Justin Porter

I can't agree with this statement more and I have the viewpoint from behind the sales counter to back it up. Car kits DO sell to younger builders, but my younger REPEAT customers tend to be on the military side and the truth is that the support from the hobby is there too. New companies, new product, ever improving product, ever improving tools, and much of that driven by the influx of new builders who emphasize fit and accuracy over price. And my younger car builders? Primarily Tamiya.

If only Hasegawa (or maybe Italeri) had a suggestions department. Or for that matter if Airfix really wanted to make a splash of a jump back into 1/24th scale car kits as I'm sure there are plenty of now-adult British children who had well loved blue Matchbox Grifos...

Because the "construction" of the model is really the part that I enjoy most of all, I like complex sub-assemblies and all the parts that give me a chance to sit back and go "Ah, so that's how that part of the car went together." I genuinely dislike promo or motorized style chassis because they do rob me of the building I enjoy most, and quite frankly when compared to some of the full-interior armor kits on the market by Takom or Rye Field, a full detail car kit is a doddle.

Got one more of those pesky backlog projects done before the end of the year. This one is the Tamiya 1/24th scale Toyota 84C, one of Toyota's early Group C cars. It's just a box stock build but it was a fun one with more detail than its small parts count would suggest.

Well fellows, I can tell you that more than a few people are going to get to find out how correct it really is "in the plastic" because I got the message today from Stevens Intl that they're in stock. My shop should be receiving both the Boss 302 and the Chevelle next week!

If I remember right, the figures from that series were based on character designs done for GS by Kenichi Sonoda, whose most famous work was the insanely car heavy comic Gunsmith Cats, which featured a pair of lady bounty hunters from Chicago whose ride was a '67 Shelby GT500. lol

The kit, if I'm not mistaken, dates back to the very well loved Gunze Sangyo High Tech series and while I doubt it has some of the white metal and photoetch parts that featured in those kits it ought to be a nice build all the same. Also, as an aside, the characters from that release are part of a very long running Japanese cartoon called Lupin the Third which is about a master thief and his accomplices who pull off daring heists across the globe. It's a VERY car heavy series including an episode where the titular Lupin enters the Monaco Gran Prix driving a privateer Tyrrell P34(!) in order to pull off a casino heist.

Granted, it wasn't helped by one of the worst "Pep Boys specials" sets of wheels included in a muscle car kit, but what's the best way to ensure that no one knows there's a beautifully done (possibly AMT's best) 426 Hemi sitting inside the box? Paint the box art model practically flat orange, build it with the tail end sagging like it's carrying bags of concrete with blown out shocks, and superimpose it on the first image that comes up on Shutterstock when you search "Rural Highway".

That's definitely a well turned out model to show off what everyone is in for with the new Revell kit.

Given the contents of the kit box alone, the sheer scope of what you've added and corrected is amazing.

Well, I'll say there's probably going to be someone grumpy if I ever get back to my 365GTB/4... lol

We carry the Trumpeter line of hobby bits at my shop after a few of our ship guys requested them and I've been pretty impressed.

My fiance has been on my case to do a car in blue, and because I actually hadn't really picked a color for the car I've started leaning towards Chiaro Blue.

Back to the "shelf of doom" to try and rescue a project from obscurity. This time it's the Testors issue of the 1/24th scale Fujimi Enthusiast series Dino 246GT. Last night I got the body into primer (Tamiya Fine Grey) and started doing some detail painting on the engine which in the way-back-when I had airbrushed with Testors Metalizer Aluminum.

Glad to be corrected and then I'll certainly look forward to seeing what Aoshima does with this tooling!

Unless I miss my guess, this kit is a stock variant produced out of the kit Aoshima did of the famous (in the drifting world) Blitz ER34 Skyline sedan that competed in the D1GP series for several years. That may explain the separate fenders.

Stupid question maybe, but were the tri-power carbs used on the W30 Olds 442's the same two barrels, because the AMT '66 442 has a beautiful set.

Because the decal somehow went walkabout from my bench-top. Haha. Eventually I'm sure it will turn up. For now I just keep it turned in the display case.

As a roundabout explanation, the Lake Erie chapter of the Armor Modeling and Preservation Society or AMPS meets at my shop the 3rd Sunday of every month. With a dedicated group of armor builders hanging around, I decided to try my hand at building armor just for fun and here's the result. The kit was actually a pretty fun build and I liked playing around with the weathering and pigments, but it's probably back to cars and airplanes for me for a while!

I am quite glad to have buttoned this project up after it languished in my stack for several years. It's the Hasegawa kit which was never the source of the build's issues, to which the Studio 27 photoetch fret has been added. The paint is Duplicolor Toreador Red with Vallejo Model Air "Chrome Silver" for the rockers.

Bit more accomplished on my Miura Jota. A little bit of time with my panel scriber cleared the molded mesh out of the fender vents so I could replace it with the PE from Studio 27, and a bit more wet sanding has helped the finish while I've masked and shot the silver for the rocker panels.

Snake's build actually reminded me of another one. See, MPC originally got this VERY right with a lovely illustration of a landmark concept car... Which they then torpedoed trying to get another go-around out of the tooling by releasing this...

This box art will ALWAYS stand out in my mind as one of the big goofs in the modern era. What do you see? A stock '57 Bel Air with some badly molded and undersized C4 Corvette wheels. Some "Street Machine". But what's in the box? A fantastic Art Morrison style frame with beautiful four-link. A unique floorpan with mini-tubs and new trunk floor complete with gorgeous fuel cell. A truly modern crate Chevy Big Block connected to a well-molded automatic transmission. Basically, this kit is EVERYTHING a modern fairground street rod Tri-Five wants to be, and nothing on the box top tells you that. Close runners up would be the same-period '68 El Camino and '71 Duster Street Machines. Again, beautiful modern performance parts NOT called out on the box top while a barely passable box top build-up with uninspired wheels makes you think it's the same sort of "2n1" kit that the '66 Olds W30 was.

Be particularly interested to see this built, actually. 0083 is likely my favorite UC Gundam chapter (tied likely with F91) and Albion always had such a great "White Base, but Hot Rodded" look to it.

Gladly welcome and honestly, the Vallejo Metal Color is super easy to work with. Lay down their Gloss Black Primer, wait a few hours, then coat with the metal of your choice. Biggest critical thing is use their Flow Improver to prevent tip drying in the airbrush but otherwise this was a first attempt with the stuff.