WHY DO I BUILD & WHAT MAKES ME TICK?

[E St. Kruiser50]

This is a cool place and we meet a lot of cool people here on this forum, but the friendships usually stay pretty superficial, so I thought I'd share a little about me and how I ended up in "PLASTIC" LOL, and hoped maybe some of you guy's would share in return.

Life is really good now, but started out pretty rotten, probably like a lot of you.

Home life pretty much "Sucked", as parents made it very clear pretty much from the beginning, that they wished they never had any kid's.

But I found that friends made a big difference in the "Happiness Factor". I had several great friends, including my buddies parents who seemed to understand my home situation, and sort of adopted me into their family. They even tried to marry me off to several relatives. Pretty cool.

When I was seven I really got into military model, by talking my dad into taking me with him to the hobby shop. He never talked much to me, and never really figured him out. Mostly a stranger to me up until the day he died. Kind of a loner and no friends , gone all the time and wanted to be alone when he came home from work. Mom was pretty much the same as dad, and lived a solitary quiet life with no friends either, so I sorta lived in my little world of plastic until I became a teenager and discovered cars - plastic and real.

That really opened up a new life for me, as I passionately enjoyed model car building and was pretty good at it, and won some awards, and was in some of the early car mags before there were model mags. My parents thought it was pretty cool, and bragged to all the neighbors, but I found out they weren't proud of me, they were proud of themselves for having such a talented son . Oh well.

Then I met a couple of local mail men, a few years older than me, who were into street racing, custom car shows and the drags. They seemed to understand my situation, maybe better than I did. They used to haul me everywhere with them to all the events on the weekends- even paid for me and never asked for a dime back. That still amazes me to this day. All that made a huge difference in my future.

As I got older, I discovered life was really exciting apart from my home life, and there was so much to try and enjoy when it came to my interests. besides my model stuff, I built some nice 1 to 1 cars, A few streetrods and customs. In SoCal, in the 50's and 60's it's what everyone did - me too.

Grew up, got married - TWICE, finally went to counciling for a few years after the second one ended, to figure out how to fix my life. Somethin' wasn't workin' and I wanted to figure why.

Kind of expensive too - divorce. Lost everything twice, especially the second time, "about a half a mil", and that one hurt.

I found out the problem was I was marrying women just like my mom. No kidding. I heard about other people doin' that, and the problems that came from it, but never realized I was "One Of Them" doin it LOL

At the same time though, the non-relational part of my life was great.

I restored cars, built street rods and customs, bought antique furniture and restored it and even taught refinishing for a while, and collected antique glass for a few years.

I got into art and sculpting and poetry for about 10 years also, and belonged to an art association in Berdoo. I was always into several things at the same time, as well as spending plenty of time with my wife and kids and friends and relatives. Also got into furniture building and inlay work like the antique furniture, and spent several years being trained by a professional furniture builder and refinisher from Poland-NO JOKES PLEASE.

My career it seems, I mostly got paid to play

After college, somehow I seemed to make all the right choices about where to work, always in plastics - vacuum forming. I loved it. I got to design, create, and work with a huge varity of machines, tools, supplies and materials, plastics, metals, resins, and casting mediums of all sorts. It seemed like the more the better, and I thrived on learning, and I still do, and love being challanged. The more complicated and challanging a project, the better.

I learned machining, pattern making, and tool making. For a number of years I was a designer and mechanicl engineer and project engineer, and a dept. manager, managing half of a large business, under the owner/president. I owned a successful business of my own for several years too, while staying involved with my kids. I had a high energy level back then and only to sleep 3-5 hours a night average. Still only about 5 or 6.

So all that learning and extreme difficulties at times, during those 58 years and finally letting God get involved in my life, to make life so much better, because part of it really was pretty miserable, is how I got to where I am here today, and enjoying this hobby and passion we all share here on this forum.

As I look back, I can see where God was involved with all of it, and I give Him all the credit fot my skills, talents and my passion for people, life, and this hobby.

I build for Him now, and hopefully you see more in what I build than just me and my talent's, because it's really Him you see, because to what ever level you think I build at, it's way above where I coud have been without Him.

If you made it this far , congratulations for you interest, patience and perserverance, not to mention putting up with my spelling .

Now hopefully you'll tell me about yourself now.

Thanks all - dave

Edited February 2, 2009 by Treehugger Dave

[dryvr12]

I def. don't have that much to say. I started building model cars because im a car fanatic, but i cant drive yet. It also helps me learn a little bit about the history (some kits have car history in the instructions) I do have one airplane that I got while in the Kalamazoo air museum.

[ricky12]

WOW WHAT A LIFE ,I DONT NO IF I WOULD TRADE YOU OR NOT . BUT BEEN PLAYING AROUND WITH MODELS SINCE I WAS 10 OR 11 . GOT REALY INTO IT STRONG ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS OF ON WORKMANS COMP FOR A COUPLE MONTHS .AND FOUND A LOCAL GROUP OF GUYS THAT USDED TO HAVE A CLUB . NOW THEY JUST TRY TO GET TOGETHER ONCE A MONTH AND WE TRY TO GO TO A COUPLE SHOWS A YEAR AS A GROUP . AND NOW I HAVE FOUND SEVERAL GREAT PEOPLE ON THE FORUM .THATS WHAT KEEPS ME GOING .ALSO FORGOT TO SAY I CAN'T AFFORD THE REAL CARS ANY MORE WITH TO KIDS PULLING AT MY WALLET EVERY TIME I TURN AROUND .

Edited February 3, 2009 by ricky12

[Helipilot16]

I spent 21 years in the Army. Upon retiring, I went back to building hot rods and commercial buildings ( I was a concrete contractor). I am fully retired now and spend 8 hours a day building models.

I am a life long atheist and secular humanist. We all have within us the means to do some pretty astounding things if we apply ourselves. I am still exploring the limits of my own abilities.

[Custom Hearse]

My life was kind of like yours Dave.... Bad parents. My dad was the one who got me into modeling though, by buying me a 1/8th scale chopper kit. The problem was that I was only 5 at the time. He pretty much bought it for himself, and used me as an excuse.

I started building models at 5, starting with that chopper, just to spite him. After that, I worked on 1/24th-25th scale kits, and haven't stopped since. I've been married and divorced three times, but still kept building (my favorite saying is if I'm the groom at a shotgun wedding, I'm gonna tell them to pull the trigger!). I believe the reason I have such a hard time finishing a model nowadays, is because I have been building models for 40 years now, and I'm getting a whopping case of the "burnouts".

The main reason I build custom models is because I have so many warped ideas, that I want to see if they would work. My biggest influence on realism is a woman who owned a hobby shop in my home town of San Clemente Ca. Her advise was "when you build, think of it as if you were building a real car. If it won't work on a real vehicle, then don't put it on a kit." She was like your friends who adopted you, she pretty much did the same for me, and even hired me to work in her hobby shop. I built display models (cars, planes, trucks), and did repair work on R/C vehicles. She was the best friend and boss I've ever had. She sold the shop, and retired about 5 years later.

That pretty much sums up my life and why I build models....

[Peter Lombardo]

Sorry, I ran a little long here….but this is something that needs to be explained…two lines just will not cover the subject for me.

Well Dave, I have to give you a lot of credit….looks like you have been through a difficult life but seem to have survived it all pretty well. A dysfunctional childhood usually leads to a dysfunctional adulthood ( like they say, the children of alcoholics grow up to become alcoholics, same with physical abuse and mental abuse ) but it looks like you found your way, and I certainly understand your need for some spiritual guidance. I have a childhood friend, my oldest friend in the world, who had a tough childhood, had a breakdown in his late twenties but is now a happy Assistant Pastor in a large congregation in the Philly area…he’s married and has two beautiful daughters and one adorable grand daughter. God gave him his direction and I guess he has given you the inner peace you were seeking.

As for me, my life was a whole lot more boring…not much drama to it. My mother was a very talented semi-professional artist….I grew up in a house that always smelled of linseed oil (oil used as a base in oil paints). I spent much of my childhood drawing and painting until I discovered model car kits when I was about 10 years old. I had built a few military models prior to that, but when I found model cars I was hooked. Growing up, we had Lionel trains and a basement layout of HO trains, but I always gravitated back to model cars. Model cars were my “Happy Placeâ€â€¦that place I could go and just relax. I would sit at my work table in the basement, turn on my transistor radio and listen to WABC AM radio. They would play the Beach Boys, 4 Seasons and this brand new music from England…the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kicks. That British Invasion music is linked in my mind to the model cars I was building back then. I would build a Hot Rod Coupe or a Corvette and at the beach in Southern California just like in the music of the Beach Boys. I was able to express my creativity in a way that nothing else gave me. I enjoyed drawing but model cars were so much more to me. I remember as a kid, opening the box and seeing all of the parts. The body all white and smooth. The promise of another beautiful representation of the real car that I wanted but as a young teenager, could only dream about. My friends and I built models until we were old enough to discover real cars, girls and our beloved beer. We had some great parties back in the day. We lived in NJ where the legal drinking age was 21, but just a 30 minute drive to New York City where the legal age was 18 and would fill the trunk and head back to NJ.

After High School, I was off for four years in the Navy. I think it was a great experience. I was a Quartermaster (Navigator) on a couple of Tin Cans (destroyers). I made two tours of duty in Vietnam where we on Plane Guard duty tailing aircraft carriers in the Tonkin Gulf, shore bombardment duty, coastal patrol in support of ground troops and a few trips “up river†where things got pretty rough a few times. I grew up in the Navy…I matured. My whole life changed. I began to take things seriously. I saw much of the world, experienced just about all anyone could under those circumstances and do not regret a minute of it….well there was that one time in Hong Kong…and those two times in the Philippines…but…..that’s not important now. After the Navy it was Night College just about every night and fulltime work as an accountant in a small accounting firm. How odd was that…I was an artist who was creative and free flowing stuck in the exact world of accounting. I really am a Gemini. I am twins. I had the dual left and right sides of my brain working me over. Anyway, in my spare time (not too much of it) I was building a huge model of “Old Ironsidesâ€, the Constitution…trust me, you have to be a masochistic crazy person to attempt all of that rigging….the block and tackle with all of the lines is insane.

Soon there after I met the perfect woman, I mean she was absolutely perfect. One date and I knew she was going to be the mother of my children. One year later and we were married. 34 years and it still is as fresh and exciting as it was back then. Then I found the Tamiya 1/12 scale F1 cars and built 6 of them which I wish I still had. Like a fool, I gave them away when we moved to our second house because I had just rediscovered HO trains. With the trains I was really into weathering the rolling stock. I painted and decaled everything. I built all of the structures from the great selection of craftsman kits, most out of wood. Built about half of a layout in the basement and just like that, I got tired of the trains and started back looking at the model cars. I would go into the hobby shop and look at the Tamiya 1/20 scale F1 cars, remember the 1/12 cars I built and I had to start up with the model cars again.

I sold my entire collection of custom painted HO trains and buildings and got back to my real love, model cars. I started back building the F1 cars and race cars but soon found myself back wanting to build customs and street rods. At first I was a Tamiya snob. AMT and Revell just weren’t up to the Tamiya or Fujimi quality, well at least I thought so. But after awhile, I was getting board building race cars that had to be a certain color, and a certain seat and the exact right seatbelt. I did not enjoy the lack of creativity that presented me. Yeah, every now and then they are fun, but I really enjoy building cars that are painted the color I want. Or the interior is the way I think it should be. I like being the boss of my builds. Building what I want.

Now I have a small advertising agency and I get to express my creative side more in a work enviornment. That is fun and exciting...I just wish the economy was better...the business, or I should say, lack of business now is putting a real strain on the business.

I still paint with oils and I have a collection of pen and ink drawings I have done but I just love building model cars. Yeah, sometimes I feel juvenile doing that, but that’s ok. I think my oil painting, even though I do that for my own pleasure too, is more important. You know, more adult, more sophisticated. I mean, my kids will not fight over my model cars when I die, but they are already telling me which paintings they want when they come down off my walls. It may sound crazy, but I think of them as something lasting. Something that will stand up for generations. When I am long gone from this earth, I like to think that a little piece of me will linger on through my artwork. I have a few of my mothers paintings hanging on the walls near some of mine and it is nice to know that I have that little bit of her right there. I have something that no other person on this earth has. Yeah, I enjoy the beautiful sunrise painting I did that is in my dining room but I sure enjoy my 1936 Cybele Special too. Art is art!!! Painting or three dimensional custom cars….it is all art to me.

[RodBurNeR]

you guys are writing books! I could do that I guess, but this sums it up in short for me.

I build models because I love cars, love the people in this hobby and I don't worry about impressing anyone. I have always liked working with my hands and by building models I get a sense of pride. I also build more than ever because it's the one thing that doesn't get me in trouble with the law, doesn't put others at risk of anything and doesn't make my wife go nuts worrying what time I will be home....I am home all the time, unless I go to another modelers house or car show.

[93Z34]

I'm a pretty private person when it comes to divulging my personal life. Just not into publishing an autobiography, if you will. But, to answer the question about what makes me keep modeling, it's pretty simple. In today's economy, where can you build a '71 Hemi Cuda for under $100 including paint and supplies? How about a Dodge Daytona? I build cars that I know I'll never be able to afford in this lifetime, but just can't get enough of. I do enjoy restoring the 1:1 cars, but again, cost is a huge factor and I am of the mindset that if I can't get the car I want to restore, then I won't settle for something else I simply wouldn't be happy with, even when it was done. Of course if I invested all the money I have in models and supplies since starting in this hobby 30+ years ago, I would probably have a Daytona sitting in my garage now.

One thing that keeps me in the hobby is the comraderie that modelers share. We all have a passion for this hobby and regardless of what we choose to build, the core drive for building keeps us all together as a family. We can admire eachother's work and learn from eachother's efforts and apply what we've learned to our own projects. It's also a very relaxing hobby, except for when your current project gives you fits when you're trying to achieve perfection. To sum it up, it's just a cool hobby with the coolest people in the world associated with it and that in itself makes it addictive as all hell.

[mredzadventure]

Well I guess this is a good a place to make an introduction. Lets see I'm located in the wilds of Michigan. I Grew up In the U.P. which has great weather in the winter for Skiing, Ice fishing,snowmobiling, Hauling fire wood and model building. My cousin got me started. when I was 9 or 10 A snap together Ferrari Magnum PI vintage. My dad had a part time body shop and my uncle restored old cars we also owned a bar/restaurant. I started full scale before my first model. I got up close and personal with a D/A sander at the tender age of 9 I watched my dad and uncle paint cars bang on bodies, Drag old junkers out of the north 40 woods to fix them up. I thought all dads had a frame straightener. I wanted to do what they did so I started with models. I kept up with cars and airplanes then rockets. I graduated to R.C. planes and trucks and cars electric and gas. Through the years I would try to build at least one model every so often. I had about 20 or 30 different ones all gone now. So after 11 years of marriage to 1 great gal 3 cool kids I guess I'm coming full circle.

I sold my full scale 1971 road runner last year. The car was a dream my dad and I had to fix it up, but time money and geography were all problems. This Christmas My dad bought me a 1/24 1971 GTX. So I'm trying to do it right. I'm a little rusty but looking forward to the build. I have found a lot of great info on the forum so here I am. I have been fascinated with

old cars and trucks since I was little also airplanes have a special place in my heart. Most any aviation really. Old cars and trucks are the closest thing to a time machine you can get. They drive just like they did in 1940 or 1950 etc. The look the feel the sound are all the same as they were years ago. Coming from a body shop background the look of the car (design) grabs me. I also love the detail from a modeling aspect

engine interior etc some of the stuff you guy's (gals to) is incredible. Very cool.

Edited February 4, 2009 by mredzadventure

[E St. Kruiser50]

Well I guess this is a good a place to make an introduction. Lets see I'm located in the wilds of Michigan. I Grew up In the U.P. which has great weather in the winter for Skiing, Ice fishing,snowmobiling, Hauling fire wood and model building. My cousin got me started. when I was 9 or 10 A snap together Ferrari Magnum PI vintage. My dad had a part time body shop and my uncle restored old cars we also owned a bar/restaurant. I started full scale before my first model. I got up close and personal with a D/A sander at the tender age of 9 I watched my dad and uncle paint cars bang on bodies, Drag old junkers out of the north 40 woods to fix them up. I thought all dads had a frame straightener. I wanted to do what they did so I started with models. I kept up with cars and airplanes then rockets. I graduated to R.C. planes and trucks and cars electric and gas. Through the years I would try to build at least one model every so often. I had about 20 or 30 different ones all gone now. So after 11 years of marriage to 1 great gal 3 cool kids I guess I'm coming full circle.

I sold my full scale 1971 road runner last year. The car was a dream my dad and I had to fix it up, but time money and geography were all problems. This Christmas My dad bought me a 1/24 1971 GTX. So I'm trying to do it right. I'm a little rusty but looking forward to the build. I have found a lot of great info on the forum so here I am. I have been fascinated with

old cars and trucks since I was little also airplanes have a special place in my heart. Most any aviation really. Old cars and trucks are the closest thing to a time machine you can get. They drive just like they did in 1940 or 1950 etc. The look the feel the sound are all the same as they were years ago. Coming from a body shop background the look of the car (design) grabs me. I also love the detail from a modeling aspect

engine interior etc some of the stuff you guy's (gals to) is incredible. Very cool.

Hi

Welcome to the "CLUB".

This is a great place.

I hope you stick around and share what you love to build - dave

[whale392]

Hastings, Michigan?! That is where I was born and spent 11 years of my life!

My dad was an auto mechanic (still is) who also raced cars (still does that too). I got into them at an early age as you might guess. I also found some of my dads kits and trashed (under the guise of building...hey, I was trying to build them anyway) them...really valuable kits today. We moved to Florida when I was 11; dad still wrenched and raced, so I was still involved. Started building and modifying models and soon real cars as well. Still here doing it, and so is dad.

[Kyle.]

Well My dad and 2 of my older brothers( one i look up to) Are mechanics, My brother started to build them when i was around 7 and i always liked watching him and stuff like that. So i Tryed some and they never worked out right.

Last year i decided to try again and went out and bought a bunch of paint's, brushes, models, etc..

did a Few. Then summer came and i got back in to biking. Now its winter again and I needed a new hobby because i can't ride in winter. so over the last few weeks i have been doing these with my brother Seeing how i can't drive.(well i can but not legally) My brother lets me drive every now and then.

[mredzadventure]

Hastings, Michigan?! That is where I was born and spent 11 years of my life!

My dad was an auto mechanic (still is) who also raced cars (still does that too). I got into them at an early age as you might guess. I also found some of my dads kits and trashed (under the guise of building...hey, I was trying to build them anyway) them...really valuable kits today. We moved to Florida when I was 11; dad still wrenched and raced, so I was still involved. Started building and modifying models and soon real cars as well. Still here doing it, and so is dad.

Its posts like this That makes you realize how small of a world we are spinning on. Go Saxons My dad does some body work when he wants to. We never got into racing to busy coming junk yards for parts.

I moved here 11 years ago we love it here. Times are getting a little tough all of the major car dealers have closed up Ford, Chrysler,Chevy, Buick, All gone. But We are holding are own.

[mredzadventure]

Well My dad and 2 of my older brothers( one i look up to) Are mechanics, My brother started to build them when i was around 7 and i always liked watching him and stuff like that. So i Tryed some and they never worked out right.

Last year i decided to try again and went out and bought a bunch of paint's, brushes, models, etc..

did a Few. Then summer came and i got back in to biking. Now its winter again and I needed a new hobby because i can't ride in winter. so over the last few weeks i have been doing these with my brother Seeing how i can't drive.(well i can but not legally) My brother lets me drive every now and then.

Kyle Ya better be careful driving underage I started driving when I was 9 (I was tall kid) Now I drive a Mack truck for a living I should have have started playing with a chemistry set or something. It might have rubbed off Oh well I can't complain

[mredzadventure]

Hi

Welcome to the "CLUB".

This is a great place.

I hope you stick around and share what you love to build - dave

Thanks Dave I'm finishing up a Guillows Piper Cherokee Then I'm Staring my 71 I have some photo etched parts plug wires and heater hoses I have some more stuff to add. I really like Muscle cars Mopar especially. I love the Roadsters, T-buckets The late 50's flat paint, flames, white walls low Mercury's. American Graffiti vibe. Also Trucks or anything with good lines.

[Farmer Wilding]

Well, my details seem to be rather tame compared to some of what I've heard. My mother was an artist, photo retoucher, and musician, and I guess there's some of that artistic streak coming out in my models - the preoccupation with shape and colour. My daughter has that too - she's a professional illustrator.

As a child I wanted to be a car designer. I was always drawing cars. I started building cars at about seven, when I was given an AMT kit of the first Mustang for Christmas! It was a bit beyond me. Cement? That's what you used for building foundations! And all those building versions! Stock? Custom, and if so, which?? Competition? Mix and match all three? Hardtop or Convertible? It took me forever to decide...

I started buying my own kits in '71. I was never much of a one for the girls (too shy); I just kept building, reading, listening to music, and studying - more or less in that priority! Down here in Australia we got a lot of Japanese kits in the seventies, so when American cars went boring (ugly shapes, bouncy bumpers, no guts - no image) and annuals largely disappeared, there were plenty of Japanese and European kits to buy. And I saw those cars on the road every day.

Somehow I finished high school and went to study at a college in the city, which had this great hobby shop just around the corner. It was here I got into some of the larger scale Tamiya, Bandai and Otaki kits. My first job, as a medical lab technician, was just down the road from there, so I'd often walk into town during my lunch break and check out the shop. And often buy something. And later build it.

Eventually I got married at 27. My wife says I didn't show her all my models until after she said she'd marry me! There'd be some truth in that - the pantry was full of models, and the linen cupboard was full of books. My building slowed down a lot after that, especially when the children came along, but I'd still turn out a few now and then.

My career took a massive change of direction, and I went to theological college. This time there was no spare money, and I didn't have time to build much, except during the holidays. After three years I wound up pastoring in a rural area, and it was interesting to go visiting on farms and check out the old iron abandoned or stashed away in sheds. And also to visit the small-town shops and buy up interesting kits that had just been sitting there for years.

Ten years ago I came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I hope none of you ever get this. Recovery was painfully slow for the first couple of years, and my wife was all too happy that I had my models as an interest then. They gave me something familiar yet at the same time challenging to do, so I could find my way out of the mental fog. Healing came by the grace of God; the doctors had done their all, but then recovery speeded up dramatically. Now I'm working part-time again, and managed to build 32 models last year.

As I said above, it's an artistic thing for me, a creative outlet. It's all about shape and colour. Most of my cars are factory stock or not far off it, but I enjoy choosing interesting colour schemes (not always factory). I rarely use black or white on a body. I don't build anything I'd regard as ugly without trying to improve it. It might be as simple as widening the track, maybe removing some extraneous body trim, or something more involved like reshaping a window opening, or taking the hump out of the hood of a '51 Chevy. I tend not to build many customs, because my enthusiasm for modifications often runs away from me - I have several projects abandoned in boxes where my bodywork skills just weren't up to the task. Another Juha I am most definitely NOT!! I also do quite a few light commercials - they take me back to the days when I used to visit the produce markets as a kid with Dad, and I'd see all the cool old trucks the farmers had.

[Billy Kingsley]

Very interesting thread. Cars are in my blood-that's why I do it. I'm a 4th-generation "car guy"-it was destined to be, I suppose.

I actually owe my hobby to my mom. It was her idea to even consider it, and it was her motivational support that got me really into it and kept me at it. Not only that, but she drives me half way across the country every year for a model show!! She also got me into NASCAR...

Even though I am a lifelong car guy, I actually don't drive...yet. I've had my permit since 2000 but I almost never use it. And even if I did, I would not be able to afford all these cars in full size. I build what I would have in full size scale if money were not a problem. I mostly build NASCAR and factory stock or mild customs, which is what I like in the real car world. That's about all there is to it, in fact.

[FloridaBoy]

What makes me tick????? First, I love models and miniatures, but have focused my passion to plastic model cars and N scale model trains, for the sake of finances and room in my place.

I think who we are and what we are is pretty well defined of what influenced us in our very early formulative years, like for me, age 3 through 8. As an only child with a peak & valley financial situation with my parents, I grew up with the knowledge I was my parents first priority. I wasn't spoiled, but as both of my parents worked to make a buck, I was put into the care of my grandma and my aunts and uncles. I was brought up near the downtown railroad tracks and right next door to a Chevy dealership, and several of my uncles were mechanics. My earliest car influences were my Dad and my Uncle Bob, the former driving new hot flashy cars of the forties, and the latter being an avid model builder aspiring to be a mechanic.

We built AMT dealer promo's of GM cars which were cast off by the Chevy dealer, using masking tape for skirts and so on. I also learned that my good behavior and carrying on like a wild kid would reap benefits, like attention, and gifts, like trains and model cars. Parents rarely hired a sitter because they could drag me to friends' houses and I would station myself somewhere and go into my little daydream world. Never bothered anyone, but grew to accommodate grown-ups early.

Very happy.

Then at age 8 we moved from Pennsylvania to Florida, and couldn't build or buy until 1958 when I saw the first run of AMT 3in1 kits. I was hooked right there, and built a car every weekend, never destroying it with firecrackers just building a display shelf. My parents inspired me to participate in outdoor sports and to have an inside hobby, which I responded. We lived near several hobby shops and I improved with every model, and got pretty darn good, winning four local Pactra constests had a car in CarModel, newspaper articles and such. I even won the Master Hobby Award in the Hobby Exposition in Ft. Lauderdale.

I can remember at a critical contest one night I asked my parents to drive me at midnight to see the results of a judging which took place earlier, and I won totally unexpectedly. My dad and mom told me right on the spot how proud they were of me.

I was sectioning cars, painting candies and pearls, detailing undercarriages, upholstering interiors, kitbashing and opening doors as early as 1961, and until 1970 basically went undefeated in model car contests. I got loads of free stuff in return for displaying my cars in the hobby shops. I was really given a lot of positive reinforcements.

As I got older and the hobby waned, I became a tennis player because of the competition and fire inside me, and then college, marriage and settling down. I wanted to stick around home when not playing tennis, so I built to keep my hands and mind occupied while watching TV with my wife.

I built on and off but mostly on since 82 when the hobby took off again, and here I am. I am struggling with the incredible level of detail and accuracy put into models today, but I concentrate still on my body work. Foose, Coddington, Cushenberry, Roth and many others are major influences.

Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman

[James Flowers]

It all started with Me discovering a hobby shop when I was 7 or 8 years old. I told My DAD about it on one of his visits. He took Me there and I bought an Edsel Promo . I don't remember the first year they came out but that's the year it was. I played with it until it was junk. Then I started buying kits and building them to play with. They all rolled back then. I crashed and burnt a lot of kits back then. I know I bought plenty of the Double Dragster kits and other double kits. The rest is history. I have never completely stopped building over the years. I am now 57 years young. I still have models I built in the late 60's.