Justin Porter

That would be fantastic. While their 300SL remains one of the most fantastic vintage sports car kits ever tooled, it would be a joyful moment if Tamiya were to bring their considerable tooling capacity to might to bring us a kit of one of the as-yet represented classic sports cars like the Austin Healey 3000, Maserati Mistral, or Porsche 550 Spyder.

YES!!! It has been too long since the Europa was on the market and this new Europa Special version is just going to be very fun to have.

Between the wheels and the hardtop alone, it's going to be great to see this one back out. Great. Now I have to mark myself down for TWO more Aoshima MGB's instead of just one.

That looks genuinely gorgeous.

I am beyond astonished at what I've been seeing as I started this thread and read through to this point. Every addition and tweak and correction is so plain and logical, based 100% on the thought "this part doesn't look like a real part" and the results are amazing.

Looks fantastic. The Delta S4 is probably the Beemax kit that most catches my eye and it's great to see it all together.

It's really proven to be very effective. I have very young twins and became acutely aware of how airbrushing fumes up the house and thanks to the booth I can even spray most cleaners through my airbrush without worrying about the fumes drifting upstairs. Only complaint so far is that it's not quite large enough for larger airplanes, as a 1/72nd scale SR-71 Blackbird build didn't quite fit fully inside the booth on its spray rig. I might end up getting a second one and joining them together as designed.

Absolutely gorgeous build of one of the 80's best looking Indy cars.

One of our regulars at my shop, Greg Halfhill, stopped in with this and I wanted to show it off. It's the Ebbro Lotus 91 kit which he built box stock after picking it up from us along with his first airbrush and compressor. It was a lot of firsts for him. First airbrushing. First F1 kit. First Ebbro. He's already put himself down for one of the Gold Leaf 49-C's when they come in because he was so pleased with this one!

Very good to know, but the Aoshima kit's in current production which means at the moment it's just a matter of my distributor getting them back in stock. I've been waiting on a restock for about a month and a half, and now I've got a reason to go "one for the shelf, one for the shop".

So, little backstory. I've had this kit in my backlog since rush-buying it the last time it was reissued. I had the grand idea to transplant the double blown 392 from the AMT Double Whammy Studebaker between its framerails, but never quite got up to steam. Well, I lately have invested in some seriously quality nippers from Trumpeter and have been a little grouchy at arguments about "real modelers" and their approaches to kits of dubious quality. So, galvanized with a real "I'll show them. I'll show them all" attitude and the added confidence of modern tools and glues, I set about building this box stock. The decals, unfortunately, yellowed over time, and the belly pan turned out a lighter shade of gloss aluminum despite being sprayed in the same batch over the same primer, and the correct wheels in the box went missing during the years so it's wearing the roadster's rear wheels, but all in all I'm pretty tickled to have this on my shelf.

Yes! I will definitely be taking one as soon as they're available. I'll have to get another Aoshima MGB into the shop as soon as I can. lol

8th picture down, it appears they've included an RHD dash. Is there something glaringly inaccurate about it?

Builder Depe Biedl posted these pictures of a test shot of the all-new Jaguar E-Type FHC coming out from Revell and oh boy I cannot wait to get my hands on one to build and a few to put on my shop's shelves. This is a seriously needed kit and it looks the part.

It's something that I do too, real modeler or otherwise. I just prefer to do it because I'm making alterations to the model rather than correcting quality control errors. I believe you've coined the term "backbirth" for kits with massive accuracy errors. I tend to regard quality control errors in the same category: a model kit company not doing its job to provide a complete product.

My experience was in blow molding rather than injection molding, so I can relate, but really this was a chance for Round 2 to put a good foot forward and ideally in front of customers who may be new to the model car end of the brand. This is very disappointing work for a company with so much potential given their tooling reserve, market reach, and licensing opportunities.

Am I supposed to believe that a newly tooled body has EPM's that deep and that much flash? I can't imagine you're going to get away without block sanding sink marks on the trunk with those beneath the surface.

Awesome work. I definitely like seeing how you're doing the little tweaks to better portray the Riley machine.

Eager to see how this goes together for you. I keep staring at them knowing I'll have one soon enough but never seem to pull the trigger. lol

My distributor lists the MSRP on the kit as $32.95, which is ultimately about right on par for a Round 2 kit currently. Interestingly, the '67 SS427 2dr that this kit is based upon is still listed at a $28.95 MSRP so there's a little price creep tied in with the retooling and the licensing for the show.

It must be something on ROI that's not adding up because I did just a little brief check-up on Scalemates. The newest GTO kit tooling is Polar Lights' pair of full detail snappers from 2005 (1964 and 2004). Then you have Revell's lovely '66 kit which bowed in 1998. The Monogram 1/24th scale '69 goes all the way back to 1982 and the Monogram '64 arrived in 1985. For such a popular and genre critical subject among domestic car builders, the Pontiac GTO has been utterly shafted when it comes to tooling.

In a kind and just world, there would be modern tooling of any if not all of those three. How warped is it that the closest to a modern GTO Judge kit there is comes in the form of 1/24th scale Monogram tooling?

Built that particular kit myself last year and it's such a dream of a piece. It's a shame Tamiya has only issued it twice. Yours is looking particularly good with the little additions to flesh it out.

Not necessarily. The new NSX kit has excellent engine detail and an MSRP of $53. All the same, as has been pointed out, modern racing builders don't necessarily WANT engines for building. They want accurate bodies and well-fitting interiors that make for excellent decal canvases.

This is quite true. Tamiya has had huge success with their AMG GT3 kit which has similar engineering. Offer an accurate body, a complete interior, and choose a subject that has a ton of attractive liveries then let the aftermarket decal producers like Shunko or Indycals or Studio 27 do your sales work for you.