Post the oldest kit in your collection

[Bucky]

Great stuff, here!

The oldest build I still have is this one:

I built it in early 1985 from the Jo-Han kit. i didn't paint the body on this one.

The next one was built right around the same time:

Jo-Han 1968 Cadillac convertible. First built as a factory stock in early '85. In '87, it suffered a slam from about five feet to the floor by an irate so-called better half. I could find all the broken stock parts, so I rebuilt it as this custom, complete with a Ford 429!

I still have this Caddy, but not the one who inflicted the damage!

These are fairly dusty, and I'm thinking about rebuilding them in the near future.

I had others from the sixties, but due to unforeseen circumstances around 1980, those are long gone. 

[dragcarz]

Great subject! My oldest dates back to 1971 or 1972, original MPC Don Garlets kit. Built after it first came out. It fell apart over the years and a few moves, some time in the early 80s I scrounged a replacement set of decals, replaced the original peeling decals and cleared the body, and put it back together. 

[59 Impala]

This 61 Chevy truck is the oldest I believe in my stash.  I built this in 61 or 62.  I can't remember which year.  I almost ruined it by scraping all the paint off and the trim.  I restored it and it is now on the shelf again.

 

[maxwell48098]

This is a 1925 Ford Model T roadster  that I built in 1960 from original AMT kit 125 1925 Ford Model T double kit. There is no paint on this model except for some silver accents and red tail light.   I found this when cleaning out my parents home after they both passed away and we were getting it ready for sale back in 1985.  It somehow got wrapped in tissue paper by my father who kept it in a dresser drawer unbeknownst to me.  I remember my father telling he he learned to drive on a 1924 Ford Model T roadster on his uncle's farm in Iowa in 1926, and I guess it had symbolic significance for him.

 

[Snake45]

Two more of my very oldest, both dating to circa early 1967. 

Original issue Monkeemobile. Cleaned it up, fixed what was broken, and generally "rescued" it two years ago, but basically the same way I built it then. 

Original issue Mako Shark, again, cleaned up, fixed up, and touched up last year, but still wearing its original 1967 AMT Candy Oriental Blue paint job. 

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Snake45

[Ace-Garageguy]

The oldest plastic car kits in my possession are the first issue acetate Monogram Midget and an early Revell Ferrari showing a 1955 copyright.

                                                           

 

[Ralph Henderson]

On 6/25/2019 at 2:52 PM, Dann Tier said:

Wow Dann, That's amazing!!

[Dann Tier]

On 6/27/2019 at 10:36 PM, Ralph Henderson said:

Wow Dann, That's amazing!!

Thanks!, glad you like it!....it was a bugger to paint all that!, lol

[zakdoggi]

Unfortunately, all of my childhood builds ended up either in the hands of my younger brothers out in the sandpit, or pulled apart and used for slot car bodies. ?

Here's my first serious adult build - Tamiya's beautiful Porsche Turbo RSR Type 934. I built this 1976 issue in 1980 in the spare bedroom of our first new house, six months into our marriage.

My dear wife went nuts at me because I got Italian Red overspray all over the vacuum cleaner, which happened to be in range and not covered with newspaper!!

Anyhow, the model is built right out of the box and finished in Tamiya Italian Red right from the can.

This one takes pride of place in my display case and still looks great after some 39 years!!

And I've been collecting and building ever since ?

Cheers....... Geoff

[Carmak]

Sorry for the poor picture, it was taken in 2007 before I packed most of my collection to escape the flood of 2008 in Iowa. These were saved but are still mostly packed away.

On the shelf on the left in the picture below is a 54 Pontiac (yellow top shelf) and a 54 Ford (red third from top) that are part of an AMT "Assembly Kit" from 1954. There were 3 cars in the kit (the third car, a 54 Buick is not shown in this pick). They were essentially un-assembled promos with different wheels and decals. They made them in 53 and 54. 

[Hmann68]

As kids, my buddies and I built models in the late 70’s and early 80’s. We had a model table at each one of our homes. Each one of us had a project going at each house! It was awesome to rotate the destination for a particular day and pick up where you left off on that particular car or truck. It was great to build stuff together and swap parts etc. This is the first build I did as an adult. Done in 99-2000 winter, while wife was pregnant and couldn’t go out much. It got me hooked back into this hobby. I’ve done a lot better since this one, but it’s special to me. By the way, my buddies still come over for a beer and stare at my model cabinet, and wish they were still tinkering with models. They remember the fun we had. Thanks everyone for this great forum!

[skipp20]

[skipp20]

[Tom Geiger]

The oldest survivor from my youth, circa 1970.  As a kid I had seen the original  "The Italian Job" and fell in love with the Mini Coopers. I lived in Germany at the time.  This is a 1/25 Scale Polystil diecast.  They sold these both as a finished mode and as a prepainted kit.  This one was the kit.  I did my own thing with it. I painted the hood black, washed the wheels and lettered the tires.  I removed the grill.

I detail painted the interior and added orange felt as carpet.

Somehow it survived all these years!  It was always on the shelf in my room, and I recently found a photo of my first apartment and it was sitting on the shelf in the living room.  When I was in high school we did single frame animation, and this Mini starred in our film since all the panels opened.  We spent weeks taking those shots and it was over in  a minute.  The car pulls up. A clay figure gets out of the car. He opens the hood, looks at the engine. Shuts the hood and runs around to the trunk, opened and closed it.  Then he got back in the car and drove away.

 

 

[GLMFAA1]

My oldest is AMT Craftsman series 1964 Chevelle snap together.

to get the stance was to make lower holes for the axle which was close to the standard hole so heated up sprue was jammed into axle relief in the chassis

Have no idea where I got the deep dish rims from,

greg

[ChrisBcritter]

8 hours ago, GLMFAA1 said:

My oldest is AMT Craftsman series 1964 Chevelle snap together.

Have no idea where I got the deep dish rims from,

greg

Could be from the AMT '66 Impala or '57 T-bird gasser kit.

Edited July 7, 2019 by ChrisBcritter

[Anglia105E]

This is the first model car that I built only two years ago, after returning to the hobby 50 years after building car models as a teenager.

It is the 1:24 scale Minicraft Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud with many modifications, and finished in airbrushed Sage Green over Velvet Green with BMF chrome.

David

[caapa]

My first car was built box-stock from an Esci kit 1:24. After some years were the tires swollen so much that the wheels couldn`t rotate. I must cut off the soft swollen "rubber". Since that the car works well.

[Sam I Am]

I did the Hubley Model A Coupe, roadster,  and roadster pu when I  was about 8-10. The other Model A's were done by my older siblings, and cousin in the mid 60s.

[High octane]

This is the oldest build that I have left from the early 70's and it has been showing its age. It's the MPC '69 Dodge Coronet R/T and I used a lot of parts from the JoHan Sox & Martin kit also. The paint is AMT lacquers from rattle cans.

[#1 model citizen]

These are the oldest survivors of my builds, both in the mid eighties(?). The Mercedes was my 1st experience with Bare Metal Foil. The '32 Chevy was reassembled/restored from the jumble of parts that it had become about 2 years ago. The Mercedes had sat so long a strip of chrome just fell off during the photo shoot. Didn't take much for the windshield to let go too! (They have been reattached.) es

Edited July 21, 2019 by #1 model citizen