Snake45

I saw that. Excellent movie from a story, characters, and acting point of view. But if you know anything about WWII, it makes NO sense at all. Best to imagine this story happens in some other universe completely. If you can, it's quite good.

Wow, you really ARE lucky! I hope you've thanked God for your good fortune. When I saw the thread title, I thought it was going to be a story about a family member knocking over your display case and destroying several dozen of your most prized models, or something along those lines.

These are fabulous! I LOVE doing this kinda stuff. I hereby award you the coveted Black Belt in Snake-Fu! Model on, my new friend!

Those look pretty darn good! I see you like to do the same thing I do--take these cheap diecasts and apply a few simple, basic modeling skills to pimp 'em up a little bit. I've done dozens of diecasts this way. I know I have a couple of cheap early ('68-'72) C3 Vettes in my collection but I don't believe I've seen this one (I don't think any of mine has T-tops). These look VERY nice and I might have to try to find one. Thanks for sharing them with us! Model on!

Very nice! These Maisto '66 Chevelles are fairly nice looking models for old, cheap diecasts. I remember seeing them at the 2002 IPMS Nationals in VA Beach, and didn't buy one because they were only in black, and I hadn't yet started my "accidental collection" of black diecast Chevies (I think I have 14 of them so far). I did buy the first non-black one I saw, a blue one like yours at a gas station around 2007 or so. Still have it and have it proudly displayed. Yours looks great, I like it! Model on!

I always wanted to put on my new-hire intake paperwork that I had Tourette's. Then I could have pitched a tantrum at any time and called anyone any vile name I could think of, and then, when I got called to the HR office, tell them if they fired me or took any kind of negative action, I'd hit them with a lawsuit for ADA violation. But I kept forgetting to actually DO it, dimmit!

Dunno for a fact, I could check it out, but if he DID fly a P-47N during the Korean conflict, it would have been stateside and it sure wouldn't have been painted like that (his WWII ETO scheme). I'm pretty sure he flew F-86s of some sort IN the Korean conflict. That would be easy to find.

Beautiful! You really captured the "feel" of these early/mid '60s drag monsters. Well done and model on!

Thanks! I thought so too, for a while. It looks like a POS to me now, but it was about as good as I could do in the late '70s. That airplane is a special favorite of mine because the very first day of Basic Training in the USAF--June 19, 1972, to be exact--upon exiting the building where we picked up our brand-new uniforms, I was SHOCKED to see this airplane right in front of me. I knew immediately that it was a P-51H and knew that it was incorrectly painted in John C. Meyer's P-51D's markings. They also had a P-47N incorrectly (but very neatly) painted as Francis Gabreski's famous P-47D. I was AWED. Many weeks later, in tech school, I returned to take complete walkaround photos of both of them. I was going to build models of them using the ancient Aurora and Lindberg P-51H and P-47N kits, but still haven't gotten around to it. Both airplanes are still at Lackland but I understand they've been repainted and are now displayed on the parade grounds, which, in 1972, had only a B-17 and a B-24. These pics were taken in 1978. The canopy has been replaced with solid fiberglass, or maybe just painted over. In my 1972 pics, the canopy is still clear, but very, very yellowed. Here's the "Gabreski" P-47N:

BlackSheep, thought you might like seeing this model of John C. Meyer's Petie 2nd I built in the late '70s, shortly after the Monogram 1/48 P-51D kit came out. I still have it. Thought I had some better pics on the computer, but of course I can't find 'em at the moment.

Very nice! I love seeing what I can do with one of these ancient crock kits every now and then and you did a FINE job with this one--be proud of it! Well done and model on!

Dan, kudos! Those were especially good today. I literally LOLed more than once!

I was an enthusiast consumer of these kits back in the day. I had and built the Falcon, Chevelle, Comet, and Barracuda. The Falcon and Comet were lost in a basement fire in December 1968. I put an AMT '67 Barracuda body on the '66 Cuda FC chassis; I still have all the parts but the bodies are in bad shape. At some point I broke the Chevelle up for engine/chassis parts. I still have the body but the decals on it are in bad shape. I plan to build up a chassis from the new “reissue” kit, replace the damaged decals on the old body, and then build the “new” body with much better paint, showing the difference between my modeling skills of 1967 and today. Yes, the '67 Vette is basically the stock '67 Coupe kit with new decals—nothing “funny” about it at all. As we know, that whole kit was reworked into the '63, which has been reissued many, many times over the years. Wouldn't be that difficult to build a fairly good facsimile of this one using commonly available stuff, but frankly, why bother? Much better parts are available today. It looks like most, possibly all, of the original box art on these was done by the Late Great Don Greer. RIP, Don, you are remembered and missed. Several of these kits were reissued in the late '70s as “Street Freaks.” I'm not sure which ones, but I have the Mustang and Nova that I bought at that time, still in their original boxes. The Chevelle didn't make that series of reissues, having by that time already been vandalized into the dirt track racer. I've been doing a “deep dive” on the real '64-'67 “funny cars” lately and by modern standards, these kits are, to be honest, kinda disappointing. Few of the real cars had the rear axles moved up as far as the AMT kits portray (though a very few did), and most of the real altered wheelbase cars also had the front axles moved forward too, which NONE of the AMT kits has. It's thus impossible to build an accurate model of any real AWB car without extensive modifications (in most cases—again, there are a very few exceptions). For example, if you wanted to build an accurate model of any of the Ford factory '65 A/FX Mustangs, you'd be better off starting with the new AMT '66 Mustang GT kit and modifying as necessary. None of these kits is worth the effort necessary to build an accurate model of a real car. To put it in other terms, none of these kits is “marriage material”--too much effort, expense, and eventual heartbreak will be involved—but that doesn't mean you can't have a hella lot of FUN with them, kinda like a great weekend with that hot but crazy redhead you once worked with and run into one night in a bar. Couple years ago I decided to just “get drunk and go for it” with the Mustang FC kit. I'd started it more than a decade before and hoped to build it into a replica of Sam Auxier's BOWANI II, which had made a lasting impression on me in the summer of 1968. I got tired of looking at the sad thing in its box and so just dragged it across the finish line as a sort of “Bowani Tribute Street Freak/Bracket Racer.” Even with this drastically lowered standard, I just HAD to reduce the size of the rear wheel openings, fill in the cut-out section of the hood, and swap the whole mess onto the chassis from the reissued '67 Comet AWB kit (I didn't like the “suicide” front axle setup in the Mustang kit's chassis). I'm reasonably pleased with the finished product, for what it is, and yes, I had FUN with the evil thing. Go thou and do likewise.

BB, Very Most Hella Way Cool! Model on!

The "South of the Border" series was very late '60s or very early '70s, I believe. I know the '65 Riviera was in it, and I'm thinking the '66 Skylark as well.

Thanks JJ! Great news! You DA BOSS!

Hey, no problem. We're all just glad to see you're still here!

Heard him on the radio the other day. He's very blessed these days now, too!

Happy Birthday, Carl! Have a Very Blessed Day!

Wasn't that a big hit for Lada Gaga about 15 years ago? Pa-pa-pa-pizza face, pa-pa-pizza face....

...and saying, "What? Too soon?" This whole idea is just sick and wrong. And also, hilarious!

WAY too much. My way is better. I wouldn't pay more than 50 cents for it, and then only if the used book store or Goodwill joint is on my way to somewhere I'm going anyway, otherwise it's not worth the gas it would take to get there.