oldcarfan

My paint jobs are not that good, but I always use a guide coat. I use primer on all the bodies. It makes such a difference both in the preparation and the finish. It might be a little heavy, but I mostly use standard Duplicolor sandable grey and sometimes do a speckle spray of their Hot Rod Grey which is actually a dark rubber color. Then I take it out into the sun and look for mold lines and issues to start sanding on. Then it's more priming, and sanding until I get smooth finish, or I get tired of messing with it. Wash, rinse, repeat.

My bad. I have a memory of buying one as a kid back in the days when KMart and Toys R Us were still a thing. It's funny how your mind can play tricks.

I have a theory, maybe a hope, that some individual or company will start producing limited run 3D kits of vehicles that wouldn't make financial sense for traditional tooling. Many of these cars might not sell in quantities to tempt a big tooling investment, but could make perfect sense for someone with enough 3D printers to run out 100, maybe more. Not me, unless I hit the lottery, but I can hope.

The Chevette kit was reissued a few times in the 80s and I hope the molds are somewhere in storage waiting to be discovered. I built one of these in the 90s and remember it being a pretty nice model.

I'd love to see the Pinto name used again for a Ford product. It's been so long ago that if you mention explosive gas tanks to anyone 40 or below, they'll probably just give you a blank stare. As for this kit, I hope they get it out. I love to see these old kits reissued. I still have three built ups somewhere in a gallon zip lock. I bought them at a model show for $5 a few years ago as the dealers were packing up to go home. I need to dig them out and do something with them. There's probably enough to do at least one complete model.

For the last twenty years I've been more a collector than a builder. While I really want to support Round 2, I have so many of their kits I don't need any more. My tastes have changed more to 80s-90s Japanese and German imports and Round 2 doesn't have much of anything new in that area. The last Round 2 kit I bought were the 80 Bronco and Celica Supra kits. When I buy kits now I tend to go for Aoshima or one of the other Japanese companies.

All great choices, but I'd especially like those last three. I'd even like it if Monogram could rerelease their curbside Capri or AMT rereleased their 1/25th kit with stock parts.

There seems to have been a 1970 annual/promo kit with a hard top. I've come across mentions of it sometimes. I imagine it's pretty rare these days.

A lot of good choices here! As a punk in the 80s and 90s while most of my friends were lusting after Camaros and Firebirds, I was wanting an XJ6 like the Equalizer or a Saab 900 Turbo, Audi or 190E like I saw in Car & Driver. When I enlisted in the Navy, the detailer asked me what my goals were expecting me to say an education or a chance to grow or something like that. Instead, my first comment was that I wanted to go to Europe and drive the Autobahn and see Italy. I managed those things, and my only regrets about it was that I didn't take a lot more pictures and that I didn't buy a car over there. There used to be a service where you could buy a Volvo, Saab, or BMW and it would be delivered to your base and then they would ship it back to the states to be waiting for you when you rotated back.

I love small European cars and this is a nice find! Sometimes finding some old lost kit is more fun than buying one on eBay.

I could definitely go with your choices! I would also add a VW Type 181/Thing. As for Rolls Royces, I'd also ask for some Bentleys as well. Maybe even a Daimler or two.

Just returned from vacation Saturday to find our temperatures have dropped from the 70s-80s in the morning to 50s-60s. That was just the nudge I need to get back into the shop. Most of my entry is in subsections so I need to start final assembly. While in south Florida and the Keys I had a chance to get photos of a couple of cop vehicles parked near us. This morning I hit up the jewelry section of Hobby Lobby for some wire and assorted bits to make antennas and such for my build. Hoping to have it done by this coming weekend. The biggest problem is going to be avoiding the temptation to start one of the kits I bought while on vacation.

Looks like a nice project!

Lol! I've started looking at cheaper alternatives such as a first generation Ford Focus 3 door or early 2000s Civic hatch as a potential builder, except the prices on them is starting to climb. Also, my wife says I have to finish the 86 Toyota truck in our driveway first.

Just got back from vacation and picked up a few things on the way. Stopped at Colonial Photo and Hobby in Orlando and found it to be a nice old style hobby shop combined with a cool camera store. I highly recommend them! So here's the haul, the Skyline, Civic and AE86 are a couple I've been looking for for a while. I also picked up a set of tires and photo-etched pickup tailgate nets. The F-100 and the military packs I found at a HobbyTown. Speaking of those packs, they're 1/35th but they work really well for cargo on 1/24th roof racks and in the back of SUVs.

I did several searches and haven't found one. Would be nice though.

They made some in Camel Yellow which if I remember right, Tamiya has a paint that matches that.

Nice work and good save! I've been hoping they would update the new tool to do the 70 Cutlass so I could do James Garner's Baja car.

What's popular with collectors changes as the collectors age. We were at Universal Studios Orlando last week and they have a Fast and Furious area. I thought about it and realized that the first movie is 23 years old now. The kids and teens running around the park weren't even born when most of these movies came out. The 'kids' who used to be running around in beater Hondas listening to Blink 182 and Avril Lavigne are now in their 40s and 50s. All those Fast and Furious kids are settled now with kids of their own and have some spare money. The cheap Hondas, Nissans, and Mitsubishis they used to run around in are now rare and even used up ones can be collector's items ready for restoration. Have you seen the price for a decent 99 Civic or Nissan 240SX? They go for crazy money! I even came across a post the other day where China is reproducing whole Toyota AE86 body shells for restorers. Edit: Not long ago, my 22 year old saw a 1970 Chevelle and the only attachment he had to it was from seeing Dom drive one in one of the movies. A lot of kids' current link to muscle cars comes from Dom driving around in 60s and 70s cars.

As a kid, my only knowledge of drag racing was from old Hot Rod magazines. I loved the Pinto and Vega Pro Stocks! My dad and his brother were into 1/4 mile dirt track racing at Corpus Christi Speedway so we spent pretty much every Saturday night there. My uncle built and raced street stock cars, going through one every season or two. He used up a lot of mid 60s Chevelles back in the day.

One I always wanted to build was Travis McGee's Miss Agnes. It featured in pretty much every book in the series. It was described as a 30s Rolls Royce that had bad been sawed into a pickup at sometime in its past. Not the same time period, but a man in our old town had a 50 Ford that had a pickup truck bed that bolted in place of the trunk lid. He said Sears sold truck conversions for most makes from the 30s to the late 50s.

The exotics are cool, but I'd rather have some of the cars that once were commonplace. If it would be cheaper, I'd happily buy curbside or full detail versions of any of these. As a kid of the eighties, most of my peers were into muscle, but I read Car & Driver and wanted those cool European cars. For German cars, how about an MB 70s 240D and 80s 300GD in sedan and wagon versions? New tool E30, E34 and 39 BMWs would be nice. I know Fujimi did some of these, but they don't look quite right to my eye and they seem hard to get. For Audi, I'd buy a mid 80s 4000 and 5000 sedan. I spent a lot of time in southern Italy in the 90s and any of the Italian daily drivers from that time would be cool. We'd see these small sedans or wagons packed full of family, with two weeks of vacation supplies tied to the roof, heading for Napoli to catch the ferry to Capri. With French cars, my choices would be a Peugeot 505 and a 205 in daily driver and rally versions.

If you want something easy to make and cheap, I go to Hobby Lobby or Michael's and look through their scrapbooking paper section. They have 12x12 inch sheets of paper, some embossed and some just printed in all sorts of styles. For a friend's kid, I built a model and since she liked purple, I found a sheet of glittery purple paper and glued it to a piece of 1/2 inch foam board. Total cost about $3. They also make it in a wood print that looks pretty good as a weathered backdrop for photos. Hobby Lobby also sells 12x12 sheets of adhesive vinyl for Cricuts which can be stuck to a base. I think they even have a chrome finish one.

It sounds legit, but would take some experimentation. I've done that with Duplicolor or Model Master Clears and sometimes it worked fine and then the next time it shriveled. I'm not a great painter so I never could get a consistent finish. When I do try that stuff, I keep a Gladware tub nearby so I can dunk the part if need be. It's so much easier to strip the paint when it's fresh!

The surface area looks to be around 4x4 inches? Is that close? I need to find one of those!