Plasticfanatic

And I think you are 100% percent correct about this detail, there's an amazing series in YouTube about a Japanese modeling show/tutorials in which some times a visit to the local modeler area SUPER STOCKED hobby shop is shown....ALL the kits in the store are unwrapped and when the buyer is interested in buying the kit, is permited by the store owner to open and inspect the kit as you well said, the first time I saw this my thinking was "well maybe since is for a TV show customer".....but is the same always and with everyone!!!

You could use the Fujimi "Garage Diorama set" which include tools and several other goodies and a small display base, I think they actualy have two sets, the compleat garage and the tools alone, but not to sure if they are still in production I do see them from time to time at e-bay. Also some of the vintage Monogram NASCAR model kits had the "driver and tool set" as part of the kit, it was not that extensive and the tools where those of a typical "pit stop" ones. There are some other aftermarkets tool kits out there, so a quick web search could yield more results. Hobby Design have photoecht tools set in 1/24 scale, but haven't see them in hand so don't know how good they are. For the walls and depending the weight also the floor(laminated) you could use "foamboard" available at your local arts and craft store, is a quite nice,light,easy to cut and sturdy material that you can paint and detail for your garage scene, just dont put enamel or laquer paint in the middle foam core...if you are using hobby paints, cover it first with a strip of semi heavy cardboard and white glue, this step will not be nesessary if you use water based acrylic paints. You can make doors/windows and frames with Evergreen strips/squares or balsa wood. You could make the floor reom a piece of small diamet plywood and put some selfadehesive venner tape in the borders, for the "cement/shop floor" a nice 800 to 1000 grit sand paper will be great, and you can paint it any color and weathered as much as you like. This are my personal tips, but more experience diorama builders in the forum could give you much better tips on materials and technics for your project. Good luck with your diorama, sounds quite interesting!

Ah, the Gunze S. Daytona coupe, I have one in my "some day will be built" closet. I remember that got this kit from the bigest Hobby Store in my area about 12 years ago, it sat in the model car kit area of the store for almost TWO years and because of the price, remember a LOT of customer asking the store owner "is this price is a typo?"....he had almost the full line of Tamiyas,Fujimis,Italeri,Revell,Monogram,AMT etc.etc. and the most expensive kit of those at the time where the Fujimi "Enthusiast series" Ferraris,Porsches and BMW, followed by Tamiya...and the cost of those where in the $25/30 dollars(and I found those extreamly expensive for my little hobby budget), so you can imagine the $69.00 price tag and the reaction it got from customers (price in my area) of the Gunze Daytona. I got mine the last day of business of that store and because I got other goodies that day and was a regular customer, got a discount....$65.00 ......no wonder this store went out of business when the internet made finding almost anything in the world more easy and cheap....some of the time of course!! Hope the Academy model becomes a reality, this is a beautiful car indeed and would like to do several of them.

This is a spectacular,wonderful,superb,incredible and magnificent diorama(s), the detail and weathering is so lifelike that you can pass this as the real deal in 1/1 scale! The other work posted at this Master modeler fotki page is an overload of inspiration of the art of the diorama at the highest level, thanks for sharing these beautiful works of art.

I have an original 1/16 DOH built up...but in bad state of preservation, Did they fix the front wheel opening to the correct street car shape like is shown in the box art? In my model the front wheel arch is round (like NASCAR era Chargers) and not prototypical correct, it could be easily fixed to the right stock shape with plastic stock and putty but then modifications will have to be made to fit the tires correctly. Will try to post photos of my "junker" model....still, if this model is reissued it will be a welcome addition since it is quite a nice model in terms of it's racing chassis,engine and quite good details for a vintage race car.....mmmmmmm...K & K Insurance Charger come to my mind, hey, even in Salt Lake record breaking car look.....love that car!!!

Thanks for the kind words and I can also say the same about your replays and comments...and that's how we should enjoy this great hobby and community. Also thank you for pointing the rule about the real name signature, an oversight from my part that have been corrected now.

Your points are quite valid and again as I said before am glad this kit have been reissued, as you rightly said it will give a lot of fellow modelers the oportunity to build this car/body style in their favorite configuration/drag car with less work than the previus offering and without the "collectors" price tag...but for my very personal taste and opinion it was not what I expected, so in my particular case will renew my previus two Dart conversions. About the hood and scoop, these are quite easy to modified and make, and it was the first thing I did, the scoop is a heat formed piece if styrene over a formed balsa buck and the side vents where sanded,laminated and filled, the same with the back of the car among other things....but again as you said this areas are now available in the new kit and will save time to the modeler at the work bench. Is not my intention...nor it will have ANY effect for that matter!!!.....to shootdown this model because some of it's wrong/lack of details, is just that was expecting something more in tune with the real thing in terms of it's particular details.....that's all!!

The first time I saw this "new" offering from Revell, the promotion picture shown was from a real car with the black fiberglass front finish, it was in one of the big Model/Toy expos exibits in the "coming soon" category.

Thanks for the pictures and review of this kit, is very welcome and show us what exactly comes in the box. I had two of Dick Landy Darts in the early stages of conversion to a Hemi Dart, when Revell show pictures of the real Hemi Dart car in "naked/from the factory" look as the next incarnation of this kit, I put on hold my projects and waited with a lot of patience and expectations...BUT... I was one of the many modelers waiting for this particular Hemi Dart, unfurtunatly it was a disapointment in terms of what was made...or reissued/modified...with all the wrong/missing detail...important and particular details to that car, it made me reconsider my desire to buy this "new" kit, as other members have pointed out, the wrong seats,interior panels and lack of "steelies" wheels as an option among other things is quite a lot to consider before buying one for my model project...in my VERY personal opinion and view of course. The good thing is that all those who wanted to build more models of this car, can do so without paying collectors price fot the originals realese of the Revell Dart, I would have been one of them but the price tag of $25 dollars plus the added charge for correct aftermarket parts like seats,wheels,etc make the deal a little expensive for me...again in my personal view and opinion only.

Truly a work of art!! quite a lot of magnificent modeling work and detail to look for hours, SUPERB!! Thank for posting!

Thanks you guys for all the positive comments about this model. Your idea of making all the know B.B. tru the years sounds quite interesting....it have been done with the Batmobile in scale models, so why not the Green Hornet ride!!. For some reason there was a "problem" with the rights of the series at some point and was imposible to find in VHS and latter DVD, then it became available for a short while in the two formats, it was (is?) a 3 show format per DVD with a bonus extra in some of them, including about the Black Beauty car today...but again don't know if they are still available....I have a old VHS comercial version with tree episodes...one of them the infamous "space man caper" and the other the famous Kato vs Mako!!

Well last week I saw the trailer for the new Green Hornet movie, I still have my reservations about been made an action/light comedy movie but must admit that the "new" Black Beauty and action scenes look great....let wait a see the movie for the final veredic!! It made me dig deep into my boxed up projects....those that never where quite good in their finished stage and they where put on "storage" to find my original TV series Black Beauty model in 1/25, I love the TV series car looks very much and always wanted a model of it. I made this model almost 16 years ago, can't remember who made the resin model or where I got it BUT what I can tell you is that it was of VERY poor quality in casting and detail, the interior was a blob of resin, I change the front bench seats with one from the spare box....I should have made the correct cloth/leather pattern....but by this stage I was felling disapointed BIG time with the quality of this model, I added some radios/telephones,floor carpet,back control panel and a sport steering wheel and tried my best to detail the interior and hide it's shortcomings. I opened the engine hood in the body(now I wonder why!!) to add a Hemi engine, which ended in another project, so I put spare engine from the part box which I don't know from what kit came from, added some more detail to the engine bay to make it look a little better, of course all painted green...but still... I hope that the new movie bring us a plastic model kit in 1/25 or 1/24 scale of the new Black Beauty....and even better if they made a combo with the new and old version...I want to make these two cars justice by doing a nice model of them!!....even if they do only the new one, it will be very easy to build the TV version from it, since the new movie car is a regular Imperial sedan with new front and modified back and huge wheels!!

Simply AMAZING work on a very interesting subject, looking for more updates!!

You can also super-glue a piece of sandpaper to a new pencil eraser and cut to the shape of the round rubber, you will have a nice and inexpensive tool the reach these difficults areas for sanding. Hope it helps

I just love the body style of these mid/late LTD cars since I can remember. I will be ordering one...or two, mine will be police cruisers, love them even more in that trim!!!

Simply SUPERB,FANTASTIC,WONDERFUL!!!!!!!

Thanks for all the kind words about this Jaguar Project, is greatly appreciated. Today I did a little more work on the body and interior tub, could say it's now almost finished and ready for paint....well, at least the best I could do this "home made" Jaguar!! About having the body cast in resin......I WISH!!!!!!!!!!!!, I would love to have it done and build two more racing versions of this car as well as the The New Avenger car..... BUT my Jaguar body is not commercial/consumer quality material work, an any resin casting/aftermarket company would not be interested on it and I can understand them perfectly, competition in this limited field is hard and modelers demand quality and full fidelity for the subject and money and after seeing the magnificent body's and trans-kit some of these company's offer...mine will look like a "poor attempt"......and rightly so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Again thanks for all the positive comments and opinions, a lot of my inspiration come from the superb and wonderful work all of you guys post in the forum....in all the fields!! Fred

You are not late!!! Thank you very much for that photo, I will put that detail in the interior back area of the car tonight since am still working on the interior building. By the way...GREAT XJS widebody model and am prety sure it will be another stunning model when you finish it, that's another Jaguar I want to make in 1/25....again IF I could find the Hasegawa model at an affordable price!!

Thanks Nick, really appreciated!! You are right, the dash instruments bezels are made from evergreen plastic tubing and where cut a "little" oversize in lenght and sanded down both sides then an angled inside radius(to make it a litter thinner) was cut with a new X-ato No.11 blade, after they where glued to the dash a last light "block sanding" will even things up in the dash/bezels area...aluminum or brass tubing would be better and thinner but since at the moment did not have the correct diameter at my workbench material stock and finding a hobby shop(IF you can find it!!!) in my area that carry them is almost impossible, made them in plastic, think they came alright in the end. Fred

Truly unique desing and quite interesting subject, as usual will be watching this amazing project come to life. The doors technick are superb!! Fred

Here is the Jaguar XJ12 with another future project, the Tamiya Martini 935, for this Porsche a compleat interior will be fabricated since the "motorized tub" was a no,no for me!! I got this Porsche a a gift from a very good friend of mine and also terrific modeler, but he is more into American Muscle Cars/Hot Rods so he pass this model to me, THANK YOU N.L.!!!!

A little update on this project, I put a light coat of primer to see all the imperfections and parts that still need putty for blending and/or sanding...there a LOT to be done as you can see in the pictures, the Super-Bee side vent molding have the plastic "plug" now but still need putty to blend it with the rest of the body. Rework a AMT Porsche 935 Martini back wheel/tire with a filed down BBS center from a Fujimi wheel set(like the front ones) to better represent the actual look of the Race car, still undesided if scrachtbuilding the actual racing wheels found on the real car....to be honest I like the "BBS LOOK" more...will see!! The back spoiler and bumber where made from .060 styrene sheet and solid square, shaped with some heat,dremel tool and sand paper, still not finished either. Also started in the interior rollcage and right hand dash, again used the Super-Bee dash as a "fundation" for the new Jaguar dash, the wheel come from the sapare box and is identical as the one found in the real car. The rollcage still needs two more back tubes to be completed, the floor "stampings/detail" have a little "artistic licence" since finding photos of the real deal in this area is next to impossible...at least in my searchs!! Again by no means this is a 100% percent replica of the actual car, but I really like the results so far compared with real deal.

Thank for all the kind words about this project, greatly appreciated. Update coming tomorrow!!

That's a beautiful XK12!! There a 1/43 Broadspeed Jaguar XJ12, it was available in resin kit form and fully built from the factory, they look quite impresive, but are getting harder and harder to come by and are quite expensive since they where limited run and no longer in production. I will like to do the Hasegawa XJS TRW race car coupe, actualy two the regular version and the wide body, but the asking price for those kits lately are in the "moon and beyond" Would love to see pictures of your Group 44 XJS proyect.