I built my first model kit in _________, and it was a ____________.

[meechum68]

First kit was a 1:48 scale P-61 Black Widow, which is why I have a soft spot and several in my stash, I was 8-9 years old then. 

It started my love for models.

[1959scudetto]

Must have been in 1969 (in Nov. 1968 we moved from a village in the Tyrolean Alps to a small town south of Vienna, which had two toy/hobby shops!) - my new schoolmates brought me to styrene models, mainly Airfix plastic bag kits: 1/72 WW2 planes, sailing ships and 1/32 car kits which I can remember some - glued together with tube glue, partially painted with Humbrol enamels, and bought another one when pocket money allowed it (NO stash back then!).

I found some pics on the internet:

This is where it started....

 

Edited June 7 by 1959scudetto

[tim boyd]

I built my first model kit in the summer of 1962 at age 8 and it was a Revell 1/25th scale Dodge Lancer GT.  TB ______.

[Wickersham Humble]

Tim: Lancers and Valiants with Exner's 'European' styling: but beware Moostangers; he had the modern long-hood/short deck look nailed before Ford's guys co-opted it.  '62 Ply/Dodge also.  Didn't last long when Engel replaced him.  In 1960, I used my meagre earnings from pumping gas at the local airport on weekends to buy car mags as well as 3-in-1 kits, and fell in love with his Plymouth XNR sports car; wish I could have found a kit of that to 'kustomize' back then.  Very meagre areo, compromised for 'The Forward Look', but rakish and very dramatic in red!  If I found a g-b for sale that was salvageable, I'd buy it -- except for all the dozen 65-year-old kits from my misspent teen years I'm still trying to finish up!  Wick, at 80...

[Junkman]

Munich, Germany, during the days following Christmas 1973.
It was this kit.

 

[Big Messer]

Sometime around early to mid-60's. A F4U Corsair, probably Airfix. Second an Airfix Rolls-Royce. Managed to glue one front wheel to the rear axle... Plenty of fingerprints also.

[Trainwreck]

In 1967 my first build was a 1/32nd scale Pyro multipiece body '37 chev. drop top.

[Wickersham Humble]

Doug, you are senior to me!  On the Highway Pioneers models (which we bought ostensibly for my Dad, but... ) were they once marketed under the brand name 'Gowland & Gowland'??  Every time I think of them, that pops into my head.  Of course, I lived through the 'sixties...

Dad was an Asst. Sup. of County Schools, and very dedicated to his job; he was from a Dust Bowl family who homesteaded W. KS, and when his Pop died in a construction accident when he fourteen, he inherited the family Model T touring.  He said it was the only car he could work on, but he knew it's every mood!  Mom wanted to encourage him to get a hobby, so she footed the bill for each of we three boys to gift him with a T, or Stanley Steamer, or even a HP Rolls, of which I still have a few fragments!  Usually, I was the one who spearheaded the builds, though; and if you recall how the wheels attached [the center slipped over the axle shaft, then one applied a heated screw-driver blade to melt a retaining hub on it ] and how usually I could expect two wheels of the four to still turn! Also, somehow the over-scale driver figures always looked a little drunk!

Even in those early 'fifties days, I wished I could make a hot rod out of them!  I have a '62 Revell product flyer that still lists nine HP kits, and something that I don't recall ever seeing on the shelves; two 1/16 kits, 1913 Maxwell roadster and 1917 Ford Model T coupe at $1.98 each!  Are you or anyone else familiar with those?

The '62 dealer's binder for plastic model kits (includes some earlier offerings, too) is a fantasy wonderland of possibilities for an avid modeler; how could I have missed out on buying a few of each -- other than only being able to afford one kit per month on my paper-route earnings!?  Pretty dog-eared pages, but full of marvelous kits; glad at least that I was able to buy/build a smattering of what was 'out there' in my high school days!!  Wick