First model

[Jim Keeler]

First model car kit I started was an Ace 49 Ford kit. The kit was a block of balsa wood, and the directions basically said to carve away everything that did no look like a 49 Ford. The first plastic kit was a Lockheed Constellation model made in acetate. It fell apart a few day's later!

The first plastic model car I built was a Revell Highway Pioneers 1910 Cadillac . I painted some of the pieces black, and the roof I applied paint on and then put a Kleenex tissue over it to simulate the fabric roofs they had. I found one half of the kit 40 years later in my Mom's unfinished dirt basement buried in the dirt. I rescued it and still have it. Later on my Dad always told me that I was wasting my money and time building models, and that "It won't amount to anything"!

he was still alive when I told him that Revell had hired me to design kits for them when I was 19!

Uh, that was 49 years ago!

Jim Keeler

[Eshaver]

Great story there Jim and thank you for taking the time to share it with us ! I wish I still had the first model I did , ( 61 Thunderbird Convertable ) a flood washed it and everythiing else I owned in 1973. Ed Shaver