John1955

I had a '78 T/A, the last year they had the real 6.6 litre, the Pontiac made 400 engine. Fortunately, a good friend's dad owned an inspection station was a rebel rouser. We broke emissions laws and put a custom dual exhaust in it, REAL dual exhaust, with two empty canister catalytic converters (fakes) and bypassed all emissions stuff. Yes, it was wrong and we were bad, but the car became an untamed beast and I drove like a maniac back then. (I was young).

But I guess people want to make things more complicated instead of using something I expensive and easy

I am unable to spend too much time on just one kit as I build many, kind of like an assembly line in my basement work area. I also have two rooms full of models on 4 foot by 8 foot plywood shelves, going back 60 years of building models, so I restore older already built models. I use industrial Endust which is available everywhere and gives a nice glossy shine to older models and even to models that have been molded in color. It makes them look professionally painted and it's not expensive and takes only a few minutes to wipe on with a soft cloth. Endust also works well on freshly painted and built new models, and within minutes, the scent goes away and it can fool even expert judges at model shows. To make chrome shine brilliantly on new kits or older already built ones, I use Windex (or generic versions). Windex is also great for cleaning plastic windows, but I have found that contact lens cleaners or eye glass cleaners are even better for that.

I hear ya and I share the pain. Adults who didn't know the hobby didn't realize how bad those Palmer kits were. I was fortunate enough to know my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandma when I was a kid, and they knew we boys loved building model cars, so they often bought us Palmer kits for Christmas and birthdays because they lived in a rural area with no big stores and the tiny store there sold Palmer kits. We always smiled (fake smiles) and thanked them, it would have been unkind not to. They never found out that we built them and then blew them up with firecrackers. We never wasted good spray paint on them, and would brush paint them using leftover paint my parents had in the basement (water based usually, wall paint). I am so glad this thread was started, because although I hated Palmer kits, it has brought back so many great memories from my childhood.

Back in the day, model kit manufacturers knew how to get young boys interested in building plastic kits, AMT especially excelled in this, beginning in the 1950's and all the way into the early 1970's. I still have some of the ones I built when I was very young, the AMT Craftsman series were the best. My two older brothers guided me through the instructions. In the mid 1960's, MILLIONS of plastic kits were sold each year, so many that the prices were very low due to high volume manufacturing, and AMT, Revell, Monogram, Jo-Han (later MPC) kept the quality high always. When video games arrived and sales of plastic kits declined, the model companies responded with snap kits and sales soared back up. Today, we have kids who are used to digital devices where everything is quick and done for them, no patience or skill needed. The sales of plastic kits is so low now that only us old folks buy them and due to low volume, the prices are ridiculously high. Recently, I was able to get my grandsons interested in building plastic kits and they even stopped using their electronic devices while building kits. But, I had to do it using old, vintage kits (snap kits) I'd found on E Bay and I couldn't afford to do that too much. The model manufacturers are totally failing to even try to attract younger modelers by releasing the same old more complicated kits over and over again, and Moebius apparently doesn't want any younger kit builders either, as their kits are far too complex and inferior in quality to build for most young people. Several others I know in social media and in person have done what I did, got young kids interested by using older and more basic kits, so it does work and they will build them and use the digital stuff less if model manufacturers would just face that. Instead, our beloved hobby is dying. Spending weeks and months building a single kit is all very well for us older people, but it hardly makes big profits for kit manufacturers and we, their customers, are getting older and older. I'm very sad about there being no future for such a great hobby.

Good point

Actually, as your pic shows, it was far off size. And their Ford Galaxie and all other kits shared the exact same chassis, tires and wheels. A store here sold them at half retail, that's the only reason we kids bought them, 49 cents. A few times, they were even less that price. Meanwhile, Jo-Han was making completely accurate kits that retailed for almost the same price.

Exactly right. When I was a kid, Palmer kits were so inexpensive that we would buy them, build them, then blow them up. Half the time, the chromed parts were a weird brown color and they all had the same tires and wheels and chassis, no matter what make or model the kit was supposed to be. And a Corvette was the same size as a Ford Galaxie was, LOL.

I consider air brushes too much of a hassle to bother with. I did use them, but it's so time consuming to mix the paint, making it not too thick and not too thin, then after all that, you have to take the thing apart and clean it, no thanks, been there, done it, no more. I built my own spray painting booth, installed an exhaust fan with a vent to the outside, and went back to rattle cans. The selection of colors is almost unlimited, ANY brand and ANY kind of spray paint will work as long as you apply plastic suitable primer first (from rattle cans). Many award winning models have been made that way.

Washington, Pa.

Years ago, I bought a repro 1956 Pontiac promo without an interior, made by X-EL and I will never understand why they made them that way since the original Jo-Hans usually had interiors. Completely by accident a few years later, I saw a '56 Pontiac original promo on E Bay that was in awful condition. Warped, cracked body, no front bumper or grille, and no wheels either. I'm surprised it hadn't been tossed in the trash. Ah, but it had a good interior! I quickly bid and I got it for less than ten bucks. I had to clean the interior up, and paint it a matching color, but if fit perfectly into the repro. I realize this might not help, but keep watching E Bay, you never know.

Yes, very true, Italeri kits are what I use to make them authentic.

Any other fans of these besides me? The body detail is fantastic and the lack of chassis and engine detail can easily make for great work shop projects. I also collect the 1950's Product Miniature 1/25th scale big rigs as well. They were the only company that made 1/25th scale big rigs back then. The lack of details can challenge you, but the scale is right on and with a lot of patience, they can be made to look authentic.

I use this stuff, it will glue ANYTHING to ANYTHING. Even metal to plastic and it's great for resin kits, too, and it doesn't cost a lot.

Hi, I just joined. I've been building plastic kits for about 60 years now. My older brothers did too and that's how I became addicted.