Zoom Zoom

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.

I think based on conversations w/Ed Sexton from Revell that Academy in Korea has the tooling for the Ferraris. They were hoping to get licensing to release the SWB, but it apparently never happened. I lucked into mine for sure, one I've had for many years, the second I found in the past 5 years. Intent is to build both of them, for some reason it's my favorite followed by 275 GTB, Lusso, and 250 GTO in that order. Someday...? The Tamiya Lt. Gunmetal paint is a decent match for Ferrari's own Grigio Titanio. I'm slowly making the switch from TS colors as I run out of them into the LP paints as I prefer airbrushing and it's just so easy to mix and make my own color variations. Glad you aren't doing the obligatory "resale red" ? even if it does look great on 275's. Saw a Miata like mine (in True Red) parked next to a Rosso Corsa Ferrari and the color of my Miata is a little brighter and more vivid than Ferrari red! I call that a safety feature in such a tiny car...

I have all three and an extra SWB because it's my favorite and the extra one kind of fell in my lap at a show for less than the price of a new Revell kit. I have the various correct wheel sets (Fujimi parts pack and MFH wires, HRM alloys) and tires. These are some of my favorite Ferraris ever, I need some inspiration seeing them built!

Unlike the mid-engine Honda Beat this one has a traditional front engine (660 CC turbo)/rear drive setup and a very cool removable HT; the targa section is 3 removable pieces (allows opening partially or completely) and the rear glass section folds down into the cavity for the full convertible treatment without a soft top to do it. With everything in place it's not a lot different from your PRHT Miata in security, but it does require getting out of the car to remove/replace the targa's sections. I've sat in this, the Beat, and the AZ-1. This and the Beat are marginally comfortable, cockpit width is tight, the AZ-1 would be impossible for me to drive with shoes on as my size 8.5 wide shoes each cover two pedals at once.

Nice! That's basically the same spec as the US market Club Edition. Cloth interior, 6 speed (auto or manual) and suspension upgrades as well as limited-slip differential, essentially the best spec you can get on an NC generation. I have a friend locally with a 2013 white Club and he's put about 150k miles on it since buying new, other than basic maintenance he's had done all along from a Mazda technician friend all that it's really needed so far was a new starter. The most expensive part mine has needed was a new driver's side headlight unit, I opted for a fresh factory overflow tank. Fantastic cars! I've driven some ND's & really like them, especially the 2019 with the upgraded engine and the same suspension mods my NC has. Ergonomics better than my car (especially since 2019 the steering wheel adjusts for reach), definitely more power, definitely less space in the cabin. Used Clubs with low miles are going for what I could have bought new 10 years ago.

I was going to ask what year your NC Miata is and then saw the reflection in your glasses so I know it's probably a white Club edition ? Mine's an '06 w/114k, fantastic car after a few upgrades, I ditched the factory suspension w/in a month of buying it 10 years ago. Almost bought a new Club in '13 as they were heavily discounted. Probably should have, but at this point only an ND or Boxster/Cayman might replace it.

You nailed it! The finished model looks awesome, even better in person, and it's astounding how well the weathering turned out on your very first try. I can almost smell the must and the rust LOL. The safari windows by Highlight are icing on the cake ?

I ordered the new '65 GTO from the same seller. Quick delivery. But it was a '68 GTO in the package with a seller's barcode for a '65. And wonder upon wonders, at that point the "seller" became the fulfiller (person w/Chinese name from VA), so my not so great review may not have even affected DDK. I like the '68, I've built two of them. I wanted a '65. So I deal with having to physically take it somewhere to get it returned, or just donate the kit for our club meeting raffle. I did read very similar reviews (after the fact) from DDK or whomever fulfills it for Amazon, same story...ordered one kit, got another. A couple buyers tried (and failed) twice to get the kit they ordered. To me that's the same as ordering something from Hobby Lobby online and they just send a random kit. No bueno. Lesson learned, no more kits from Amazon for me.

They might feel dry to the touch but they don't fully cure nearly that fast. Might be okay for minor brush painting but this thread is about spray painting which often includes masking at some point for another color/finish. Masking over Tamiya gloss acrylic in that scenario is very risky unless the paint is fully cured, not just dry to the touch.

For those that use Tamiya sprays they have a relatively new product called "Base White". It's one of the best paints they have, it covers multiple colors of plastic with ease, and dries to a very smooth semigloss finish. In some cases like a weathered finish that may be enough, but allows spraying their regular white over it (or airbrushed decanted or LP lacquers). My only gripe with Base White is the can is small, same size as the regular colors and IMHO should be available in the taller primer sized cans. Tamiya rattle cans are nearly foolproof. White is an easy color to achieve if you use the right compatible products. They have white primer, base white, regular white, racing white. All of it is plastic and user friendly. I generally ignore their acrylic gloss colors, they take too long to dry (even when mixed with Tamiya or Mr. Hobby lacquer thinners) and their jars of LP lacquers for airbrushing are all good, mix well to get custom colors and dry rapidly. Example below was a model that the body was molded in white but the separate engine compartment was molded in black. The Base White easily got the black engine compartment into the same shade of white as the primer on the body without having to flood it; I used white primer to help make the metallic blue a bit more vivid than if applied over gray primer.

I saw this with my own two eyes and I shot the photo and the only photo editing was cropping. The photo is remarkable not necessarily for width but the height and thickness of the new Challengers, which are challenged by a high cowl height due to being related to the large car LH platform.

BIN sands super-easy, easier than any regular primer. Does MCW still offer their sealer? It's been years since I shot MCW but they had a primer-like sealer with specific instructions for applying (inside a time window) and it worked like a charm.