Tom Geiger

Maisto did all three versions. The Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky and Opel GT. Note that the Sky and GT are probably only badging differences, while the Pontiac had a unique look. Interesting that a US built car was shipped to Germany and sold as an Opel. Very nice replicas! If car companies did promos today, this is what they'd look like! My own impression of the cars is that the Sky is nicer looking than the Solstice. I never liked that cheese grater grill on it. I still stop and take notice whenever I see either. There are still a lot of nice low mile ones around. As said above, they weren't sold as primary vehicles, just as fun cars for those who could afford to do so. I don't see myself in one because I've sat in one and I found it a tight fit and uncomfortable to get in and out of. My own fun little cars are my 1995 Celica GT convertible and 1991 Geo Tracker convertible.

I was thinking this before I read your post. If indeed Round 2 gets to the point of new tools, this would be a good candidate. One of the last kits Polar Lights did was the Herbie Love Bug. This kit was magnificent engineering of a kit, molded in color, that could be assembled by a novice with pleasing results or be built detailed or modified by a dedicated model builder. The best of both worlds! I would expect a kit like the Blues Brothers car to follow that kind of construction, or even be a curbside. The box art and such would be aimed at the TV and Movie Memorabilia crowd, which is a much larger market than we are. For most of the other police car subjects listed, we're much more likely to see them in diecast. There seems to be a much larger market in the law enforcement community for premade replicas, and custom decal sets so they can have their own agency's cars. And with some of the stuff we've seen lately, the Dodge Diplomat and very odd Chryslers from Fresh Cherries. With the stuff being cranked out by Motormax and Maisto I wouldn't be surprised at anything!

Since I saw the Avantis in the thread I thought I'd include my '62 Lark convertible. I used to own a '63 Lark 4 door sedan.

This is the '63 snap kit with a bit of customizing. I like the kit a whole lot. The interior is stock and just detail painted.

A note to all- Bring models to display! That's what NNL is all about, sharing your work with everyone! And to nudge folks, we will have a special NNL East logo gift that will be given only to people who display models! See you in a few weeks!

I don't clear over my BMF. The body and the chrome / aluminum trim have distinctively different shines. Clearing over it all ruins that. And like others mentioned above, I've never had BMF peel over time. If anything, it ages to the body and is hard to get off.

I think your problem is that the stripper is taking the chrome off under where you have glued. I use Mr Clean kitchen floor cleaner to strip my chrome. Lemon smell. I usually put it in a small clear glass and watch the progress. I generally just leave it over night.

Very nice work, both of you gentlemen! With every car of that era, we have a memory of one. In this case, when I was growing up our next door neighbor had this car in blue.Nothing special, just a transportation car. My parents lived on a main road on the outside of the development. The speed limit was 25 mph but that didn't stop anyone from the average speed of 40 mph or more. Right at the point of our houses, the road took a very slight curve, so slight that you may not notice. The neighbor kept the Chevelle at the curb in front of their house. Every so often, maybe about once a year, late at night some drunk would come barreling down the road and miss the curve, slamming the poor Chevelle in the back. This happened several times, we'd all hear the commotion in the middle of the night and go outside to investigate. One time the Chevelle got pushed forward into my LTD II resulting in a small dent in the bumper corner of my car. The finale for the Chevelle was when one drunk had enough speed to slam it and push it up the curb into the telephone pole. That totalled it out.

Yes. That's how Polar Lights started, they reverse engineered some of the iconic horror kits.

I was also told that this method is good for giving interiors a slight shine like leather. Paint the interior with a flat coat, then rub the nose grease on the high points. Most important.. it's the stuff on the OUTSIDE of your nose, not the INSIDE! And it's free!

You could always ask Round 2 what's up in person... they will be coming to NNL East!

Look at the AMT '56 or '57 Fords. Both have doors that open so you can see the inner workings and how it mates up to the floor. I built the '57 and the plastic hinge on one side eventually broke, so you're much better making them from metal or wire. I'm sure others can suggest more kits with opening doors. That's just what I thought of today

D.R.A.G. (Detroit Resin Auto Casters) and Scale Modeling By Chris.. or Paul.. will be at NNL East on April 20th

First, I'd suggest pulling out a kit that has opening doors to see how the body structure looks. You'll see the thickness of the door, the inner door jamb and how it relates to the interior. I'd actually build one of these before attempting to open doors on your own. When deciding to open doors on a kit, look it over carefully. There are kits, like old Johans, where the interior and door bottom do not match up. Johans tend to have very shallow interior tubs. Another one I tried once was the old AMT VW Rabbit. The floor was fairly high inside that kit. So be careful with that. Here's a photo of the old Auto World hinge kit. I was lucky to get a few packs of these, but using the above photo you can bend wire to match this. Note that on the one hinge I cut the ends off so I can slide them under the plastic mount I will create. The following pictures are of a trunk lid, but the work was done for a seminar and the body was just a scrap one. For an actual trunk lid, I'd cut the hinge in half and mount each half more in the position an actual car trunk lid would be mounted. But onward with our example... note that the ends of the hinge are glued to the trunk lid, but is free under the mount on the body side. That's to allow it to travel, open and close. The mounts here are just bits of Evergreen plastic with the grooves needed for the hinge just carved into them. Same hinge in the open position. I hope this helps!

Come on to NNL East and see what Revell brings...

I have to pull it out and work on it again. I had started it for an April Fools Day theme a few years ago. I was planning on doing a really nice job on it with a wired engine, Alclad and BMF. I thought that would be funny to see all that work on that car.

Here's that silly little Falcon kit. It's too narrow and too tall just for starters. It came with that slick two tone paint job. Once in the stripper the parts all fell apart, looked like they assembled it with rubber cement.

Very nice wrecker. I have a couple of the diecast Chevy wrecker to use as the basis of the project!

Happy Birthday Rich! You deserve a day off! Even taking a day off, I'm sure your mind has not stopped thinking about the next build for the bench... another '58? Maybe a 1958 VW Beetle? That's the first year of the larger (non oval) rear window. It will contrast nicely with the big boats. And what about a class of '58 group photo?

Very cool work. The only suggestion I have would be to somehow disguise the thickness of the roof that you can see in your last photo. Either do some sanding from inside the body, or paint the edges of your cuts with flat black.

Richard you are right that primer left uncovered will absorb dirt over time. It will also scratch easily during the build process. I found that if I wanted to use the primer as a final color, I sealed it in with Testors Dullcote and that worked just fine. I had used Duplicolor white primer on a police car and masked off the doors to paint the rest of the body gloss black. Then I used Duplicolor clear over the white and it worked out fine.

Are you looking for the collectible promo or do you want to build a project? If so, R&R does a 4 door 49 or 50 close to that.

Just a picture of my 1:1 for Jules!

This one was finished recently and was shown on this board. Built from the Revell Miss Deal Funny Car And the AMT kit, it's been hanging out unfinished forever! It is shortened to work on the Mercedes SL chassis.

Luc I'm happy to see you got the parts you need. Now let's see a build The old van kits are pretty cool and I notice more interest in them in the past year or two. There have been some recent van kit reissues and I'm hoping the sales results are such that Round 2 will dig out the rest of their van tools and reissue the kits. It would be great if they retooled the grill of the Dodge van to an actual version, and reissued it as well. Since prior to the bad ambulance version, they did the last high end grill (4 square headlights), it would be neat if they tooled the last low end grill (2 round headlights). Then we'd have a new version to boot! And that's why we are doing a van sub-theme at NNL East this year! It's been pretty well received... just wait until you see the themes for 2014!