Faust

Normally, I can be found gushing over the latest loser car or automotive oddball that comes into my collection. However, even I have an appreciation for cool cars; it’s just that there aren’t that many I’d like to model. That, mind you, does NOT apply to Trans Ams. Being a fiercely proud T/A owner, I love Poncho’s fire-breathing ‘Bird in most of its guises. Of course, it’s no surprise that my favourite is the black sheep of the family; the 1980-81 Turbo Trans Am! Now, it’s not because that’s the kind of car I own (well, okay, it IS, at least partially) but also because the Turbo T/A was supposed to herald a new era of performance, but instead was a short-lived, now-largely-forgotten experiment. It was Poncho’s last strike at the demons of efficiency that soon engulfed the enthusiast motoring scene. It failed, but it had potentinal. While most people don’t even remember it today, the Turbo T/A was a huge deal, and there were a tonne of kits, toys, etc. of the car. It was futuristic and classic all at once, and it was cool enough to be a pace car twice – once in each year it was alive! Thus, it seems fitting to remind people of this forgotten road warrior with a look at a somewhat forgotten kit: the Monogram 1/20 Turbo Trans Am! Check it out at the link below, and get ready to relive the end of an era! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/monogram-120-1981-turbo-trans-am-pace-car-oob/

Man, that box art is awesome! The Japanese really got dramatic box art, didn't they? I have one for the LM Ki-109 that has a B-29 going down hard with one wing literally torn off. That's pretty dramatic too! Having a Shoki to go with the Raiden would be nice, I will admit.

I love eclectic subject matter; whether it’s cars, planes tanks or robots, a model of something out of the ordinary usually gets my immediate attention, not to mention my money and time. However, there are some “famous” and “mainstream” subjects that are just too cool to turn away from. For me, one of those is the somewhat-famous J2M Raiden, known as “Jack” to the Allies in WWII. I usually prefer Japanese multi-seat or multi-engined planes; most of their single-seaters don’t do much for me. However, the Jack, whick looks almost as much like an air racer as an interceptor has always been a favourite of mine. The problem is, there are almost no good kits of it in 1/72, and I’m not willing to pay what they want for the few that do exist. However, since the Jack is so small, even in 1/48 it’s not a lot bigger than some 1/72 WWII twin-engined planes. Thus, I was able to finally add a Jack to my collection recently by picking up the old Arii second-hand. I have to say, give the age, it’s a good looking kit. Sure, it’s not as detailed as some more modern ones, perhaps, but for what I paid (and how horrified I was with the Arii Wirbelwind I got was) I was very pleasantly surprised. Check out my out of box review for this likely mostly-forgotten example of Japan’s pudgy interceptor at the link below! Anyone built this guy? I can't get the linking to work, but paste this address in to see the review: https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/out-of-box-reviews/arii-148-mitsubishi-j2m3-model-21-raiden-jack-oob

Hey Mike! Nice work! That looks great! As much as I'm excited by this well-deserved and long-delayed resurgence of Poncho's dominating pony car, I will admit I'm crushed it's not the turbo one. You likely know why. https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/real-cars/1980-turbo-trans-am-faust/ I am hoping (against hope?) they'll one day soon release the Turbo version. one with a red bird would be fantastic. I would literally need a new pair of pants.

As modellers, most of us are familiar with aftermarket stuff. I mean, there’s almost always some kind of extra detail sets, conversion kits, decals or weapons sets that you can buy for a kit, regardless of what kind of model it is, or how much it cost. We’re used to it and we accept it. However, it’s a bit different when you’re talking about toys. It seems to me to be asking a bit much of parents to create a toy specifically to go ONLY with another toy, especially when the one being accessorized is the biggest and most expensive toy in the whole line! Maybe that happens more than I think it does, but regardless, I know that practice has been going on for a long time. A perfect old example is the Dinky No. 667 Missile Servicing Platform Vehicle from the early 1960s! This good-sized vehicle existed only to go with the No. 666 Corporal Missile Launcher, the largest and most expensive Dinky of the time! So, while it might not be a model in the strictest sense, it’s a pretty cool replica of a very oddball vehicle, and worth checking out. Also, while it might not be an accessory in the purest meaning of the word, the fact it it’s really not that functionally valuable without the Corporal. So, take a peek at this old-school piece of British iron and remember that complimentary goods have been around a long time! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/cool-stuff/military-dinky-toys/dinky-no-667-missile-servicing-platform-vehicle/

It’s not only in cars and planes that I have a love for the weird and wonderful; I also like to get kits of oddball armoured subjects! While there’s nothing wrong with Shermans and Panthers, it’s nice to have a few less common vehicles to compare them too. Thankfully, when it comes to 1/76 armour, both Matchbox and Fujimi seem to have covered a lot of the bases! A perfect example of this is the 1/76 Fujimi Type 97-Kai “Chi-Ha”. This was one of Japan’s “heavier” tanks of the war, and it makes an interesting, if not anemic, counterpoint to its much more powerful contemporaries. I managed to pick this little old gem up at a model show, so I didn’t even have to pay much for it! Check out the kit out of box at the link below. Even if it’s not your thing, you’ll have to admit it looks pretty good for its age and size! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/fujimi-176-type-97-kai-shinhoto-chi-ha-oob/

Thanks guys! I agree, most were rustier than this the last time I saw them, too, Ken. I'm not surprised, being Mazdas underneath, that these were expensive to fix up. Heck, even my Mazda 3 from a decade ago was a surprisingly costly car to maintain. That's why I ditched it for a G8. Much more car, and much less hassle! I am surprised, though, to hear about electrical problems. I thought the Japanese were better than that. Makes it sound like a Fiat!

I grew up in the “Automotive Dark Ages”, among throngs of gutless econoboxes and the rusting hulks of the last survivors of the ‘70s. As far as being interesting for an automotive enthusiast goes, that era was pretty much a wash. However, I do remember as the ‘80s wore on that things started to change, and as I watched a new breed of “economical” performance cars came into being. These weren’t the rip-snorting muscle cars that my Uncle had raised me on and that I’d seen at car shows, but they weren’t the wheezing, soul-destroying, square-cornered beaters I’d seen for the last 10 years. Rather, they were some interesting mix of the two. They had modern aerodynamics and front-wheel drive (unlike a true performance car, I still feel), but tried to recapture some of the fun of driving. A perfect example of such a car was the Ford Probe GT. I remember when it came out that it made quite an impact on me. Clearly, it did on others, too, since I remember seeing lots of them around. A sporty car for the masses, then, and one that helped to pave the way for it to be okay to want more than just a beige hatchback. Because I remember the car so well, I was really happy to get my hands on one of the AMT Probe GT kits. It’s one of my earlier builds, but it still looks pretty good, so I thought I’d share. Check it out, and if you ever drove one of these, let me know what you think! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/cars/125-amt-1989-ford-probe-gt/

That looks great! I've toyed with picking that kit up, since it's pretty cool to have a kit of a modern "everyday" car. I'll have to see if I can find one, now! Thanks for the pics!

Unfortunatley, the URL for that decal doesn't come up, but maybe I can just paint it "close enough" and no one will notice? Weird about the grille. but now that I look VERY closely at some restored example pics I can find, I guess it really is SLIGHTLY different. Wow. Am I ever glad you pointed that out! Thanks a tonne for the help. Now, all I have to do is make it work!

Thanks for all the info, guys! As for the bench seat, it's got the same pattern as the non-custom seat (in the '64 brochure I was guided to on-line). That seems to be the only real "not custom" part. The pattern is dead-on for the base seat. I'll paint it as a custom seat to get it as close as I can. Everywhere I see chrome bumpers the grille looks chromed too. It's not? It's actually aluminum? And the surround is always white (off white), correct? Man, there were so many options back then! Tom: I will take that under advisement!

Okay, thank you very much for the help, Bill! I'd started to find references to orange being wrong for original engines, and it didn't seem right to me, either, but I had to check. I think my brother has some thin whites I can scam. I like the look of the whitewalls a lot. Great on the chrome option! I thought I'd read that somewhere. So let me get this straight: 1.) The chrome option is just the bumpers and grille, and even with this, the surround on the grille is off-white (same as the steering wheel and column, I assume)? I have a Canadian '64 Chevy truck brochure that's not super-detailed, but it looks like the chromed trucks have chrome surrounds on the grilles. 2.) The side trim and custom cab thing are separate items from the chrome group. 3.) I thought I read that two toning gave you a white roof/pillars (is it white, or off-white?) and body-coloured wheels, with chrome caps (they might have been part of the chrome group?). Is that right? 4.) This model has two visors, the "Chevrolet" writing on the dash (under glovebox) and the armrests on the door - that's part of the custom interior, and this gets the metal b-pillar decoration. (The brochure only mentions 1 armrest, though, for the driver's side...) However, I am also reading something about the custom cabs having a larger "panoramic"rear window. This kit doesn't appear to have that. It also has the basic vinyl seat. So does that mean this cab is mostly basic, with just a bit of custom? I can shave the armrests and no-one will notice the visors. Can you help me verify the window size issue? 5.) The chrome window trim is only on Custom cabs, and isn't part of the Chrome group or other options? Thanks!

Thanks, Mike. I've actually been mining Google pretty hard in the last day or so, and just after posting this (of course!) I found a couple of pictures, including a '65 with a blue engine. It looked a bit dingy, and thus I figured it was original. I have seen lots of customs and maybe restored ones with red, but if it's not an original, I don't usually trust the colours to be right. I wondered; in the '64 Canadian sales brochure I have, it doesn't show white whitewalls like that. Such a shame, because they look good. Is the grille surround white even on ones with chomed grilles? Thanks!

Every now and then, I get motivated to take a look at building a kit of a vehicle I might not normally consider building. In this case, it is a mid-‘60s pickup truck. This isn’t a subject I know much about, and it isn’t the usual thing most people would expect would turn my crank, so to speak. However, the kit itself is actually really nice and I wanted to try something different. I found this Revell 1964 Fleetside at a local swap meet and couldn’t resist. It’s actually a really nice kit, but it’s giving me trouble trying to figure out some things. It’s almost impossible to find examples on the net that AREN’T customized somehow, so if anyone has any links or info they can share with me I’d appreciate it. 1.) Is the engine supposed to be Chevy blue? They say orange on the instructions, but I’m sure that’s wrong. 2.) I think I read that if you got two toning, you got the whitewalls and body-coloured wheels. Is that correct? 3.) There is a chrome group for these trucks, but I think it’s separate from the side trim. If you got chrome grille and bumpers, is it true you got the chrome hubcaps too? Could you get this without the side trim? 4.) The box shows that there’s some kind of paint/chrome around the grille. However, I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be chrome or white paint. Not all examples seem to have it. Any ideas? https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/revell-125-1964-chevy-fleetside-pickup-out-of-box

One thing I’m not into, and never really was, is video games. I never got the allure of spending lots of time and money standing in crowded arcades when I could stay home and work on a model. However, one thing I AM into is cool-looking spaceships! It doesn’t matter to me if I know their backstory or not, for me spacecraft provoke a very deep and immediate response. In this case, I was drawn to the Wave Non-Scale “Solvalou” fighter from a famous (well, not to me, but…) videogame of the ‘80s. This game was called “Xevious”, and while successful here, it was a huge hit in its homeland of Japan. To honour the game’s anniversary, kitmaker WAVE issued this model a few years ago. I’m not sure about it’s origins, but man, it’s a neat looking ship with all kinds of potential! For something a bit different from the usual Star Wars, Star Trek and Gundam ships, check out the link below! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/wave-non-scale-solvalou-fighter-oob/

Everybody’s got to start somewhere; that’s just a fact of life. For the German Army of WWII, the most basic frontline tank used in great numbers was the Panzer II. Far from the complex and fire-breathing tanks of the Heer’s later years, the “little training tank that could” nonetheless was an important vehicle in Germany’s early-war arsenal. For me, the Panzer II was my start, as well, into building armour kits for real. Now, I don’t bother with all the fancy photoetch and stuff; I just want to have fun and make some neat tanks! For this, the 1/76 Matchbox tanks are perfect. They’re small, simple, but well-detailed and they go together with a minimum of fuss. Check out my beginning below, and see what you think of my efforts on this old-school armoured featherweight. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks to Matchbox, now I’m hooked on 1/76 armour! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/ships-and-tanks/176-matchbox-panzer-ii-ausf-f/

So true... so true.

Absolutely stunning! What a great idea! It's a biological What-If! That's three thumbs up, my friend!

That's awesome! I wish I'd had something like that when I was in those grades. I started modelling in Grade 6, when my buddy gave me the Monogram A-10 for my birthday. It's a travesty, but it was super fun to build one of my favourite planes. That was all it took. It's all the A-10's fault, actually; I saw (and was scared poopless) by a shark-mouthed A-10 when I was 4 and my dad took me to the London Airshow, and since then I've been big into planes. Then the sharky A-10 came and got me into models. Bloody heck, Fairchild, nice work! Is your school a more rural school, where kids are more used to using their hands, or is it in a larger metropolitan area? Thanks for the compliments. It was Classic Plastic that made me pick up my first SAMI, and then contact SAMI about the chance of me writing for them. I do like that they publish sometimes "less than perfect" examples of built kits. That's really, really important. I've never bothered with magazines because they show stuff so far above what I can do that it seemed pointless. I hope they continue to run weird stuff too. If they don't, it's going to be a serious mistake for them. I'm sad to see CP go, but I guarantee you that I'll keep building the oldies, and keep sending them in to SAMI, hoping they'll see light!

Hear, hear! I have to agree completely. I have a number of Frogs (but no more old Airfixes - I refuse!) that I've bashed on, and they take a TONNE of work. The same amount as my Farpro aircraft. They're not good when it comes to fit and their raised lines have to be rescribed anyway. As for sink marks, I think Matchbox is far better than the competition in most cases, too. Now, I have had to throw some putty at Matchbox kits, but nothing like the others. When you say modelling program, you mean like a program to get kids interested in modelling? That's awesome! Matchboxes are perfect for that! I have their J-29, and Heller's J-29 (I wanted the recce version so I could do one cammo). The Heller kit looks like it's nicer, finer and more detailed. It's also a lot less likely to fit and it will be a short tonne more work. Yes indeed, I have written for a couple, actually, in the recent past. I was in most recently in March or April's SAMI with, ironically, my FROG Ta-152H. I was pleased to be the last kit featured in the now defunct "Classic Plastic" column. I have a few other articles submitted to them that may one day see the light of day, too.

Oh, interesting. I didn't even know there was such a thing. He doesn't strike me as the "VW" kind of guy in a lot of ways, despite it being his idea to have a car that looked like a beetle.

I think I’m like most modellers in that I’m nostalgic for some of the older kits I built as a kid when I was first getting into modelling. However, for me it’s not so much model cars and planes that do this to me as it is model mecha. I love robots especially ones from animes, and when I found out that I could get MODEL robots I was over the moon! Some of the first Gundam kits I built (I’ve built well over 100 now) were the small “no grade” and bigger, deluxe (for the time) High Grade (HG) Wing Gundam kits. Back when they were new, 22 years ago, the 1/100 HG kits were the pinnacle of Gundam models>. However, times change, and to keep up with things, Bandai has released Master Grades (MGs) of all the Wing Gundam main machines. The first HG I ever built was the Shenlong, and so it only seemed fitting that the first MG Wing kit I built would be the Shenlong as well. It’s a very nice kit, but I have to say that the proportions are a bit off. Check out my finished MG Shenlong at the link below, and let me know what you think, both about my build, and about the machine’s proportions. https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/mecha-robots/bandai-master-grade-1100-xxg-01s-shenlong-gundam/

I've only ever seen the Norseman once - and the guy wanted some obscene money for it. I don't know why, but it did look like a cool kit! I'm the same with the Twin Otter - I'd love to do one on floats and one on wheels, but I can't decide. A widebody Spad family picture would look awesome!

Okay, it’s almost summer, but not quite, and the weather where I am has turned cruddy. It’s a grey, windy, “Blech” day on the “meh” side of staying in bed all day. So, to get everybody pumped back up, I decided to dig out my own sunshine, in the form of some old Matchbox “Sunset Stripe” box art. I love Matchbox kits, and the addition of the oh-so-80’s street van-esque “sunset stripe” to the boxes only makes these kits better. It’s like they’re trying to be something they’re not, but in the end, it just makes them cooler as relics of a long-gone age. Check out the pictures of my stripers at the link below; I hope they photos bring a smile to your face and some warm memories to your mind. If nothing else, they’ll give you a bit of sun on a cloudy day! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/matchbox-planes-sunset-boxes/

That's very true, on both fronts! I just picked up the ICM G4 the other week, and while it's a much nicer, and more accurate, kit by far, it doesn't have the same visceral appeal, at least box art-wise, as the Marui. It's all politically correct, not HISTORICALLY CORRECT (why be true to history on a model kit, right?) and it just comes with some random staff officers. I was hoping to not have to build the marui, since it's such an interesting bit of history, but what's the point of a G4 without Hitler in it? Seems kinda weak...