CC In Scale: Display Part 4 – A Bit Of Everything

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– Posted on July 11, 2024

I had a conundrum. What to choose for a lede photo for today?

There is no obvious theme to this grouping. And you’ve seen many of them before. What has a classic sixties Alfa coupe have in common with a five-ton British truck? A big-block Corvette with a nineties Japanese turbo AWD wagon? Give up? I couldn’t think of anything either. But let’s have a look anyway.

First up is the Alfa Junior, which appeared in my first CC-in-scale story last August. I do have a 2000GTV which I really ought to have finished by now (I’ve only had the kit for twenty-odd years), but – no. So we’ll move on.

Here’s a ’65 Corvette. This was an American Monogram 1/24 scale kit; then Monogram got taken over by Revell, a renowned US maker of 1/25 scale kits. Shortly thereafter, Revell released a ’67 Corvette in 1/25 scale. Now it’s not unknown for 1/24 scale kits to appear in boxes mis-marked 1/25, and vice-versa. Some guys in the hobby really arc up about this sort of thing, Not me. These ones aren’t the same kit though, as a comparison of parts sizes will clearly show – but I have to wonder how they got that past accounting.

What’s the difference in size, you ask?

Worth bothering about? To some guys, yes; in the hobby they’re sometimes disparagingly referred to as ‘scale bigots’, but not by me. I’ll build any scale. I have one friend who regularly cuts down 1/24 scale kits to make them 1/25 scale, but his eyes are better than mine. Yes, he’s retired too. And his workmanship is awesome.

Another model we’ve seen before is this blue/green Edsel. This is one of my favourite colour schemes, there’s something about the pairing of body colours, coupled with the two-tone green interior that just resonates with me, and says “You got it right.” So here it is again.

But since writing that Edsel story back in March I’ve finished two more Edsels. This purple one…

And a two-tone pink and grey one, with skirts and a Continental kit. I got the colours from a Taschen art book on fifties American car advertisements. So these colours may never have made it to the production line, but they were in vogue at the time and the illustrators thought they looked good.

Now a brief trip to Japan. The Isuzu 117 is a lovely car that I might well choose as one of my ten favourite designs of all time. Both Fujimi and Hasegawa make kits of this, and I think they both make all three series. This is Fujimi’s kit of the early ‘handmade’ (it says so on the box) car.

The Hasegawa one would be the more accurate, to judge by their other recent offerings, but the Fujimi was the only one available at the time, and I never thought anybody else would be making a kit one. There’s nothing wrong with the Fujimi one to my eyes, and I really can’t justify buying another kit to sit on the shelf. (Don’t ask how I justify nine Edsels then – I don’t!)

I mentioned a five-ton British truck. We’ve seen the tip truck before.

But early this year I finished a second of these, the tow truck version we saw earlier.

I’m very pleased with how this turned out. I used a semi-gloss off-white to represent the old chalky faded look (thanks Nic for the suggestion!), and had great fun graining the wood on the toolbox at the front of the bed, and dirtying up the works area with dirt grease and rust. I actually enjoy doing that stuff.

And of course there’s that famous Bedford six. A Stovebolt Chevy with full-pressure oiling, as I’m sure Bryce was about to say.

Two more Bedford kits to go. A LWB flatbed and a tanker. Not this year…..

Back to Japan again. This is a Toyota Crown Majesta from the S140 generation (1991-5), wearing a K-Break body kit. And bright candy red paint, because me.

Without that body kit, and in a more believable colour, it would look like this.

Then we have the Nissan Stagea. Prof. Tatra has gone into these in depth at CC before. Think of it as a reskinned Skyline in wagon form with most of the goodies. This is the earlier WC34 generation (1996-7).

This one is just a ‘regular’ 25t X Four – 2.5 litre RB six with a single turbo and four-wheel drive. The 260 RS variant (which I don’t have – yet!) had the 2.6 twin-turbo. This one’s in a nineties Ford colour, as the Nissan choices left me cold, and it is era-appropriate.

For our last entry today we return to a Classic, by pretty much anyone’s definition. Plenty has been written here about the Jaguar Mark II. I’ll just say it was very highly regarded back in my childhood, and was much more common than the larger Mark 10. Our family doctor had one, and one of Dad’s engineer friends had one; I think John’s may have been a metallic grey. This Tamiya kit was only available for a few years (as opposed to some that stay in the catalog for much longer), and I did this one in the closest I had to Old English White.

And of course we have to see that engine!

That finishes our tour for today. You’ve now seen all of my inside display areas; next time we’ll go back to random themes. Plenty more to see. Wagons? Hardtops? Classics? Another decade or year pictorial? That ‘Festival of the Unexceptional’ I hinted at? We’ll see.