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My thoughts exactly. I'm not in FB and in addition that time frame would be too tight to finish anything... But if a Gasser CBP would be organized in here, I'd be in for sure.

Fantastic! I haven't visited in this Pickup section very much so haven't seen many of these completed, but despite that I have to say that this is definitely the best build I've seen from this kit. Everything is spot on and looks realistic. Very good pictures too. Nice work!

Very nicely done Ranchero! I have the same kit and I'm building it in a bit similar direction so I really like what you did with yours. The overall look just works - the paint, wheel & tire choice, stance etc look just right. Really nice work!

To be honest I much rather see a rare Jo-Han body actually used for something it was originally meant for (building) that just sitting on collector's stash. Especially as I know this will look fantastic when Brad is finished with it. The 1:1 car looks very good so can't wait to see pictures of the scale version.

Thanks for the kind comments everyone, they are highly appreciated! This was a very fun project, I can recommend this kit for anyone who likes Vintage Dragsters. Even though the kit is pretty simple, it builds up very nice and has much more potential in it if one wants to do more modifications than I did. Nick, now that I have the Long John Dragster on my shelf, I'd really like to build the Slingshot Dragster as well. I'll need to see if I can find one of those somewhere around here... Bob, when you get started with your version, I definitely want to see how it builds up. I'm sure you'll have no problem making it as good or better as my version.

This is easy. Definitely the Matchbox version. Seen them five times in person and they're still very good!

I have wanted to build one of these Long John Dragster kits for a long time. Finally, when visiting in SoCal in October, I found one of these at Pegasus Hobbies and had to have it. The plan was to preserve the original look and feel of this quite simple kit, but build it with some minor improvements here and there. The Dragster body consists of two pieces, but I decided to glue them together before painting. This way I was able to get rid of the ugly seam between the body panels, but I had to glue the front axle and driver's seat on place before painting anything. The seam between the body panels was sanded smooth and finished with as little amount of putty as possible. The body was painted with Tamiya TS-95 Pure Metallic Red and clear coated with Tamiya clear after applying the decals. Then the body was polished. Otherwise this was a pretty simple project really. Mostly everything was just detailed by paint. Only modifications are opening up the header collectors, adding spark plug wires and front suspension parts like hairpins, tie rod and steering shaft were all modified a little as they were round only from outside. So they were sanded round to make them look more realistic. Overall the kit went together really nicely and it was a lot of fun to build. Despite being so simple kit with a low parts count, it builds up pretty nice. My version is not perfect, but I'm really happy to finally have this legendary kit on my Shelf! And it's also my first (and only) completion for 2019 so it feels good to finish something too... Here is a link to the project thread on the excellent TRaK forum. I think it should be visible even to the non-TRaK members. http://trakinscale.proboards.com/thread/19042/monogram-long-john-dragster-finished Thanks for looking! All kinds of comments are always welcome as I want to make the next one better.

Really nice work so far! These Dodge Pickups are not very common so I really like seeing one on the workbench. Fantastic fabrication so far with the body and dashboard. Especially that grill is spectacular. Keep us posted on your progress.

Bill is correct, didn't remember this one myself even though I spent pretty much time looking for different options for mine when I bought it.

In my opinion these kits were meant to be built. Personally, if I buy some model kit, it's going to be built whatever way I choose no matter how rare or expensive it is, after all, I'm a model builder, not a collector. With that said, I'd like to see that one built as an old Super Stock car like you were planning. It would be even better with the more detailed drivetrain and engine bay. So I'd say Go for it! I actually have the same kit, but mine is complete and unstarted. I haven't started on it yet, but when I do, it's going to be built also as an old Super Stock car with a better engine bay and chassis from some other kit (probably the Lindberg '64 Dodge, as I've bought a few of them as chassis donors).

Another really good one! An alternative version of a Vauxhall Viva came to my mind but couldn't find the right answer in time.

Yes! I'm not much into the bigger scale kits but I'd buy one of those for sure if it was reissued. Other than that I'm staying with the 1/24 or 1/25 scale, the bigger scale kits take way too much space and I don't have any parts for kitbashing or detailing them. So I should buy bunch of stuff in order to build one detailed big scale kit, even though I usually scratchbuild some of the details myself...

I've been drooling these Jo-Han Mavericks for years, you're correct about the prices, they are really high... Glad to see one that's going to be built rather than just sitting on the stash collecting dust. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Thank You, the kind words are always much appreciated! Today I got the chassis on four wheels. First I glued the rear tires on place. But when doing the final mock up before gluing, I realized that the tires were a bit too far inside the rear fenders, so I had to widen the track width a little. With a couple of round discs I cut from sheet styrene, the tires lined up much better with the rear fenders so I glued them on place. Next I mocked up the front axle to see what is the correct position for that. Then the axle and front tires were glued on place, too. A Bit of adjusting was required to get all four tires touching the ground at the same time, but with some minor work I was able to do that. And here are a couple of mock up pictures with the body on place. Driver's side rear tire ended up a little crooked, so that will need to be fixed next...

I think there can never be too many Mavericks built in scale, so I'm really happy to see you building one as I know it's going to be fantastic. Your start looks very good already, those engine parts are work of art.

Let's continue this thread. After the summer was mostly gone, I pulled the Plymouth back on the bench... Front suspension parts needed some attention. Leaf springs had axle mounts on top of the springs, and instead on my version the axle has to go under the leaf springs. Also the stock upper A-Arms were molded to the chassis, so they had to go as well. The axle mounts on leaf springs were easily removed. I also cleaned up the springs of all mold seams and all other unnecessary stuff, except that I accidentally broke the other sping in the process. Luckily it was easily glued back together, but that's why it's only half done in the picture. A-Arms were removed with a razor saw. After a bit of putty the crossmember is good enough for the next step, which will be motor mounts. The area where I removed the stock gas tank was sanded smooth and now it's ready for paint. The frame itself still needs some prep work before paint to get rid of mold lines and some flash. Next I scratchbuilt the motor mounts. They are quite simple actually, just some styrene rod and beer can aluminum. Once everything is painted, I will add a couple of bolt ends to finish it off. The mounts are definitely not perfect, but they're not going to be seen very well from the engine bay, either. Next step was painting the chassis floor flat black and frame rails gloss black. Next I painted and assembled the wheels and tires. Front tires have separate white walls so I painted them flat white, sanded the tire treads and glued white walls on place. I'm not sure where are those tires from but I'm guessing they are pretty old. Rear tires are from AMT Parts Pack. Wheels are resin cast by a friend of mine and they are really nice quality. I painted them gloss red, added a bit of The Detailer's black wash to the holes on the wheels. After a bit of detail painting, I assembled the wheels and tires. Inner wheels were a little rough to begin with. I cleaned up a little and painted them with the same shade of red. The brakes were painted gloss black. Then I started assembling the axles. Rear axle was glued on place first. Then I installed the leaf springs to the front. In the picture, the front axle is only mocked up. It was painted with Humbrol's Metallic 56 so it looks like a raw casting that hasn't been polished at all.

That is very nice! I've always been a fan of Larry Watson's paint jobs and you replicated this one really well. It's also a pleasure to see one of those '57 Plymouths built, that body style is a great starting point for a Custom. Excellent paint work and very nicely built Plymouth overall. Nice work!

Personally I'm not so much into the TV/Movie cars theme but if that ends up being the theme for 2020, I'll figure something out. If the Movie Car theme is chosen, is it OK to build something that was used as a background vehicle or are we limited to cars that had bigger "roles" in a movie? The most important thing would be to keep the overall look the way the car appears in the movie, even though you could make modifications under the hood. That would be fun.

I also created Fotki account years ago when I had some issues with Photobucket. I used it for a while, but when the Photobucket was working normally again, I continued to use mainly that for hosting pictures, as the most of my pics were already there. But a while ago when Photobucket ruined itself by creating the ridicullous prices for picture hosting, I decided to leave immediately and move back to Fotki. Very happy with how the Fotki is working, much easier than Photobucket in every way and I think it's a great addition that I can add descriptions to the pictures as well. So for anyone who is struggling with the photo hosting sites....I definitely recommend Fotki.

I hope someone will organize this CBP next year as well. I will try to participate with something if Cannonball Run is going to happen. Unfortunately, I know I'm going to be really busy during the summer which means little to none building time (and not much time to check out on these forums either)... So with that said, I don't want to run the Community Build myself as I might not be able to check in very often during the summertime. I think a theme is important, so hopefully there will be no "Unlimited" category. A good theme will inspire big number of builders to join and at least in my opinion, a good theme is helping the builders (or at least myself!) to stay motivated during the project. The first time I participated was the "American Graffiti 1962" theme and the excellent theme itself really kept me motivated to rush the model together to make it to the starting line. Same thing with the "Sleeper" theme a couple of years ago. Lots of participants, and some great models in the final voting (unfortunately I failed to finish my SBC powered Trabant that year, but it will get done some day). Anthony had some good ideas for themes. Especially the "Factory Phantom" or "Mid / Rear Engine" would be pretty cool, but any of them would do it for me actually. I'll stay tuned to see what happens - I will try to participate if there is a Cannonball Run organized. This year was unsuccesful for me as I didn't enter at all, but there was just too little time to build (and finish) anything...

Thanks Dave, that sounds really good! You've been doing hard work with all of the forum updates/fixes. That's much appreciated.

On Monday I drove to the city (Helsinki, Finland) as I had to stop by at a small shop... As usual there was nothing interesting in the traffic (if the '74 Malibu I was driving doesn't count), until I saw this pretty clean Volvo Amazon Wagon parked on a street. Volvo Amazon was pretty popular car back in the day and you can still see them sometimes in traffic. But these wagons are not as common as the two or four door sedans.

Don't know what would be wrong with that statement. I started building when I was six years old and since then I've finished something every year. My first one was AMT '60 Ford Starliner and my dad was sitting next to me telling me what to do with those parts. But he let me do all the building myself - and I did. The Starliner is still sitting on my shelf. What I think is kind of frustrating, is a problem with some Drag Race models. Many models are built very well and the builder has used tons of time and effort creating something cool. Then when the car is pretty much complete, class markings for completely wrong racing category are installed. I understand that all of the modelers don't know all class rules, but with after spending so much effort in building the model, I'd do some research to see what class does my model fit in. Often it's pretty simple actually to find the basic rules, or someone who can tell right away if your model would have a shot at passing the tech inspection on track.

I've had exactly the same problem as Peter described above on this thread: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/146006-66-amc-marlin/ I sure hope this issue gets fixed, otherwise I'll need to find some other forum where I can post these "General interest-models", meaning all other than Traditional Hot Rods, Customs or Race Cars (which is mostly what I build)...And I don't want to do that.

I've never seen the show and I'm not a four door guy either. Anyway, this kit is on my Must Have list. I want to build something that could have been sold as new here in Finland in 1967, as most of those cars were four doors. Of course, the most of them were sedans, but some Hardtops were sold as well.