oldcarfan

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!

For me it's necessary. My paint jobs aren't that great, but the primer lets me catch a lot of mistakes before they happen. I prime, sand, then wait for the sun to get to the right spot and I can then see mold lines and any places that need attention. It also allows for better paint coverage.

Nice finds! Are those vans from Jimmy Flintstone? How is the casting is it thick? Sorry for the questions, I've been wanting one of those.

Thanks for the answers. I'm not a great modeler, but I like to see what the original looked like to give me ideas.

I may have mentioned this before, but I'd really like to see 1/24th kits of the Mercedes Sprinter van, the Ford Transit and the Transit Connect. I would be happy to have them as curbsides or full detail. They should pay off in sales as the company could do multiple releases of them with markings for various delivery companies the way Round 2 has done with MPC's old Econoline van. They could do them as assembled promos with markings for companies to sell with their names on them, like an Amazon van or something. Then they could add a camping interior and sell them as active lifestyle camper vans. All sorts of things like that! Edit: I'd also love to see a 1/24th kit of the new Maverick mini-pickup and some of the other smaller SUVs and trucks that are coming out. The real ones may not be as tough as their larger peers, but they sure seem popular!

As a tiny car aficionado, yes to this. I've always loved funny small cars, Fiats, Yugos, early Japanese cars, you name it. I recently found my Trabant unbuilt kit and my built ups of a 1/24th Skoda and a Fiat Abarth and am trying to decide how to restore them. They wouldn't even have to be full detail, just make them well detailed curbsides and I'd buy several of each!

I just got this kit mostly for the dune buggy. Now the question, does this model represent a particular car? It resembles the Funko Hustler or the Sandmaster, but not exactly.

I feel you! Here we've finally gotten temperatures below 100, but it's coming with rain. Last week of August it was 105 and about 95 in the shop. Now it's cooler, but the humidity is high.

From that same time period, I wonder if they have the Dodge Stealth tool?

They still have the General Lee and Daytona tools, maybe they could reissue the Charger 500? I'd love to build one of those. Maybe haul out the MPC Chevy Monza as well?

I came across a 76 Firebird Formula body. I plan to use an MPC Trans Am for the chassis, bit it's missing the chrome. Does anyone have a source for the headlights and grill parts? Resin, 3D, anything? Would the headlights from a similar year MPC Camaro work?

The Shelby Dodge is the only thing for me from this crop.