Worst kit ever.

[Chinacar]

This is my attempt to build what I think is the "worst kit ever". It was the first kit I ever bought. I was probably about 13 or 14. The illustration on the box was great and somehow it probably stirred the designer in me to put down my hard earned paper route money and make a purchase. I took it home and destroyed it. Amazingly I went on and bought more kits and kept passionate about modelling.

As time passed I became a car designer for a couple of OEMS finding the time to build kits on the side. A few years ago I saw the reissue of the Gran Turismo and thought "I can fix it". Armed with that attitude I finally oped the box last week and did a sketch as to what it can be. Somewhat inspired by the Focus concept in the 90's and the Buick Wildcat concept from the 80's, my journey begins...

[Bugatti Fan]

Should be a good conceptual build to follow Alex.

Being a car designer it would be very interesting to see how you would approach doing something like Virgil Exner did back in the sixties where he designed modern day concepts of some of the old classics. There was a small series of kits by Renwal named the Revivals featuring Exner's designs. I believe that some of those designs made it to bring built into real concept cars. The Bugatti and Mercer Cobra designs come to mind.

Edited November 22, 2024 by Bugatti Fan

[espo]

Looks like this is based on one of those body kits that used to be popular to mount on VW chassis. In the late '70's I bought a partially done Bradly GT with the gull wing doors that wouldn't latch most of the time and a really tired 1300 engine. Interested with what you'll build out of this.

[ClassicDarts]

even worse than the mpc '67 gto circa the last 40-45 years? if so, that's pretty bad.

[Chinacar]

On 11/22/2024 at 5:59 PM, Bugatti Fan said:

Should be a good conceptual build to follow Alex.

Being a car designer it would be very interesting to see how you would approach doing something like Virgil Exner did back in the sixties where he designed modern day concepts of some of the old classics. There was a small series of kits by Renwal named the Revivals featuring Exner's designs. I believe that some of those designs made it to bring built into real concept cars. The Bugatti and Mercer Cobra designs come to mind.

That whole era of designers was amazing, Exner, Bill Mitchell, Tremulous and my personal favourite Syd Mead. I met Syd in 2003 and gave him a ride from the airport to a venue we were both speaking at. Amazingly humble man for all he's done. The concepts they came up with were really out there. Now most of the latest show cars are mildly disguised production cars. I guess on the reality scale I'm shooting for about the reality of the late 80's early 90's. The old stuff was just too far fetched for me, three wheelers, big wings, bubble tops, torpedo noses...I think this car could be a base for something with more realism. 

[PatW]

Yes we in the UK had various Fibreglass kit cars, sitting on Beetle chassis, some very good, some very bad! I built one of these kits a few years back. It took a lot the line up the top and bottom halves of the body!

Edited November 24, 2024 by PatW

[Chinacar]

On 11/25/2024 at 6:12 AM, PatW said:

Yes we in the UK had various Fibreglass kit cars, sitting on Beetle chassis, some very good, some very bad! I built one of these kits a few years back. It took a lot the line up the top and bottom halves of the body!

I'm not really thinking of using the VW chassis, it's going to set up a bad proportioned car like the Gran Turismo already is. If any thing I may use a 911 chassis which has better vehicle architecture and still rear engined. Ideally the Indy Corvette would also be good for a donor, because of good width to length proportions even if overhangs are a bit long. But overall this is about the right proportion.

[Chinacar]

[dino246gt]

Overhangs are still too long for a modern car in my opinion. All 4 wheels should be at all 4 corners, yeah man!

Can't wait to see what you do with this kit though, should be interesting, given you design background!

Cheers, I'm following.