CC In Scale: 2024 Retrospective

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– Posted on December 8, 2024

It’s been an interesting year for me, with declining health issues; decreasing attention span, and neurological problems affecting my legs are beginning to impact my arms as well. I’ve built fewer models than last year, and have given more time to my writing. But having said that, I’ve begun to embark on my largest model project for about twenty years – but it’s not automotive. More later. 

The year pretty much began with the Bedford OSBT tow truck I built for a NZ-based Facebook model group as a summer holiday project. With plenty of encouragement from Nick, not only did I get it done and weathered, but he gave me a lead on the last one of these Bedford kits I was missing, a LWB tanker. 

Some kits were carried over from last year. I started this Ferrari Modena last year, but got temporarily discouraged by the awkwardness of fitting some small parts. Small parts? Worse was to come a few months later. 

The end of January brought the annual 24-hour build. This year I tackled a Hasegawa Nissan Pulsar GTi-R., a highly-strung turbocharged AWD beast of a hatch. Though I had great fun I was unable to maintain concentration and wound up finishing it a week or so later. Tiny parts strike again! 

I’ve built so many of these Fords. This time I thought I’d go for something nice and conservative in the colour department. They weren’t all brightly coloured. There’s another one coming up next year. I built the chassis for it while doing this one. 

And I worked out my love of strong colours with an Edsel. I was inspired by the colours from an early fifties Oldsmobile ad. This combo may never have seen production, but since when did that stop me? 

Meanwhile I went for a more conservative yet still fashionable-for-the-period look for another one. I think that’s all my Edsels built. 

This one was also started several years ago. I finally took the time to touch up and polish out the paint, and assemble the rest of it. 

While we’re in 1958, here’s a rather unusually-coloured Plymouth. Garish? I prefer to see it as unusual, maybe at the extreme edge of tasteful. Probably a bit wild for that recession year, but it sure gathered plenty of comment online! 

This was another holdover from the past. An errant drop of glue on the roof ruined a great paint job. I wasn’t able to match the paint (a custom mix I hadn’t recorded), but I finally came up with a solution of sorts.  Though not a great fan of patina, I sanded through to primer here and there and exposed some ‘bare metal’. An old lowrider returning to the street? Maybe. 

It’s stunning to think that only nine years separated the ’51 Chevy from this ’60. For this one I used a roughly similar colour theme to the ’58 Plymouth, but with the enthusiasm dialed back from 11 to about 3! With such outlandish styling you don’t really need an eye-grabbing colour. That’s not to say I haven’t done that on a ‘60. Just not this year. 

This Dodge is either a new truck or one that’s been babied. Although it came with great decals for a lawn service and a motorcycle repair business, I saw this as a low-end but privately-owned truck. With nice paint, and whitewalls. Maybe too nice for a stock Dodge? 

Something a bit different, an F100 with a service body. A change from the longbed/shortbed/stepside bodies usually offered in kits. This just begged to be weathered. I figured they’d wash the cab now and then but wouldn’t be too concerned about the bed. 

Just for something a bit different, here’s an Opel GT. AMT reissued this kit, from about 1970, a while back. I painted it Hugger Orange, gave it a wheel swap and a Buick V6. Easier to get parts for. 

And a Mini. This is a 1997 Rover Mini Cooper 1.3i, a new kit from Hasegawa. Excellent detail but some tiny parts, like the indicator repeaters on the front guards. Very fiddly to cut off the parts tree, and easy to mislay. Worse was to come, though. 

Before we turn to Japanese cars, one last American subject. This is a 1935 Auburn Speedster, an old Lindberg kit dating back to 1959. Quality was very poor, with raised instead of etched door lines, approximate shapes and poor parts fit – but I picked it up cheap at an auction forty years ago. It took a lot of work, and some deep dives into my spares box, and still isn’t what I’d call a good representation of the original. But I’ve built it. 

Here’s a Toyota Century, riding a bit low, and on aftermarket wheels. After building one for a friend, I had to do one for myself. An online model group had a Japanese-themed build, so this was a natural. My friend Yasuo helped out by providing some window tint film not sold outside Japan. 

This Toyota Crown Majesta is from the early nineties S140 generation. The gold with the beige interior makes for a more individual look than the colours usually seen. 

Here’s a mid-late seventies Nissan Gloria 330. The Don wrote a great article about these. Unfortunately, the only version available when I bought it was this raked and wide wheeled cruiser. But at least I left the spoilers off. And of course, now that I’ve built it, there’s a stock one out. Oh well….. 

Tiny parts department. This Honda N360 is another recent kit from Hasegawa. While I applaud their attempts to add detail to scale, it certainly adds to the degree of difficulty. The trunk release button is about 1.5mm across. The radio antenna base is 2mm. I had to be unusually careful not to drop anything. 

Having built a Honda, I had to do the Subaru equivalent. An older kit, not as detailed in the chassis or interior, and not quite as many tiny parts the Honda had. For once I followed the colours on the box art. 

Subaru Sambar van, about 1980. I saw one a friend had built and just had to have one. So as not to copy his, I did a wheel swap and added the side stripes. 

I had just bought this Fujimi kit of the late seventies Nissan Silvia and started building, when Hasegawa announced a new one. Wouldn’t they! This seventies tool old one needed a bit of sharpening up and reshaping, but it’s not too bad. 

On a loud note, this McLaren F1 GTR. I would have preferred a street version, but no such beast was available. This isn’t the ‘proper’ Mc Laren orange, but looks pretty good to me. 

Last one for the year (well, in time for this story) is this black ’59 Chevy. You saw a two-tone blue one in my Fin story a few weeks ago. I don’t use black very often, but thought all that chrome would look sharp against a dark background. Red interior helps, too. 

That’s it from me for 2024. There are a few oddments on the bench I might get done still; I’ll show them next year. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas season, and a happy 2025. 

 Oh, that large model project I mentioned earlier? I’ll warn you, it’s not automotive. 

A thousand-piece-plus 1/87 scale card kit of a famous Melbourne mansion. Long discontinued, I was asked to build it for a model railway club, as I’ve done one once before. That was about twenty years ago….