Falcon Ranchero

All rise for The Judge. Just had to have this kit. I had accidentally put the spoiler on backwards, and so the decal was applied wrong also, so I took the spoiler off and had a heck of a time getting the decal off intact, so I could put it on the other side. But it's all good now. Completed March 15th, 2024.

Given to me by a cousin who didn't really have the knack for building kits, this is the youngest kit (interms of car model age, not the model issue age) that I've built. The reason the front stance looks a little goofy is because that whole front suspension was missing ,so I took the front suspension from a 1995 Mustang kit (also given by my cousin), but I won't build that kit. I have a soft spot for this gen Mustang, so that is why I figured I could just assemble this one. Completed November 12th, 2023.

This is the Marauder kit. One of my all-time favourites. Completed March 2nd, 2024.

My mom got this kit for my dad's birthday, last year. He waited a while to build it, but on March 10th, 2024, it was completed. This is his favourite car of all-time, 1967 Mustang fastback. Back in '67 his dad had a '67 Coupe, in light blue, 289, 4-speed manual. Though my dad has always liked the fastback version.

AMT's Surf Shark, my version. Completed May 19th, 2023, also the day of my first driving lesson.

Bought this one because I wanted to have a variety of kits, not just cars or regular pickups. Still need a 1/25 scale GM car to paint the same colour scheme and display on the ramp. Completed February 15th, 2023.

This is the 1953 Ford truck with trailer, and 1936 Ford Coupe. The truck came with custom options, and so I decided to do the full custom grille, and I had fender skirts left over from my Christine model kit, which fit perfectly into the rear wheel openings. The '36 was given to me by a cousin who didn't really have the knack for building kits, and it had attempted to be built, but I took it into a different direction than what was started, and the car on the trailer was the result. The truck and trailer were completed August 19th, 2023, and the Ford Coupe was completed October 8th, 2023.

I have to agree, I was sort of put off by the fact there was no engine under the hood, but I did add little pipes that come out behind the front wheels (not very visible in these photos). Your's looks really neat; can't wait to see the finished product, I'll have to look out for it on the forum soon!

I have never read the book, but that's very interesting that Christine was a four-door in the novel; must've been more appealing for the movie that they made her a two-door. I should probably get my hands on the book (just did, like a few days ago in a book store but I didn't think to buy it); as I am curious about how the book was done compared to the movie.

I sort of hesitated to open the hood as the trim piece along the front edge may need to be re-glued as I built this model before I found out you have to scrape chrome-plated pieces in order for glue to bond correctly, but I can totally pop the hood and shoot the engine. It's the Hemi 426. I could try to photograph the interior, as I never took any photos before putting it in the car. It's just gloss black with a gold steering wheel.

My dad picked this up at a garage sale. Originally intended as an extra parts car since it was all in pieces (the guy who had it before must've got enraged and crushed the body between his fists) and some parts were missing. However, I figured I could do something with it, and the crazy hot rod you'll see below is the result. Interestingly enough, it was molded in metallic blue. Since real Corvettes are fiberglass, it broke how a real one would have, so I was able to glue the Vette's body back together. It looked like something out of the MotorTrend TV show, "Roadkill" so I put stickers on the doors and dubbed it "The Cracked Corvette". Completed November 29th, 2022.

17th year birthday present. Completed November 19th, 2023, I was very pleased with how well this kit turned out. That vinyl top is authentic vinyl, as my dad works at a print shop so he has acess to the vinyl sticker material applied on real cars (the Mustangs from my other post, "A Tale of Two Mustangs" have real vinyl stripes, not waterslide decals) so he cut out the shape of the roof and very carefully applied it to the car.

The final car I painted with a brush. Using gold Testor's paint from the early '80s, I was really pleased with how nice the paint went on with one coat. I attempted a "vinyl" top though it's more glossy than the car. I don't know why i added red into the interior, but overall, I like this car. Completed April 21st, 2023.

I always have a hard time deciding what to do when I build a kit that comes with many custom options. With this Wildcat, I had originally done full custom front and rear, but a couple months ago I took out the custom front end and just put the stock one in. Completed June 10th, 2023, I don't know why I waited almost a year to change the front end, but here it is. The exterior paint colour was real nice, in my opinion. I had actually used the same colour paint to restore my grandma's 1955-1960 generation Filter Queen.

This kit was neat to build. Unsure of what to make of this kit, I eventually settled for Mild Custom, both front and rear, as I had planned on doing the rear treatment seen on the box. This was one of my favourite interiors, as I gave it a red with metallic pink burgundy contrasts, and the tonneau covering for the rear seats, making this a two-seater only. Completed January 14th, 2023; the first kit I built for that model year.

The 1967 Dodge Charger model. One of my favourites; we're hoping to buy a real first gen Charger as it is a car that appeals to me, my dad, and my mom, after watching the 1966 promotional film. From 2000, this kit's decals were no good, so I tried to put redlines cut out from vinyl, but they didn't stick. This was also the first kit where I learned to put black paint and thinner into the grille. Completed February 20th, 2022.

Here she is. Completed February 5th, 2022. I like the movie.

Here they are, General Lee, and Dixie. No model car collection is truly complete without the General Lee, and so I had to make one. The MPC Country Charger kit was just begging you to make the General, because other than the flag on the roof, the kit supplied all the necessities. Completed August 28th, 2022, I had actually built Daisy's Jeep first, having completed it on June 26th, 2022. That kit needed a little more work, as it was a 1992 Monogram 1977 Jeep CJ, molded in blue of all colours (General Lee was molded in Black!), that my dad found at a garage sale. He had to re-create the Dixie decals, so they're not waterslide. I just need Uncle Jesse's truck, Rosco's Police car, and Boss Hogg's 1970 Caddy. Should also find Daisy's roadrunner, though it changed between a '73 and a '71 or '72 in the show. Either-or would do.

I had my eyes on this kit in the store for a while before I bought it. Spray painted, it went well. The Go-Kart was interesting to build. Completed September 17th, 2022

This was bought as a father's day present for my dad. Though he's not entirely a big fan of pre-war hot rods, he is responsible for building this kit; I did nothing except assemble the rims and put them in the tires. It took him a while, but on December 11th, 2021, it was finally completed.

Rome wasn't built in a day. What if I told you this kit was? With the aid of New Years Eve, (completion date, December 31st, 2022) I started around 8:00am, and finished 11:30pm, just half an hour before New Years. You can tell it was rushed, especially with the way the brushed-on two-tone looks a little wavy. With no motor under the hood (one of three kits I have without a motor) I just kept plugging away. Everything went well on this kit, despite the 12-ish non-stop hour build time (yes I stopped for food consumption). I gave it an unusual two-tone paint, normally not seen on Nova Wagons, but the lisence plates say it's from New Mexico, Land of Excitement, so it has an exciting paint scheme to match where it's hypothetically from.

Candy Apple Red, decided to spray it like the one on the cover of one of the Muscle Cars Magazine issues. Completed July 18th, 2023.

This kit was the AMT 1964 Galaxie 500XL kit, though I had chose to downgrade it to a regular 500, for the sake of gifting it away. I had built it as a Christmas present for my Great Uncle, (currently owns a 1965 Ford Thunderbird Landau he's restored had for 30+ years) who had two of these cars back in the day, though his green one was was more memorable as he had fitted it with exhaust that came out behind the front wheels. At night, flames would come out those things! For a more authentic build, we actually went to find a real Ford paint colour, and so that is Amazon green, or something like that; anyway, it was close enough to what it resembled in the only colour photo of the real car (bottom photo). As I don't have the kit anymore, these photos were taken on date of completion, December 2nd, 2022.

The 1956 Chevy Del Ray kit has to be the most atrocious kit I had ever built. Everything gave me a hard time, I was surprised I was even able to finish it. The first photo is when the car was completed on November 21st, 2021, but has since just deteriorated in the box. Built at the time when I didn't realize you had to scrape the chrome plating, most badging and stuff like that came off, but three of the four wheels would not click in, so they just fall off. If I do anything further with that thing, I'll make it one of those "Barn Find" buids, where you melt the plastic and make the car look all crusty and rusty and dusty. It was brush painted. The '57 Bel Air was considerably more appealing to build, but the tires didn't come pre-padded with white walls so I thought I could paint them. I was wrong. They're still sticky and may never dry. Overall, it was ok to build, but I wouldn't do it again. Just recently, the box took a minor tumble (with the car in it) while I was moving the stack it was in, luckly, nothing major happened to the car, just one of the hubcaps came off. Spray painted, the kit was completed June 29th, 2023.

This kit was bought for a little bit of nostalgia purposes. Back in 2009, I was 3 years old, and across the street from where we lived was this old Lady who owned a big, green, mid-80s Cadillac. Four door with a darker green half vinyl roof. That car was the very first "classic" car (if you'd call it classic in 2009) that I ever saw, and would usually run across the road to see it, and I was apparently let in the backseat once. After we moved, I never saw the green machine again, and just a few years ago, after the Lady passed away, I found out she had won the car in a draw when it was new. This kit was supposed to be homage to the green machine, but it was sold as a lowrider kit. I got confused on how I could make it a regular old sedan, so I just succumbed to the customness and made it a lowrider. It's green though, but painted with a brush (THIS is the worst of my brush painted cars, so I may or may not consider sanding it down and spraying it green). This kit was completed November 6th, 2021.