Der Bugmeister

I mocked it up last night, and if you look from the right angle (car upside down, etc) you can see it...which means Tony's right. I'll know... The kit seems to provide all the proper tin - I haven't seen anything in the photos of actual engines from the era that would suggest there is anything else around there so I'm going to be doing some careful filing/sanding to tidy it up. I'll take a couple photos of the quickie mockup tonight. My first impression of the kit is that there is some decent detail, but some inaccuracies. If you look at the engine photos, you'll see the generator stand doesn't look like the integral case casting that it should (putty's going in there). I'm not sure if the provided distributor (wires out the top) is correct for the year, some more research needed there as I've seen both types in use. I also need to take a closer look at the shape of the top edge of the decklid. It strikes me as being too rounded, but I haven't confirmed that or taken a look at what (if anything) I can do about it. There's a lot of extra flashing on the parts, and the casting marks on the body are terrible. It's going to take a lot of work to clean and fill them before it goes to paint. Considering what I paid for the kit ($120+) back in the '90s I would have expected something cleaner. At least the price has come down a lot since then. I'm sure I'll have more to add as the build progresses!

I'm old enough now that I tend to forget stuff that I don't see, so it will only bug me for a couple years. The fin lines don't quite line up, so there will still be a flaw there. I'm still mocking things up to see if the seam is visible enough to warrant an obsessive attack on it. Or maybe I'll just put a big glob of glue on the fan shroud to distract anyone's attention from it.

Model

Might want to rename it to Cordvetterossa Captivating build, don't tell my boss I just spent the last hour reading all 25 pages. Love it.

Very nicely done! I remember seeing photos of these 20+ years ago, never thought I'd see a scale model.

Thanks fellas. I've got 4 real ones in the garage for when I get tired of miniature detail There's a Hasegawa 1966 kit pretty much the same as this one, I'll build that one in a few months and see if I've improved any!

I've had this kit for a dozen years, and have been itching to build it for the same length of time. I'm finally at a place in my life where I can get back into the hobby, so the time has come. Planning on taking my time with this one, and possibly going overboard on detailing it. Completed my first kit, have a dozen more to learn and hone skills on alongside this one, but this one gets the special treatment. I'm planning on practicing new techniques on the other victims...er...cars before applying them to this build. Starting with the engine, and already have several modifications/fabrication projects in mind for it. Using a couple good shots of restored 50/51 engines for detail, plus my own indepth knowledge of the cars, I'm planning on adding some improved hardware to the carb, fabbing proper bail wires for the valve covers, copper line for the fuel lines, accurate wiring...and well, you get the picture. The rest of the car will get similar treatment over the course of several months. It's just dry fitted here, and the cylinder tin/fan shroud is in primer. Going to be repainting the case and cylinders with metallizers. Question for anyone who's built this kit - is the seam on the cylinders visible once assembled? If it isn't, I won't worry about it but if it is then I need to clean it up more.

I built lots of models in my teens and early 20s, but hadn't built one for about 17 years (or longer) until now. This is my "warmup" build, the first kit I've done since the early '90s. Hasegawa 1967 Beetle Far from "perfect", but I relearned a lot along the way, and picking up a lot of new ideas, tips and tricks to use on my next build. To say it went smoothly would be a gross exaggeration...wound up stripping and repainting the body a few times and still wasn't 100% happy with it. My lame photography skills help hide some of that though ;-)

Nah, that one's all mine! (I wish!) I'll add more here later, but I should probably toss up some photos of my more topical work first.

New guy here...no models worth posting yet, but I can definitely contribute in this thread ;-)