Spottedlaurel

Pleased to see that the Lexus has appeared for sale in the UK, just placed an order for one.

Some great progress already being made! Mine has got no further than planning in my head (or daydreaming, as it might more accurately be known) and rummaging through the box. However I'm determined not to start anything new untiI get one other WIP off my bench. Been looking at a couple of fantastic builds of the 240ZG here on MCM - the Tamiya kit I've chosen really deserves to be done properly, with some detailing that's a step or two beyond what I've done before. I probably wouldn't have thought about going so far if I hadn't entered this group build, in the same way that I would never have built my previous couple of CBR competitors otherwise. It'll be good to stretch myself a little bit and go slightly outside of my normal comfort zone.

Looks good so far! I built one a few years ago, also just changed the wheels and lowered it (not as much as you though). Went together really well and still looks good in the cabinet.

I didn't end up doing much more this one back in the summer, but with a bit of holiday over the last week I've managed to make some progress. Most of the interior has been painted, just needs tidying/detailing and I used some leftover woodgrain side panel decals from a Revell Chevelle Wagon kit to do the table top. Rear axle and suspension sorted and I've made a start on the tedious job of painting window trims. There's a quite a bit of detailing required on the bodywork, but doing a reasonable job on that will elevate it from something quite toylike into a presentable model. Handily I saw a really nice 1:1 Hiace in France when on holiday this summer: This one was for sale. Would love to have been in a position to have bought it, but I'll have to make do with my kit for now.

Fantastic build, well done. You have a headstart in having something that looks great at 1:1, but it still needs to be built, painted and detailed properly to do it justice and you certainly did that.

Excellent! Great to see one built.

Hopefully the same doesn't happen to me this time around....

Got this at a local toy fair yesterday: Not really a Holy Grail kit, but certainly one I have unfinished business with. One of these would have been one of my very first models that I tried to build as youngster 40+ years ago, I remember it being quite fiddly and it hasn't survived. Let's see if I can do better this time around....

I built that one back in 2020, went together really nicely. Easy to lower it. Only thing I din't quite get right on mine was the alignment of the hood trim, above the grille. Use a glue that gives you time to position it properly.

Christmas money spent yesterday: These very nice Hasegawa kits were a third off, so basically I got one for free. I got them from Hannants, the big wholesalers who are fairly local to me. As ever they had a mind-numbing range of other kits in the warehouse, but I was good and resisted temptation. The Halfords automotive paints have always worked well for me. Don't know why they still stock Purple Velvet, it's a classic mid '70s colour and I can't imagine many people walk in off the street to buy a can for their 1975 Granada or Cortina.

@Camaro lover Tamiya's recently reissued Toyota Soarer has the 7M engine, it's a proper full depth one with transmission, not just the top half on a plate. This is the older issue. By coincidence I happened to take a photo of a 1:1 example in the summer: Would be period correct for the Supra. I also have one of the very nice Hasegawa versions, reading the above has got me thinking about doing the same thing. I'll have the 7M spare as I'm looking to drop a Celsior/LS400 V8 into my Soarer. The only thing I suspect the Hasegawa kit won't have is a LHD dashboard. If you were desperate to build it that way I could let you have one from Tamiya's older Supra Mk3 kit, as that has both LHD and RHD. Might not be quite as accurate as the Hasegawa, but would be a starting point and perhaps some of the detail could be swapped over?

Any news on alternative versions of the Nissan 240ZG? It looks to have been engineered in such a way that a standard-nose Z could be offered, and there are so many race/rally cars they could do. Maybe even borrow the S20 engine from the Skyline GT-R to create a Z432R? Look how many different issues Hasegawa can get out of one subject. Also, with regard to weathering/rust, given that many of their subjects are older Japanese cars there is plenty of scope for corrosion (as the past/present owner of numerous 1:1 Datsuns, Toyotas etc I can say that!).

OK, after a bit of rummaging through the stash I'm in with the Tamiya Nissan 240ZG: I shall be fitting an RB26 straight-six out of a Skyline GT-R. Needs converting to 2wd, but doesn't look too difficult with a bit of parts box engineering and cutting/filling. Seen images of a few such transplants at 1:1 so it's clearly a feasible swap, just need to keep the appearance looking restored rather than overly modified, so I'll choose a period colour. The Tamiya kit is already very nicely detailed, but I happened to find the Hobby Design detail-up set on eBay so I'll add whatever I can from that. Kind of a shame to lose the well-detailed standard L24 engine, but I can make good use of that on something else and it makes sense to start with the best version of the Z. It's way ahead of those from anyone else, and it's still readily available if I want to build one more standard. Using the ZG gives me the aero nose, which will hopefully gain a few MPH, and arch flares to cover wider rubber. Now waiting for the start date!

Thanks Enzo! It's a tricky one this year, but I think you've come up some guidance there that we can take in the right spirit and come up with something that isn't just a rehash of previous CBRs. I'm currently swaying between AMT's '69 Cougar with a newer Ford V8 (Revell's Foose FD100 or Shelby Series 1?), or the Tamiya Nissan 240ZG with an RB-series stright-six engine. I'll use the remaining Christmas holiday period to have a look at them and see how easy it will be to perform the upgrades I have in mind. What I like about both is that the base vehicles could have run in the 1971 event. Also, they'll also be eligible for one of the other community builds on here.

Well done for persevering with it, the finished result looks excellent. I dropped into your WIP thread every so often, this kit certainly seems like a challenge....

Nice selection there. All well-engineered kits of interesting/significant cars. At some point I'm going to attempt putting a spare Celsior V8 into the Soarer. Can only dream of doing it at 1:1, but it's vaguely feasible in styrene....

Nicely done Michael. Sometimes it's good just to build them OOB and enjoy how the kit was designed and engineered.

What a beast, well done Steve! You put a lot of thought and effort into this, it's really paid-off.

Sounds like the perfect description of what it should be about, it's certainly how I approach it, I've definitely built things that I wouldn't have done otherwise. I guess the trick with the resto-mod category is to get the right base vehicle. Something old enough that needs to be restored, perhaps raced or rallied back in the day or at least with good aftermarket tuning parts supply. I'll be looking out for something that's not immediately obvious but shares its DNA with something commonly upgraded, to make use of the parts sharing possibilities. Recent comments from @disconovaman elsewhere on this forum about the Nova and Camaro come to mind, the same principle can be applied to plenty of other things. Hmmmm.......

Ditto. I have a few Japanese straight-sixes in my various kits, and there's a 2.4-litre lump in my 1:1 Datsun so they are definitely something I appreciate and it's probably something I'd be building anyway, but to challenge myself a little maybe it's time to do something with the Maserati 'six' I have spare from the Monogram 3500GT?.....

Looks good! I built the road car version a few years ago, went together nicely and a wheel swap worked well on it. I don't remember anything particularly odd about the interior - the rear was boxed-out to house the MR engine set-up, and Tamiya made use of it for the motor. It loses a bit of detail in not having the rear suspension detail, with just a metal rod axle, but it still looks fine on the shelf. Saw one in action at a French hillclimb we were lucky to attend when on holiday last year:

Looks stunning Luke! And it's not black ? The gold suits it really well.

Nice coincidence on the Wolf, Tamiya's 1:20 version is one of my oldest, unrestored survivors: For some reason I brush-painted it with yellow Humbrol enamel, which looks slightly better than it sounds. I think this one is from a year or two before the Wolf: Didn't paint the bodywork back then, but looks like I had the patience to apply the decals. Anything else from my teenage years in the '80s has either been restored/rebuilt, or is stashed away awaiting future TLC.

A well-deserved win! I'm very happy to come in 3rd. The variety of entries certainly shows that we made good use of the RWYB category this time around.

Ooh, didn't know about that one. However I'd imagine it may well be, I have heard of another SATCO reboxing of an Aoshima kit. They also include a LHD dashboard which isn't in the original Japanese kit.