Spottedlaurel

Interesting, what make is that? Intended to be motorized?

Nicely done. The black trim is very much part of the look these have and you did a good job of capturing it.

Nice work so far Matt, the distinctive colour scheme looks spot-on. By chance I was unpacking some books at the weekend and I found the Spike Anderson biography. He describes the paintwork as a "nice dark bronzy colour" over the standard Datsun 110 orange/red. The white pinstriping was added to make the bronze stand out, otherwise they merged into each other.

Arrivals in the last couple of days: These new Hasegawa kits are very nice. This one allows me to put my old Tamiya version up for sale. These were bundled together as one lot at a decent BIN price. I thought the FD100 would be a useful engine donor, but seeing a recent mention by @Tom Geiger makes me think the chassis will be useful too. Skyline has more bits than the other version I have (blue car on box), so I can move that one on. Escort may end up as a Saloon Stock Car short oval racer. These came from a seller who lists a lot of interesting built and boxed kits. Toyota Soarer is by Fujimi, thinking that will be restored and given a sharknose conversion, but for now it looks quite funky as it is. Paint on the Monto Carlo isn't quite as good as it looks, I thought it was Tamiya Candy Lime Green but it seems to have a heavier flake to it. For now I'm planning to do a basic temporary build on it, attaching things dry/with PVA so it can eventually be dismantled and stripped/rebuilt. Slammed on a set of wire wheels it should look the part.

By the end of Sunday I'd managed to get this far with the stretched NSX floorpan: It turned out OK. Front and rear suspension, subframes etc put together OOB, just dry-fitted at this stage. Good level of detail and very satisfying how well it fits together. I think I'm settled on how to mount the wheels, I'll keep them female fitment and fit pins to the struts/uprights, after a bit of trimming. The 19" wheels should allow for suitaby large brakes, I can rob them off another kit.

Thanks for the info John. Just had a look at mine, it has a pair of exterior mirrors plus the interior mirror, all on the chrome sprue. I also do the mirrors last, but it's only on my latest build that I pinned them and I will certainly do that in the future. I was actually meant to build it last year as an entrant in the Cannonball group build on here, but for whatever reason I never got onto it. Plan then was to fit a Viper V10 engine, still is....

Thanks Michael. Kind of embarrassing when that sort of thing happens, should know better by now! I have the early and facelift versions of the Tamiya kit, one of their older, motorzed efforts. As well as the new Hasegawa kit there are also road and "Cafe Racer" versions by Monogram. I'd like t get the standard one, I've built several others in that range and although they're very basic they do go together nicely and have decent-looking bodies. It's now finished and Under Glass.

Good progress so far, with the clean paintwork and tidy interior you've got the bits with most impact out of the way. Is it similar to this later issue I have in my stash? if so you've given me some useful tips for when I do mine. Has to be said I prefer the box art on yours, almost worth $5 alone!

Got a simple build off the bench last weekend and that's given me the motivation I needed to get back on with my CBR entry. Possible alternative wheels. They came painted the gunmetal colour, may leave them like that dependent on my final colour choice. They seem to fit inside the arches OK, just need to see how they work with the NSX suspension. On the subject of which: Engine, subframes, suspension and exhaust all painted and ready for assembly. Everything I've tried so far fits together very nicely and playing around with my old, standard NSX build shows that the new wheels should fit OK. Some adaptation will be required as they're female fitment, and the originals were male, and lower profile, skinnier tyres along with reducing the rim width will be required at the front end. The standard wheels and tyres are staggered front-rear and I'll have to match that. The floorpan stretch has been filled and I've added an extra bit of length at the back end. Should get that painted today, along with the enjoyable part of putting together the engine, suspension etc. Then I can really see how well it fits under the Accord bodyshell.

Nice bit of lateral thinking Tom. You got my interest with it being a Datsun, and by coincidence I have a Foose FD100 on its way to me. I was just thinking of using the engine for another project, but the chassis looks rather handy for other projects....

All from the same eBay seller: They offered me an attractive deal on the wheels and threw in the green-painted TE37s as a bonus. The CE28s may find a home on the Accord/NSX mash-up I'm currently building, handy that they're already gunmetal. The Nissan RB20 engine is a bit of a fraud, but I knew that. It's just the top half on a plate, but should still look deent on a 'curbside-plus' build.

Nicely done! Lots of of alternative parts left over as well?

Thanks everyone! Certainly not the sharpest build in my cabinet, let alone amongst the others on here, but it's quite effective and has given me the motivation to continue with others. I had to change something! Not many projects where I could use such wide wheels and they fit the era of the RX-7 nicely. I've never had a bad result yet with Halfords cans, colour or clear. They seem to work OK with Tamiya TS too. Always pleasing to find interesting colours in the clearance section at £3 a go... Managed to get some photos in the sun:

Finished yesterday, modest WIP thread for a simple kit here: Was intended to be a quick and more-or-less OOB build - apart from the timescale I pretty much achieved that. Paint is a 1990s Ford mica colour called Java Blue from a Halfords spray can, along with their clearcoat. Another coat of clear and a bit more polishing wouldn't have gone amiss, but that wasn't the point of this build - it was just something to give me a bit of motivation. The decals were brittle, I was lucky that those for the plates didn't split (which happened to the others). As mentioned in the WIP thread, I sliced off the bottom of the front spoiler as it really was too deep. That meant I could use the kit-supplied spaces to lower the front end. Mesh wheels came from another Fujimi kit, they were of the same size as those in the kit. A quick squirt of Tire Foam brought the rubber up nicely. The vulnerable mirrors were drilled and pinned for fitting, my first time doing that. Not much to say about the interior or chassis. Suspension detailing is basic, limited by it having the ability to fit batteries for lights and a motor, and its a generic floorpan I think they use for other cars. I used the sports seat option but left off the roll cage. Would be good to get some photos in the sun, the paint picks up the light nicely. I decided to forego giving the panel lines a wash. 'Black' trim is my usual favoued option of Revell #9 enamel. It's a simple kit, quite crude in some areas, but it still builds up to a good representation of the 1:1. The same being true of these mid-late '70s sports car kits from Monogram that sit well with it. Thanks for looking.

Looks like a fun concept, and as we've seen from the Long Beach show photos pretty close to the sort of thing being done at 1:1.

Thanks Sonny. Hope you like my alternative wheel choice! Made a bit more progress, but also a step backwards..... Gah! Was fixing the interior side panels in place, then realised the bodyshell was hanging off my thumb thanks to some glue sneaking in there. Fortunately it was mainly on this arch, not the middle of a large panel. If the worst happened then I could do a bit of local repainting, but luckily it came off with a bit of 600 grit then micromesh and repolishing. Phew. In the end I've gone for these mesh wheels from another Fujimi kit, as I can't quite build anything completely OOB. Centres have been painted with a pale gold. Enough of it is assembled that I can do a proper mock-up: Just a bit more detail painting to do then final assembly, so I'll hopefully get this one finished over the weekend.

Good to see the older Celicas, and I can only dream of my '92 LS400 being as clean as that one!

Thanks Tom, didn't realise that it started life as an IMC kit. Thought it was odd being Japanese and 1/25 scale. Found a few more built/WIP examples when I searched with the IMC name. Looks like it has its challenges, maybe one to just enjoy and not take too seriously....

Traded a diecast for this one: It was on the condition that I build it as the dragster version: Might still make some minor mod's, even if it's just a change of wheels and tyres. I hope the latch and hinges on the engine lid are strong enough for when the 'chute is deployed.... Good to see the old price tag on it. Apparently Taylor & McKenna had 10 shops and were bought by Beatties in 1987.

I look forward to seeing how this progresses. I've seen the Mk1 Cortina bodyshells come up for sale every so often, I guess the intention is to build a Lotus Cortina using an Escort donor kit, but what you're doing is much more interesting! There is/was a guy called Steve Green who ran a similar car in drag racing here.

In the same supermarket car park, on different days: Triumph Renown from 1952. Very dated styling by that time. 1975 Ford Consul, better known as the Granada Mk1. This one has the 2-litre engine, they're particularly popular with a 3.0 V6 which offers a fairly sporty drive for a big saloon of the '70s. Very funky Purple Velvet paintwork, a factory offering back then - I've painted one of my models in the same colour.

It's a shame there aren't more of them as kits. I've got the Accord Wagon on the go at present, and I finished this '90s look Chevelle back in 2020: And my take on the Ghostbusters Cadillac: P.S. Do minivans count?

I like that, nicely done. Not sure if I've seen a built example before, good to hear that it goes together well.

Very nice. I can imagine it being a bit of a challenge and I doubt many ended up looking as good as this.

Really looking forward to see your time and thoughtful attention put to good use on this one. The Samuris are much-revered here, but as a British conversion probably not too well-known elsewhere in the world. I don't recall seeing a replica at 1:24 scale. Great start on the spoiler. Which version of the kit did you get? It looks like some had two engines, the S20 Skyline 'six' and the L24 which was fitted to the 240Zs as sold here. A good way to get close to the Samuri engine would be to fit the triple carbs from the S20 onto the L24. It has to be said though that the detail on the carb's isn't great, at the very least some separate air intake trumpets would be nice. Fujimi sell both engines in their Nostalgic Racer Tuning Parts set, Hiroboy has it in stock at present. Somewhere I have the book written by Spike Anderson of Samuri. There'll be lots of reference material in that. I also have loads of old magazine articles, may even have one or two spare if they'd be of any use. I imagine very few of them were identical at the time, even more so now with subsequent mod's and restoration work, so you can apply some artistic licence. How far are you going with the distinctive paintwork and signwriting?