What was your first model kit?

[pulln4dejr]

Was just thinking about this and thought it might be a fun topic 

The first model that I remember getting was around 1970, I  remember my oldest brother giving me Bobby Issac’s Daytona complete with the “iron-in-patch for Christmas (1970?). He was a huge NASCAR and Daytona fan and got me hooked on cars by the age of 10!
So let’s hear about what you remember was your kit kit, sit back and enjoy 

Edited Friday at 07:16 PM by pulln4dejr

[Bill_B]

I believe I was around 8 or so. My memory is pretty fuzzy but I either had the Knight Rider car or the Kodak car driven by Irvin. I believe it was KITT though cause I remember Dad helping me with some paint and assistance on how to read the instructions. I still have that very car intact. Rough to look at but intact. 

 

[Dave G.]

Helicopter 1958, I was 8. Also as a first model it was out of my league entirely, but an uncle helped me glue bomb it together.  

Edited yesterday at 03:15 PM by Dave G.

[Engine 51]

MPC Jeepster, police version. 

[JollySipper]

The earliest I remember building by myself was a 1/32 '55 Chevy........... It was molded in blue. It had aluminum slot wheels, and side-pipes and such! I thought it was the coolest thing........

[Ace-Garageguy]

First model was an airplane definitely. The old man built planes and I wanted to be like him. Though I don't remember which one it was probably Revell. I bodged quite a few aircraft. First almost decent one I built was the Revell B58 Hustler. First car model was the Revell Ford Country Squire, which I must have brush painted 15 times without stripping (though I tried, with Testors enamel thinner), and it STILL looked horrible. EDIT: That was when the realization hit that paint would not cover poor workmanship, and that what was under  the paint was at least as important as  the paint itself.

            

Edited yesterday at 03:38 PM by Ace-Garageguy

[Swamp Dog]

 im 70 years young and i still remember that sad moment. it was 2nd grade we had draw names. i got some kind of car kit. i was so mad, i wanted a cap gun to play Cowboys & Indians 😂as i grew up in the piney woods of south east Louisiana. we lived so far out in the woods we did not get the Grand Ole Opry till a week later.. but that one little car i did not know at the time it would open up a whole new world for me. i have met some great people at the shows , here on the forum & my groups on Facebook.  

Edited yesterday at 01:53 AM by Swamp Dog

[HankinWisconsin]

Don't recall the manufacturer (possibly Aurora?) but it was a Grumman F9F Panther some time around 1969.

Edited yesterday at 12:39 AM by HankinWisconsin
Can't spell on Fridays.

[Phildaupho]

When I started school, I lived on a naval air station so the first model I built myself was an aircraft likely from an inexpensive and simple Frog kit. However, I was always a car guy having inherited my older brother's Dinky Toy collection. I helped my dad with a few car kits, some of which were diecast metal but my first on my own styrene model vehicle build was an AMT  1960 Chev Pickup. I built this without any paint and used virtually every part in box and every decal on the sheet. The first model car I painted was an AMT '61 Chevy II Convertible that was painted with a brush light blue. I added a cover over the rear seats with headrests like a Thunderbird Roadster. The Christmas of 1961 I got a Thunderbird Hardtop AMT Styline kit with customizing accessories and AMT putty. That was my first spray paint job - Candy Sapphire Blue AMT paint. That really started my first four years in the model car hobby until I turned 16 and got my driver's license. Everything changed after that for about four decades.

Photo of my 61 Thunderbird taken with a Brownie camera. The only photo I have of my first era of model car building.

Edited yesterday at 12:40 AM by Phildaupho

[Fat Brian]

I built Legos from the time I was three or four. The first model I remember was a snap together battleship I got on the Yorktown when I was 6 or 7. My first car kit was Mark Martin's Folgers Thunderbird. I was maybe 10 at the time and ditched was a current issue kit. Since I was used to Legos I pulled all the parts off the trees and then had to dig through them to find the right one. I also used most of a tube of red glue and got gluey fingerprints on everything, I built the entire car in an afternoon and it took a couple days to dry. It died a quick death reenacting the wild 80s NASCAR crashes.

[WillyBilly]

MPC Coo Coo Marlin Monte Carlo. I got it 50 years ago and never got a chance to finish it. Got one off ebay a few years back and built it with a matching carrier.

[Monty]

My very first model was some small scale Israeli Air Force jet I received at around 8 years old.  No idea which plane, or what the occasion was.  There weren't many pieces but my experience with it may have given Bill Watterson the idea for this scenario:

This obviously did nothing to get me excited about models, but about a year later I saw this and had to have it.

As most of you know, this is not a kit for young beginners.  To no one's surprise, the build failed spectacularly, but the interest was there as my inner gearhead began to emerge.  

Edited yesterday at 04:58 AM by Monty

[Big Messer]

1/32 Rolls-Royce by Airfix. A real glue bomb. Managed to glue a rear wheel at the front axle...

Edited yesterday at 01:38 AM by Big Messer

[1972coronet]

First kit(s) for me were the Monogram 1/32 scale dragster cars (recently reissued by Atlantis ) , circa 1974 (age 4).

First glue kit that I can remember was an MPC kit... I seem to remember that it the 1975 Monza annual. I had the older neighbour / friend help me build it ( show me how to brush paint and such ; no spray painting ).  

[Keef]

This was my first kit at the age of 12. My grandmother used to pay me $30 for mowing and trimming the yard, sweeping the sidewalks, and washing her car. A lot of money for a kid in the early 80s.

Then she would take me to Kmart (back when kits were $3.99-$4.99) and I would load up on all the current musclecars I could find, along with store brand spray paint and Testors glass bottles.

I’ll find another one either sealed or unstarted that I can afford some day.

[johnyrotten]

Mine would be the monogram heavy chevy chevelle. That was in the early 90's, I was maybe 12 or so.  It sparked my interest in the hobby. Over this summer I acquired the same kit, and built it again, brought back a ton of memories for me. 

[1972coronet]

1 hour ago, Keef said:

My grandmother used to pay me $30 for mowing and trimming the yard, sweeping the sidewalks, and washing her car. A lot of money for a kid in the early 80s.

Got that right ! A day's work like you were doing ( or, like my friend and I would do : pushing around a lawnmower , rake, broom, and trashcan, going door-to-door asking if the homeowner needed any landscaping (we could always return later with shears and such ) or just a mowing of the lawn ) paid quite well back then. I'd say that $30 +/- per day was on par.

Heck, even a $10 bill was a nice denomination at that time ! 

$20 ? You were "S______g in tall cotton."

 

[Deathgoblin]

First one I remember building was the Snap-Tite '55 Chevy, powder blue with the slotted mags.  

[PappyD340]

Mine was an AMT 64 Chevy Impala screw bottom that my cousin gave me back in the late 60s.

[Reegs]

AMT 1932 Roadster, back in '62. I was ten.

[meechum68]

I started my journey into modeling at 8 years old, we lived in Waldron Arkansas and it was Christmas, I got a P-61 Black Widow, being a cocky 8 year old, I pulled every single part off the sprue, and then used the instructions to match the part shape to the instructions and built it.  It was a monstrous glue bomb, I had finger prints of glue all over it.  I then built a Kitt car as my first car kit, another glue bomb!!  

I fell in love with modeling then and have been thankful for the random stranger that selected my name from the Salvation Army.  

[maxwell48098]

Never got into any models other than automotive.  My first model was an AMT 1958 Buick Roadmaster 75 2 dr Hdtp that my dad bought me in July 1958.  Wish I still had it. 

 

A.J.