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It's been years since I've attempted a lowrider or any type of custom. This one didn't start out that way, but took on a life of its own.

I finished the AMT 1970 Chevelle SS454 yesterday. I know, same old--same old, everybody does them in red, but to me the most iconic Muscle Car is a Red Chevelle SS454. So the color is Tamiya TS-49 Bright Red. I left the interior primer black and brushed satin clear over the dash, door panels, and parts of the seats. I added valve stems, ignition wires, heater hoses, and an Accel Supercoil from MAD for extra details. The trim is Bare Metal Foil and the door handles came from Fireball Modelworks and were painted with Molotow Chrome. The final fit was pretty finicky, but after 4 tries I finally got it to look right, although I'm not happy with the gap between the hood and grille. I also sanded down the door window trim on each side, as it was almost non-existent, and used some .010" x .030" styrene strip for the trim. It's a pretty basic but familiar AMT kit with low parts count, lacking details, and showing it's age, but it turned out pretty good and felt nicely nostalgic.

I’m not normally into ‘50s or earlier cars but I figured every modeler needs to do at least one ‘57 Chevy in their lifetime! This is my first attempt at using bare metal foil and may be my last 😅 The trim turned out ok but boy is the process tedious. I painted the interior Krylon Colormaxx flat black with Tamiya XF-16 Aluminum as the accent color. The body is Testors Extreme Lacquer Turquoise and the roof is Tamiya TS-45 Pearl White. This kit has a decent amount of detail to it for such a cheap kit, but the final fit of the hood, bumpers, headlight and taillight trims isn’t great. Overall I’m pleased with the results for my shelf, but I’ll probably stick to my usual 60s-90s cars with less chrome trim!

Just finished up this little ‘66 Mustang from AMT. As many have said here before, this kit is definitely lacking in detail and accuracy under the hood and on the chassis, but the body and interior detail out nicely. The fit is actually not bad considering the kit’s age but there was a ton of flash in my example. I accidentally glued the radiator support in backwards so the battery is on the wrong side. But again it isn’t accurate under the hood anyway so I let it go. I was shooting for the ‘66 factory Ivy Green body color so I painted it Tamiya’s TS2 Dark Green. It looks closer to Bullitt’s Highland Green to me, which is not a bad thing! I cleared it with three coats of Pledge floor gloss and lightly polished that out with Tamiya finish compound. Trim is silver sharpie that was applied and left to dry for several days before I did the Pledge Gloss. I painted the interior Tamiya XF-17 Sea Blue, with two coats of Pledge Gloss on the seats, dash, console and door cards. Sea blue is an interesting color that looks like a dark charcoal on its own, but looks more blue next to blue objects and more green next to green objects. So I think it looks great next to this dark green body. I’m slowly building one Mustang from every major generation/ redesign/ facelift and am pleased to have this one as my O.G. example!

Out in February 2021, six new 1000 piece puzzles based on recent AMT box art, priced at $14.00 each:

Okay, after seeing all the great Munsters builds, and considering the time of the year, i decided; whats one more build on the bench? -20 is a nice even number! I dont really know what level of details these will be, but i'm pretty sure they will evolve rather quickly....lets see what i do to them!

My gosh,,Im stuck on these late 60's Ford cars recently,,here I took the AMT Shelby GT500 kit and did a drag version,,additions not included in kit : Headrests,,seatbelts,,rollbar,,drag slicks,, cragar mags,,,opened up rear wheel wells,,drag headers instead of stock exhaust,,lower radiator hose,,decals from leftovers from my stash. Rattle can sprayed W/ Testors Mystic emerald green. Hand painted 2 tone interior w/custom mixed paints. Hand painted window trim{s} w/custom mixed paints. Dremmel cut+ removed engine bay wheel wells. {so drag headers would clear} I did have to dremmel the top of gearbox down to get interior bucket to lay level so the entire assembly w/body on chassis was level,,but other than that it went together well. It will make a nice addition to the shelf display next to the Lawton stang. Wishing all a happy spring and hope its warming up where you are!

To me the 1941 Willys is the best looking gasser. I have seen a ton of pics online and just love the way they look. I plan on getting one down the road to build and I'm looking at the Reveal Big John Mazmanian 1941 Willys. Show me what you have, what brand, and what year.

So, the theme (in my head, at least) for this build was something a high school gear head would have tooled around in in the mid-70s to early 80s. I have the inline 6 dogeared for the Nova wagon sometime in the future. I pulled the 421 and wheels from a ‘65 GTO kit that was all but destroyed during shipping. Just a fun little change of pace build. Paint is Dupli-color Stone White and Tamiya TS-35 Park Green with Wet Look clear. Comments, questions, tips, pointers and critique is always welcome. Thanks for looking. Namaste.

Hi All, I'm looking for the factory stock front grille from AMT's 1/25 1975 Matador coupe, kit #T452. This is the street version, not the Bobby Allison stock car. I recently picked one up as a glue-bomb that I'd like to rebuild. It's mostly complete but missing a few critical pieces including the grille. If anyone has a grille they'd be willing to part with let me know. I've attached a shot of the original kit box for reference. Thanks, Andrew

After loosing out on several full detail AMT Ranger kits on eBay, I gave up and picked up this promo kit for $10. I was hoping to just do some quick detailing and not repaint the whole thing, but the plastic was discolored around the door mirrors for some reason. Also the splash graphics were stickers and looked way too toy-like in person. I repainted the body in Tamiya X-13 Metallic Blue with XF-56 Metallic Gray for the bumpers and flares. Not much else to it! Hopefully Round 2 will re-release these at some point, I’d love to do a full build of the step-side Splash version!

Well im building the 82, so may as well build this one along side it. This is another kit I got from ole mate Ray. He was lucky to find and get it from a private estate sale in Adelaide. Then I got lucky when he offered it for sale to me when he walked away from the hobby. They certainly dont make kits like this anymore. Would be fun and different to do a custom version as some of those parts have cool features. But il stick with a some what stock look. Such a trip to experience a kit of this era. Got a rough idea of the direction im going with the build pretty much oob. I will use these parts and build the 6cyl as a side piece. And once again il use my favourite wheels. So far ive just cut some 2mm brass rod for axles, and set it in the low holes for a oob mock. But it still needs to be lowered more.

Pictures of box, box contents, and instructions here Thank you and enjoy!

Overall a fairly decent kit although it did pit up a fight at times. Exterior is ScaleFinishes BMW Laguna Green over a black base and Wet Look clear. Interior is the same green and Rustoleum Smokey Beige over white primer. The wheels are Pegasus. I added a wired distributor, looms and battery cables. As always, questions, comments, critiques and pointers are welcome. Thank you for looking.

Got some new/different masking tape the other day and wanted to try it out , so I got out a KW cab and had at it. I kinda like how it’s turning out. Don’t know how much will get done from here on in seeing as how the weather has finally come around, but we will see. The plans are to use a grill and tires from double take replicas, and a couple of moebius steer tires.

I never noticed it mentioned on the instruction sheets of certain AMT kits, but there it is, on at least five early AMT kits: Was it realistically possible to assemble each of these kits without any glue, and not have some of the parts fall off? AMT might have been using the term "assemble" lightly, similar to what some of us would do in a test fitting stage, and the 1932 Ford Roadster does appear to have rather large locating pin holes in the of the cowl for the windshield frame: Maybe the tolerances were just that tight from the get-go?

I pulled this one out of the stash looking to build something fun and not so serious. A whole lot more fabrication and re-engineering was required than I had imagined. Just a gnarly, ill-fitting, warped, blobulous mess of a kit. I lowered the overall ride. I moved the inner fenders inward to provide some clearance for the front tires. I smoothed out the bumpers by removing the guards then color matched them to the body. The paint is a Nissan color from ScaleFinishes, KAC Titanium with Wet Look clear. The rims are Pegasus and tires are Goodyear bigs and little from the parts box. Overall, I’m happy with the finished product. I swear I didn’t feed it after midnight! Thanks for looking. Comments, questions, tips, pointers or critiques are always welcome.

Those of you that may have a few years on you might remember The Munsters. Grandpa had to build a race car and win a drag race to get back the Munster Koach that Herman lost. I remember watching it as a kid. I built the DRAG-U-LA for FB group Halloween theme build. It was a fun model to build. I added a few aftermarket pieces to enhance its appearance. I hope it puts a smile on your face!

Well this one is all done! Amt 94 sonoma. Converted it to a 97. Changed the steering wheel, intake manifold, intake and some underhood stuff. Slammed on pegasus wheels with painted centers and painted a factory color for 97-00. I love the way this one turned out. I just need to add rear shocks lol.

I do not want to say this was an easy build. It had it's moments when stuff did not want to fit correct. I used the flame decals from an old t-bucket kit I had laying around. I also created a custom exhaust.

Some of you regulars know that I used to build box art models for AMT back during the Ertl days. I built display models ranging from mostly cars to even Star Wars from 1990 to 1995. The last three cars I did were for the Chevrolet Classics set shown below. Once they were built, as always I would hand them over to the Ertl Company and I might occasionally see them on the box, in the catalogs, or in the Blueprinter. When Ertl was finished with them, they would raffle or auction them off at model car events, then donate the proceeds to the Model Car Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have no idea where most of them went after their box art days, but one day, while perusing Spotlight Hobby's predecessor, the Hobby Heaven Message Board, I saw a post by the late "Viper" Dave McGaughey showing the 1958 Chevy Impala I built for the box. I contacted Dave a few times over the years, inquiring about purchasing it, but his reply was always "it's in a good home". Sadly, David McGaughey passed away in 2018. I reached out to one of his sons asking about the model, but never got a reply. Then I reached out to mutual friend Ted "Chopper" Lear, who informed me that Dave had sold much of his collection to Richard Geis. So I messaged Richard in 2018 and asked if he knew of the model in question. Two years later, I got a Facebook message from Richard, apologizing for the delayed response, as he had recently just got back on Facebook. He had the model all along, having won a raffle for it, and that he would be happy to sell it back to me for what he had in it, plus shipping. Needless to say, the deal was consummated, and I am happy to report that one of my very favorite builds has returned, and Richard had indeed given it a very good home over these past two decades. And so here it is! You are probably wondering where the glass is. Most box art builds for Ertl were done sans glass, as it induced glare and distortion. Instead, the retouchers airbrushed (and later Photoshopped) the glass in. Box art models can lead rather rough lives during their travels. A sharp eye will reveal that during Ertl's ownership, it had been damaged, and the front hood and grille trim rather crudely glued back on. (It didn't leave my house with those big glue smudges on the hood!) Fortunately that old Krylon Teal paint is pretty robust, and I was able to polish a lot of that out after this photo was taken. At some point I'll be fixing the trim, along with the now glued solid steering. And the missing wind splits will be replaced on the fenders. The radiator hose and oil filler were there when it was delivered to Ertl. They will be replaced. Given the tight time constraints, these were no contest models. I built all three in about a week. So things that didn't show, like drive shafts, shocks, and on this one, even the exhaust were left off. In retrospect, I probably should have added the exhaust. And who knows, that could still happen. I've got a few extra 58 Impalas in the stash. it was a very different world a quarter of a century ago in 1995 when I built this model. My oldest two kids, now in their mid 30s were 8 and 9 years old, my mom and dad were both still alive, and I was a long haired guy going to college for an Engineering degree. Looking at this 58 Impala brings me right back to those days... I want to thank Tom Carter for the creating Hobby Heaven, and now Spotlight Hobbies Message Board for making this reunion possible, Ted Lear for hooking me up with Richard Geis, and especially Richard, for not only taking such great care of it, but being kind enough to reunite me with this bit of my history, one that I will be able to pass on to my son. And I want to thank anyone who took the time to let me share this story with them.

Started working on an AMT 53 Ford Pickup about a week ago, have seen a lot of nice builds and always wanted to get one going. Doing all the basics right now, soaked the body and main parts in some dawn and water, scrubbed the stuff down, scribed out the doors, vent and windshield. Removed the door handles, locks and filling in the gas filling area. Also smoothed out the running boards, have them glazed with some Evercoat at the moment. Looking at the chassis and stance at the moment, started assembling the engine. My goal is build a nice 60's style cruiser out of this. I've also been posting a bit more on my Instagram, if anyone is there feel free to drop in at qstick99

Looks like i found another old project that needs to get done. It will be a full detail build with parts from a Revell 66 GTO.

This is my first build in 35+ years,since I was a kid. AMT Ecto 1A Ghostbusters It´s build out of the box...haven´t painted the body otherwise everything else is painted mainly to instrictions.Have also seen a couple of videos on Youtube of other builds of the car. 95% of all is painted with brush using Vallejo Air paint. Only chassis and main interieur was airbrushed. No clear coat either. I know that Slimey and Marshmellow Man is featured in "Ghostbusters 1" movie and Ecto 1A is from "Ghostbusters 2" The figures was found on wish.com