Peter Lombardo

Super clean and well done. I loved watching these red and white monsters back in the day. Really nicely done. One of these days I will get around to completing my model of this car.

Bingo, I set them up side down by mistake. My 76 year old eyes are playing tricks on me. I also agree with you that the paint has darkened over time.

Many years ago, (the clear top coat crazed since the build, not to be unexpected over time) I built two versions of the Revell RSR 934 racers, one in green as the Vaillant car and one in orange as the Jagermeister racer. I built both cars as box stock curbside models. The Jagermeister car was sprayed with Tamiya orange from the rattle can. I always found it too dark for my liking, but since it was a curbside easy build, I didn't fuss over it. I enclosed photos of it here for reference only. Now that I have 3D-printed front cross-bars, fuel and oil tanks, and the proper fuel injection plenum in 1/24th scale I wanted to produce a more detailed version of the same car. This time I started with the Tamiya version rather than the Revell offering. As a side note, I now see that Revell of Germany is selling a version of the car with the fuel and oil tank top molding in place and the obvious opening front bonnet. The same with the engine. But my tanks are complete not just molded in which I prefer. First I opened the doors and built magnets into the door and door frame to hold them in the closed position tighter. I opened the front and rear hoods. I added the 3D parts that my son designed the CAD file for and printed on his 3D printers. I wired and plumbed as much as I thought necessary to complete the look. I airbrushed the car in Tamiya Orange which I am fully aware is lighter than the actual real car, but since the other one is too dark, I thought I would go with a lighter shade of orange because I like it. At my tender age of 76, I think I have earned the right to a little Artistic License so I went with the shade of color I preferred. The rest is from the box except for the Dunlap decals on the tires which Tamiya does not supply. I suspect it is over some ridiculous licensing brouhaha. Since my move to southwest Florida much of my old "Parts Box and Decal Sheets" remained in NJ but I dug around and found just 4 yellow Dunlap decals so I was in luck. That's it and I am happy enough with it. I have one more set of 3D tanks and engine parts, one more kit of a Porsche K2 935, and an aftermarket set of Minolta Blue decals, and that should be it. Then on to the other 6 or so Tamyia AMG GT3s, 2 regular versions and 4 with the EVO aero package add-on pieces. All with wild aftermarket decals similar to the one I posted a few months ago. Other than the color, I made one accident fupa on the car, do you see it? It was caused by my rather poor eyesight O

I built two Porsche 935 K2s here. One is pretty basic with just opening doors. The second has both the engine and the under-hood tanks. A few months back, I built a K3 with scratch-built engine top half and tanks, which I enclosed as a reference. The main difference is the detail items for this K2 were all 3D printed. I gave all of the details and measurements to my son who has several printers. He created the files and then he printed them up, sent them to me, and they all fit perfectly the first time, which is amazing in and of itself. I enclosed a raw copy of the tanks here so you see what I started with. I have one more K2 in a different livery and a 934 RSR which will get the same treatment. Here are the two cars, one before (K3) and the new (K2) with engines and front tanks.

I don't care to post vehicles one by one since, unless it is a box stock build, no one seems to care about them, also here in the USA the emphasis is on American muscle or customs, not race cars, and since I only build race cars since my move to Florida and a forced down sizing. I could either continue customs or race cars, not both, and race cars won the battle. Every car here is painted with Tamiya spray cans or Tamiya paint airbrushed on. The first one is a box stock build of a Nissan Skyline that was raced in Japan. I like the Anime graphics and have done a number of them with many more AMG GT3 Animes in the queue. Nextnext up is a pair of Corvette C7 race cars, one done as a Callaway, without the body mods as I was rather lazy and the other is as it raced in China with one exception. The car is really silver, but I took an artistic license and did the car in gray like the secondary cars of the C8 race cars run. My preference.Both cars have decals sold by Indycals.The second one has a few body mods, mainly the lower front and side facia, rear defuser, and road lights Sorry, the cars are a bit dusty as they have been out of a closed case for a while and I forgot to clean them first, my bad.These are not my favorite builds so I didn't take much care in finishing them or adding much detail.This is a BMW 2002 curbside kit. I opened the hood, doors, added wheel-well flares, parts box wheels and several small additions. I added a BMW 635 straight 6 under the hood, and yes, it is a very tight fit. This is a Porsche RSR which is also a curbside kit. The engine top half and intercooler are scratch built as are all the items under the front bonnet. The next two are AMG GT3 cars. The first was modified into an EVO version with the addition of new front and rear facias and has aftermarket Aname decals.The second one is heavily modified with the doors and hood opened (not easy), and a resin kit including the door surrounds and panels plus a complete engine and under the hood detail, which was an absolute bear to get it all in and fitting reasonably well. The kit is not intended to have opening doors and hood, but I wanted the operating feature, so it was even more difficult. I used aftermarket decals and resin wheels to make the Winn's anniversary retro car pictured in the photo by the car.Note, the white, pink, and purple were painted on and most of the orange is decal. Again, sorry about the dust, you only see it in the picture, not when looking at the car in person.Two more cars to come

It's just beautiful, with a spectacular quality build. I wish NuNu or Profil 24 would take the challenge of offering one as a new tooling. Well done.

Thanks, Rich. Appreciated.

There is a very interesting story about this racecar and how it was the most unexpected winner of the "79 LeMans 24-hour race. Google it if you are interested and you will see what it has in common with the DeLorean sports car. Look it up. Anyway, this is a curbside kit from NuNu. It is based on the moldings from their 1977 935 K2 Racecar. I opened the front hood and doors. the doors are hinged too. The interior is detailed with the appropriate plumbing and wiring. The engine, which is just the bottom half from the kit was built up from scratch as completely as possible. The fuel and oil tank under the front hood are all completely scratch-built with the added frame bracing pipes. All the paint is Tamiya. I have the K2 in the pile and will get around to it soon enough. Have a look.

Lots of modifications.

This started as a curbside kit. I opened the doors and hood. Scratch-built twin turbo V8. Aftermarket decals.

Last October (2023) I finally completed my long-awaited exudes from New Jersey to sunny Southwest Florida. I finally was able to make the move as my wife retired as a Registered Nurse after (long, hard, and dedicated) 50 years in the Operating Room in a large hospital in northern New Jersey and since I am semi-retired working from the internet the move was easy for me. I say easy because as a golfer now living on a golf course in a gated golf community I am now in Paradise, but I had huge issues with the hundreds of unbuilt kits still in boxes and a few hundred finished builds. I sold off about 125 unbuilt mostly domestic car kits while keeping about 50 of them. I took about 165 unbuilt mostly race car kits down to Florida packed in large cardboard boxes and had to get a climate-controlled storage locker to keep them safe and out of the extreme heat and humidity in the summer months down here in SW Florida. I wanted to keep all the built kits but decided to limit them to my competition builds, a few of my unique designs, and my favorite custom builds. I packed up 10 large plastic containers using bubble wrap around each car which allowed me to bring down about 135 built vehicles. I purchased large glass cases with 4 shelfs each then added 4 more in between them and LED light strips giving me 8 display shelfs per case allowing about 125 cars in enclosed cases so they are protected from dust. Moving from a 3,900+sqf house to a 1,400sqf Condo, even though it is only my wife and I required a rethink of what modeling space I could comfortably utilize. I found space in our den where I could put in a small desk and space for the two (I need another one) display cases. I know you guys don’t care about all of this, but I included the info since it is something that many of us have to deal with and it isn’t fun. Okay, on to the builds I have completed since the move. I got off to a slow start since I had far more important projects, and a lot of golf, to get finished before the kit building could get underway. First up, the 1988 all-conquering (winning all but one race that year winning the Constructors Championship and Ayrton Senna the Drivers’ championship) McLaren MP4/4. I built this kit back in 1990 or so with Alain Prost as the driver. If I remember correctly back them, Tamiya included the Marlboro red decals for the kit which has been banned now since Tobacco sponsorship is considered evil. I painted all of the red on the car and used aftermarket Marlboro logo decals. You can see just how badly the red and white paint on the 1990-built car has faded over the years. This car was in an enclosed case but exposed to a few hours a day of sunlight. Other than the drivers and faded paint the other main difference in the cars is that the older kit was built with the turbo snorkels where the newer build was modified to represent a different configuration as raced in 1988. I prefer the version without the snorkels as do the designers of the car who in a video interview expressed their preference. I filled in the body holes and crafted a new airflow induction system that bring in cool air next to the radiators under the bodywork. I think this version is much sleeker-looking. All of the carbon chassis pieces were decaled with a Studio 27 set of carbon fiber decals. I added the Ayrton Senna driver to the kit. I cut off the front nose section on the kit, and I noticed after the photos were taken that the nose was a bit askew in the photo so I took one more with the nose on correctly, as it should have been. This car, as with just about all of my cars was painted with either spray cans or airbrushed Tamiya paint. Using one brand of paint, in my mind, simplifies the process and makes clean-up easier because all you need is inexpensive alcohol. Second up is the BMW M1 Procar made by Italeri Niki Lauda championship car. Nothing unique here, painted with Tamiya paints, but I have to tell you, the masking off of the white so I could add the florescent red was a real struggle as no matter how careful I was, the red found a way to bleed into the areas where it was not wanted. The MP4/4 above did not cause me any issues, but this one was a real bear. I got it “close” and finally said I was done with it all though it was far from perfect and barely acceptable. Fujimi Williams FW16. I will forever remember this car as the car that killed Ayrton Senna. There was a huge legal suit in the Italian courts over whether or not the last-minute modification of the steering system and potential unsatisfactory welds were the cause of the car flying off the track in Imola at the turn named Tamburelio which was considered to be not that difficult a curve to handle, especially by someone as accomplished as Senna. It was a freak accident because it was a section of the front A-frame strut that hit Senna in the opening for his vision in the helmet. I read several reports that indicated that had the suspension arm been a few inches higher when it hit the helmet, it would have glanced off and Senna would have easily survived the accident. But he didn’t and this major blow to the sport of Formula One brought about major changes to the area of driver safety. Anyway, here is the FW16 as Senna raced it in 1994. This is pretty straightforward with aftermarket decals and a driver figure added. I custom-mixed the blue to get it as close as I could to the blue used by Rothmans. The yellow tire markings were airbrush painted on using photo-etched stencils. Fujimi FW13b One of my all-time favorite F1 cars of all time. In 1992 I watched all the races that were televised even staying up to 2 or 3 am. Nigel Mansell is a great driver having followed up his World Championship year in 1992 with the Indy Car Championship the very next year, but in all honesty, the FW14b was far and away the most dominant F1 car of the period. It was so dominant in 1992 that it was banned in 1993. The car did nothing illegal, but because it had perfected the use of “Full Active” suspension it was running better than the competition to the point where the driver was less important so it begs the question, was it the FW14b and not Mansell that made the difference? Many years ago I was the Controller in an Infiniti Dealership. I had the opportunity to drive the Q45a on all kinds of local roads and a race track full out. The Q45a coupled a massive 4.5 liter V8 and a fully active suspension that used computer-activated dampers in place of shock absorbers, just as the FW14b did. The computer-controlled dampers kept the Infiniti on a level keel regardless of potholes or hard turns at high speed just as it did on the Williams. The FW14b could keep a consistent ride height regardless of speed or cornering and a consistent ride height means consistent airflow over the wings and foils that it could corner at astonishing speed because of the huge downforce generated which also meant it could use less “wing” so it was faster in a straight line too. The car could outperform other comparable vehicles because the suspension was so amazing. So, here is my Fujimi 1/20th scale car with Nigel as he looked when he clinched the 1992 Drivers Championship. I added a gaggle of wires under the body shell and used aftermarket decals for the Camel logos. The yellow is Tamiya Camel Yellow; the white is bright white but the blue is a custom mix of Tamiya paint. The white Goodyear tire markings were airbrush painted on using photo-etched stencils. Along with this, I included a Hasagawa 1/24th scale model of the car I built back in 1993 and then I made a Pinewood Derby car of the FW14b to race back in 1993 in the “family” category. All hand painted and logoed but sadly, not as fast as the real car so it didn’t win for speed, but got a trophy for best looking. Mazda RX7 This is a curbside Hasegawa kit of the 1979 Daytona GTU Class winner. I always liked the look of the livery on this car but once I got the kit, curbside just wasn’t going to work. I opened the doors and then thought about the engine bay. I found a 3D-printed twin-rotor engine and under-the-hood fenders and firewall so it wasn’t an easy conversion, but it all fit together reasonably well. All were painted with Tamiya paints and used the kit supplied decals along with a bit of custom mixed paint to fill in a few areas where the decals fought me a bit too hard. Toyota 200GT “wire wheel” Hasagawa curbside kit A car that honestly, I was not very familiar with. It has the same basic body lines as the XKE Coupe, Ferrari GTO, and Datsun 240Z, yet it never really made it into high production. Its only real claim to fame is it was used in a Bond movie, but because it has such a low roof it was modified into a roadster (they made 2 of them for the movie) because Sean Connery could not fit in it. Anyway, once again, this is a curbside kit but when it ended up on the workbench I felt compelled to open the doors. One thing led to another and the hood got opened and then the rear hatch. I had a Nissan 2.4 liter inline 6 engine that was not being used so it was pressed into service. You can’t tell a 2.0 from a 2.4 liter so that wasn’t a problem and both were twin overhead cam designs so that worked. The only issues were, the distributor was on the wrong side of the front of the engine and the inlet and exhaust ports had to be flip-flopped to the other side of the engine, also not a real issue at all. I fabricated the new exhaust pipes out of solder. Built the firewall and foot space into the engine bay and added the radiator wall that surrounds two radiators and an electric fan. The car is painted a custom mix of very light blue metallic paint topped with clear coat. And finally. Nissan HKS Skyline GT-R Group A Another Hasagawa curbside kit. Pardon my language, but this kit was a B _ T C H. One of those builds that fight you all the way, I’m sure you all know about these builds that don’t want to be completed, right? This build almost found its way into the dumpster. But I calmed down, reconsidered the time and money invested, and found a way to get’r done. As with the others, it started life as a curbside kit but ended up causing me massive pain. Opened the doors, easy, opened the hood, easy, opened the trunk, also easy. Hinging the doors, easy, hinging the hood, not so easy, hinging the trunk, darn near impossible. Hours and hours and still not as well as I wanted. I scratch-built the inside fillers, fuel lines, and new fuel tank both under the chassis and under the trunk. The interior electrical boxes were wired. So tell me this, why does the roll cage (kit supplied) not fit properly? It’s too tall causing me all kinds of issues. I added a 3D printed firewall, wheel wells, and radiator surround and then a beautifully done 3D Nissan RB26 2.6-liter twin-turbo engine instead of the phony cast lump cast into the chassis. The car was painted Tamiya gloss black and the matt, but very colorful decals were applied. I had high hopes for this build and now I am very disappointed with the result. Oh well, can’t win them all. My starting lineup of Ford GT40s for 1966

Of course you are 100% correct in your assessment of this kit. I have two of them and the one I started is exactly like what you said..... it takes months of labor intensive work, gets put back in the box for not cooperating, and every now and again brought back to the workbench. My started one is currently in the dog house for being a b*tch and not playing nice in the sandbox. If I ever get it finished, if it turns out half as nice as yours I will be thrilled. But really, I am not holding my breath. Great job on a bear of a kit.

Excellent! Well done. It really works.

Great job completing it. I also have one of these models on the shelf for well over 20 years that one day I hope to build.. I did build the Hasagawa curbside version and have the Daytona white green and red car to do also.

Looks great, well done. All of the hard work paid off nicely.

Wow, that is a crazy livery..... those headlights look insane. Nicely done.

Tamiya Mercedes 300SL Coupe, basically stock. Paint is Tamiya Gun Metal topped with Tamiya Clear Red then Clear with Micro Gold Flake, then Clear over that.Second 300SL Wide Body Roof removed, Doors opened Lambo Style. 4.5L AMG V8 added. Roll Bar, Front spoiler and side pipes added. High back Bucket seats and new steering wheel. Paint is Tamiya Gun Metal with Tamiya Smoke with Gold Flake added then topped with Clear.

Revell Ford GT Aftermarket decals, some photoetch and opened doors

Really sharp and mean looking. I love the wide fenders and turbo addition. Very well done.

Nice work. Great idea on the race car since they said they did not have to modify the street car very much to make the race car. Great job and a very nice color for it.

1959 Chrysler Imperial Beginning with an AMT curbside Imperial new reissue of a very old mold, many modifications were made. First, the chassis, interior and engine were confiscated from the newer AMT release of the 1957 Chrysler 300C, The Imperial’s doors and hood were opened and hinged (not easy as the Imperial body being an old mold is very thick). The Imperial kit offers the choice of either hardtop or convertible. I substituted the kit roof for a roof I vacuum formed from a buck I sculpted. The new roof was molded onto the body and the A pillars were laid back to line up with the mildly chopped height of the new roof which mimics the style roof on the 1965+ lineup of GM full sized vehicles. Rain drip rails were added to the side of the roof. The rear window and rear quarter panel windows were tinted using Tamiya smoke. Parts box late model Corvette rearview mirrors were added to the doors. The interior is from the Chrysler and is basically stock with a two-tone paint of dark blue and very light turquoise. The engine is from the ’57 Chrysler kit painted in various shades of orange and the air cleaner was confiscated from a Tamiya Mercedes kit picked up at a swap meet. The front grill was cut into 4 pieces. The two headlight pods, the bumper and the grill. The grill was discarded and the bumper was heavily modified being smoothed, peaked, and rolled, then molded on the body. The hood was also peaked in the front to match the bumper and grill taken from a Buick of similar vintage. The rear end had the tail light fixtures on the fins removed and smoothed out. The rear bumper was reshaped and molded on to the body. The concave lower section had small taillights added, the center was painted black, after the body was painted, then filled with clear epoxy. The forward exhaust flair sections were molded to the lower body and lake pipes extend out from them. The wheels were sourced from the parts box touched up with a bit of clear blue paint, the tires are from the Imperial kit. The body was done with a minimum of chrome only used in the front lights, grill, exhaust pipes and hub caps. The paint is a multi-layer affair of all Tamiya products beginning with primer, sanded smooth, then a base layer of gunmetal accented with silver highlights. Then the white and silver under tones of the flames were airbrushed on using various curved stencils. When dry, highlights were brushed on. Then the entire body was sprayed with clear green. Once dry, more flame highlights were brushed on using white and light blue. Once dried, a cover coat of clear blue was sprayed on the entire car. Then more flame highlights were added in white followed by two light coats of clear blue. Once dry, a top coat of clear mixed with micro ice pearl blue/green metallic flakes were sprayed on. Again, once dry, a pair of top coats of just clear were added. Then when that was dry, the body was rubbed out with different grades of wax to finish with a smooth surface. The intent of the flames was to create flames that were multi-layered, but not too bold and obvious while not being just ghost flames either. That’s it. Here it is:

Thanks, your builds for the year are exceptional, as usual. The material is referred to as sign foam. It is a dense foam that comes in large sheets. My brother usually buys it in 2 inch high sheets and uses it to make 3D signage cut on his computer controlled routing table. He saves the scrap for me and I take the bigger pieces. I layout the design on the block with magic marker, grind away the basic shape with my Dremel and finish with various grades of sand paper. It is easy to grind away, but impossible to "put back", so, needless to say, great care must be taken.

Very nice group, but the Camaro is exceptional. Great job on it all around.... the flat paint suits it perfectly. Wow.

Really nice group, all very well done, but I like the Audi the best.

Great bunch of builds there, but the Nomad does it for me, very well done.