a car dealership which has evolved into a love/hate relationship with cars. Then there was the advent of the computer with such great sites as this one. Too many great ideas, not enough time!

If I can wean myself away from this stupid computer and find my box of snap kits... '65, fun/relaxion/diversion here I come again!

[FloridaBoy]

Model Car building is a perfect suit for me. It gives me as much freedom as I want to take. I can get crazy and build like a banshee, then walk away from it for awhile, and the only one it concerns is me. Second, I love colors, I love cars, I love older cars, customizing, creativity, and other things like photography or oil painting are OK, but do not give me the complete rush I get when I build a model.

Next, it is my Walter Mitty of my life. I was brought up next to a Chevy garage, in full view of mid fifties Chevvies, Cameos, and old Vettes, and always wished I could have one. Even when I could afford them as I pursued my career, it wasn't functional.

Last, I was brought up to associate good times with hot rods, as my family would spend time in Pymatuning Dam in western PA at the picnic area, and that is where the hot rodders would congregate in their 48 Fords, with Racoon tails, blue spots on taillights, fender skirts, loud horns and so on, and they would peel off and my Uncle Bob, 5 years older than me, would stop fishing and say WOWWWWW. I always have loved thirties and forties Fords. But back then there were few or no model kits, so we would take early AMT plastic demo's from the Chevy dealer, and spruce them up. But it was real cars that I oriented myself when I was a young kid. Models were just because we were too young to have a 48 Ford.

When we moved to Florida, again space restrictions prevailed, so I didn't build until we moved into our first house, which occurred at the same time when the first 1958 3in1 kits came out. I immediately recognized the scale, details and the company name from the boxes from the old friction cars. I was smitten and totally involved from then. But again, now I was a modeler, wanting a real car that looked like the hot rod I built. I can remember in 1959 in sixth grade I wrote a letter to AMT in Dearborn, MI asking them to make a 40 Ford, "because it looked cool". Imagine how I felt one year later. I have built and/0r stocked every 40 Ford model but mostly the AMT and estimate at over 100. I know because I have 15 now in stages of building, and another 20 on the shelf unbuilt.

But as I grew in the hobby, I read Carmodel, Rod & Custom, Car Craft, Hot Rod, Model Car Science, Plastic Fanatic, Scale Auto and Model Cars magazines, and wanted to do it all, chop the top off a 49 Merc, channel a deuce, lower a 40 Ford and so on and so on. I couldn't do that if I were into it 1:1 so I released all that energy.

As I grew, I either had a conservative job or wife or lived in a home with limited parking. So, when I saw a hot rod I wanted to build, instead of wanting it, I built it. Case in point, Cushenberry's Matador, Roth's Outlaw and others, Winfield's Car, Starbird, Barris, Shine, Foose, and Coddington and the list goes on. Now if I see it I buy it and build it for under $50. However when circumstances permit, I have had my 1:1 moments, a friend's modified Tiger, my bout with an experimental car for Ford, (A Ford Fairmmont with a 427 Interceptor Police Engine and Package), my Supra, and now I drive a fully stocked Taurus SHO with a v8 that is just too mean.

I had to quit the hobby in 1974 as it wasn't just any fun and I was surfing full tilt, and playing tennis all over the state. But when the sport rejuvenated in the early eighties and ERTL emerged, I was hooked again, and have been since.

This hobby has done so much. I am doing a "frame up" restoration auction purchased junk bicycle and trying to make it into a real custom show model, but will be street driven. I have been given a shot of confidence in my sixties, as I spent a lot of time restoring my old body worked customs, thinking I "lost it' and decided to start some new ones, and at least to me, I haven't at least yet. Right now, after years of building you develop habits of which I am trying to break. I never used "donor" kits because I thought it wasted a model, now I am struggling with using them, and second, I am branching out wanting to go big scale, muscle cars, factory stock, junkers, rats and dioramas, and third trying to break my old style of candy, pearls or other exotics and going to solids, two tones, and getting away from mags only to wide whites and steelies, big rims and low profile tires, and so on.

My biggest obstacle is engine detail. I want to be accurate even in my highly modfied customs, but not to elaborate. I just attended a contest this past weekend, and the level of detail was incredible, but I want to have a credible car without it looking like the underside of a computer under the hood.

Over the years, I have met quite the range of people from the very great guys to bums, and all are part of the growing process. But in the whole, the guys who model cars share a cammaderie that few interests have. Great group to be a part of.

So, now the hobby is giving me goals, challenges and rewarding me when I address them.

That is why I am in model cars from the squirrelly little kid in Sharpsville, Penna, to the 61 year old retiree in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman

[Ramcharger]

I enjoy the stress of taking a beautifully manufactured piece of plastic, mauling it, slobbering glue all over it, tossing paint at it, hurling profanity at it repeatedly, throwing it, kicking it, then placing it on a contest table. All so that I can say, "I built that!" Actually I just like cars, and when I was a kid, that's what kids that liked cars did. Now that I'm cleverly disguised as a grown up, I can do what I want. Model cars it what I want to do!

[Hotrod74]

i started when I was about 8 yrs old. I was in love with cars, My brothers had old hotrods that I would help them work on. One of then had a 68 camaro, another a 71 Malibu, and the last on a 70 Nova. All at the same time. When other kids would be going to sleep overs I would be working on cars. So I kept building When I would get a model I would build it just as I would want it not by the box, So when I got older I started on my own cars, Trucks and kinda left the models alone for a while, But now my son loves them as much as I did. So we are working on a few together. I'm trying to get back into them and being a member of this form really helps. Yall seem like a real good group of guys

Thanks, Nick

[RodBurNeR]

There really are a lot of different things and people that helped me stay interested over the years. The main reason i build is because i love cars and never lost that "feeling" you have when you get down "eye level" to the bench and see your cars take form just the way you wanted them to. I played with cars almost exclusively as a kid, so modeling was just another way for me to "play" with them and i still love it! I am also an eye candy freak, i like the neat parts that can be found or come in kits and i have an obsession with colors.....oh man there are so many colors to see on the lines and curves of a car! My favorite part is picking colors and putting either a dull or shiny finish on them. I am an "outside view" kinda builder....the outside of the car is what attracts me, is what i see the most of and matters most to me...so you won't see me detailing like crazy most the time, though i do and have detailed til' my eyes are bulging lol

Besides the modeling aspect of my hobby....lot's of the 1:1 world keeps me going , from the old days until now as far as old cars are concerned.

[Terry Jessee]

It's my art form. Someone discovered that I had some artistic talent when I was a kid, so my folks rushed me into all kinds of programs to learn to be a commercial artist. Probably should have followed through, but it took all the fun out of it. So I just shut down.

In later years, as I was starting to develop a reputation for unusual finishes (?), my mother commented that building models was probably my way of expressing that same creativity. So it's my art form.

And one of the ways I relax....

Terry

[Eshaver]

Fair question , fair answer . I'm a car person. I'm also an artist too but that's another story too for another time . My first model was a gift from the Richmond Ford motor company for me to build in a contest that they participating in with A M T in 1961. It started with a Ford Thunderbird convertible . Years later car building led to scratch building. Scratch building led to building "Prototypes of Gasoline Pumps'. That led to entering them in contests. Yes , I actually beat a couple of Star wars Models . Thats led to me building doll houses for others on occasion.

Dave , I hope that answered you're question.

Ed Shaver

[george 53]

Ta be honest wicha Dave, I NEVER EVER thought about it. I just do it. I've been doin it for so long, since I was 6, that it's just a part of me, an who I am. If our famly has somethin goin on, an I'm not there, Theresa just says," Oh, He's workin on a model"An my mom, an sisters an brudder just seem to understand.So did my Pop. It's just something I do.I've been doin it for so long, that it's just second nature to me. I guess it's like some of the other guys said, maybe it's just a way to have some of the cars I always wanted, but couldn't afford. I LIKE to do it,it keeps me occupied, an I tend to stay outta trouble. My own family understands what my cars mean to me and they support me in it(my wife an daughter)an I ALWAYS get a model for Christmas, Birthday, and Fathers Day.Makes it alot easier for them to buy gifts! See how thoughtful I am? What do I WANT? Just a model. They take it in stride, after all it IS Dad/Georgie.(my Mom an sis's STILL call me Georgie)

[James W]

For me it is a creative outlet. I have so many ideas for what would be cool in the automotive relm.

If I could draw, that would be my means of expression, I could put my thoughts into physical peices. But I can't draw.

When I see cars on the street, I see them for their potential. Models allow me to combine cars that I think are cool with performance enhancements that I could never afford.

As for the junkers I build, I'm a sentimental guy. Hate to throw anything away. If I had the space and money, I'd have a couple acres of rusty hulks just to look at. Then I'd build models of them too.

[aafcfan]

Hi all, like many I build models for relaxation, therapy and most of all because I enjoy building. I have been an avid drag racing fan since 1964, before the days of funny cars and prostocks. When I saw my first fuel burning afx car, (I think it was the Ramchargers 65 Coronet) that was it. I have been fascinated by funny cars ever since and love to build the cars I have seen at the track. That is why I love model building.

[m408]

WOW! I hadn't given much thought as to why. Just knew that I enjoyed it. After some heavy thinking, I seem to have some answers, at least for me.

I'm an old guy now, almost 76, and with the age and a bunch of medical problems, I can now longer participate in the physical activities that I love, Golf, Tennis, Bowling, etc... and am limited to indoor activities to eat up the day.

Model car building is a pretty cost effective hobby. Living on a fixed income makes this appealing, but forgoes the resin kits, after market do dads, etc.. But I'm perfectly happy with buying a $15.00 kit and just using the stuff that comes in the box.

It allows me to try to stretch my skills one step at a time and to try to get just a little bit creative. Ie.. my latest project is a 65 El Camino which I am trying to make into kind of a roadster pick up semi custom. Top is gone, body shaved, bumpers striped and will be painted, and hopefully will have a hinged hood and tarp. Not so much compared to other builds here, but a big challenge for me. Not only in skill level, but in time consumed.

Anyhow, I guess my answer is that it is a fun thing that I can do and afford.

[FloridaBoy]

On my first post on page one, I wrote it without looking at the other posts, wanting to not be affected by what others said. So, this afternoon, I read the other posts, and guys you are a pretty sorry bunch of crazy slobs!!!! Just kidding, you guys are terrific, and I truly am humbled and appreciative that you respond to my posts, and email me from time to time. I look at everyone's work, scan all categories, and you guys are a pretty talended group.

When I get in these melancholic moods, I think of my father and the effect he had on my model cars. He was for many reasons not a real expressive type, but I knew he really wanted to tell me what he was thinking and feeling. He was a super Dad who built my train layouts, dressed up as Santa at Christmas to get my list, taught me to use tools, and took me places. Thanks to our times together I am still a fan of professional wrestling.

But my Dad gave me those great moments in my car building, although he wasn't a modeler, he was a car guy. When I started to build down here in Florida when I was 12, he would take me out to the remote roads and teach me to drive. As I continued to paint and upholster my cars, he taught me how to change brake pads, water pumps, flush radiators, change all fluids, troubleshoot, and how to really wash, wax and clean out the interior of a car.

One Friday night in the 11th grade, before I was licensed to drive at night, I prevailed on Mom and Dad to take me to the hobby shop at midnight to see how I did at the model car City championships. So we made a night of it, and had dinner, watching the fleet fishermen bring in their catch, and then go over to the hobby shop to see whose car won and made the front window. It was mine!! Dad put his arm around me, and said he was proud of what I did. I even had a better moment when I overheard him bragging about me to his best friend.

I tried to follow that example with my son, encouraging all of his interests, and telling him I was proud of what he did, and who he was, win or lose. I sure hope I succeeded, as he is one great kid, and he is on his way this moment to come home for Thanksgiving and I can't wait to see him. I hope he feels the same way about me.

Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman

[ricky12]

very good question mainly because because it allows me to make things i couldnt aford in real life . also allows me a way of getting a way from the real world .