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I always thought the '71-'73 Mustangs looked big. A few years back on the freeway on the way to a car show I passed a '71 Mach I traveling to the same show. It looked pretty small compared to modern traffic...I was surprised. Some perspective:

Lee was one of a kind. Incredibly generous, funny, and an ultimate car guy. He'd been dealing with a nasty blood-related cancer for perhaps a decade or more, in fact for awhile both he and his wife were going through chemo sessions together side-by-side. He spent time at the NIH near DC for treatment, I believe that's where he ended up getting bone marrow transplants. Through it all he kept his sense of humor and positive outlook. When he couldn't fly anymore, he got a Mercedes E63 wagon for rapid transit cross-country. He sent me pics from SEMA the year his McLaren was in a booth, first time I'd seen a photo of him. He didn't let his disability keep him from living life to whatever fullness he could muster at the time. Back in the day he posted as Airway on the Hobby Heaven board. That name was a glimpse of what he did for a living, being a pediatric pulmonologist. I wish I had been in closer contact more recently, I was concerned as he'd been quiet for so long on this forum. RIP Lee, you were one of a kind.

Yes, I took many cellphone photos. Not sure they allow any flash photography. Their website is pretty good to give you an idea of what to expect. The collection is mind-blowing.

It looks like decklid was shared with the coupe as it has the concave shape seen on the HT. I haven't seen a Coronet CV up close lately but if/when I do I'll check it out; Google is good for overall shots but not aimed at detail-oriented modelers LOL. I'm just anxiously awaiting a HT variant of this kit which I have to think is coming at some point.

Very nice turnout, thanks for sharing. Your Merlot Miata looks great! I was down in Naples in early March to visit friends, drove my '06 Miata all the way down there. Honestly aside from the day we took it down to the everglades for an airboat ride etc. it was wasted on the boring/crowded boulevards of FL. Highlight of the trip was our day at Revs Institute, we had a morning docent-led tour of the collection and a brief tour of the workshop. After lunch at Spanky's Speakeasy we went back to go through the collection at our own pace. Mindblowing collection, probably the best museum I've ever been to. After that we drove down to the airport observation deck, my goal was to see my first HondaJet, and thankfully that goal was achieved as well as seeing a really cool metallic green w/gold accents Cirrus Vision jet. Unfortunately never hit the beach due to the red tide. Drove up the coast to Ft. Myers, was heartbreaking to see the hurricane damage. Naples looked like nothing ever happened except for the row of mansions right along the coast.

That rear window shape for this uptop is all kinds of wrong. Just take a look at photos of the real thing. The kit's own tulip panel is wrong, shaped to fit a coupe's compound rear window contour and not the convertible's. AMT masks it somewhat by including a top boot that covers the shape. This uptop just amplifies the shape issue. Good luck making any kind of sheet plastic fit that opening. To make a correct convertible uptop is going to take effort from someone, because it requires an all-new shape of the tulip panel between the decklid and the edge of the body where the convertible top resides. Maybe someone could fix the issue and resin cast a corrected body and offer a properly fitting uptop. A correct 3D file could be created so the uptop shape is proper and would have to include a 3D printed replacement tulip panel. I'll just wait for a coupe version of this kit. I understand why AMT cloned the original as-is, flaws and all.

Once you are in the Bay Area if you have the time and a car I'd suggest driving south a bit on the 101. In Danville there's the Blackhawk Collection which is pretty amazing and the location is crazy, in a swanky upscale shopping center. Then drive a bit more towards Santa Cruz and in Scotts Valley visit the Canepa collection. It's a can't miss (museum upstairs, cars for sale downstairs, and the restoration shop in back-there's an overlook of the shop from the museum) and a lot of guys that go to the NNL West take a day trip there the day before the show. I kind of remember a very good hobby shop in the San Jose area. Get a good cheap lunch/dinner at an In 'N Out Burger while in CA, order a double double animal-style. No matter what you are interested in there is plenty to do in that area (like drive further south to Monterey and hit part of Hwy. 1 through Big Sur). Northern Bay Area across the Golden Gate there's wine country. Maybe on your way from Vegas to SF drive west to pick up Hwy. 1 north of Santa Barbara for a spectacular drive up to the Bay Area from the south...check to make sure the road is open as sometimes a rock slide can close the highway.

The primer is a little friendlier with wet coats, doesn't have the same tendency to run and easy to sand. I do the same mist coats followed by wet coats as the colors. I use their white primer, regular gray primer, fine gray primer, pink and red oxide primers and more recently they have a base white which is amazing stuff. Covers multiple colors fast and dries to a semi gloss finish. It only comes in smaller cans, I would prefer they sell base white in their "tall boy" sized cans. FWIW Mr. Hobby surfacers are even better.

Tamiya sprays are super easy to use once you master them. Mist coats first, wet coats last. I learned the hard way that spraying too-wet, too-close caused minor runs and worse the propellant bubbles; the runs actually shrink a lot when the paint cures. Back off a bit from the body on wet coats and practice moving the can at nearly warp speed as you spray the body sides. Tamiya sprays decant and airbrush well, and now their LP lacquer jar paints are out and I use them all the time through my airbrushes. I use Tamiya/Mr. Hobby rattlecan primers all the time, they're so easy/convenient and smooth. If Tamiya sprays drive you mad Duplicolor or any similar budget rattle cans will be likely be worse. Master the Tamiya stuff and you'll be a customer for life.

Inspiring build, great work! I've had this kit for awhile and want to do it justice when I get around to it. I always liked these oddball Citroens and have memories of riding in one several times (a '72 D-Special bought as a low-mile 2 or 3 year old used car) that close family friends had, they generally loved everything about the car aside from the glacial acceleration pace. It had a 4 speed manual column shift transmission and between the suspension, comfy seats, the thick and "springy" floor carpeting and the aerodynamic shape it was remarkably comfortable/quiet on the highway even compared to American luxury cars from that era. If only it didn't have that agricultural-grade engine, but then again in the mid-70's they averaged 27 MPG in their D-Special which was unheard of at the time for something so comfortable.

It can vary, some say what's in a fresh jar doesn't seem full and they add thinner to make the jar seem more full. Read Tamiya's information: Tamiya Blog LP Paint compatibility A good video tutorial on YT that was linked from the Tamiya Blog: Video Tutorial I've thinned with Tamiya lacquer thinner and Mr. Hobby Mr. Color Thinner and Mr. Leveling Thinner (with retarder). Any lacquer hobby paint I've tried has a strong odor. I used to decant/airbrush TS paints but after it's thinned a bit to flow nicely through my setup it cures rather soft, especially TS-13 clear. The LP's cure completely and don't get sticky from handing, they polish out beautifully.

I haven't compared directly but it seems different. I've painted/cleared several models recently with LP's, there's a link in my signature to see them in my Fotki albums.

Tamiya LP-9 clear gloss lacquer is a new favorite (the entire line of colors is great, I like mixing colors from them like I used to do decades ago with Testors enamels). Mr. Hobby #46 solvent-based clear is excellent as well; it was my go-to clear before the LP line arrived. Both dry rapidly and polish beautifully. One reason I prefer these two clears is that they are friendly with most lacquer based paints including aftermarket colors and are plastic-friendly.

A club member brought his to our meeting yesterday, he hasn't even looked at all the parts yet but he brought it to show how warped the deck plate is (side panels are fine). The part is unusable the way/shape it's warped; looks heat damaged and almost shrunken-the plate is also molded so thin so that it might scale nicely but it just exacerbates any sloppy mishandling of the parts after they pop out of the mold. I also saw his frame was a bit warped but it looked like it could be dealt with, I warned him about the hood being potentially warped. He had begun to scratch build one years ago (and his side panels nearly perfectly match the kit's parts) and he was elated this kit was coming out. Now he's not sure what he's going to do to make it right. This is really sad as warping has been an issue w/these Ford truck kits since day one, and the way they cram all the parts into too-small boxes just makes it worse. I wanted one of these, but I'll pass at least for now and perhaps Moebius/Model King will better manage the future production end of things.

Reading this thread and the talk of the custom AMT '68 Impala had me Googling and lo and behold here (again) is the best example of this kit I've ever seen built and I would definitely build one if it were to be reissued. Sometimes you just need to be inspired by seeing what a talented modeler can do with an off-the-wall kit. Irv Arter's Custom AMT '68 Impala

I have no idea. I just remembered seeing it on another forum and nobody mentioned what happened.

Sorry to inform you he passed away on Dec. 28th, it was mentioned on another forum.

Recently in a Porsche 914 thread you ranted about Revell's incorrect B pillars and posted a photo of my orange 914 build without credit (from February 27, 2006 in my Fotki album as it was built for an NNL East theme that spring), only pointing out how obvious the kit's B pillar shape looks vs. a real car (which I don't disagree with at all, and if I build another one I know how to fix it as my skills continue to improve and I have a resin HRM wide body resin kit to build "someday"). Where did you find that photo? You sharing that photo could be interpreted by others as "look at how bad this model looks because the idiot builder didn't fix it". There are plenty of issues with the Revell 914 beyond the incorrect pillar shape, anyone getting a decent result finishing one where everything fits decently and it doesn't sit like an off road vehicle on those lovely 2 piece hard vinyl tires knows the struggle with that kit. It was a fun build despite the issues and completed in about a week as I had some free time to dig into it and correct what I could with it, since it seems there's never going to be a modern kit of a 914 done right.

Bill's input helped a lot on my build of the first issue Ventura; though mine was painted before I saw Bill's excellent tips on how to correct the window and wheel fit; I had no idea about the glass fit before I painted it as I was trying to build it in a short timeframe. Oops! I didn't need a lathe at all to fix the wheels; just used a Dremel (and ended up with the best looking 8-lugs in scale I've ever seen), and I had to learn the hard way at the very end how to get the front bumper/grille/hood to all fit properly. Aside from glass, front bumper and fixing the 8-lugs the rest of the kit was a breeze and it looks amazing built. I have a Catalina in the stash that's already had the window installation fix long before painting, and Moebius tweaked the tooling a bit on the grille as time went on.

Nice model! I like the subtle colors that class it up vs. the boxart car. I just finished mine with a similar mindset and am happy how it came out. I didn't use any of the tuner graphics. I really liked many of the stickers included for things like instrument panel, taillight overlay, steering wheel controls, nose and tail emblems, center caps-these are high-quality printed/cut stickers. I painted the glass like I did my glue kit Performante; this kit was a lot easier to finish and have fun with vs. that one. There may be an article on these kits in MCM; my club has a trio building this same kit from literally OOB/no paint to fully painted & detailed and Tim Kolankiewicz is encouraging us to share 😎

Here's one I built last year with a few parts from my stash of Fujimi parts (wheels, tires, fog lights, mirrors). Fun project!

Some of my favorite kits of all time; as a teen they were easy to build to look really good, so good I bought a second 911 kit to spray in a different color back in the day. Now as a seasoned adult I find they hold up with the test of time shape-wise and are fun subjects to revisit. Bonus is they're often available for less $ than what a fresh reissued would cost.

Big fan as well. Have seen Rodger live several times in the past 10 years, before early 2020 he had an extensive tour schedule before the pandemic (his last live shows were on a Rock & Roll cruise out of FL), not sure when/if he'll get it back going. His band is all younger but they are amazing in person, they have a lot of fun. One of the shows I saw was with a full symphony orchestra in FL in 2013. People in the audience from all over the world. Lots of his live performances on Youtube, as well as vintage pre-1984 Supertramp concerts.

Very cool, this might be the first time I've seen a 96 Rock tag that wasn't installed upside down 😄

Masterfully styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro. I've seen a real 117 at a local car show, impressive in person and like many JDM cars appears smaller in person than the photos would have you believe. This is my favorite upcoming kit, Hasegawa has shown two masterfully built/photographed versions of the kit that I believe are used for boxart, they look like the real car at first glance.