jaymcminn

Awesome, Matt. Can't wait to see how this build goes... thanks for being the guinea pig!

Honestly, I just can't deal with the inane patter between the commentators, the five minutes of commercials every three cars, and the interminable charity auctions . Some of the cars are interesting, but how excited can anybody possibly get by the time the tenth '70 Chevelle 454 SS rolls across the stage? I would like to check out the auction in person some time, but it's been a long time since I had any real interest in watching B- J on TV.

Wow... that's really pretty. The proportions are spot- on and the roofline is gorgeous. Can' t wait to see what's next!

In this dystopian future, are the police mad because their bulletproof vests leave most of their chest exposed?

100%. Not bad for a child of the 80s.

Rob, the RoG issue you have is the ex- Protar tool. The opening doors and boot lid are the giveaway here. The old Monogram tool is an Aurora hand- me- down, from the same series of kits as the Maserati 3500 and Aston DB4. It's not a very good representation of a GTO... the body proportions are completely wrong. The Italeri GTO is an excellent kit, and was indeed reboxed by Testors in the 80s. How do you like the Fujimi kit?

We have a winner... Thanks for all the kind comments, everybody. I wasn't sure about the somewhat unconventional color scheme until I saw it starting to come together... I'm glad it seems to be a hit! It's always fun to come up with something unusual that you probably wouldn't try on a real million dollar car. For my next project, I'm going to be replicating a very specific and well documented car, which is a pretty different experience.

Yeeessss... but not exactly what I was looking for. Can you be more specific?

A few more... And a quiz for all you car guys out there: What do these three cars all have in common? Overall, I was very pleased with the Hasegawa Miura kit. I just don't get why they went through the trouble of tooling up 3/4 of an engine and then making a curbside kit. Whatever their reasons, you can't argue with the results... every build I've seen of this kit has been fantastic. The completed model sits just right and everything about this kit goes together beautifully. I'm a little ambivalent about the bass-boat flake on the Testors paint, but I think it works for the nature of this build and the groovy period colors. I'm definitely going to build the Jota variant of this kit, and might do one of the rare Miura Spyders as well. Anyway, thanks for looking!

...And did a fair amount of detail painting on the kit suspension. The result looks pretty good. Next, the wheels and rockers were airbrushed in Tamiya Gold Leaf and coated in Testors semi-gloss clear acrylic. Here's the body after polishing and foil... And here we are after everything's all buttoned up!

I've had this one in my stash for a while... it's the Hasegawa Miura P400SV kit. I really wanted a period-correct look for the colors, but I wanted to avoid the usual colors you see these cars in. Eventually, I decided on a nice, rich, metallic... brown. It's actually Testors One-Coat Root Beer, and I think it fits the spirit of this car perfectly, especially with the gold rockers and wheels. At least two Miuras were produced in brown, although I don't think the Root Beer Brown is prototypically accurate at all. First was to prep the body, which on this kit involves molding in the rocker scoops. I had to replace the leading edge of one of these fragile parts. The body was primed with Duplicolor primer then sealed with primer-sealer to keep the dreaded swirl marks at bay. The One-Coat brown was followed up with the One-Coat clear. The results were pretty dramatic... While the body cured, I started the rest of the build. For the interior, I went back and forth a lot- the interior is very visible in the Miura due to the large windows and exceptionally clear glass Hasegawa uses. I eventually decided to take inspiration from the custom interior on Frank Sinatra's Miura, which was cream boarskin with orange shag carpet. I toned down the carpet to a nice burnt orange mixed from three shades of Fuzzi-Fur and custom-mixed a light cream color to match. The carpet was applied by masking and spraying a matching base color, followed by spray adhesive and flocking applied through a sieve. The kit's metal transfers are a dream to use- better than Tamiya's! I really wanted to add seat belts, but I wanted this one to be box-stock. I'll probably do a Miura Spyder conversion at some point to even better show off the impressive interior. The only drawback of this kit is that it's a curbside... that being said, it comes with very good engine and suspension detail. I detailed the components of the engine top plate with the kit decals...

Great work, Matt. The Italeri actually does have some advantages over the Fujimi- the seats, for example, are much better-molded in the Italeri, with the perforations visible in the black stripes. I'm going to use a set of them when I build my Fujimi Daytona Spyder. Never did care for Italeri's Dunlop tires, though... Fujimi wins on that count. Great tips on building this one!

Shannon, parts 1 and 2 are the vents for the C-pillars. If you cut the back wall off of the left and right roof scoops (parts 80 and 82), this mesh insert replaces it. As far as the rest of the Hobby Design PE goes, it all fits really well. Take your time bending the pieces for the mesh panels under the taillights- it's a pretty tricky complex curve. The metal Hobby Design uses is really soft, so handle with care. You need to paint the black parts, too- chemical blackeners won't work on the metal (aluminum?) HD uses. Good luck!

From the Venture Bros, I'd like to see Col. Hunter Gather's Jensen Interceptor.

And more... Tamiya Ferrari 360 Spyder Fujimi Ferrari 365 Daytona Revell Ferrari 458 Italia Fujimi Ferrari 512bb Tamiya Ferrari F40 Competizione Fujimi Lancia Stratos Stradale Tamiya Mini Cooper S I have a TON of projects lined up for 2013... happy building, everybody!

Eleven this year... It's been a pretty productive one. See if you can spot the theme... Aoshima Lamborghini Countach LP400 Fujimi Ferrari Dino 246 GTS Testors/Italeri Ferrari 288 GTO Hasegawa Ferrari 328 GTS

I decided on gold for the Minilites- they really "pop" against the green and white. The driving lights were brush-painted Tamiya clear yellow. Masking the drip rail to paint it the body color was a challenge, to say the least. Behold the mighty 1275CC beast under the bonnet! Most of the small chrome trim pieces on this kit (gas caps, door/bootlid handles, windshield wipers) were not chrome plated and had to be painted with Alclad. The exhaust tip is aluminum tubing. Overall, this kit was a real pleasure to build. It's a bit fiddly, largely due to the small size of the subject, but goes together really well. I'm going to have to get one of the new Revell Minis to compare the two!

This is a kitbash of the Cooper S racing and rally kits. I used the smoothie rear bumper and front bumper with light bar from the Rally kit as well as that kit's more-detailed Minilite wheels on the Racing kit. I also added the second racing bucket seat to the interior. The paint scheme is the "Works" racing scheme using the kit decals- colors are Tamiya Racing Green and Pure White. The interior is Model Master British Crimson with piping made from white wrapping wire. If I were actually to own one of these cars one day, this is exactly how I'd want it to look! A couple of in progress shots to start... for the wood on the steering wheel and shift knob, I applied clear orange over flat tan with a drybrushed black pattern. The wheel itself, like most of the small chrome trim on the car, was done in Alclad Chrome. I really like the way the door panels go together on this kit- it makes easy work of reproducing the unique look of the real car's interior. Next up, some completed pics!

I love when manufacturers get on some design kick that they think "works", so they incorporate it into all of their kits. For Fujimi, it's the weird "seat bottoms molded with the floorpan" thing. Revell AG has the whole "inner and outer spoke wheels with goofy floating disk brake" debacle they've spread across all their recent kits, which makes it necessary to either perform major surgery on the kit wheels or source new ones to keep everything accurate. Not that the interior issues will stop me from buying at least one of these F12 kits- it looks absolutely amazing!

Great work so far, Matt. I've actually pilfered your carbon-fiber technique for a few of my own projects- it works really well. The Italeri Daytona, like the rest of their Ferrari kits, builds up pretty well, but the kit's solid engineering tends to be let down by their indifferent quality control and atrocious packaging. I have a 275 Spyder I'm going to be starting soon where the first step in the assembly process was piecing the windshield frame back together! I'm anxious to see how you get on with the GTO, as I've just bought this one myself.

Mike, the wheels are BBS 20" wheels made by Fujimi. They're molded in chrome, which I stripped before painting them in Tamiya Light Gunmetal. The center caps are Model Factory Hiro pieces that replace the BBS decals that came with the wheels. I got my wheels from a Japanese Ebay seller, but you can get them through Hobby Link Japan as well.

Frank, I'd give this one an 8. It's not as crisply molded as the Tamiya kits, but the engineering is excellent and there were no unpleasant surprises at all in the assembly process. It was a very enjoyable build.

Mauricio, I couldn't agree more. I'm really not crazy about the way the wheels on the recent Revell of Germany releases build up (which was a major reason for the aftermarket wheels) but overall this kit was really nice. I just bought the 599 GTO, and am pretty impressed with that one as well.

The trickiest part of the photoetched detail set was the multi-piece windshield wipers- it was a lot of work, and they don't photograph as well as I'd like, but they really add a lot to the look of the model. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the Revell kit. Is it perfect? No. Is it as good as, say, the Tamiya Ferrari 360 or Enzo? No. But it goes together great, looks the part when finished, and is cheap enough (especially with that 50% coupon at Michaels) so you can add some detail stuff to it and still have a great model that won't break the bank. The Hobby Design photoetch set for this kit is excellent too- it includes everything necessary to really take this build to the next level at an excellent price. If there's anything to look out for on this kit, it's that front wheel positioning- out of the box, it looks like it sits a little high up front. Since I had to modify the spindles to accommodate the aftermarket wheels, it was no big deal to fix the ride height issue, but it's something to keep an eye on. I also had a few warped parts (windshield, engine cover frame) but nothing that wasn't easily fixed. All in all, this was a fantastic experience!

I've had the Revell Ferrari 458 for a while and was trying to decide what to do with it. I gradually acquired the bits and pieces I'd need for the build- Fujimi 20" BBS wheels, the Hobby Design photoetch kit, etc. but I was stuck on the color- I just wanted to do something different from the usual Rosso Corsa or Fly Yellow. I eventually decided on a rare color called "Rosso Dino"- a very bright red-orange that has been available on Ferraris since the late '60's. I used Tamiya TS-31 Bright Orange to approximate this color- it's a little too yellow, but the result is pretty close. This project took a few turns along the way- the brown interior originally planned wound up black because it looked terrible against the orange- but the result is pretty wild. Here's the inspiration... and here's the finished model! There are a few changes, of course- the BBS wheels, for one, and the carbon fiber sill covers which are optional equipment on the Italia. I might add a Cavallino to the rear panel at some point. Unlike most of my Ferrari builds, I didn't add Scuderia shields to the front quarter panels- I wanted to keep the look of this one simple and mean. Here's the engine compartment, with carbon-fiber paint detailing on the airbox as well as the photoetched plaques from Hobby Design.