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I'd like to do the same, but since the grille insert is quite different on those I'm patient enough to wait and see if it's offered in 3D. It could be marketed as at Tempest conversion as well.

Nice color scheme and upgrades! I've built two, one OOB in my own LP paint mix of flambeau burgundy, but w/vinyl top, the other w/3D printed open headlight grille and Fireball's first generation (since modified/made even better) Rally II's with AMT parts pack redlines. Lots of fun from a simple kit.

Steve, the hobby shop I mentioned in my post above may have some things useful to your endeavors. If you get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. Do you still have any of those Charger pursuit test shot wheels remaining? If so I'd still love to get a set.

The hobby shop is kind of like a grassroots campaign. Three guys combining talent/forces, learning as they go. Their FB page gets their feet wet. Give 'em a call to chat/ask questions or visit if you're ever in their area. What they have in their shop is pretty dang cool. From new/old kits, aftermarket stuff, parts kits, junk boxes, old built kits/promos, built models on display by Doug Horner who I think started it all, he'll let you hold his display models if you show interest, and I sure took advantage of that as he's had fun with some of the 3D kits offered by Too Many Projects. He's got a workbench in the big back room which is the loading dock and warehouse space. I bought $93 worth of goodies, from a vintage built '61 Continental to the reissued Space 1999 Moon Buggy. Wish we had a hobby shop like that in every town.

I learned while trying to replicate a buddy's mild-custom '66 Riviera the difference between Testors gloss black enamel and Tamiya TS black. For some reason I was having issues w/the kit plastic in smoothing out the faint sink lines on the hood. I sanded too deeply into the kit plastic, the Tamiya paint was etching the plastic. So I tried Testors gloss black enamel. It was brown compared to the Tamiya product. I finally got the issue ironed out, amused by the whole mess. Even more amusing? Seeing him rolling the Riv into a car show. Expletives were uttered...that Riviera is a deep, rich dark blue pearl that I had never noticed because apparently I only saw it on cloudy days. We still LOL over that. He has a killer shop in Lilburn building dream cars for his customers. You may know him, Mike Lewis.

I think what may have happened is we were a group of 4 going in one car, so that's when we had our visit. My buddy from Boston was visiting and IIRC it was he and I, Wayne, and Bob Cline. I think. LOL

A stock car model is a bit of a different animal. You're not after a show-quality high-gloss black. When they were painted they weren't painted to production car standards. They were covered with graphics, today they're all just wrapped in a mostly pre-printed design. So your best bet for a vintage stock car in gloss black (but not clear coated or meant to be a show car) may be to determine how and what you spray (airbrush, rattle can, what brand/type of paint) and choose the best product that you're familiar with. Personally I'd airbrush Tamiya LP1 (gloss) black lacquer, and on the last coat thin it out more and spray it from a bit of a distance to kill the ultra-shiny wet coat appearance, helping it get a more scale appropriate appearance, even if not exact to the 1:1. If your eyes are happy you'll be happy.

There's really no right or wrong answer here, some people's own eyes interpret color differently than other people's eyes. I'm in 100% agreement on gloss black on a model car, it never looks wrong or out of scale to me. Other colors however can benefit from scale effect. Many of us look at our models primarily inside under artificial light. A 1:1 color can look a lot darker inside (including model shows) than it does outside. Again, no right or wrong answer, the builder can decide what works best. I've built both ways, scale effect and perfect match. For the darkest non-black colors I like mixing them a little lighter for my eyes, not caring if someone else sees the color differently. I build for me, not strict IPMS kind of judging where they can go off the deep end sometimes...

To avoid confusion 1999 is Hobby Search, not Hobbylink Japan aka HLJ. I've ordered from Hobby Search twice, zero issues. They don't offer the shipping options that Hobbylink Japan offers.

Guys, there is more to the current state of Johan than most people realize. Some of it I will not mention publicly because I don't want to cause any kind of friction or forum war or whatever, because that's what sadly happens in our hobby way too often. Just ask any model company that posts on their Facebook pages. It's almost embarrassing to see the replies from "guys like us". As for Johan, there are more involved with it than you may expect. I'll link to their Facebook page, and please refrain from any "I don't do Facebook" stuff. It's the easiest way for some entities to get the word out and actually be in control of their page and in control who can post on their page. Check out Atomic City Rod & Custom Model Car Resource for more information. They have a really impressive new hobby shop in Dayton Ohio. One of the investors is Jack Higgins from way back in the day as a partner in J&J Hobbies. Super good guy. Jack's in Cincinnati now. Check out TimKustom's video of it on his Youtube channel. I'll link to Atomic City first, then Tim's Youtube link to the hobby shop. We were there in Ohio for Randy Derr's invitational model display at the Dayton Concours d'Elegance 2 weeks ago. That weekend included a Saturday morning cars & coffee, a visit to the hobby shop, a get together at Randy's on Saturday afternoon, the main car show on Sunday, and a raucous good time on Sunday late afternoon/early evening group dinner after the show. Tim has videos of all but not the dinner. We had an absolute blast. https://www.facebook.com/AtomicCityModelCars/

Nice job, great color. I lived thru the same issues building mine somewhere around 2001. Saw one at "The Quail" event in 2000 that inspired me because of the aftermarket wheels it had. I was able to replicate those and lived w/the incorrect interior and sort of fixed exterior stuff. If I did it today it would be even better but I'd still gripe about Fujimi doing such a slapdash update to the 348 and calling it a day. I have another coupe and convertible to build...maybe.

I still can't believe you missed the real car when it was at the High Museum before it got unceremoniously purchased by Glickenhouse and carted away while the show was still going ? But hey, at least he made it into a full running concept car and you've got your own in scale. 26 days on the countdown to the show...so much to do, so little time.

Plot twist. I have a friend in SC that has a '70 Challenger "T/A" convertible. He's probably 80 years old now, the father of one of my good friends. Well...his old Challenger CV needed to be restored. He's been a Mopar guy forever (he has a Challenger 392 for a daily), he knows everything about them, he only has owned Chrysler products (aside from when he bought his son's BMW and his wife had a Miata for a few years). He fell into a real T/A engine, the guy who had it didn't know what it was but Jim did, and he traded a gun for the engine! So he spent stupid $$ restoring his car to look like a factory '70 Challenger T/A convertible. I didn't have a smartphone with me when I saw it (probably 10-12 years ago), the only thing I didn't like about the restoration was his choice of top material (too leather-looking). The Challenger was red/black when I last rode in it (in the mid-'80's) so it remains red/black now with the black T/A stripes. When I met him he had a 300B that he restored in the late 70's/early 80's. It's a model, build it like you want. Sometimes people w/real cars do that too!

Once enamel has gelled it's no longer usable. I use a combination of various acrylic colors for detail brush painting, though Tamiya's new line of LP paints (mild lacquer in a jar) brush really well, and being lacquers if they get thick/gloppy as they age you can add more of the appropriate thinner to bring it back, as well as thin it as necessary for finer brush painting. I wish more hobby shops would carry the LP line as they are fantastic for painting with an airbrush, especially the clear gloss. I wish they sold them in larger jars.

Near and far, if you travel to shows outside your local area, which I do several times per year. Go with a list. Or just stay at home and click away and pay for shipping. Either works, but it's worth going to shows for more a lot more than scouring for gluebombs and parts kits. I've found many very nice fully-restorable kits at various shows for a fraction of what they go for online. Same can be said for unbuilt kits. But seeing the models on display in the show and talking w/other builders who often are your friends or become friends? Priceless.

The best place to look for good deals on parts kits/gluebombs is in person at a model car show.

The obituary was apparently a fake AI created thing and it soon disappeared, and friends of Donn posted that it is not true.

Ollie's is right down the street from my local Costco; I went to Costco on Tuesday and ended up going to Ollie's and getting the Coca Cola Dodge D50 and the '65 Bonneville. I saw two Surf Sharks but resisted. Then I remembered how cool Bryan Fuller's "Thundertaker" is and I recently saw it at the Savoy auto museum. I went to Costco again first thing today to fuel up and hit Ollie's, they restocked Surf Sharks and I got two of them, one for me and another for a friend in Ohio who has a lousy Ollie's and I'll be up there next month. Didn't see any of the big rig stuff, but most everything else people have seen was there. I remember when the Surf Shark debuted at a $50 MSRP and I thought "I'll bet it shows up at Ollie's, it'll never sell for $50". Win ?

He's still in Florida, his kids are in college in Atlanta.

He's alive and well, don't think he's had time to build much in the past few years with his kids in college up here in Atlanta and family life.

Fujimi is still cranking out Ferrari kits, I think they're the only company with a license for plastic kits. Your build is spectacular! Great color scheme, very inspiring for whenever I get to mine...someday ? I may have to do back-to-back builds of the 275 and the 250 SWB.

I'm 99% sure it's the Doyusha kit (C3 generation) he used. He showed me the original box when I visited him both before and after it was finished.

Thanks, I was pleasantly surprised how good the model is. It's a great $50 kit in reality. I saw one at a show for $45 after I built mine, I almost bought it. A little later a good friend who was me about my Z4 model on the show table really liked it and I pointed out the one for sale, and he snapped it up. I see the Audi will be $100 in the US, I have no clue why it's cheaper than the BMW but it still is far from cheap!

Considering full US MSRP for Meng's curbside BMW Z4 is $105, I can only speculate that the price of this Audi will be considerably higher so it seems Meng is taking some risks that may or may not pay off down the road. That said, I built the Z4 and while I expected the kit to be okay based on early photos of the unpainted test shot it's really quite good. I won it in a club raffle last December and was pleasantly surprised how it went together and how they did the little details like seatbelts and emblems. This is in stark contrast to friends that have had a lot of trouble w/the full-detail Jeep and Hummer kits having terrible fit issues. Meng's GT40's have design/detail issues (I think Fujimi captures the shape better in 1/24th and the same can be said for Trumpeter's 1/12 kit), whereas this straightforward curbside BMW looks great and it went together without any drama. Completely unexpected subject matter; I can't imagine it's setting any sales records with the steep price especially in the US. Let's hope Meng is really learning as they go.

The sedan does nothing for me, but if per chance they make an R100 kit I'm all in, it's a car we got here in the states in very small numbers but I have seen them (one of my best friends had one along with a bunch of RX3's) and it's a classic coupe shape unlike the sedan. Kind of strange that this one exists other than it seems Academy is wanting a series of vintage Korean mainstream cars that define the beginnings of Korean mainstream auto production.