robertw

Adam, You might want to pick up a second of this kit since with a little extra work it can be converted into a '74 which minus the black bumper caps is a more attractive car. Other work will involve scribing a line down the rear tail, sanding off the gas door emblem and the bumperettes. I replaced the wheels with rally style from an earlier Vette and sourced better looking tires from my spares box, I also replaced the steering wheel (kit used the one year only style) and the seats.The engine is also more accurate for a '74 then a '75, There may have been a few other changes that I don't recall making but the conversion is relaively easy especially considering that '74 Vette kits are hard to find. Enjoy your build its a fun and basically good kit.

The recently reissued MR Porsche 914, but like most of us the challenge of overcoming the various problems has dragged me in and I working on one. Problems include a chassis/interior that must be installed before the body with its front and rear clips are built or painted. Both clips fit poorly and require losts of putty and sanding to make them fit, the opening rear trunk lid doesn't fit and there is a space between the trunk and mid engine hood. That's as far as I've gotten so far, I'm just waiting for the nightmares ahead. rob

Well done! So few people do these wierd little cars but I do enjoy seeing them and have built a few myself over the years. Scratch built the Citroen panel about a year before the kit came out and have built a couple of Trabant sedans but not the universal yet. You' done a great job on all three and I'd be proud to have models this well built on my shelf.

Proof that you can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. You've taken a mundane basic promo and turned it into a very nice shelf model that I think most would be happy to have in our collection. Well done !!!

My age is showing. I built the Get Smart Alpine but went with a stock 4cyl look. As I recall I used a set of AMT 13" ? tires that were very common in AMT compact cars produced in the '60s. Even used a set of wire wheels from the past to add a little bling to the Alpine. Picked up one of the reissued kits but haven't decided what tires I'll used to build the Tiger. robw

I believe the box you found is the only release that this kit had in North America. It also represents the european prototype rather then the car that was eventually sold here. Despite that it's a fun kit to build, if you want to do something different.. I found that it fit better if you reduce the size of the snap tabs and built it as a glue kit. I built my first one as the coupe but have another one to do as a convertible someday.

Looks nice. This was also the first of the three Revell C7 kits with water slide decals.

There was also a vacuform kit of the Stingray Racer by a company called Scudaria Scale, I believe it was meant to be used over a slot car chassis. I suspect that the resin kit was based on the vacuform.

The Tiger kit is available again. Was in my LHS a couple of weeks ago and there was one sitting on the shelf, just about got into a tug-of-war with my buddy as to who was going to get it ( I won ). Already have it on my winter build list.

Looks great. Built the same kit a few years ago and ran into the same problems as you described in your write up. I used some Tamiya primer under paint and it worked on the vinyl interior (I left the seats as they were). The Gunze sports car series were fun builds and often the only choice if you wanted that particular car in your collection but all unfortunately came with the vinyl interiors. The Ghia was the only one that I built that had interior fit problems. I'd love to see these kits available again.

Have a copy of that magazine that I bought new (whoa am I ever showing my age) and I remember that article and the feeling that I could never accomplish something like that, not sure I could even do it today. You sir are to be congratulated for recreating a unique model from the early days of our hobby. It deserves and I'm sure will be given a place of honour in the museum.

Interesting concept and the two looks seem to go together well. I'll be looking forward to seeing how this project progresses.

I try to forget what I've begun to pay for kits. In the last few years it has become a much more expensive hobby. One expects to pay $60 and up for resin kits but even mass produced re-pops of old '60 &'70 kits can cost $40 and up (at least here in Canada).. I'm glad that I don't build the large scale Tamiya level a/c that easily sell in the shops for well over $100. While I may sound like I'm complaining I'm still quite willing to lay out what ever it costs to buy any kit that I want, example I have the Ebbro kit of the Citroen DS19 on order and I expect it to cost at least a hundred here in Canada. Where I've rebelled at the high prices is by not buying buying two or three of each kit. As to the original question I've picked up a number of AMT/mpc C2 Corvette kits in original boxes for well over a hundred each so I would think they're my most expensive buys.

Built this kit a few years back and it goes together very nicely with few fit problems. I used a little chrome foil on the trunk strips, running boards and around the side mounted spares. The three chrome strips on the leading edge of the rear fenders are missing so I carefully scribed three small trenches on each fender and after painting I used a small amount of glue to glue down small strips of electronic silver solder then sprayed my clear, the solder has remained shiny and glued in place.. The tires are plastic and required painting in white then careful masking before doing the black. The second windshield could be wound down into the body so I cut a slot to fit it into, it now looks more like the real thing and the fit of the windshield is more secure in what otherwise is just a butt joint.. Some engine detailing and the kit was finished. In someways I prefer to builld the Italeri brass era classics better then the Monogram ones (a little better detailing). Painted mine in TS-11 Maroon with a beige interior. Mine was the first of the pre-war classics that I had built in many years and I was pleased by how well it went together and how impressively big it looks sitting on the shelf. I think you'll really enjoy your build.

Yep...looks like the old mpc kit with the hood that doesn't sit quite flush with the body. I believe that kit is coming back out sometime this year. With some extra work it can also be converted back to a '74. You've done a great job building it as it is. I love the exterior colour although I think it would look better with standard factory rims, but then that's just my opinion.

I like the colour scheme that you have right there, the light blue metallic over a grey interior is sharp. I've done a couple of models in colours similar to this one using rattle cans. One was done with Tamiya TS-58 Pearl Light Blue, and another was a Ferrari done in a duplicolor color called Avignon Blue. As the previous poster suggested check out the duplicolor rack at your hardware or auto supply store I'm sure you'l find something close and also check out the Tamiya rack at your LHS Tamiya have put out some very nice blues in their synthetic lacquer range and Tamiya is so easy to apply. Good luck and look forward to seeing what will be a beautifull model once it is done.

While most of these are a little off topic for a model car board I recently obtained a small cache of partially built & unbuilt kits from a family member who has had to go into a care home and can no longer model. I'll enjoy building or restoring a number of these kits but I've also enjoyed researching the history of a few of the oldest kits. Some of the kits include: -a small Wells Fargo stagecoach dating to a Revell/Adams collaboration in the early '50s -a 1o 1 early European flintlock handgun by Pyro, another modelling company from the distant past -a large civil war style canon, maker not yet determined) -several open wheel race cars -several Star Wars kits from the '80s -some armour kits, a couple of semi kits, several Monogram brass era classic cars It's not that I needed more models to build but I wasn't about to turn freebies down.

Interesting topic. Being from the prairies of Canada we see few European cars on the road and even fewer models of European cars in our LHS so excuse me if I name a few cars that have already done in kit form. -Volvo P1800 coupe -Jaguar XK8 cv. --an Aston Martin DB7 cv. -Ferrari 250 California or Lusso -a Morgan Plus 8 or 4/4 -Volkswagon Thing -Me 200 four wheeler (Tiger) -Audi TT cv. -a current Smart car preferably a cv. -BMW Z4 street car -a better Mercedes 190 cv (how abou it Revell AG replace that other ancient Revell kit) -a good Ferrari 308 GTS -a street car version of a McLaren F1 -an Alfa Romeo Duetto cv. -Triumph TR-6 or Spitfire -the return of the Gunze European car line

Looks good in red and even better with the gold stripes. I've been thinking of cutting out the screen portions and replacing them with metal mesh, but it will mean a lot more work and I don't think the results will look any better then what you've achieved.

An impressive design and certainly some time consuming work went into this creation. Well done.

Built the Revell kit a couple of years ago as the red one from the movie It Started With a Kiss, Isn't an easy kit to build but with patience you'll be pleased with the result. The difference in scale from what we usually build is the biggest pain. Here are a few of the problems I encountered : -the interior and especially the inner door sidewalls, I cut out the recesses then tried to create a smooth transition between the edges of the cove and the piece of plastic I glued to the outside of the inner door. In the end wasn't really satisfied and for a future build I think I'd totally cut out the inner door panels scratch build them and repair the sides of the seats. -to fit the interior in I completely finished it glued iit in place within the upper body then taped it over until I'd finished my exterior paint. I like the idea of cutting out the center of the chassis as suggested here. I remember thinking about doing it that way but for some reason I didn't. -I built the top and bottom of the body separately so that I could ensure that they would sit flat before glueing them together. There was also a lot of putty and sanding to get the multiple body pieces to fit together well. -fitting the two bumpers without gaps between them and the body required extra work. The side body moldings were slightly warped and had difficult sprue gates to clean up. I finally filled sanded and did them in Alclad. -the canopy does not fit well on the top of the body leaving several thin cracks. For several days I applied thin layers of putty set the windshield on top then sanded and finally got a very tight fit. I also used a heavier foil (a cheap Chinese made chrome duct tape). Normal bmf just proved to thin to lay down and stay down. Sorry don't have a photo host so can't show pics of the final result but I look forward to seeing how your build goes.. rob w

Scales are different the old Revell kit is about 1/27 and the Polar Lights is 1/25. Sit them side by side and the difference is obvious.

I've always assumed that some day the greenie crowd will get lacquer thinner banned so always keep several years worth of the stuff stored in an outside shed. As modellers we don't use a lot of the stuff in a year so I figure I've got enough to last me the rest of my modelling life.

My LHS or any hobby shop for that matter every time for the following reasons: -- By the time I`m finished paying shipping the difference between ebay or mail order and my hobby shop is minor. -- If we don`t support our hobby shops they won`t be there when we suddenly need that bottle of paint or putty or whatever we run out of in the middle of a build. -- I`ve yet to grow out of that thrill I felt in my youth when I would go into my LHS and see the new kit or something unexpected sitting on the shelf and I hope I never do. -- Going into the hobby shop is often a social occasion where you end up talking models with people you meet there. -- I`m sure there are other reasons but all I know is that I`ve never gone into a hobby shop anywhere without coming out with some purchase and usually it`s something in a box.

That workbench looks way to nice to mess up with modelling stuff but in the end your space is going to look like a showroom model space.