Simon

Signed in for the first time in ages to say Well Done! I have always fancied making a 5.0LX chase car but didn't know if it would work. Yours is amazing. U2s were (allegedly...) based at RAF Alconbury near where I grew up, and my dad used to see the chase cars when he was working nearby, though I think they used El Caminos or something similar at that time. Would love to get my hands on a real LX chase car, what a sleeper!

I love how you improved the headlamps. A great build and really inspirational photography!

Lovely Chevrolets. I am a big fan of the old AMT '57 kit, I know it is a bit long in the tooth but I've built two over the years and it's 100% fun. I plan to build more, and I hope they turn out as well as yours. The Dusk Pearl car is.... a pearl ;-)

Nice work Ludwig, that's a beautiful Cadillac. The black suits it really well.

That looks great! I have been looking for trailer and load ideas for a while and I never thought to check out die-cast toys. What did you think of the trailer, did it respond well to some detailing? Is the backhoe a nice model?

Excellent work. Looks like a typical little van which still provides service to somebody despite receiving minimal care in return. The paint finish, odd panels and rust all look great.

Brilliant rescue of a potentially fatal situation! Poor old thing. I really like how you did the foliage, and the weathering on the car. This kind of heap turns up on eBay in the UK these days, almost always advertised as a 'barn find'. Which usually means, 'I bought a hopeless basket case and now I've realised I need my money back. No warranty offered'.

Nice work Paul, that's a childhood dream car brought to life! How I gazed at the metallic blue one in the 1983 Ford brochure... Your interior treatment is inspired. Perfect 1980s fast Ford.

Lovely looking truck, Dennis. I have fond memories of building the Monogram release of this soon after it came out. Your colour scheme and interior trim make it look like a real showroom-fresh example, just ready to tow the family boat to the coast! Can I ask how you did the red reflective strip on the tailgate? I like the wheels and tyres in this kit, big chunky units.

What a lovely build, and very nicely photographed. The colour scheme looks just right and the paint finish is beautiful. Excellent work on the BMF too. The images almost look like period brochure shots. Thanks for sharing.

I love it, nice work Charles! The dodgy looking Transit is perfect, exactly how the Mk2s often used to look in the mid-1990s. The dustbin and manhole cover are amazingly well done, the kind of things I would have overlooked completely. Nice display base.

Great work Patrick! Looks ready for Newquay. How did you get on with prepping the resin body for painting? I haven't used a resin body before and wondered how it compared with styrene when it comes to getting the paint on.

What a beauty. The colour really suits it, and the engine bay detail is particularly well done. I take it that's a correct colour for the real car that year? One day about 12 years ago, I got home (in North London back then) to find that somebody a few streets away had a '67 Chevy coupe on their driveway! It was a sort of notch back rather than a fast back like this one. He had bought it on the internet, drunk! I never saw it again, I suspect it was a little more than he bargained for.

This is excellent, a perfect match of technique and subject matter. It looks like a tough old beast. Your weathered paintwork looks the business, can I ask how you achieved that finish? Great photography too.

Excellent. Your mastery of the salt technique speaks for itself, incredibly convincing. Oddly enough, I also have a brush-painted teenage build of this kit in my parts box, not confident it'll ever resurface looking anything like as good as yours though!

Great information, thanks gents. I'm beginning to think that I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this pair! Or at least, bitten off a chunk which takes much more chewing than the other pies. Doug, thanks for taking the trouble to post the chassis drawing. I don't have either of those kits in my stash, and now I think about it, if I did I'd probably prefer to build them up box-stock rather than invest the parts in my questionable resin Cadillac.

Hi folks, I recently picked up a couple of resin car bodies from a Facebook group. I'm told they date back to the 1990s, but I really have no more information than that. I have never built a resin kit before, other than a truck chassis extension. These bodies look pretty indistinct and challenging to finish. They include a weird flat metal base plate, and the Caddy includes simple wheels and a front bumper. I have two questions: 1) do you think these are worth even attempting as builds? and 2) what would be the best styrene donor kits to make them? I'm told that they are a '49 Dodge wagon and a '39 Cadillac sedan: could the Italeri '33 Cadillac kit make a good donor for the '39?

I love this. I've had a soft spot for late-60s Buicks since I read a compilation of period road tests a few years ago, the performance of those big old yachts was really something! Must get my hands on one of these kits after seeing this clean build.

I hadn't seen this until it popped back up at the top of the forum. The finish is astounding, and the subject matter is perfect for such treatment. I'll be back to look at this again.

Thanks for the update Olsbooks, that Peterbilt really looks the business. I have a whole new respect for these snap-kits, some of the details like the hollowed-out air horns and clear lamp lenses put them head and shoulders above some other 'real' kits, I'd say.

Looks really smart, Dan! Good choice of colours too. You obviously managed to overcome any challenges with the multi-piece cab, it looks nice and straight.

Super-clean, I love it! Lovely paint finish too.

Amazing! Looks horribly close to how I remember it looking in the film, and Ron's post above proves it! A sad sight, but we all know what happened next.....

Thanks for being so kind guys, the more I look at the photos the more faults I see. But hey, I do this for fun, and this truck was enough fun. The kit is not perfect, but it really appeals to me - partly because my favourite Matchbox car when I was a little kid was a tiny blue version of this same vehicle. Espo said... "Another great build. I like how you photograph your builds, it really adds to the realism. I think Ford called their beds Style Sides and most others such as GM called them Step Sides. The Red interior would not have been uncommon with the colors used." Thanks David, great info on the model naming and colouring. I got the 'Flareside' idea from my little Matchbox toy from years ago, I don't know if that was ever a real model name. As for the photography, I am no expert! Lying on my belly with my iPhone is the entire secret of my method!

Thanks very much for all your kind comments gentlemen, especially as I have not been posting much lately. Tom, thanks! That's excellent advice on the stake pockets - I had no idea that's what those molded-in squares represented. I'll get my black Sharpie out. Good thinking on the lug nuts (wheel nuts in my part of the world), an oversight I can easily take care of. Espo said... "I can feel my sweaty back sticking to the vinyl seat now. " That's something I like about making models. You can put yourself in a different place and time, limited only by your imagination.