Spottedlaurel

Great to see the Laurel C31 kit is still available. I 'need' to get one or two of those someday. Great selection of wheels too. I've been avoiding buying anything more, due to a forthcoming house move, but I couldn't resist when a firend on a 1:1 car forum put a nice selection up for sale. I ended up with these: The Heller kit is missing the figures, but I was only interested in the tools. The two small kits are odd, the Dyane 6 is just the box with the remnants of a Citroen CX inside. The Renault is complete, and very toy-like. The bodyshell is in two halves with a join front-to-back right through the middle! It also has opening doors. I've seen one built, the guy found it to be a bit of a challenge and it's best to accept it's just a toy.

Great to see others making progress or completing their builds. I've taken a bit of break from the models because of 1:1 life, but great weather last weekend and some spare time saw me get the colour and clear onto my Nissan Leopard on Skyline GT-R floorpan: The engine is fitted in these shots, I have no issues with clearance (the front of an R32 is lower, if anything I need to add material to the inner wings to fill the gap). I've since polished it up, with good results. Rather than the stealth black/beater look I'm trying to hide the performance of this one in plain sight. It'll look like a smart example of a chintzy early '80s personal luxury car, but not something anyone would expect to go very fast. I need to tone down the wheels a bit, and get the fronts sitting inside the arches not protruding as they do at present. I may even try a different style, I was detailing a set of BBS mesh wheels for another project and tried them on this, they suited it very well. The interior is going to be my biggest challenge, with its combination of the basic GT-R tub, LHD Silvia/180SX dashboard and side panels from the Leopard. I'm now on leave from work and for another year can't go anywhere too far, so I'll have a bit of time at home to try and move this one along. Good luck to the rest of you still working on your builds!

Nice one Luke, great to see it finished.

Great job on this one Gareth! Looks spot-on. I vaguely started my DoH version with flush rear window some years ago, but didn't progress beyond mocking-up with larger wheels as I was thinking of a pro-touring look.

Has your move happened yet Pierre, and if so how did it go? When I first read this thread I found it interesting and I related it back to my own experiences. Since then it's become very relevant, as all being well we've sold our house and we'll be moving, so I'm going to have to pack everything up. In our case it's a bit odd, as the new place is less than half a mile/just over 0.5km down the road! Unfortunately we won't have access to it until our house has sold, so I'm planning to rent some local storage space, taking the kits there myself (along with a few thousand car magazines and brochures) then bringing them back when I've started to get the new place set-up. That way it will only be me handling them. I'm planning to wrap each built one in a sheet of kitchen roll and bag it up, and layer them in boxes with bubble wrap, packing beads etc retained from all the eBay/online purchases I've made over the years.

How about the wheels from this Monogram 280Z? Might be worth trying to find some slightly taller tyres for a period look. I used them as they were on this Roadster: Edit: I think there was a Lotus Esprit kit that also had 4-stud slotmags.

That's truly wonderful Chang, you must be very proud of it. I could never contemplate owning one, but it's always a treat to see a 1:1 DS in the metal. They're one of the few older cars that my wife likes.

Thanks for the continued interest and comments! Regrettably I've had to put this and my other WIPs to one side for the moment as we're concentrating on a potential house move. Thanks, and I have the same Matchbox car! Not from back in the day, I was a touch too old by the time it came out, but as a more recent purchase. The mug dates back to the '80s, my grandparents had a set at their house for all four grandchildren. I think the 2-door Sport may only have been available here in orange? That's the only colour I remember them in as well. Thank you, and good to know the engine lived-on. They were a popular upgrade here for other cars back in the mid-late '80s. There may even have been a kit available for the Morris Minor. I'll do my best, but for the reason quoted above don't hold your breath!

Really nice job on that one Roger.

I was pleased to see this in a local town centre car park yesterday: 1974 Vauxhall Victor, this one with the slightly odd combination of smaller 1800 engine and auto 'box. I like the styling of these, a definite family resemblance to early '70s American GM cars. There are other versions with alternative, more attractive headlamps, Rostyle wheels etc. I'd very happily have one with a small block V8, which was done to a few back in the day. Great to see such an original example amongst the everyday modern cars.

Great to see this one is still progressing! The dash looks really good.

I don't much like masking, so when I'm feeling sufficiently confident I just do it with brush-painted enamel. My preferred colour is Revell #9 Anthracite, which has a more rubbery look than straight black I try and get the edges more-or-less right on the first go, and may add a bit of second coat if necessary. My preference is to apply it after I've polished and waxed the paintwork. If the edge needs a bit of tidying then I gently scrape it back with a blade. I'm not attempting to build contest winners, it works for me. If I do feel the need to mask them then I prefer to use BMF rather than tape. I find it easier to trim it to the edge of the trim moulding. I'm in awe of those who can represent a chrome trim within a rubber moulding around windows........

A little bit more progress on my Nissan Leopard with Skyline GT-R underpinnings today: Modified the Skyline rear end to take female fitment wheels then attached the rear axle and suspension. Strut brace taken from a Nismo Skyline, surprisingly the racing version I'm using as the basis for this build didn't have one. Gave the bodyshell more primer, then couldn't resist getting a little bit of colour down. I'm not sure what it would have been used on at 1:1, but it's a rich gold shade, almost coppery, and it's pretty close to what Nissan were using at the time on some of their large cars.

I didn't think I had anything to add here, I'd forgotten about this one: Built from a rally car kit with parts from the road car I threw together in 1984.

Thanks, I'll watch out for the seat decal issue. Good to know it goes together nicely, I've had good experience with other Hasegawa kits.

Nice one! This one arrived in the week: Box is a bit faded and tatty (and it was lucky the contents didn't get damaged as it was packed in brown paper only) but as something to build someday it suits me just fine.

That looks excellent. The colour choice and wheels set it off really well, for both the original and your build.

Thanks everyone! Thank you Alex, got to admit I had fun staging them in the rain left on my the roof after a showery day. I was thinking of fitting wide wheels and stretchwall tyres, I have a few sets I need to start using, but I'm glad I stuck with what I did. Nice one, cheers!

That's great, up to the point when you the back end it looks so clean and subtle.

That looks really nice, a great restoration you've done there. It has a very clean, subtle look to it.

That looks so good Chang! Wonderful detailing, the windscreen rubbers with chrome trim turned out very well. What wheels are they please? They look similar to those on some Toyotas. Good use of the Fairlady flares, they're not too extreme.

Certainly not for a long time. There's also this racing version, from memory it has most/all of what's needed to build a road car plus a few extra bits. Difficult to do much about the roof at the top of the windscreen, but the rear pan can be modified to look less boxy.

There's the old and basic Monogram kit for that one - it'd be tricky to build as a stock example but it's a good basis for modifying:

Nice one, love the period look you've given it.

Wow Bill, that Dodge is fantastic! My own progress is rather more modest, but I'm happy to have got back into it again....... Added a bit of strip styrene around the edges of the bonnet opening, as I'd had to cut that open. Opened-up the vent in the front bumper. There'll be a big intercooler behind here. Spent most of my time sussing out the interior. I want to use the tub from the race Skyline, but with side panels and rear seat from the Leopard to keep it stock-ish looking. I'm adding the LHD dashboard from a Nissan Silvia, so the driver can make better use of overtaking opportunites. Crudely mocked-up, it all seems to fit. As the bodywork is going to remain pretty standard I'm hopefully not too far off getting some colour onto it, just few bits of filling and sanding to go. Current favourite is a warm gold/light copper shade.