John Goschke

Great build, Dennis! Has a real 1960s flavor about it. Great stance and I love the wheel/tire combo! (Those chrome wheels might be the best thing about that chopped Merc kit.)

What a great build! Very clean workmanship does justice to a very cool subject.

Engine looks great, Steve! What green did you use – looks quite authentic.

Probably best not to store any finished models that are trimmed with Bare Metal Foil in a hot environment.

Love this kit! Have one in progress, but it's not ready for prime time. Meanwhile, here's another survivor. Ebay find, took it apart, polished the original candy red enamel, and reassembled. All the nice white was brush painted over the black plastic by the original builder. Those cool capped headers are only in early issues of the kit. One of my favorites in my collection.

Very crisp build! Terrific color combo and the wheel/tire combo adds an aggressive look to the little bugeye. I enjoyed owning the MG version, a '69 Midget, which was less of a roadster, having roll up windows, but was still great fun to drive with the top down on a crisp fall day with my pretty girlfriend in the shotgun seat. However it was during that period that we came up with the acronym "TBSC" (Troublesome British Sports Car) for the Midget and all its similar brethren.

Thanks for the comments, guys! I really appreciate them. Not to worry about the wheel/tire combo, Steve! That's been locked in for 4 1/2 years! Traditional red rims with 2 1/2 whitewalls and '54-'55 Olds Fiesta-style wheelcovers. These would have to have been one of many aftermarket copies, from Western Auto or J.C. Whitney, since the Ford used 14" wheels and the Olds used 15". More often than not, it's period-correct wheels and tires, then the stance, that inspire my builds. To my mind, good customs, mild or wild, should enhance, refine or develop the original car design.

Nice work! Paint is beautiful.

Terrific work on that dash and steering wheel! Amazing what careful detail painting and foilwork can do for these old annual kits. As I recall, the speedometer face in the '61 Buicks, and maybe the '60s, was a mirror that reflected the image to the driver of the actual gauges embedded in the dash below it. Kinda gimmicky, but fun to look at!

Finally got the paint done on the Sunliner. Still needs to be polished out. Thinking that the owner of this mild custom Ford had a limited budget for paint so after the handles and emblems were shaved he had the factory paint spotted in and, inspired by California cars, had his painter do some simple outlines and scallops in silver. Looking forward to completion soon!

Outstanding build! The wire wheels seem definitely worth the effort given their scale appearance.

Very impressive design and fabrication using innovative techniques! Thanks for posting this!

Waste of styrene.

Fortunately the kits were molded in styrene, so they didn't warp like the acetate promos. The kits and promos have undersized wheels and tires, more like 1/25th, however, Hubley's rendition of the '60 Ford full wheelcover is far better than AMT's somewhat flattened version.

Beautiful! That stance looks just about perfect to me – nice "California Rake!"

Steve, thought you and the guys would get a kick out of this old Kodachrome that popped up in the "Vintage Shots" thread on the HAMB forum. Nice new '61 Invicta ragtop in "Sun Valley Cream" and "Granada Black." Very pretty car. Back then Buicks with factory two-tone like this were relatively rare.

Amazing work, Steve! What did you use for the piping on the seats?

Nicely done! The new wheels give it an aggressive look and the bright blue sweep panels add a little Bugatti accent – just right!

Very attractive color combo and great job on those fades!

Thanks for this review, Tim! Very valuable info. It looks like the "rust" decals might work better on a grey-primered body given the patches of pale grey in the artwork. Perhaps airbrushing some grey primer along the upper portion of the decal and fogging it back into the body might camouflage that edge of the carrier film.

Paint job is sheer genius!

You guys are cracking me up! I remember my late Grandfather, who came of age in the late teens and 1920's, complaining that "all cars look the same today, not like when I was a young man" while I was oohing and awwing over the new '64s in Motor Trend (oh, man, that Galaxie 500XL!) in the fall of '63. Seems every generation whines about the same things, among them, "all cars look the same nowadays." File that next to "Oh, these kids today and their crazy _____ (music, clothes, hair, etc.), don't have any_____ (respect, ambition, etc., etc.") along with the all-encompassing (and always inaccurate) "Life was so much simpler back then," and all variations thereof. Of course that's coming from a geezer whose standard of comparison in car design is, "Is it as memorably beautiful as a '57 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer?" Now that I'm just shy of the same age as my Granddad was when he made the eternal "all cars..." complaint, I've finally learned to identify some of his beloved cars from the teens and '20s, but it gives me a headache because, well, "they all look the same," just as it does trying to sort out all the various SUVs, crossovers, and four-door "coupes" of today.

Great work, Andy! Looking forward to crisp photos from your new camera. Oh, and don't tell anybody else, but did you notice how the top edge of the fins on the Del Rio curve up for the first inch and a quarter or so. They should be straight. It's the same on the Custom Tudor but is less noticeable because of the trim.

Nice color! One vote for the original Chrysler wire wheels and WWs! Those wire wheels are THE look for mid-'50s Mopars!

Very impressive workmanship!