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I've never seen it either so while the car was out and we were testing cylinder leakage I decided to drive it a bit. I bet I would have had some major traction problems if I hammered the throttle as it was slippery with my Chevy S10 too even if it has proper winter tires on it. I wish neighbors weren't living so close to our garage as I'm not sure if they appreciate the V8 rumble on a quiet day....

That Mustang is a real beauty Bill! Gloss black paint job looks just about perfect to me and I really like that combination of gloss black and red interior. Engine detailing is top notch as always too. Spectacular build, I can't wait to see how that '59 Impala will turn out as I have a real 1960 in the garage.

I scratchbuilt a transmission mount/frame crossmember from pieces of square styrene rod. Now the engine fits properly on place and I'm quite sure driveshaft can be installed with no problems! Though before I can install that I have a few more things to do with that engine, plus that I have to make the driveshaft too... Well, slowly but surely this is coming together.

Wow! Looks like you got the tools to build pretty much anything you want. And I'm sure you'll do great work with all of those machines. I can't wait to see more work with this Chevy, it's coming together so nicely. Great job on that hobby room too! And Happy New Year to you and your family!

Happy New Year guys! I took our Malibu for a minimal New Year Cruise outside our garage:

Great work on this Barracuda, Walter! Great to see a guy like you who really knows how this cars were built back in the day building one in 1/25 scale too. Seeing this one brings back good memories from two years ago when I built that Jo-Han Sox & Martin Pro Stock kit. It was nowhere near this nice, but I had fun with it...Just like I enjoy watching this one, keep it coming!

That's a good lookin' Cadillac! I like to see these old kits built and this is a fine example how good these old Jo-Hans look when done right. Good looking paint work and sharp BMF make this one stand out.

Michael... Thanks! Yep you're correct, this kit has pretty much mold lines, ejector marks etc that need to be cleaned. It sure is a bit of extra work, but all in all this kit is a lot of fun to work with. And yeah, the 1:1 car was just what I needed to see to get my inspiration on this one back. That 8 carburetor setup is one of my favorites too, but I'm starting to see nightmares about making a carburetor linkage already... Gene... Thank You! Your build was a lot of fun to follow as well. I hope we can go Match Racing when mine is done. Here are a couple of more pictures. I glued transmission to the clutch cover and started searching for reference pictures how I should make the shift linkage. Soon I found a good picture of Borg & Warner T10 and I scratchbuilt something similar from metal wire and pieces of beer can aluminum. Shifter is straight from the box with just some minor cleanup and painting done. It's far from perfect, but I guess I can live with it. Then I moved on to the headers. Every header pipe had major mold lines in them so I started by filing them smooth. Every header pipe had an ejector pin mark in the curve so I sanded them off too. I didn't put much time into the header flanges, just filed them smooth briefly so that the headers are easy to glue on place. After all they can't be seen much from the finished model. Here other one is sanded smooth and other one is still waiting for that operation... After hard work sanding them smooth I headed to the paint booth. I wanted to spray them flat white and right away I knew I'd like them to look a bit old and possibly add a couple of rust spots on them here and there, but a disaster was really close when I shot some paint on them... The paint cracked all over. I knew that there was no way I could put them in the stripper to remove that paint off as the parts were so fiddle that they would have broken into pieces in that liquid. So the only way was to let them dry and sand them a bit smoother and then touch up with some Revell flat white and a brush. When I was done with that, I was surprised how good the headers looked. They look just like real headers that were painted long time ago so I left them as they were and glued them on. Some black was painted into the holes I drilled to the ends of those pipes.

Thanks Michael! I have to say that your builds have been a great inspiration source for me. I hope to have an update posted in a few days, I'll probably start mocking up rear leaf springs when that axle is smoothed out...

Thanks Joe and Dave! I like restoring old kits and parts so working with an old rear axle like that has been quite fun actually. And it shows that it's possible to make one of those old axles still usable. Now I have applied a bit more putty to the rear axle, and I should have it sanded smooth tomorrow. Hopefully it's ready for another coat of primer and paint after that.

Great job! That Thunderbird is a real beauty, just like I'd want mine if I had one in 1:1 scale. That paint job fits perfectly to those body shapes. Corvette is done very nicely, too, but it's just too modern for me. Excellent job on both cars though, looking forward to see what you do in 2016!

Interesting concept in here! Those Camaro and Mustang bodies fit surprisingly well together and that creation looks like something that could have been done back then! Nice work combining those two bodies into one. I'll gotta keep watching this one.

Here's a little update to my Fiat. I started working with the roll cage by sanding mold lines off. There were a couple of major ejector pin marks that needed to be filled so I used some putty to smooth them out. I'll have to sand them tomorrow when putties are dry and then paint them gloss black. These two pics are before any putty, though. Here's a little mock up: To get a proper mounting point for seat belts I had to make a cross bar to the rear tubes of that roll cage. Now there is something I can actually mount the seat belts into and I don't have to mount them to the floor. Water Tank that will be glued to front end of the engine needed some work too. First I sanded mold lines off and filled one ejector pin mark with putty. Once that was smoothed out I shot some primer on and today I painted that water tank with Chrome Silver paint. I think I'll be installing it tomorrow once the paint is fully dry. Seat was painted, too. Upholstery is painted with Revell semigloss black and back of the seat is silver so it represents metal. Seat belts were painted with Revell brown and belt buckles are Revell silver. Oh boy, it looks like I should have cleaned that dust off from the seat before takin' this picture. Oh well...

Thanks Cliff! I've always liked how those old Junior Stock cars looked so it was clear that I had to create a bit similar look to the Impala. So far it only has Matching Numbers 283 and PowerGlide, but hopefully it will have a W-Engine and Four Speed trans some time when I have the money for those. That might take a while though as those are not cheap and now I got another project that will take a lot of time and money too ('62 Chevy II 4 door to 2 door Sedan conversion). It's a lot of fun to cruise around the way it is now though. Basically the engine and trans work always perfectly and I can drive long trips with it when I feel like it. And if needed, I can fit easily six guys inside and go cruisin' all windows open! Merry X-Mas and Happy New Year to you and your family, too! Thanks.

Oh yeah it was that car! Year, Make and Model were relatively easy, but I couldn't find the information that this car was in that LeMans disaster. That is not a bad looking car!

Unbeliavable build as always, John! I really didn't think that kit could be built this nicely, but then again probably no one would do it better than you. Excellent job. Especially that paint & decal work is incredible and as usual, your detailing looks so great that I'm not sure if I'm looking at real thing or scale model... Very nice job.

Thanks for the kind words! Darryl: I'd like to see that 1/25 scale version of the Impala done too. I think I have to get back to it soon... Dale: I enjoy working with 1:1 cars too, but you're right, these models are a lot easier while I have lots of less stuff to worry about. And these are a lot cheaper, too!

Wow! Great job with that Plymouth. Nice to see these old kits built as well. New engine bay and chassis parts are definitely a great improvement compared to what they were when you started. Very nice paint and detail work as well, nice build.

Santa brought me these. Both of those kits seem to be great quality so I'm interested in seeing what can I do with them. The '40 Ford will be built as an Early '60s style Hot Rod and that '57 Chevy Funny Car will be built pretty much OOB except for added detailing of course. Only problem with that kit is that my copy iss missing a rear bumper... I think I will modify one stock '57 Bel Air bumper from AMT kit to fit to that FC body.

Thanks for the kind words guys! I wish I could have completed more models this year, but sometimes there's just too much other stuff to get anything done... Hopefully next year I can finish a bit more though. Ron - Actually I started building a replica of that '60 Impala, but while I was trying to get the real deal back on the road, the model got stalled. I haven't touched it in a while, but maybe it will start coming together again some time soon.

Well this year started out very good as I finished this Oldsmobile already in January. It's built as a Mild Custom from Revell Stock '50 Olds kit with some minor modifications. I'm still pretty happy how it turned out. Then... Oh yeah, that Oldsmobile was my only completed model in 2015! I really have to do better next year. Though one of the reasons why I didn't finish more stuff is that I restored this '60 Impala in winter/spring 2015: ...And then I rebuilt my new Daily Driver, a Chevy S10 in the autumn. Maybe these two projects slowed me down a bit with these models... Still I should have finished at least two, but it's too late now. To be honest I'm pretty happy with the Olds, and that's what counts I believe as I prefer looking at few decent quality models on my shelf rather than a big bunch of glue bombs. Now I need to get back on the bench though to actually build something...

Great work on this one Gene! Looks very nice and clean build, and it shows how good a Box Stock build can look when it's done well. Excellent color choice and a nice paint job too. I've always liked combination of Red & Gold so the colors couldn't be much better. Black and White interior fits perfectly to the look as well...Great job!

Yes, it would be a great idea and very useful when searching for a specific part. I'd say Go For It! I believe that there would be many more modelers who found it useful than only the ones who have posted in this thread...A list like that would be a great thing.

After a lot of putty & sanding I thought the rear end looks good enough to be sprayed with primer. I glued the axle from one end to a plastic stick so I could spray it easily from all over. After a couple of primer coats I still see some spots that need a bit of fixing, but overall it looks decent. I'll put some more filler on it tomorrow and hopefully when I've sanded that smooth I can continue mocking up the rear end with some leaf springs.

This is really sad news indeed. I didn't know Chuck personally, but as I've heard his decals were top notch and actually he had some decals I needed for future projects. R.I.P. Chuck.