CC In Scale: A Trip To The Vault – Forgotten Personal Treasures

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– Posted on March 31, 2025

What picture does that title conjure up for you? A 1960s Scrooge McDuck style money bin? A strong room entered through a foot-thick door and lined with safe deposit boxes? Maybe a secure facility with open shelving, lined with cobwebs? Mine is closer to that last one.

When I was growing up, the twenties apartment building where we lived had two 18×16 foot semi-underground cellars. In one of them, Dad kept much of what was salvaged when his business went under, along with stuff he’d picked up at the auctions throughout the years. He rarely threw anything away; it might come in handy. Nowadays we’d call his type a hoarder. The low-ceilinged, rough brick-walled room was lined with racks of shelving on which sat overflowing boxes of paperwork, random bits of machinery, dusty rusty jigs and dies, some odd tools. One man’s treasures, out of which I have two boxes of keepsakes. Plus the tools. The rest didn’t come in handy.

My vault is a bit different. A glorified shed with gardening equipment, some oldish furniture, shelving, a workbench and tools… and a lifetime’s worth of models.

Now I’ve always been mindful of the fact that I don’t have photos of all of my models. And also, the photos I do have aren’t always good. That problem goes back to pre-digital days. Film wasn’t cheap, and neither was processing. Not here, anyway. So I tended not to take photos of my early efforts, and have been attempting to correct this since going digital, and especially since I got a relatively-smart phone (finally!) last year. I’m sure the phone will do a lot of stuff I don’t know how to use (or have any need for), but it sure makes photographing models and loading them onto my computer much easier.

So come with me while I visit the vault to photograph some forgotten ‘treasures’.

Here’s a 1941 Plymouth coupe. I’ve built a few of these. Not enough to be worth a feature of their own (what do you think I am, a machine or something?), but five or maybe six. I never had a decent shot of this one before. The chrome trim’s a bit rough as I was just learning how to use the adhesive foil, so this was about forty years ago.

Likewise this 1941 Ford Woody. I only had two small out-of-focus photos before. This is much better. All the ‘wood’ on this one is hand-painted. Although some woody kits include decals for the wood (usually only for the inset panels), I usually prefer to paint it myself.

Not quite as old, this ’62 Chevy was built up soon after AMT released the kit, in 1993. I didn’t have the internet then, so I chose the interior colours from memory to be ‘typical’ of that era, as I remembered them.

The big American Galaxies were rarely seen here at this time. Ford sold the ’59 model clear through to 1962 before replacing it with the Fairlane, which was a much more manageable size – this while Holden sold the current big Chevrolets and Pontiacs every year. Still, I knew what a Galaxie was, even if I’d never actually seen one.

I was always taken by the unusual taillight treatment on these, angle-cut cylinders mounted on a sloping surface, shaped to face vertically. Who thought up that idea? I built this ’65 Impala soon after Monogram released this kit in 1995.

Time for a longroof. Neighbours had a ’66 Holden wagon in a very similar colour scheme when I was a boy. Nowadays I’d give the wheel covers a dark wash to highlight the detail.

Somehow I seemed to have missed photographing this one altogether. To be honest I’d forgotten building this one. It’s the AMT ’66 Fairlane 427 kit downgraded to the regular 500’s unscooped hood, but with the hot engine retained.

AMT’s ’67 Cyclone. This was a rebody of the Fairlane kit. It feels like it was tooled in a hurry, lacking the expected sharpness of details, and the lower body contours on left and right sides don’t match – oops! The dark colour makes it less obvious.

No qualms about this one though. As near as I can see they got the body contours spot on with this ’67 Impala SS, and the gold highlights them to perfection.

I was pretty sick back when I built this ‘69 Shelby GT500. Something went wrong with the paint, likely a slow reaction between the base coat and the clear I used on top. I don’t recall what paints I used, possibly lacquer over enamel. It’s lost all its shine, seems to have gone a bit tacky and attracted a lot of dust. Basically, it needs a thorough sanding and a fresh coat of clear; I think I can save the green.

Period Holden Cyan Blue on a ’70 Chevy – what could be more natural?

Monogram’s old Land Rover kit from the early eighties. Paint’s a bit rough, but it is a Land Rover after all.

An eighties Datsun 720 pickup in bright yellow with kit-supplied graphics. I could have gone with a more bland base colour, but where’s the fun in that?

I’m not sure what I used to paint this grey Skyline GTR (R32), but it had gone matte and a bit tacky, rather like that Shelby we saw earlier. I’ve got some work to be done here.

See you next time!