Faust

I like the idea of a Lambo door. I'll have to let that roll around in my head for a bit. Lambo doors on a PT Cruiser, though? That's, well... just... yeah. He does deserve that knock on the noggin! I would suggest he might have already taken one to put those on in the first place!

It's a shame that it didn't get done, but with the Reissue of Bad Company, getting a new body for it should be pretty easy, I'd think. Also, I think the plastic that Round 2 cast BC in is a bit softer and less brittle, so it might fill and sand better. You should resurrect your Gold Rush and see what you can do with it! It sounds like it would be a darned cool-looking van indeed!

I do find that Gundam makes a better OVA and short series than it does a TV series. I find most of the Gundam TV series get a bit too drawn out, and a bit too full of themselves. Zeta and Reconguista in G are perfect examples of that. The original Gundam is actually okay, but the movies tighten it up well. the novels are still my favourite take on that original story, though. I don't mind the Turn-A at all. I am not a fan of the moustache, much, but I can deal with it. I think that it would have looked better if the "moustache" were wings off of its cheeks, though, and not joined right at the front. That, and the head looks a little bald...

I agree. Although, I will admit I like to try and bring ancient kits up to at least semi-modern standards. Enough that people see it and try and figure out which kit it is. That's one reason I like to rescribe panel lines. Even if they're not perfect, the recessed lines are the mark of a newer kit, and that tends to thow people off. Still, not worrying about superdetailing or even correcting flaws is very refreshing. You can make amazing dishes with apples, but you can also eat them right off the tree, right?

Oh, I'm not so sure about that. Mind you, rug burn might be an issue

Oh man, those are awesome! Talk about inspiration! No wonder they're "shaggin' wagons", look at all that shag carpet in there! They look more like cat condos than vans! Those things are just great, and they are certainly good examples of what could be done with a rolling box! I can't get over how overblown most of those vans are and were. Such a good time!

Bill: I know exactly what you mean; I have a couple of the old Hot Rod Show World books, and there are vans similar to Gold Rush in there as well. It's a shame it doesn't have anything as wild as the awesome murals you're describing, because that is indeed how I remember these vans. Wild scenes of buxom viking chicks riding polar bears or wolves, wizards, lightning, castles, fog, dragons... either that or desert wates or space themes. Good times, man, good times. I loved those things at car shows when I was younger. Always wanted one, but my age and the age of such vans didn't quite synch up. Good thing is now I can make my own! Tom: I can guarantee that I'll build this in the right spirit. The key will be to make the interior reflect the exterior's colour scheme. That's always the hard part: How can you paint the interior such that it is imaginative, but still reflects what would seem to be a contiguous train of thought and approach to colour? Thankfully, the full '70s pallette of orange/gold/brown are represented, so I have lots to choose from. Thanks for the compliments, guys!

Thanks for the warning about the decals. I will try to remember that, Mark. I know what you mean, Jeff. It's just such a great, over-the-top combination of senseless excess and almost childish abandon. MPC's subjects were great, but their customs were often even better!

By now, I’m sure anyone who knows me realizes that I do have a soft spot for MPC kits. The good folks at MPC seem to have been on the same wavelength as me when it comes to what makes a great car kit. Good interior detail, bizarre subject matter and a heaping helping of ‘zeitgeist’ are all essential. They must also have known that I LOVE street vans, since they made a bus-tonne of them back in the day. Mind you, there were a lot of the real things back then too! More than any other maker, I think, MPC really seemed to embrace Vannin’, and that means there are a lot of good (well, interesting, at least) van kits out there. Recently, Round 2 reissued one: Bad Company. This was the 1982 annual of the mid-‘70s Dodge van. However, there were many other Dodge street vans before Bad Company. One of the rarer ones seems to be Gold Rush, a completely crazy custom van that could only have arisen from MPC in the ‘70s. My brother managed to snag me a copy, and I present to you an out of box review for this wild roller at the link below. For whatever reason, I don’t seem to be able to find many other reviews of this thing, so maybe it’s been forgotten? Well, I couldn’t let that stand! Check it out, and rest assured, THIS THING WILL GET BUILT!! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/out-of-box-reviews/mpc-124-gold-rush-custom-dodge-van-oob/

Oh, Danno, you're likely so right! There's something just fantastically ironic about the thought of it.

One of the odder classes of weapons to have emerged to something akin to prominence during WWII is the Midget Submarine. Like assault gliders, they seem to have been something of a fad that came and went rather swiftly. However, during their heyday, they were deployed by most major powers in the conflict. One of the less-than-greats in this category was the German Biber (beaver) one-man sub. This obnoxious and often mortally crude little tin-can is not a sub that gets a lot of love, and with good reason. It was poorly made and not that successful. However, it is a cool-looking boat, and when you consider that about half of its mass is made of the weapons it carries, you have to admit it’s at least academically interesting. Thankfully, for those who want one, Italeri popped out a nice looking kit in the massive scale of 1/35! Thank goodness Bibers are small… at least this thing still fits on a shelf! I build this sub as a present to my dad, since my grandfather was apparently trained on these boats late in the war. It’s a surprisingly unforgiving little model, with what I would say is too hefty a price tag. Still, it was fun and it looks neat on display. Check it out, and as always, feedback is much appreciated! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/italeri-135-biber-midget-sub/

If it’s one thing I like, it’s a giant robot. Of course, if that giant robot happens to be all junked up with extra armour, missiles and guns, well, that’s just all the better, then! Despite my love of nice clean mecha with lithe lines, it seems I never really build that many of them. I’m always drawn to build the ones with all the added “stuff”. The Full Armour Gundam 7th is no exception. Of course, one explanation is that there’s NO version of this mech WITHOUT the armour, so it’s not like I had a choice! Coming from a little-known Gundam game (that we in North America didn’t get, I don’t think), the Full Armour 7th is a pretty obscure machine. Of course, it its original colours, it’s also a very gaudy and clownish-looking one too! I think that a heavy armour suit should look the part, so I decided to totally reinvent this mech’s colour scheme. By darkening it up and unifying the colours, I think I got it looking a lot meaner and more like the walking tank/battleship it was supposed to be. Take a look at the link below and let me know what you think! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/mecha-robots/bandai-1144-hguc-fa-78-3g-full-armour-gundam-7th-ground-custom/

They say that good things come in small packages, right? The thing is, that doesn’t seem to always be the case! I was in a local store a few years ago and I of course gravitated to the Heller section. I saw they had a big Noratlas in stock, but I didn’t want to use up that much shelf space. So, when I saw a little one at 1/170, I thought it was a perfect answer! It was also in scale to some old Macross kits I had. However, as you likely can guess, the small Noratlas isn’t that great a kit. In fact, it’s well on the road to running ancient Airfix a competition for bad ideas given plastic form! Of course, that kind of makes me love it all the more! I doubt this is a kit too many have, or at least are thinking of building, but despite it all, it does look like it could have potential! (Hmm… what if gunship comes to mind…) If you want to be glad of the small-scale kits we get nowadays, check out this old chestnut! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/out-of-box-reviews/1170-heller-nord-2501-noratlas-oob/

Thanks guys! As to your question, Tony: They're actually a blast to build. Compared to smashing my face into old MPC kits, the precision of these new Gundam kits is amazing. They're extremely high quality, the fit is excellent, and the ability of the kits to pose when done is incredible. They really are some of the very best engineered kits ever. To my mind, they blow away even a well engineered car or plane kit. People often ignore them as serious modelling subjects (at least here in North America) because they think they're "just toy robots". However, there's a lot to them that kit builders can really sink their teeth into. If you see one cheap, grab it and give it a go; all the normal skills apply, and the instructions are easy to follow, even if you don't speak Japanese! Brian: The Bearguy is an adaptation of an amphibious mobile suit called an Acguy. The head's different, but most of the rest is the same. The show that these kits are from (Gundam Build Fighters Try) is about groups of kids who build and customize Gundam kits and then fight virtual battles in a tournament. Sounds hokey, but it's well animated and there's lots of good robot-on-robot action! the original Bearguy was a girl builder's first attempt to customize a Gundam kit, and she wanted to make it cute. This one, the Bearguy F (for Family) has a little mini-Bearguy (known as a Petitguy) with it, that serves as a secondary combat machine. It's all very "out there", but cool in a cute way. Hope that helps!

Just like in the now-classic Christmas movie “A Christmas Story”, I too am the recipient of a “Major Award”! While it might not be the hoped-for bowling alley, and it isn’t a leg lamp (kind of a shame, I know…) it is awfully cool. I entered the Gundam Mid-Year Campaign 2015, and was lucky enough to be a winner in the contest! I won a set of 20 (Yes, 20!) Build Fighters Try kits. While some might criticize the show as being a big commercial for kits, I’ll say this; it works! The kits are beautiful, right on par with any other Bandai offering, and getting a 17lb box of models in the mail is just freakin’ sweet. The only hard part was the waiting. I won in August, 2015, and just got these in the mail on January 26, 2016! Good things come to those that wait, I guess! Check out the box of awesomeness here: https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/gundam-mid-year-campaign-2015/

Thanks, Ed! I'm amazed at the Matchbox armour; they are far superior to the Matchbox plane kits, that's for sure! Something about all 4 of those 50s blasting away does make me kinda giggle!

One thing I like about modelling as a hobby is that it always gives me a chance to try something new. In this case, that’s building armour! I’m not really an armour builder by “trade”, but I do find tanks and fighting vehicles very interesting. I have been scared off by the complexity of armour kits in general, but then I found some old 1/76 Matchbox kits! With their small size and cool diorama bases, I figured I could get some practice on weathering and doing groundwork, all at the same time! So, here’s what is actually my second piece of armour in recent times, the old M16 “meat chopper” from Matchbox. Please let me know what you think, and I’d really appreciate feedback since I’m new at this and would love to hear how to get better! Thanks! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/ships-and-tanks/matchbox-172-m16-halftrack/

Wow. I will admit that I've never driven one, but I've seen them rusting and sputtering and being towed away lots. I'm amazed about the seats, Charlie. That's very impressive indeed! Maybe it's a relative thing, Silvester? I find it hard to believe that a car like that could compete and win against things like Audis, nicer Renaults and even VWs for "car of the year"! Huh. I remember them being something of a laughing stock here. It may have a lot to do with the name, though. That car is NOT what people expected a "LeMans" to be.

My Lord, Tom! You have the Hyundai?? Is it a Pony or an Excel? You sir, are a lucky man! What a pair. The loser car fanatic in me is turning green with envy. I do mean the seriously, as sad as it may sound. I never thought of trying to strip the clear sprue. I've seen that with red plastic though, now that you mention it. I should give it a go too, but I'd be worried about the clear fogging if that happened. Still, might be worth a try. I'm amazed about anything Daewoo being worth more than a plugged nickel! We had a Daewoo dealership here in town, right near the University; perfect place, right? Cheap cars for students, etc. Nope. The cars sucked so bad they were in the shop more than on the road. It folded after a couple of years. I thought Daewoo was a dead name, and that Hyundai had bought them out. Somehow, Uzbekistan seems to be a good place for these cars. They're basic and (apparently?) rugged-ish, so they're better suited to that environment that metropolitan North America!

Why do they have different names for different body styles? I've never understood that. So it's a Belmont in England? Was it as terrible a car in England as it was here in Canada? They really didn't seem to like winter or road salt at all.

Yeah, Joe, I think you're right. At least the motor you get with the model is likely to run for a bit without belching black smoke! I don't think there are enough parts of these left in the world to store in that box!

You know how, at this time of year, there’s a big push for “out with the old, in with the new”? Well, certainly you MUST have known that I would do just the opposite! Just in time for New Years, then, I thought I’d treat everybody to a great remind of just how far we’ve come from some of our darker days in motoring history. Nothing makes the past look better than distance, but it’s still going to take a few years to make anyone miss, pine for or maybe even forgive this horrible little toad of a car: The Daewoo Lemans! Remember when the great LeMans nameplate got stuck onto a horrible sputtering little Korean junkbox? If not, you will when you check out the out of box like below! Have a peek, and be glad that, with each passing day, ever fewer of these things can be seen on the roads! Happy New Year! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/out-of-box-reviews/academy-124-daewoo-lemans-gse-oob/

Oh man, that Pershing looks awesome! Nice! It would have been really cool if Dinky had made one of those, too. I know they made an Honest John, and I think Dinky France had some kind of drone launcher... Say, did anyone ever make a kit of the Lacrosse?

There’s always that one massive “mega toy’… the really expensive and complicated one that everybody wants, but almost no kid gets. When it comes to Military Dinky Toys from the 1960s, that title goes to Dinky No. 666, the Corporal Missile Transporter. As Britain’s first tactical nuclear weapon, this rocket system was a big deal, and Dinky made sure to commemorate it with a first-rate, and exceptionally expensive, toy. When I was little, I’d seen pictures of it in my uncle’s old catalogues, and wished he’d been more into military stuff. I figure’d that’d be the only way I’d ever get to see one. Well, my brother proved me wrong, and for Christmas a few years ago got me one. So, in the spirit of the Season, I thought I’d share one of the coolest Christmas presents ever, in any age. Have a great holiday, everyone, and remember: Duck and Cover! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/cool-stuff/military-dinky-toys/dinky-no-666-corporal-missile-launcher/

Wow. that' is nasty, and really, theft. That kit is everyting that's wrong with recasting. Essentially, it's forgery, and they even ripped off Marui's box art! That's a pretty sad effort. Glad to have the original!