Kombi

This car is among my all time favorites and I've seriously considered obtaining a kit, but I'm going to watch your build here and see how it goes. I definitely consider my skills on the amateur side of intermediate. So I've got a feeling I may be better off living vicariously through you on this one. The thing I just don't understand is why there hasn't been a 1/24 scale plastic kit made (or maybe I just have found it)?

Your paintwork is fantastic. The overall impact is great, it's hard to believe they're 1/43rd.

This turned out fantastic! I also appreciate reading the tips on fitting the body as I'm working on the "Chassis.0714" version of this and I'm absolutely in fear of this step. I'll probably ask you some very specific questions once I get to final assembly time.

I'm very impressed. This level of scratch building is always fun to watch.

If this hasn't been built 1:1, I predict it will be. This is one cool bug.

Excellent work man. I love how reserved the build is and I really like that it appears you haven't chopped the top.

Thanks for the compliments. I myself have never really been a fan of the Mini Truck look, but one modified similar to this would definitely be something I wouldn't mind owning. A quick B-series would work just as well. For whatever reason I never get tired of highly modified cars and trucks that maintain a fairly stock appearance. With two exceptions, wheels and ride height. I've added some cliff notes to my post.

Kit: Aoshima Datsun 720 Pickup (AOS27790) Wheels: Aoshima Work Emotion CR Kai (AOS36914) I finally finished my little Datsun pickup. It was inspired by a fairly impressively built King-cab version in Japan that I've seen a few pictures of. I liked it largely because apart from the ridiculous ride height the pickup was largely stock in appearance. I started with the Aoshima kit even though it wasn't a king-cab, but learned right away that those huge fender flares were molded to the body. So instead of trying to shave them off and trying to recreate the stock wheel openings I instead drilled holes in an attempt to make them bolt-ons. I've got a soft spot for bolt-on fenders anyway so it worked. The other modifications included drilling out the "mesh" grill and replacing that with bars that gave a more stock appearance. Drilling out the other front end openings; adding some Pegasus brakes; and swapping out the wire wheels for some Work Emotion CR Kai wheels. The interior was tarted up a bit with Lamborghini seats, Cobra steering wheel and shift knob, roll cage, and a photo-etched hot rod cluster. This was also my first attempt at replacing the glass with some thin, clear styrene. It was not entirely successful, but does look better than the awful kit glass. One of the challenges I faced was the extreme negative offset on the wheels. This caused them to be set too far inboard and it just looked silly. I made a .085mm spacer using some styrene tubing and the kit poly caps. The poly cap stuck out of my spacer just enough that it still engaged the wheel so that when I glued the spacer to the wheel, everything lined up perfectly. Apologies for the shoddy camera work. I'm between cameras for a while so the camera on my G1 is the fall back. Thanks for looking.

Really awesome job there man. That dashboard alone must have taken you a lot of time. I see now whenever I get around to building mine that the night-stage lamps are a must!

That is definitely one beautiful kustom wagon and your reproduction of it is spot on. Excellent work!

Excellent, thanks Ulf!

Nice work! I did some quick digging and it looks like those first two are 1:24 Fujimi Mini Mayfair kits. Is that correct? You wouldn't happen to have a lead on more of those would you? I'd love to get my hands on a kit to test out some ideas I want to try on my own 1:1. My '71 Austin Mini 1000

What a fantastic job you've done here, I had to go look at my kit in the box to get a good idea of just how much you had to change. For my skill set, I'm thinking box stock will have to be sufficient. It reminds me of the little Matchbox car I had of it as a kid anyway. By coincidence, I happened to catch this video from YouTube on the Tyrrell. The video really shows some of the variety of form the car took that you mentioned. The car at the 1:00 mark really caught my eye with the twin snorkles on either side of the driver. That would be a neat version of the car to build as well.

However you built it, the end product is really cool.

I sort of figured I'd take a sizable hit for not selling them off piecemeal, but it's good to keep that in mind. I suppose a garage sale is another painless way to be rid of them. Heaven knows we've managed to amass a lot of stuff in our short time in this house.

First, I hope this is a valid question to be asking here because I want to be clear that I'm not offering anything for sale with this post. I'm just looking for some guidance on offloading a load of opened-box kits (22 kits in total composed of cars, trucks and planes). So, does anyone know of any reliable places that buy small collections in lots. I'm afraid I don't have the time or patience to sell them off individually and I really don't need anything in trade.

There's a Canter at Tammie's Hobbies in Beaverton, Oregon right now. I saw it there yesterday. I don't know the scale or the manufacturer (I suspect it's either Fujimi or Aoshima). Not that this is going to help you a whole lot.

Well, their selection definitely wouldn't be worth the trip.

Turning down some tube isn't completely out of the question, but probably won't be possible to do that any time soon. No screws for these, they're simply slipping over plastic pins which I've already installed. One day I'll learn how to test fit better. I'll go the route of styrene tubing and see what I might be able to come up with. Thanks for the advice!

I think the Fred Meyers in Tualatin and Newberg have always carried kits. However, the amount of space they give them has been reduced significantly over time and I've seen nothing to suggest that is changing at least in the Newberg store. The prices are pretty low, but their selection is extremely limited with usually less than a dozen different auto kits including snap-tites.

I'm working on a truck right now that I'm planning on using some Aoshima wheels for. These use the same poly inserts as the kit wheels, but because the offset is so deep they are sitting way to far inside the body. One thought I had was to find some poly tubing that I could cut to a desired length. Then simply sleeve that with some styrene tube to fix my offset issue. Does anyone know of poly tubing that can be readily used in such a way? Or maybe another method you've used to address this issue?

That's just awesome, fantastic work and detail. And now I've also learned something new about the existence of 4-door Bugs.

Very nice work there. That's a really clean custom. I've always liked single and double-cabs. I still have plans to own one some day, but in scale will be the closest I can get for now.

I appreciate the reply, and it seems like an easy enough solution. I'll have to pick up a few more now. Pity about them being in the cosmetic section though.

I've only recently attempted to use the Tamiya weathering master kits and it's pretty neat what can be done. However, there's one thing that I'm a bit baffled on. Can you clean the sponges off and if so how? I've noticed that they don't exactly wipe off clean, but I'm not willing to try water or solvent just yet. I can accept that I should buy one per color, but I figured I would ask. Thanks!