Zoom Zoom

None of the Silvia kits have ever had full detail, they're all curbside; generally they have had pretty unremarkable 4 cylinder power (a few had 3.0 V6's in the US), they're popular because they're light and RWD. One GTR from the late 80's/early 90's, the Tamiya R32 GTR, has full detail, and that's the one everyone gets to kitbash with earlier and later inline 6 GTR's. Doubt its the same platform as the Silvia/SX's. If you go to Hobby Search, convert to English, you can generally see photos/scans of parts and instructions for most Japanese kits. I have an early 70's fastback GTR kit that has an engine, but it's an afterthought and a bit of a job to open the hood and underhood detail is weak, but it does have a full engine.

Just got mine on Friday, well worth the ~15 month wait.

Just one that I'll build someday...probably as a race car.

Art, It's Aoshima, not Gunze who did the 1/24 MGB bodies. I know the kits pretty well since doing the GT master for you a couple decades ago. I wish Aoshima would reissue them, it's been awhile and the kits are almost as hard to find as the resin bodies. Dave Toups did a great LHD dash conversion that Norm/Replicas & Miniatures cast, not sure if it is still in the catalog or not. These MGB kits need some lowering for the earlier versions; the kits are done w/the tall ride height seen on the rubber-bumper variants.

This model knocked my socks off at the Southwest Challenge when I saw it many years ago, since I love both CRX's and 911's. Seared in my memory...and provided me years of inspiration for similar mashups that I've done. Thanks for sharing

Thanks guys, wasn't quite expecting to see this here, the Mustang was a blast to build and ended up being the perfect slump-buster for me after a couple of far more-involved projects. A 1:1 just like it would be more than welcome in my garage. More photos: http://public.fotki.com/grdeyed/model_cars-1/2015-mustang-mach-i/

Wow, I have to have one of these! Thanks for giving Brad the master, this is going to make a lot of Porschephiles very happy. Now I just need to build the Maserati 450S and the Ferrari 250 TDF that I got from him recently...our ACME group spent quite a bit of $$ at his NNL East table.

You certainly went above and beyond with this incredible model! Beautiful work.

Excellent! Glad to hear it might be available in resin.

We'd love to help feed your newfound addiction to model cars locally; I'm an officer in ACME-Atlanta Car Model Enthusiasts, and we have our monthly club meeting this coming Sunday from 2:30-5:00 PM at the Smyrna Community Center. We'll have show & tell and a great how-to demo on engine detailing. Come join us if you can! We'll even have some out-of-town guests visiting us this weekend.

I'm 150 miles from my workbench, but the Citadel paints I showed are great for brush painting. They're about the only metallic paints that work reasonably well when brush painted. I thin them with a bit of water or Future. Obviously for better quality, if I have the time, I mask/airbrush w/Alclad metalizers. I recently went to replace the silver from Citadel and they've changed all the names of the colors. Hobbytown had a cross-reference chart w/the old names and new names.

Thanks! I was kind of surprised Foose used a 6 cylinder 300 front end. The SRT-8 has the best looking factory front clip (mainly because of the chin spoiler). Chrysler sold 300C Touring Wagons overseas, which inspired me to start one of my own, but it sits unfinished, who knows when I'll get back to it. One issue is the windshield, the front clip is from a 1/24 scale Revell kit married to the 1/25 scale Magnum body. I had to slightly bow the A pillars outward, so I need to carefully trim the 300 windshield to fit.

Thanks! How does it happen? I have no idea, this idea hatched when I was thinking of putting a Mustang front end on the Magnum body. As I was scouring my unbuilts, my eye hit the GTR kit, and that's where it came together. Once I realized the dimensions were so close that it was feasible (and a lot more feasible than the Mustang idea), I went with it. It was quite by accident, but I had a lot of NISMO detail parts that certainly helped make the idea come to fruition. It's fun to mix 'n match in car design, all the great customizers were doing it long before I came along.

Thanks for the new replies. Bike came w/the same Fujimi detail kit that has the roof racks/Thule luggage carriers. The body is available in resin from scaleproduction.de ; I gave them permission to copy my design and they did a good job of it and it's been fun to see a few more built (mostly European builders). As far as body conversions go, it wasn't that difficult, the parts fit pretty well w/a minimum of filler.

To get such a highly-detailed, all-new kit of a car like the Hudson, for $30 retail...that's a bargain. Model car guys are cheap...the Hudson should be an easy sale, and I think they've done their homework to make sure there are no cringe-worthy elements. I'm really looking forward to the Hudson...my Dad used to rave about how good they were, with the first step-down design for a common car, and their performance even w/the 6. Of course the car that got purchased for Mom was a Hudson Jet, but she loved that car.

I would expect over time they would offer a '56. The biggest changes would be to the rear quarters, taillights, rear bumper. IIRC everything else is pretty much the same inside and under the hood. '55's had the underhood area painted black, in '56 they "cost-reduced" it and they painted it body color rather than a contrasting color.

That's all I remember seeing as well; roofline issues. I've been a big fan of the 300's since I found out a friend's Dad had restored a '56, and he knew another guy locally who perfectly restored a '55. I took photos of both, and did the body/interior masters for All American Models '55 and '56 300's, Art did the chassis/engine parts. As gung-ho as I was, I still haven't built any of my resin 300's...too many projects, too little time, too much "modeler's ADD" I will build one of my resin 300's alongside the plastic kit.

They could, but they probably won't. Products, prices, track record are the only way to read their tea leaves. Falcons certainly are better than what many of the critics will acknowledge, but when less-than-accurate models aimed at adult builders are priced double what their true value is compared to the competition, well...the market will ultimately decide their ultimate success or failure. What is clear is that they certainly didn't go through the same steps as Moebius has to ensure their products meet their customer's expectations. The approach that Moebius is taking is a breath of fresh air, quite honestly. Interesting subject matter, attention to detail, listening to their customers and critiques, making sure something is right before they hit the market, and priced with only a nominal premium over commodity-level kits, I really hope they have great success with this formula. While it was interesting to see how things have transpired since those first Hudson photos, I have to wonder if the amount of critical input was such that they purposely did not share the same development of the Chrysler 300's to the general public.

The Complete Future That should give you a pretty good idea of what to do with it.

These are $10 models at Wal Mart...I don't see much market for resin which would cost exponentially more. For $10 a builder can buy it, tear it apart, and redo it exactly as they want. In fact two have already been shown on the MCM forum by Zoli. There's a $200 resin Audi TT offered by an Asian aftermarket firm. He literally took a cheap Welly diecast and recast the whole thing. As in "without any improvements". I don't know about anyone else, but I believe one would be crazy to spend that $$ on resin when you can get the model for $15, and in 15 minutes have it disassembled and ready to refinish to your standards from there.

I do not like brush painting acrylics in general, aside from small detail items. That said, I'll go against the grain of what everyone is saying in regards to recommending Tamiya over Testors acrylics for brush painting, at least in regards to black colors. I find Testors Acryl flat black (regular flat black, interior black, any shade of their flat black), and their semigloss black, to be far better than Tamiya for brush painting. The key is to use a good quality brush and apply it in a fairly heavy coat. It covers so much better than Tamiya black it's not funny It levels out as it dries. Kind of like "shrink to fit", much like Tamiya sprays. No having to wait for it to dry and go over it repeatedly, the pigment is much denser than Tamiya's. As for other brush acrylic colors...I don't use 'em. I airbrush 'em. But I do a lot of small detail painting and touchups w/flat and semigloss black, and I absolutely love Testors Acryl for those tasks.

Very cool! I have tons of projects to get done...and this just makes my modeler's ADD go into overdrive. Thanks.

Very much like my setup; excellent tutorial. I have a translucent light box and a series of drafting lamps with floodlights, and one spotlight. Because the box has sides, I can move the spotlight around and shine it on pieces of white and black illustration board that I clip to one side or the other to get some good contrast via reflected light into the body sides. On my camera there's an aperture priority mode to set the aperture to F8. I have two macro modes; super macro goes to 0.0", and I use it pretty frequently. The zoom on the camera also allows me to step back several feet (I have the setup mounted up high and use a standard tripod) and focus in for a more "natural" perspective.

Finally got a "minor" grail...Tamiya's Honda NSX Type R. First time it was issued, I didn't know about it. Japanese issue only, all sold out. It was spot-reissued once, they sold out in a nanosecond..missed again. This time it's available through Tamiya USA Might be a spot-issue as well, but at least this time it's officially available through US channels (though that's not a deal-killer w/the excellent Japanese websites). Looks to be typical vintage full-detail Tamiya goodness. Photoetch engine cover, front intake screens, side vent screens, radiator face, and tags. Window masks, too. So it is an improvement over the original. Sure wish there were more online photos of unmolested originals...they were very rare, less than 500 made.