Justin Porter

Plan is the Silk Cut livery but as the Danny Sullivan/Davy Jones/Price Cobb #21 just because Sullivan was one of several childhood favorite Indy drivers.

So, this is an unfinished build from my early 20's. It got shelved when an error in masking the nose meant that the purple area was oversized for the yellow boundary stripes. Whoops! Recently, in an effort to continue clearing out my basement (much like with last year's Mako Shark II build) I stripped the body with some old Testors ELO and set about getting the build up to scratch. There's definitely a LOT I would redo in the engine bay but I don't trust disassembling that region. On the other hand, the interior was only hand-brushed with Tamiya X-18 so I just sanded that back smooth and airbrushed a coat of Mr Color Burnt Iron over instead. I've found that Burnt Iron does a good job of standing in for carbon fiber decals in some instances, like when a curved windshield is going to hide a good deal of what's visible. I did have fun finding a reference picture of the dashboard and painting it to match. Going to order a replacement set of decals from Indycals and looking forward to having this beast on the shelf at LAST!

To put it most bluntly, the bulk of the model kit industry is situated in Kyiv while the worst of the war has taken place in the Eastern Donbas region near Donetsk and Mariupol; some 400 miles away. It's a bit analogous if not directly comparable to saying "Why are the lights on in Dallas when a hurricane just blew Galveston off the map?"

ICM themselves very plainly described stopping all activity at their factory in February of 2022 and announced that they were back to work in April of 2022. They're a relatively small company, as most model kit companies are, and they've had the good fortune to be able to return to what is their routine. Not every model kit manufacturer in the Ukraine has been as fortunate. On one hand, Miniart, Dora Wings, and ICM have returned to something approximating business as usual. On the other, Clear Prop has struggled to return to routine business and Roden lost their supremely talented box artist Valery Grigorenko to the violence. However circumstances have arranged themselves, earnest hardworking people have gone back to work doing what they love.

Happy to see the Penske Mustangs on their way primarily because Ohio is Blaney territory on account of the family's sprint car exploits so we'll doubtless move a few.

The fantastic Ukrainian model kit manufacturer looks to be expanding their selection of 1/24th scale antique autos. While details are scant at the moment, my distributor recently listed the following as an upcoming kit from ICM. ICM #24050 - 1/24 American Model A Standard Phaeton 1930's Soft Top Passenger Car (New Tool) Grabbed the first Google result for a picture of the subject and I must say that done to the same level as their wonderful Model T's or Benz Patent Motorwagen this will be an absolute joy of a kit and I can't wait to stock it!

Very nice to see. I'm fairly partial to the modifieds.

It was actually a reasonably productive year for me in terms of modeling output. It especially makes a difference that I effectively had two months away from my bench with demolition, construction, and expansion at my shop taking precedence over my own models. I'm also really proud because two of these in particular - the 250GT SWB and the MGB GT - represent major "I always wanted to do that!" builds that I am beyond glad to have completed. I'm also really pleased because as the 250GT and the Mini show, I've now got a photo booth for shooting finished builds which definitely shows them off better than shooting them on the shop's register counter!

This is such a clean build of a truly exciting car and kit. Just getting an Enthusiast Series kit across the finishing line is a monumental task.

Really fantastic and I genuinely love how subtle the little additions are.

Built Hasegawa's kit of my current daily driver - a 2011 Mini Cooper Countryman S All4

All wrapped up and starting the new year! This was the "California Wheels" edition of the Revell '67 Chevelle SS396 kit. I added the supercharger and EFI from the AMT '68 El Camino street machine, the electric fan and disc brakes from a Revell '32 Ford Speedwagon, the seats and billet steering wheel from a Revell '41 Willys Street Rod, and a prewired distributor from Gofer. This was a fun build and I'm pretty pleased with the results even if I'm not really much of a muscle car builder.

Latest update on the build. Window trim is all done and pretty happy with those results. I'm cautiously optimistic about the emblem decals. The chassis turned out pretty well too. I found a set of Revell '32 Ford rotors and calipers to replace the kit units that had been lost to time. I replaced the kit alternator with one from AMT that had the proper bracket, trimmed away the plastic belts, and made new belts from Tamiya tape painted Rubber Black. UNFORTUNATELY arriving at this point revealed a minor fit hiccup - the K&N style air filter for the EFI setup hits the underside of the hood as-is so I'm going to be scratchbuilding an intake pipe to move the filter down and forward. Ah well, onward we go!

Going to need one of those Gordini sets for myself without a doubt.

Really hoping that DModelKits finds a a wholesale distributor for here in the states so I can get some of these onto my shelf. That Escort and the Citroen C4 in particular would be big eye-catches in my shop.

Continuing progress on the '67 Chevelle has led to some fun developments. The interior was finished off in AK Interactive RC210 Silbergrau and to freshen it up a bit I added the seats and billet steering wheel from the Revell '41 Willys Street Rod. Getting to this point meant time for a mock-up to determine if we're on the right track and I'm quite pleased with the out-of-box stance. Now onto masking and spraying the trim with AK Interactive Xtreme Metal Chrome as is my standard.

A few fresh updates as I get through this build. The engine is coming along nicely though I will be sourcing aftermarket pulleys (likely Parts by Parks) to build up a serpentine setup. I discovered I had some Model Car Garage Edelbrock valve covers so after a shot of Vallejo Metal Color Chrome on those went. I used some Detail Master looms for the wires and will have to source some acceptable headers. Very happy with how the base color coats turned out on this one so should be able to just keep going.

Not often you get to see the old MPC 1/20th kit actually built. Great job!

Wonderful! Tamiya supercars are always a great release and it'll be interesting to see the detail they pack into this one.

Somewhere along the lines I had picked up one of the Revell "California Wheels" releases of their '67 Chevelle. Maybe I had planned to swipe the wheels. Maybe I was in a Chevy mood. The reasoning is lost to time, as are the instructions (thank the stars for Scalemates). So, after finishing the Mini it came to me that it has been some time since I last built a muscle car so why not toss the Chevelle together? I like the styling, I like the kit stance, so with a bit of added detail, a planned two tone red over silver paint scheme, and a few extra goodies to make up for where Revell cut corners I think this ought to be a little bit of a fun diversion. Already I have repainted the wheels in AK Xtreme Metal Polishe Aluminum to give them a bit more of a "billet" look than the kit chrome. Further, some parts bin diving turned up the EFI supercharger setup from an AMT '68 El Camino Street Machine. The heads are drilled for plug wires using a Gofer prewired distributor, and the first base coat of Mr Color C8 Silver is down on the body which thankfully didn't need too much addressing to get ready.

Really pleased this was finished and finished to a nice high standard.

Happily finished! This was a fun box-stock build of a genuinely nice kit by Hasegawa. The paint is Gunze Mr Metallic GX201 Metallic Black and Tamiya TS-14 Black, meant to replicate my daily driver.

Count me in as well among those who would love to see the Aston Martin minus machine guns and ejector seat. Granted, what I want most is a DB4 or even a DB4GT Zagato but a nice stock DB5 would be a joy.

Still more progress. Body cladding and the color separation chrome trim has been painted. I used AK Real Colors Rubber Black for the cladding and AK Xtreme Metal chrome for the trim. The grille is also in now and I couldn't resist doing a mock-up to check how it's coming together.

Really cool to see one of these Profil kits done and done nicely.