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Johan 1931 Cadillac V-16 Family


FactoryStock54

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Lusted after these kits as a teenager back in the 70s; finally acquired a few copies of each on Ebay a couple years back and built them over the last year or so. Mostly OOB with minimal painting, I did do a little detailing here and there with a hand-brush; painting the rims, some of the plumbing in the engine compartment and the interiors; I used Polly Scale water-based acrylics, including Clear Gloss. I also used BMF for the trim on the Sport Phaeton. Easiest to build was the Town Car, hardest was the Cabriolet (why I'm not sure!); the Sport Phaeton was probably the most fun. Enjoyable builds for the most part in spite of a few very fragile parts (buying multiple copies is a must) and plastic that had become rather brittle over the decades.

These kits were state of the art in their day and remain some of the most beautifully-engineered car kits of all time. They are plentiful (and cheap!) on Ebay and I highly recommend them!

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Edited by FactoryStock54
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Here are several more views of the Sport Phaeton including a good look at the engine compartment.

Gunze Sangyo Wood Brown was used for the wood trim on the interiors. I used several different acrylic metallic paints including Polly Scale ATSF Silver (for the wheel rims), Citadel Mithril Silver (for the exhaust manifolds) and Gunze Silver (drybrushed to highlight instrument faces etc).

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Edited by FactoryStock54
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Hello there friend! Thank you for posting such beautiful builds. Since there are many still floating i will mos-def put one on the "wish list!!!That has actually been a ? I ask myself alot " What is the earliest year Cadillac was put in prod. I thought maybe 1920's! Thanks again

peace

AJulia

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Thanks Factory for building those and posting them here. People tend to forget that for adult builders in the 1960's, 1930's classics like these were just as releveant as the muscle car era is to us today. Thus, being targeted at adult modelers of the day, these classics kits from JoHan, MPC and Monogram were in many ways the very best kits of the 1960's. It's really great to see a member of today's generation enjoying these kits and posting the results. Yeah! TIM BOYD

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Hey! Thanks for all the kind words!

I've always been a huge fan of American classics, and Mr. Boyd is correct; back in the 60s and 70s these subjects were quite common. JoHan offered these beauties in addition to their stunning 34/35 Mercedes kits; Monogram had a fantastic series of classics including the 41 Lincoln Continental, the 37 Cord, the 32 Packard, 32 Cadillac and 34 Duesenberg families as well as the 31 Rolls Royce (cabriolet and phaeton) 36 and 39 Mercedes Benz and the beautiful Bugati Type 35 kits. MPC gave us the 32 Imperial and Chrysler roadster, the 28 Lincoln and the delightful 1914 Stutz Bearcat (pictures of which I will post here in the near future!). And this was only the stuff available in 1/25 or 1/24! Pyro, Airfix and MPC offered an amazing array of subjects in 1/32 scale as well!

Can't imagine any model company in this day and age doing a new tool of a 20s or 30s-era luxury car, not to mention the original Cadillac of 1903 or the very first V-8 of all time; the 1914/15 Cadillac!

It's a real treat to take these fine old kits and do them up with modern techniques, materials and paints. Didn't have stuff like BMF, CA, Tenax or useable acrylic paints "back in the day." Many people may not realize it but we are living in a true Golden Age of plastic modeling right now! It would be nice to see more re-issues of the great old classics; for me that would be the best of both worlds and times!

Thanks again for your compliments!

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Really nice builds, of "old stuff" we don't see often.

Johan's classic car kits where surely amazing (a bit of fitting problems here & there) but nice & very accurate pieces anyways.

The Town Car is a real beauty.

Monogram's classic car series started in 1962 proved to be very, very popular by the mid 60's; (accurate, easy to build & well chosen subjects) as already mention.

Pushing Johan to market in 1966 the '31 Caddy Trio & 500K duo kits in their famous "Gold Cup" top notch series, these kits where slightly better detailed then the Monogram ones with higher parts count, but fitting issues where relevant......a Johan's Packard kit was also talked about but never came, " classic & antique cars where "hot" in the 60's so MPC & Pyro joined the band, Pyro had already made a trio in 1/25 in late 50's, but these where no match to excellent Monogram, Johan, & Mpc offerings.......But Pyro did make a fantastic 1/32 "Brass" antique car series in the mid 60's, as you said, very detailed & accurate, vanished completly .....who is the owner of the dozen antique car kits molds.....Mystery :blink:

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Thanks! (Affirmation is a wonderfuol thing!)

Actually, I think Lindberg got most if not all of the old Pyro molds; they re-released the 1/25 (sic. . .actually closer to 1/28) Pyro classics, Cord, Auburn and 48 Lincoln back in the late 90s , and have re-issued some of the old 1/32 Table Top Classics series as recently as 2006, though not necessarily the most interesting subjects in that line.

I have four of the JoHan Mercedes Benz kits (two each of the 34 roadster and 35 coupe) and may well get to these some time this year, though I've yet to decide on whether to paint them or not.

Thanks again for all the positive comments!

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