Spottedlaurel

Nice one, thanks Steve. Good to know it's feasible in 1:25 styrene. After I typed that I found images of 1:1 examples that had been converted.

As Snake say it's the old Monogram kit and it's pretty decent, I finished-off the same Revell issue last year: I lowered mine and fitted alternative wheels and tyres along with some brake discs. I may have had a bit of glass/interior fitment issue, but I don't remember doing anything too complicated to get over it.

That's very nice, the metallic colour really accentuates the shape. Good call on the wheels too. I once saw those Dunlops on a '60s Jaguar saloon and they looked great on that too.

Thanks everyone for the kind words! Thank you Michael. I might be able to help you with getting hold of a Leopard kit..... The wing mirrors actually have little wipers moulded-in! As far as I recall, the Motip paint came from one of the local independent car parts shops. The code is 56000, but I can't find what make/model it would have been applied to. I had no luck looking on the UK website, most of the results I got were on Dutch sites. Thanks, I keep looking at it and thinking it's amost too subtle! Definitely worth looking out for one, there's the TRX Turbo version as well which contains the same parts as far as I can see, just a different decal sheet.

Thanks @disconovamanfor getting the list going! Looks like I'm the 4th for 1970. I had pondered a couple of Chevies I already have in stash but I realised I've done too many of them in the last year or two and it's time to spread the love. By chance I've just managed to get this 1970 AMT Challenger on eBay: Once it arrives I'll see if a Viper V10 engine will fit. If it's not viable I'll do a Mustang or something Japanese.

This was my entry for the 2021 Cannonball Ruse community build. No WIP thread, I added some in-progress shots and info on the CBR thread. Basically it's a combination of these two kits: I shouldn't imagine the Skyline needs much of an explanation, it was my chosen race car to be disguised. I thought a flat painted GT-R would still raise eyebrows, so after trial-fitting an assembled chassis from a previous build under lots of bodyshells I found that this curbside Leopard was ideal. Some reasearch revealed that they have a very similar wheelbase and the Leopard having a long nose for its straight-six meant it was just right for the GT-R running gear. The Leopard is a bit of curiosity. As Nissan already had the Laurel and Skyline in the range quite why they needed something else of similar size I don't know. I'm not sure if this first generation was exported to many other markets, we certainly didn't get them in the UK or Europe, but subsequent models did reach the States. The owner of the UK importer had one or two brought over for his own use. Basically I dropped the Leopard's bodyshell onto the GT-R floorpan and interior tub. I also had to cut open the bonnet and vent within the front bumper, but otherwise they merged together remarkably well. Well, I think so, judge for yourself...... Paint is automotive Motip metallic beige,which had a rich , almost coppery, tone which was typical on cars of that era. I finished it with Halfords automotive clearcoat. Wheels are Volk GTP with Bridgestone tyres from a later Aoshima Nissan Leopard kit. I had to go through the usual thing of working out how to mount femaile fitment wheels on the male fitment hubs. I gave them a bit of dark grey wash to tone down the chrome. Minimal work was required here on the conversion. I had to add a bit of a lip where I'd scribed-out the bonnet, and perhaps ideally I should add a bit of infill at the back of the engine bay, but it doesn't immediately look like there's two different cars here. The Skyline's radiator worked perfectly, I just had to trim down the intercooler (not seen here). I added the larger brakes, strut brace, turbo set-up and intercooler from a Nismo Skyline. The racecar apparently was around 400bhp, so with some mod's let's say mine has 500-600bhp. The interior was based on the racecar's tub, with the LHD dashboard from a Nissan 180SX (for ease of overtaking), Skyline's seats swapped over, rollcage trimmed down for road use, then the rear seat and side panels from the Leopard. Even the cage fitted inside OK, the only issue I had at the last minute was the rear seat fouling on the glass (hence the sawn-off portion which embarrassingly I've forgotten to touch-up). I had to trim the front end of the floorpan very slightly. I should have also added a bit at the rear to suit the Leopard's longer overhang, but that had to be sacrificed to get it finished in time. The Nismo Skyline also donated its exhaust system. The black trim was a challenge, there was a lot of it! I used brush-painted Revell #9 enamel, with the worst of any overpainting scraped back with a knife (this reminds me of my working days on the drawing board, using a razor blade on tracing paper to make changes and correct mistakes). Might sound tedious, but for me still preferable to masking..... The Leopard kit was quite neat in how it used plated backing pieces behind the front and rear lights, it was good not to have to add BMF or paint it silver. This was another build that got laid-up for several months during my house move. I was rather tight for time getting it completed by the December 1st deadline, and I will be the first to admit one or two items suffered as a result of that, but I was pleased to get it finished and looking vaguely plausible. It ended up with parts from at least five different kits. Thanks for looking!

Completed this one at the weekend, WIP here: My intention was to build it as a quick, simple summer holiday project, to make the most of another year when we couldn't go away. However, due to moving house it didn't work out that way and it sat in a box for 2-3 months until I got some modelbuilding space set up at the new place. Here's the finished result: Standard bodywork and interior. Tamiya TS-9 British Green rattle can paint over Halfords automotive primer. I try not to use clear over solid colours, but it kept getting a texture on it that wouldn't polish out so I gave it some clearcoat in the end (can't recall if it was TS-13 or Halfords). Wheels are Aoshima Racing Hart 14" with the inside of the rims trimmed back to match the tyre width. They are female fitment but the kit was set up to take male-fit wheels - my method of overcoming this and getting it to sit lower was rather crude and involved a healthy amount of CA glue..... I went for the tan interior to match a 1:1 car I remember from some years ago. Exhast tailpipe is from a Fujimi accessory set. With no engine I treated it as a curbside build, it'll only ever be displayed in my cabinet. There is scope for the underside to be nicely detailed however, and it certainly gave me a good understanding of how they work even if I just painted it all black. It's made for a nice addition to the shelf, and I think it's the first Mazda I've ever built.

Very nicely done! Does he offer anything for the Esci/Italeri Mk2?

That looks great, and I like how you've based it on something seen at 1:1. The early 1980s was when I started buying custom/rod magazines here in the UK and I remember this look starting to appear.

That's come together really well. The front end looks great, I can think of several 1:1 cars that had a similar look.

Very nice Michael! Great to see one of these built, you've done a really good job on it.

Very nice conversion and build. The mid '70s Monto Carlo is one of the few American cars I remember as a 1:1 from my youth, we had someone living down the road who must have worked on one of the USAF bases and they had one in the early-mid '80s.

Great to see another of your projects on the go Steve, good luck with it! I definitely think there's something of this style to come on one or two of my future builds, I just need to find the right subject and constituent upgrade parts.

A belated thank you for all the comments and interest. I was getting very close to my house move so got someonewhat distracted by 1:1 life. Hah! The answer to that was clearly no, here I am finishing it off four-and-a-bit months later. Last WIP shot for the sake of completeness. Just got the interior mirror to tidy up and fit now. I worked out a way of fitting the wheels which I shan't elaborate on too much, other than to say it was crude but effective! Getting the ride height right was more important than accuracy as this is little more than a curbside build. I also mustered up the enthusiasm to paint the dark trim inside the glass, with that done it was just minor bits and bobs and most things had been prepped/painted back in the summer. It should hopefully be appearing Under Glass soon, my second completion in a week.

Nice, I've never seen those available as accessory sets before.

Nice one Luke. That's certainly brightened up a dull, damp start to the day here!

A couple of separate eBay purchases which turned up on the same day: Including some interesting packing material with the Mazda. I'm not sure if that price sticker on the Camaro is correct, even in the late '90s kits were rather more than £1.50 here! Maybe it went through a charity shop at that price at some point? As ever with these 1990s kits for me, it's more likely that it will be an engine donor and the remnants will get built as a curbside someday. The Tamiya Mazda is unpainted and mercifully built reasonably cleanly without too much glue. I already have another bought in similar state,so hopefully there's enough to build one good road car from the two and then do something more extreme with the remainder. Also, I like these wheels and I can think of one or two other kits that they'd fit nicely. The poor old driver looks a little green around the gills.

Great progress Dennis, some thoughtful re-engineering there. P.S. Happy birthday!

I sat and looked through them all yesterday hoping to make my mind up, but it was really difficult, and I'm not sure if I'm any clearer today! I'll have to give them all another look over the weekend.

A big thank you to you @disconovamanfor organising it! Looking forward to the 2022 run, with no house move planned for next year I hope to have a more relaxed time of it and not be finishing mine off on the very last night......

Great to see another one make it at the last minute! Looks mean.

It's too late to come up with a clever back story to my entry, it's just a combination of early 1980s Nissan Leopard bodyshell dropped over the floorpan and running gear of a Skyline GT-R Group N racecar. Pretty much stock bodywork, I just had to cut open the bonnet and cut out a vent at the bottom of the bumper to feed the intercooler. Paint is automotive Motip 56000 metallic beige, quite coppery in reality. I probably used Halfords automotice clearcoat. Black trim brush-painted Revell #9 enamel. Volk GT-P wheels and Bridgestone Expedia tyres came from an Aoshima kit. I added a touch of wash to tone them down a bit. Interior tub base, front seats and part of rollcage from the Skyline. Rear seats (and side panels) from the Leopard, LHD dashboard from a Nissan 180SX (to make the most of overtaking opportunities). Skyline's RB26DETT engine from the racecar, which probablygives around 400bhp. I changed the turbo set-up and intercooler to one from a Nismo Skyline kit, and with some internal mod'slet's say it gives around 500bhp. The Nismo car also donated its big brakes, strut brace and exhaust system. At 1:1 the Leopard and Skyline share a very similar, if not the same, wheelbase. The swap was pretty easy really, I just got caught out at the last minute by the intercooler and rear seat fouling,but no worse than fitment issues with some OOB kits. Hopefully subtle enough not to attract too much attention.

Nice work Snake! Finally got mine finished tonight. Had to do a couple of lunchbreak stints on it at work, even then I was tight for time and to be honest I rushed it more than I'd like. But it can go down as the first completion since moving house. A few more photos to go into the completed builds section as soon as I can edit them.

@Bob Johnson, it must be pleasing to see the time and attention these kits are still getting 40+ years on.

Good luck to all those finishing their builds off today! I'm at the point of not being able to fully tick anything off my list, but progress has been made on all areas and one way or another my entry will make it to the start line tonight.