model kits..WHERE ARE THEY NOW

1964

 

Mine sort of went the same way when I joined the Army. Got a phone call from my parents, they had put my stuff in safe storage for me. I gave them money for a storage cubicle at one of those storage places.
SO..........
They put it all under the house of my aunt and uncle. Their house burnt down with all my stuff in there!
I was lucky though, three models were saved, they were in the custody of my brother-in-law. Thank GOD!

I have only ever entered one model contest, never thought my stuff was that good and I built them to how I liked. Lots of fabrication.
The model I always saw win were loaded with every after market part you could by, some were $1000+ 1/25 scale models!! Thats not model building! Thats cheating, scratch building now thats the right way to build.
Anyway, I won Best in Show for a 32 roadster I built! That was enough for me.
Still build from time to time, got to the occasional show for the model 'Swap meet' and a quick look.

Doc.

PS, I really Really dig that shoe box ute, would you be terribly pissed off if I pinched the idea and did one like it?
Please! Let me steal your idea.....

 

Check out those trophies! That was some serious modeling going on in '64.

 

A few years ago, before I joined the HAMB, I was selling a few of my old models on eBay to earn some pocket money and thin my collection to a more manageable size. I put one of my mint/unbuilt Aurora Ram Rods on eBay and included photos of the original "Silver Sapphire" Hot Rod magazine cover and Beach Boys album, both of which I have, as well as a description of the real car built by Clarence Catallo and the Barris shop. When the auction ended I looked at the buyer's information and see the name Kurt Catallo. I damn-near fell out of my chair. Yep, Clarence "Chili" Catallo's son bought my Ram Rod model. I think someone here posted my eBay photos in a thread and a search may bring them up.

 

While I'm at it here's a few more from my stash.








Behind the die-cast '55s and Bullit 'stang are three older Big Deuces awaiting assembly:

 

When box art was truly ART!!!

 

now i know why i can't find any of them older kits, you all have them stored away still. but that is ok, cause i would just build em and that is not preserving our history for the future gen,,,, so congrats and thanks for that.

in my 30+ years of building kits i have come across plenty of nice kits, bought all i ever found out of stores and even bought and sold a few collections too, even traded about 200 kits for a 72 nova 4 door,
one personal fav story is when i owed a guy a couple hundred bucks for a car i had bought that the motor blew on, and since he had kids i asked if he would take a bunch of my models to cover the debt, he did, and many years later i got to talking to the kid who became a friend of mine, and he still had many of the kits, he traded me for them and when i opened the box it was a flash back i wont ever forget, memories are priceless,

i also did plenty of the blow em up stuff, usually just the planes, ships and tanks, but a friend of mine and I used to both build a specially made demo car with nascar kits and push them across the floor at each other and watch the parts fly, in the pits to replace a wheel or two and push it again till it was just sliding on frame rails with only a few loose parts left.

i kit bashed since the first time i found a better set of tires to fit on the car i working on, then came intake swaps, cooler seats, and the list still has not ended, gotta love the potential of plastic kits.
at this time i have roughly 800+ built kits with a few unbuilt boxed. and i don't think that counts all the trashed out cars i have most of the parts to that are in my bins waiting to be used on something,
i have about 8-9 of them 60 drawer units filled with all my parts seperated for easy finding of certain parts. one is only motor parts, another just for rims, and so on. as for tires,,,,, well lets just say i can fill a fridge box to the top and still have some rolling around somewhere, 3'n'1 kits are a blessing.

main build styles are hot rod, pro street, 4x4, and real customs, i do not buy costly parts, but i do make them from scratch or close fitting pieces, i even go as far as to make stuff with left over bondo droppings, carves nicely so why not, i do have plenty of almost box stock builds, anything newer then an 86 monte SS is mainly in my collection cause i got it too cheap to leave behind,

box art, i have always kept the majority of my box art stuff, but sadly, not in perfect shape, i cut all 4 sides off and stacked each size together in seperate boxes. the bottoms got tossed or used for model garages complete with look alike dry wall and all. pics of the actuall model don't even come close to comparing to the original hand drawn box art of old, tom daniels had some very inspirational art/kits that have pushed me to what was my limits at the time, he has been a role model for me all these years, from bad medicine to bad man to rik-shaw and beyond.
like i said elsewhere, 3 favorite words, CUSTOMIZE, MODIFY, AND FABRICATE, if you are afraid to hear them words, find someone else to talk to.

 

Love seeing those boxtops again.

Nowdays I do radio controlled 1:10 drag cars myself.


Mike

 

Ooh, pass the ketchup, we're having SPAM for dinner.

 

Sorry if you took offense to me posting that.... just trying to share, LOL!!!

 

It's cool, you got the point.
There are those here that take serious offense to such things.

 

Great pics of great box art! Any chance of posting a pic of that Henry J's cover?

 

Here's a couple built-ups still in my collection. The 1970 Charger was rescued from the basement of my sister's old boyfriend around '72 or '73 (along with a few others, most of which I still have).
The 1970 Cyclone was a hobby shop find from about '80 or '81. After spotting a '72 Grand Prix kit on his shelves, I asked the guy if he had any more older kits. Turns out he didn't but his supplier did. In addition to the Grand Prix and Cyclone, I also scored a '72 Cougar, NASCAR Pepsi Lagina, AMT Fire Chief Impala and a few others.

 

I've seen him pour homemade chicken soup in a "rubber".... And I thought that was sick!

 

This guy's nutz!

 

This thread rocks! Thanks guys!

 

Thats killer man!!! I remember destroying one of my Badman 55 chev models with 2 M-80's......still makes me laugh today when I think about it. JOKER JASON.

 

Mine are collecting dust...

 

I have a few intact from when I was a kid and maybe 300 unbuilts, 50 builts and a dozen or more in the works.

My evil wicked step mother had my originals disposed of 20 years ago. My dad called me on a Monday to tell me his house was sold, I said fine, I'd round up some boxes and be over Wednesday. Somewhere in between the itch-bay had someone clean out the basement and they were gone, she claims to have no knowledge of where they went.

Soon we get to pick a nursing home for her, payback for that and many other dirty deeds will be a mofo.

Bob

 

I have over a thousand unbuilt kits waiting for my retirement. Some to build, some to sell. I build now when time permits and weather allows. I live in an apartment but the boss at work lets me paint bodies at the vented soldering table. Recent builds tend to be for others. Just finished a Ferrari F1 that is waiting for its owner to pick up.

 

I've showed some pics of our stuff before, but I recognize some of the other pics in here, and I'm in a picture-postin' mood today, so here goes ...

 

I built about a hundred during my "formative" years, including a couple that won the national Revell-Pactra competition. Then I got my first car (see avatar), my first girl friend, Beatles records, and went away to college. I came back after my freshman year and cleaned out my room, taking all my built cars, semi-complete projects, failures, boxes of parts organized into seperate catagories, two organizer drawer units, Xacto tools, everything to a local hobby shop and gave it all away. Doh! It would be worth a fortune today. I saved my trophies though, but donated those to the National Model Car Museum in Sandy, Utah a few years ago. I started building models a couple of years ago when time allows; usually old unbuilt kits off Ebay. I can't compete with the new generation of builders with their photo-etched parts, elaborate paint jobs, etc so I just keep it simple and fun.

 

Bud, I've got the same story and had two identical trophies! But all my old stuff either fell appart, got smashed or was swept into the circular file once I "grew up." Ha Ha. Sure wish I had them all back! The only thing I saved is one ID plate from one trophy. Thanx for posting your pix, I'll pretend they are mine! Gary

 

Ghoulardi taught me how to blow mine up with firecrackers.

 

my mom threw them away after i moved out.

 

Almost hate to say where my old model kits went. I had about 4 doz. of them packed in their original boxes and was saving them for my oldest son. When he and his sister found them stored in a spare bedroom closet they opened all of the boxes and prceeded to have a great time crashing and breaking all of them.
My wife went upstairs to see why they were so quiet and found them sitting in the middle of the rubble and just came back down and got me. When I saw what they'd done I grabbed a garbage can and dumped them all in and took it out to the trash.
They were pre schoolers then, and my son is 40 now. He still remembers the look on my face with a little embarassment today knowing they never were passed on to him beyond that one afternoon. We don't bring it up often!

 

I did also!! I think it was on July 4th 1975...

 

Great little story...impressive trophy too.
Can you recall what car you built that nabbed that award ?
Nice of you to donate the trophies to Mark Gustavson's museum.

 

I'm sitting on maybe 300 un-builts. When I sell my house.. 10 years down the road... I'll have to thin the herd to 50-100 core kits that I want to build. I've known of a few guys that took the dirt nap with multi-thousand kit stashes.

I build now and then at work, mostly doing some parts clean up and assembly on breaks. One day I brought in some primer and shot a few parts in a closed storage area. Someone called safety, not knowing what the smell was and where it came from. I never fessed up.

Bob

 

too funny....but NOT. you know what I mean. reminded me of when I was about 4 yrs old, went down into our basement where my dad stored and built his model cars and trains. I thought I would be a good son and "help" dear old dad, so I painted all of his UNBUILT models for him. I was soooo proud of my work..........until he found out.

in one single motion, I think I went from standing at the bottom of the basement stairs to the top without touching one step.....ending up under the dining room table where I spent what seemed like 2 days before I came out.

oddly enough I still have some of HIS models in my closet today. not many, but some old Mopars (60's) and some diecast he collected later in life. while he may be gone, my memory of that night and as you said, the look on his face, still is in my mind today. I may have been only 3, but I remember it like it was yesterday.