Zoom Zoom

Actually, as Brendan noted, Racing Green might be more appropriate for a Triumph. My E Type Lightweight is an OOB buildup of a resin Profil24 kit. Very enjoyable build, aside from body cleanup/primer it was all built during the 2007 24 hours of LeMans. You can find the buildup of that model in my Fotki album, link below in my signature.

You want the Tamiya British green, the racing green is much lighter. The British Green is very rich and dark. It almost looks black in photos:

Love that color combo Check my Fotki (link in signature), you'll see something very familiar

The Fujimi kit is out; I've seen it up close and personal. It's definitely the best plastic kit so far. The biggest "problem" might be an overly simplistic engine block. The kit has about 190 parts; it's quite detailed, but not as fussy as a Fujimi Enthusiast kit, and everything is crisp and clean in a way that no Protar kit could ever be. The body shape is by far the best of all the previous cars. The wheels are incredible. Someone mentioned getting one for $20 from Hobbylink Japan at the IPMS Nat's on the last day (they had F430 Scuderias for $20 that day as well). Here are pics of the Fujimi kit vs. the others. L-R is the Protar (Revell), Gunze, Italeri, and Fujimi. The two trees are Fujimi. Dinoscuderia's description: "Took a couple pics comparing the Fujimi body(far right) with the Italeri, Gunze and Protar. All bodies have the same wheelbase but that's where the similarities end pretty much. The Italeri body is closest to the Fuji in proportion but the Fuji body has the subtle shapes that the Italeri is missing. The Fuji body is more narrow at the rear wheel opening center line than the rest of the bodies but it's a bit wider at the front than the Italeri. The Gunze body is largest in all it's dimensions. Not much more I can add about the body...in my view the Fuji is the best one of all. Anyone who likes the Italeri kit will love the Fuji which is better in every way. Took a couple of tree shots...as you can see the parts are nice and delicate...nothing heavy handed in this kit. I clipped the tube frame from the tree and the interior floor and installed it in the body....it fit perfect, no warp effect." Dinoscuderia's Album Pics from Fujimi's website: Fujimi 250 GTO

It's a very under-appreciated kit; it's certainly not going to be as "shake and bake" as the new Fujimi 250; but it's got plenty of detail and should result in a nice replica with careful attention to detail. My main beef w/this kit is the side window frames; they're a bit thick and oddly detailed at the top. The body shape does seem to match the particular car it's based on. And the wheels are amazing for plastic (though Fujimis are as well). Good luck, will be watching this closely!

As one of my friends noted on another board, this thing looks way better than it's supposed to! Nice work Gives me hope; I have all three varieties of the kit...the HT is the one that's the most suitable for a custom as the roof really is pretty unacceptable.

Flintstone sells both styles of bodies for an AMT 300C and I think Revell Charger with Magnum rear end...problem is you buy the resin body and you still need both kits for donors. They're only 10 bucks, but you might have as much monkey-around time on the resin as you would have cutting/grafting from two donors to make one kit. I'm glad I waited for the 300C SRT-8, even if the front was a bit wider and I had to be more clever w/the graft. I think the Dodge Ram will be the basis for a Nissan Titan; the Frontier is a smaller truck...not sure if Dodge might end up w/a badge-engineered Frontier to replace Dakota. I started this project early in '07, before the talks w/Nissan got so hot. And before the new GTR came out.

Monogram '39 Chevy Sedan Delivery? AMT '40 Ford Sedan Delivery?

How did I miss this one? Amazing...looking forward to seeing more

Revell's is 1/32. Modelhaus does a 1/20 scale Mk. II that's outstanding, but the odd scale keeps me from wanting it. Sam Miller did a 1/25 Mk. II, I built it years ago and it's decent enough for something so crude. Franklin Mint did a pretty nice Mk. II. Modelhaus has had that '58 Mk. III for many years, it's a very nice kit but IMHO the '58-'60 Lincoln was hit with a fugly stick. The '61 was a breath of fresh air, a lot more like the original Mk. II in design simplicity and understated elegance. The '69 Mk. III was reasonably restrained in design, but the opera windows/trunk hump managed to up the "bling" factor over the also elegantly restrained Eldorados of that era.

AMT '32 Ford Phaeton?

Someone slap whitewalls on that thing! It looks nekkid

Not sure if it's got a Cobra Jet (kit engine looks tame; round air cleaner); this is the diecast '68 fastback that was done by Revell (following their Bullitt and '67 Shelby variants of the same basic kit) in the "American Dreams" series. This is the kit that is currently going through a transformation into a plastic kit by Revell (also the Bullitt). It's a pretty nice kit. I think the '68 and the Bullitt will be out late this year/early next year.

Thanks! I have almost made the Revell 1/24 300C SRT-8 front clip work on the Magnum: Still needs a few tweaks around the wheel openings; the clip was wider than the wagon body, I had to spread it open to match, so I have to use a modified SRT-8 windshield from the 300 donor. The Revell 300C SRT-8 has a better look than the AMT 300, w/the chin spoiler and much better headlamp detail (AMT's headlight detail is pretty poor). I waited patiently for the Revell 300 to come out to do the conversion. Wheels are from a Maisto diecast Chrysler ME-Four Twelve. Here you can see where the cuts were made (I kept the sedan cowl for strenght and so the hood would fit), and my way to keep the body strong w/o cracking:

I've thought about a similar conversion to do a white w/silver stripes Shelby GT. Just need a stock '06 hood, and to scratchbuild the fairly simple scoop. I'm likely to do mine as a custom, just build the GT-H as-is with the GT-H hood, paint it white, and paint the silver stripes. This spring I saw a white Shelby GT with a stock GT grille and the Parnelli Jones wheels...looked fantastic. It had the dash plaque so it was just a case of the owner personalizing it a bit with non-permanent parts swapping. I have some 5 spoke wheels from a diecast Mercedes that may work okay:

Thanks; the hatch is glued shut, had to ditch that gimmick to properly fit the taillights from the Skyline. The kit hatch hinges aren't accurate w/o a bit of fiddly re-work (Mr. Obsessive knows what I'm talking about; he fixed it right!); no reason for an opening hatch if it's got a glued-down hood as well. Yep; the Skyline is a smaller car than the Magnum, so the scale difference actually helped. I'm hoping to get it done fairly soon now that I'm back on track! The body looks even better now that in my photos; it's had another stage of sanding/priming and it's almost ready for an overall primer coat. I get a lot more excited about a build when I get to that point

After a year and a half, I'm back to work on this one Let's just say my friend Brian Venable aka "Veyron" has a terminal case of "Nismosis", and I felt the need to get this one back on track, will look good next to all his NISMO stuff he's built and building currently. Last I left off I had grafted the R34 taillights in place, was a little annoyed how much it looked like a Cobalt. Oh well...I got over it. Today I did some more putty work and it's getting close to being able to be in final primer/first coats of paint soon. This one will be silver, w/NISMO stripes, black wheels, graphite aero bits. RHD R34 dash and front seats. Executive decision was to quit worrying over the engine, I'm gluing the hood shut Then I'll have a nice SRT-8 motor for something else.

Speaking of Lincoln Marks, big 70's cruisers, and resin possibilities...I finally photographed my Sam Miller Lincoln Mk. V. I bought this from someone at a toy show (most likely Toledo) back in the '90's, didn't pay much for it, probably about $20. It's not particularly accurate, quality isn't great, but it's the only Mk. V kit I ever saw, and figured it was better than nothing. A friend who knows a lot more about obscure promos/kits believes this one was built by Sam for a customer, because the chassis paint/silver numbering was common for Sam's personal buildups. Anyway, it's an interesting piece to say the least. Would need a ton of cleaning up/sharpening/etc. to make it really look great. I'll probably leave it like this for it's historical "value", though I'm not sure this will ever be worth much...but who knows?? I've never seen another. I also have a builtup '79 Bonneville sedan that was a Miller model, more detail than this one. Will dig it out eventually to photograph. I have seen a couple other builds of that one. I'd kill for a '77-79 Bonneville Brougham 2 door coupe; that was my favorite GM fullsize car from the 1st generation downsized full-size GM cars.

If you really want to get technical, any group of more than half a dozen builders getting together isn't going to be a classic NNL. Therefore the term is more liberally applied to other gatherings where the focus is fun, and not having judged categories. I don't really think anything has to be done to change things; NNL's have evolved and the better ones are surviving and thriving. It's crazy that people will "use" the NNL name just to get people in the door to what is essentially a judged event. Whatever...I don't really go to contests; I like NNL's as it's a fun day to look at models and catch up with friends and rarely do I ever get an award, and am happy if I do, but that's the furthest thing from my mind. If you think about it, a "classic NNL" happens every month at model club meetings. Though we do have more like 15-20 people monthly. It also happens fairly frequently when we get together at a friend's house to "modelpalooza"; spending a day or even a weekend having fun building and talking about our hobby. Just last weekend myself and 2 other friends spent part of the weekend having a modelpalooza. A month earlier 6 of us were together building LeMans cars during the race. We have fun, show off our latest builds, our in-progress stuff, and that's more like an NNL than any show-type gathering for the public will ever have. I spoke w/Tom Woodruff before our club started an NNL, to make sure what we planned/envisioned for the ACME NNL Southern Nationals had their blessing. Seems people are pretty happy with our show, and we love hosting it every year.

Use a company and/or people with a lot of experience, and don't cut 'em out of anything along the way to production

It works now, it sure wasn't working before...

This? Do you know how to post a picture here? There's a button above the field you type in that you click and copy the photo's own URL into so it shows up.

I hear you loud and clear. I'm man enough to admit I look at the instruction manual while building my models. A LOT

I was born in '60, and by the time the late '60's came around I was such a car freak I was building models and reading magazines. While I love a lot of '50's subjects (and earlier), most of that's already been done (and this year I've built a '55 Jag and '57 Ferrari)...I've always liked NEW cars, and so many of my favorites when I was young/teenage years have never been done. I really enjoyed restoring the '74 Caprice earlier this year, it might have been in the middle of the Malaise Era, but it's certainly got character!

I'm the same way; I do push myself to improve my skills on just about every build I do, but that's different than the "overcomplicateditis" that can doom a project from having far too vivid an imagination and not a level head about how difficult a project might be until it gets to that point that it goes back in the box. A lot of my "improvements" are simple things that save time and give a better result with a minimum of effort.