Jordan White

Good to hear!

Looks good! I will remind you and others that this stripe scheme was only on the black Broncos and the white portion should be silver, there were also versions for a red body (black and silver stripes), a silver body (red and black stripes), and a blue body (medium blue and light blue stripes). Like I had mentioned before, it would be cool if you would offer longer versions and in the other color schemes so an F150 XLS flareside, short-wide, and long-wide could be made!

I’ll be watching this, I love these kits! Are you thinking of using the kit tires or something better?

Yeah, the Tacoma or 4 Runner TRD Pro would be cool to see in scale!

With Meng covering the American market for trucks, I agree that Tamiya should come out with more rest-of-world truck and SUV kits.

Where did you find this out at? Do you have the exact message that you could post here? I'm curious what is all entailed since I like to 3d print parts for myself.

I also have one of the 1/16 Chevy Truck kits and luckily the tires for that kit don't have any issues either.

@Casey The tires are all intact and seem to not have any issues.

Bringing this one back up to the bench. I also restored the existing pictures after the whole Photobucket fiasco. I've decided to change my direction slightly. I still plan on running the Chevy 350 TPI, but it will be more of a stock build of a CJ-7 Renegade with a few upgrades (engine, bumpers). Here is the paint scheme that I would like to go for:

Yup, the biggest visual difference would be the interior!

Oof, I wonder how that got past QC? Though does anyone know if the flare side tailgate was on the same sprue or a different one than the regular bed tailgate?

The one thing I love about the foreign model brands is them molding parts in the black plastic, so for builds like this where there is a lot of black pieces, you don't have to paint every single little part. It was nice only having to paint a few things and just assemble it.

Thanks so far! @Goose1957 The body panels are probably the toughest part to get aligned correctly. I wish they would have done the tub and front fenders (minus the flares) as a single piece, like what Tamiya did with their Wrangler.

This is the MENG Jeep Wrangler 10th Anniversary kit built up as a 2015 Rubicon Hard Rock edition. The Hard Rock edition featured all of the unique parts from the 10th anniversary edition, but was of course also available in all the colors offered. I decided to just build this one box stock so I could actually finish a build in a reasonable time frame! It is painted as Baja Yellow Clearcoat, and features tire decals from Joseph at Fireball. I sort of failed with them in that being the first time using non-kit supplied decals, that they aren't "separated" on the sheet. So I put all the ones that said "Mud-Terrain" in at once, and once I realized my mistake, it was hard to cut them apart. So besides that little snafu, I would say the build turned out pretty well. I do agree with some others that built this kit already that it is very finicky, and the large number of parts is a disadvantage as far as getting some stuff to line up properly. I also think the frame near the front axle is possibly warped a bit, since it appears the front end sits higher than it should. In any case, on to the pictures!

Are you thinking of Model Roundup?

Actually it sounds like vans are not allowed, based on the first link Jantrix provided. "The Classics Category does not allow trucks, pick-up trucks, ambulances, estate-cars, or what is generally regarded to be a commercial-vehicle, such as a van."

The Astro did come as an AWD model, though pushing bigger tires like that means a solid axle swap would be the way to go!

From a '66 Ford Pickup brochure

Flareside is the term that Ford used and is generally considered interchangeable with stepside for that style of bed.

I have seen a few mentions of using the F250 frame rails, so perhaps they shortened them for use on the Lightning since it was a specially modified vehicle.

That was actually the theme a few years back already. In fact, I believe it was the only one I finished a build for! Just going through the list from 2012 to now, the themes were as follows: 2012: year 1962 2013: unlimited 2014: 1979 or older, but with modern parts optional 2015: sleeperball 2016: aussieball 2017: unlimited 2018: inline engines My idea would be sort of an update of the 2014 CBP, but have it be 1989 or older and with period correct modifications (some more modern mods could be considered "experimental" though). My thinking is the 1980s is where auto manufacturers started getting back into the horsepower game with better technology, and it would be interesting to see how people would configure their cars of that time period.

Speaking of the XLS Bronco, what if you made all four stripe color sets (blue, black, silver, red) long enough for the long bed F150 and in 2 pieces, so that way you could make the XLS Bronco, F150 shortbox/stepside, or the F150 longbed. You would just need to trim them down to the length you need!

Honestly, If any company decided to make one, my bet would be on Meng since they seem to be focusing on American trucks and SUVs. It would be cool to see a full detail kit of the current Escalade, complete with the 6.0 V8 and maybe two wheel options like the F-350 had.

The Escalade ESV (suburban length) is actually a thing, and it appears they did the same as the recent version of the Impala SS and just chose an image to copy, without realizing they chose the wrong version of the Escalade.

Oh boy, unless they decided to suddenly make the Escalade ESV, then that is quite the box art blunder!