Justin Porter

Have I mentioned before that I love the way Hasegawa kits really just drop together? A full night of assembly plus some careful masking got the chassis together. The main color seen here is Radome Tan from AK Interactive which is actually a close match for the odd cream color underside of the Minis. The other colors are a variety from AK, Gunze Mr Color, Tamiya, and Vallejo.

Really impressive to see all the work going into correcting the small faults between both kits.

In terms of buildability, this represents a bit of a vacation after the intensity of the Gunze Ferrari. What's more, it's a bit of a personal project because my current daily driver IS a 2011 Mini Cooper Countryman S All4 in Black Metallic. The Hasegawa kit is a very nice curbside so I'm looking forward to a friendly box stock build with some very handy reference material. Already, I've tackled the interior, first shooting it with Mr Surfacer Black then following that up with Mr Color Flat Black. Hasegawa's recommendation of their C28 Steel for the faux carbon fiber trim in the interior actually works out quite nicely.

Genuinely a nice looking VW with just enough tricks to make it stand out.

The red is Royal Maroon lacquer from MCW Automotive Finishes. Closest I could get to Rosso Bordeaux. Thank you!

At last! My Gunze Sangyo 1/24th Ferrari 250GT SWB is now finished! There were some true panic moments towards the end involving windshield buffing, and I have elected to go bumper-less due to the kit bumpers both looking and fitting exceptionally poorly, but otherwise I am super pleased to have this build done!

Oh I'm fully aware that the Tamiya represents a different breed of "problems of is age" to the MPC kit. However, it's more a matter of public perception versus facts of contents. Of course, personally speaking I most want a MkI Celica Supra in a nice 1/24th curbside kit so that's my side of things. lol

Plus the Tamiya MkII kit has been routinely available in the intervening years and while it's a curbside it's also in the "right" scale for tuner builders and from a brand they know and trust.

There are COUNTLESS kit manufacturers in 3D printing that are doing much more than Okey. Setting aside that military kit manufacturers like Special Hobby, Arma Hobby, Eduard, Rye Field Models, Minibase, and so on are already including high-fidelity 3D printed detail parts in their mass-produced kits on hobby shop shelves, we've already SEEN full and highly detailed 3D printed kits such as MiniRetro's excellent 1/24th scale Austin A35. The idea that Okey Spaulding is somehow moving the needle with his Powell compared to what's already available is laughable at one extreme and offensive at another.

Ought to really be a fantastic build when it wraps up. Hadn't realized the 787B was a pullrod front suspension.

Absolutely and it very much allows customers to establish what they prioritize. I've carried (and built) Eduard aircraft kits and I will freely state that the Profipacks make for a nice upsell opportunity for an engaged shop clerk by simply comparing the price of the Profipack to the price of a Weekend Edition to which you add aftermarket decals, a pre-painted photoetch fret, and a pre-cut canopy mask. And to demonstrate the business model in action through Hasegawa, behold their Toyota 2000GT.

Oddly enough, Hasegawa already very much has this business model sorted for auto kits. Their "core" line kit like the basic Miura SV, the Mazda Cosmo, or the Lancia Stratos Stradale are all sub-$40 retail kits. Then you have the "Limited Editions" of those kits where they have options for specific versions or the included standing or sitting girl figures or include additional PE which tend to retail between $50-$65. Finally you have their "High Detail" versions that have resin engine bays and combine resin, white metal, and photo-etch for a super detailed build out of the box and those come in at around $100+ when I'm able to stock them.

Another update to the 250GT SWB as it nears the home stretch. The interior is effectively done. The seats, console, and dash top were all done in Tamiya XF-60 Dark Yellow (Dunkelgelb to armor builders) and the floor was flocked with Ken's Fuzzy Fur. The PE gauges, steering wheel spokes, and steering wheel badge all turned out pretty well and a healthy dollop of AK Gloss Varnish was dropped over each gauge. The chassis is finished along with the exhausts. I painted the exhausts in AK Xtreme Metal Chrome and the fuel tank in AK Xtreme Metal Stainless Steel for some contrast. Finally, the window trim was masked off and sprayed with the AK Chrome as well. I polished the windshields with Novus to try and buff out some of the 30+ year old scratches.

Builders should be expecting this kit to be hitting their local hobby shop's shelves fairly soon. They hit both of my distributors late last week and sold out at the distributors VERY fast.

They might carry a higher MSRP than some unloved older issues but at the same time they'd be readily available to builders who may not be familiar with them AND it'd be an opportunity for Atlantis to offer basic improvements like gauge face decals to the kits. Plus with enough success, who knows? Could you imagine the happy hot rodders if Atlantis went to the lengths to tool up a coupe body for the Lincoln?

No kidding. Huge vault of ex-Monogram and Revell and Aurora kits and people are hung up on "bUt Do ThEy HaVe JoHaN kItS?" Monogram's 1/24th MG TC? The Aurora Chaparral 2? Nope. Let's keep on bleating about this handful of lost to the ages kits.

At this point I would ADORE some sort of statement from Okey or whomever saying "Oh, yeah, THAT tooling. Scrapped in '03. Here's the $300 I got for the steel. Laters!" so that people will let go of their reverent hope that those archaic fossil kits will be reissued and we can move on to trying to convince a modern manufacturer to do the reasonable thing and tool something ALL NEW instead. Which, naturally, wouldn't be Atlantis who are in the business of reissuing Aurora, Revell, and Monogram kits. Among which I'm still hoping will be some of the Monogram 1/24th classics.

A quick but important update. Using Matt's tutorial, Tamiya's PE Tweezers, AK's PE scissors, and Dsipae's excellent PE bender, the Ferrari egg-crate grille is now all together.

Well, yes, you're absolutely right. In all technical sense, Okey Spaulding holds the IP for Johan and its associated artwork, designs, and catalog but that doesn't preclude other model manufacturers from going to Stellantis and negotiating the rights to producing an all-new kit of the '71 Javelin. Producing a kit based upon the Johan tooling without securing the rights to reproduce a Johan designed piece - such as copying their kit's body without alteration even to mount to an entirely new chassis - IS an infringement on Johan's Intellectual Property. Producing a kit with an entirely new design of all associated parts does not infringe upon them UNLESS somehow Johan held an exclusivity contract with a manufacturer that was somehow honored through the exchanges in Johan's ownership between the original founders, Seville, and then Spaulding.

So, it is possible on both counts. Things like parts breakdown, sprue layout, and even the molding process if uniquely manufactured fits under the category of "intellectual property" in that it is the unique and intended creation of an entity. Corporate IP fits under this bill in that their designers and engineers are paid to create that which the corporation owns - thus it's General Motors who owns the '63 Stingray rather than Bill Mitchell as a for instance. If a corporation still exists, its trademarks and therefore its rights to its wholly owned intellectual property still exist. As to preventing other companies from producing a kit of a subject, again, 100% possible. Exclusivity contracts CAN exist that negotiate that a model company has the exclusive rights to produce models in the likeness of a particular manufacturer's vehicles. As a for instance, Tamiya has produced their kit of the Nissan 400Z and got it to shelves well ahead of anything potentially planned by Aoshima or Fujimi. If Tamiya had been so inclined, they COULD have negotiated a deal with Nissan to enforce that in exchange for a larger up-front licensing fee Nissan would not enter into licensing agreements with any competing 1/24th scale model kit company. Thus, until the terms of that arrangement ran their course, producing a kit of the Nissan 400Z would legally be solely Tamiya's right.

It's a subject that's definitely due for a modern kit but it's kind of hard to imagine what company would willingly stump for the tooling. Possibly Hasegawa along the same lines as their Stratos? All the same, absolutely delightful interior work! Glad that this one is going to be finished.

It took a lot of wet sanding between 3200 to 12000 grit followed by polishing with Novus to get the paint to this stage but I am happy to say my SWB is out of the paint booth and I can get going on the home stretch to finishing this beautiful car.

So, for those of us keeping score at home, Round 2 can tool a Coronet chassis where the torsion bars end three miles away from the control arms and we're all happy BUT Revell must be excoriated if their Mustang's intake manifold is almost imperceptibly off in its valley pan contour. Which is not to say that's not a kind of silly goof on Revell's part. But there really is a determinable bias in reactions.

This really does look great complete with all the right little touches like the cream colored grille bars and painted wire wheels.

The question isn't at all as to whether or not older kits shouldn't be given appealing box art that presents the contents in a favorable light. Appealing advertising AND truth in advertising can and should cohabitate. Revell's SSP program and Round 2's current "Craftsman Plus" box callouts are perfect examples of this.