Remember Your First Model Car?

I remember that! I think I have a partially asembled one from back then around here somewhere.

My first glue together was the Monogram 29 Roadster Pick Up. I still have it; that was 30 years ago that I built it.

 

I liked Big Foot but was never much of a 4x guy. I got that for Xmas one year and proceeded to drop it on a tube frame with a dropped front axle and painted it bright yellow.

 

Ok. Gotcha! The one I had was the funny car version...

 

Im not that computer friendly not goods at moving pics.

 

Any revell master modeler members. They had a news letter and stuff like that.

 

I built my first 2 model cars at the same time when i was about 9 .This awesome black 54 Chevy sedan delivery Gasser that had "Demons" on the sides and a yellow 57 Chevy 2 door hardtop called the "Pepper Shaker" .I must have built 75 or so after that till i got into the real stuff .I still build them occasionally ...

 

My first ones were hand me downs that had already been put together from my dads younger brothers,(my uncles)my first one was a 64 chevy impala (already put together) after showing such interest, I inherited a lot of cars and parts needing attention.
My first new ones were a 32 ford roadster,a 40 ford coupe,a yellow 57 nomad and The paddy wagon. I wanted a 55 chevy 2 door,but the black 55 with flames and radiused rear quarters was the only one I could find available and I liked it o.k.but something just didnt look rite about it.

I shortly later figured out about The hardtop and sedan/post diffrence.
The post was the one that looked rite that I didnt know was the one that I wanted at the time.
I didnt care for the radiused wheelwells either but they have kind of grown on me as a part of 55 dragracing history, however you probably wont find cut quarters on mine today

I eventually bought the h/t 55 as I never did find the 2 door post back then but I did have about 40 or 50 other models, some new some patched up

 

Very cool thread. I remember a lot of these. My first was "Phantom Phaeton." I think my mom bought it for me when I was too young to even know what a model car was. I figured out pretty quickly, though. It was pratty cool.

But the first one that I really, really liked was a V-8 "Ramcharger" dune buggy by MPC (?) that my friend Kevin Johnson had. We spent hours staring at that car. I saw one on eBay a couple of years ago -- it bid over $150, I think. Too rich for me.

 

I think Revell has that going right now... www.revell.com

 

Revell just released the "Black Widow" again along with the T'rantula both with the original box art...

 

phuc'n a, real car guys remember crap like that. a Bert Renolds TransAm on Friday watching Dukes Of Hazard on CBS the end of the 70's.

 

'32 Ford 5 window AMT kit.

 

I just bought Revell's new 5W deuce kit.... Nice! I was thinkin' of doing some kit bashing with this one.. Maybe the Ardun flathead motor from the Revell '50 Ford pickup would do it some justice... And save the Hemi for something else...

 

Don't remember which was the first, but the Green Hornet from Monogram was one of my favorites. Made a little display stand and took it to school for a show-&-tell thing and the kids destroyed it. Oh well, guess I had to go out and buy another one to build.
I also remember the glue, I think.

 

That is nothing compared to the thousands made over the past 50+ years or so.

 

When I was in grade school, our neighborhood Hobby Shop (remember those?) "Baron's Hobby Shop" sponsored a model car contest every summer. Of course all the models had to have been purchased there. My cronies and I would swoop down and buy whatever we could get our sticky little hands on. I remember buying a Vee-Dub Beetle that I cut off the front end and attempted to build a frame from coathanger wire to convert it into a slingshot dragster. Our main goal was to finish them as fast as possible in order to get them in Mr. Baron's window for display. We never won anything, but we sure had fun. (Maybe it was all that glue.) Good times.

 

Mine was so many years ago and I was quite young - probaby only 6 or 7 years old around 1963 but seem to recall going to the local drug store that had stocked model kits and it was a Model T Roadster - in black. I do remember seeing the JoHan kits there along the years and wanted them but wasn't allowed being too expensive and complicated for me at the time. Oh how I wish I had them now!

Eric

 

I remember those contests. Don't remember the name of the shop anymore but the local hobby shop in Redlands had those contests.
I never won anything either, but it was fun trying.
I used to enter model cars in the model car contest at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino too. I think I got an "honorable mention" one year for a wild fenderless channeled 40 Ford coupe I built.

 

I missed out on the contest fun. Either my parents wouldn't take me to a hobby shop so had to get someone else to take me to buy stuff, or when I was able... had too many other things happening and so those model kits I bought 15-20 years ago are still sitting unbuilt in boxes. Now I am saving them for when I have to retire and have something to do.

For those who are diehard kit builders of classic bone stock cars, the long awaited 1953 Hudson Hornet is being released in April this year!

Eric

 

Does anyone have a fondness for the old Lindberg 1/32 kits like I did? They were detailed enough and small enough for younger kids to handle...think I still have my red 49 Ford 2-dr Cpe and yellow 52 Chevy Fastback builds. Excellent starter kits.

Eric

 

My 1st car was a 1965 Mustang fast back for $350.00 and it had a 351 Windser and a 4 speed. Killer stuff, It never made it to the road with insurence and tags but I sure did have fun sneeking it out when mom and dad were not home. Just as I turned 16 we sold it and I bought a 1967 VW bug, What was I thinking???

Carl

 

Huh??? We are talking about toy model kits here... not the real deal cars

 

man, you can't make this stuff up....
MODEL CARS kiddies!!!!...models...!!!!

 

I'm turning 60 in a couple of months, and need some reassurance that I'm not too old to still be building models. Been at it off and on since about 1960. The first one was a snap together Corvette that I still have. I have been stinking up the house with spray paint and glue for 50 years!

 

Think mine was one of the Lindberg 1/32nd scale 1940 Fords. First one I successfully completed was called the "Gran Turismo," a blue plastic 1/24 scale kit car on a VW chassis. Think it was AMT. That set me on my way. I probably built a kit a week on average during my tweens and early teen years. Still have the last one I bought - a Lamborghini Countach - half finished in my work room.

I had a ton of them - almost literally! - that sat in my parents' basement until 2006 when a flood took out almost all of them. The sewer pipe broke during the flood, so I'm sure that the guys in the wastewater treatment plant were trying to figure out where all of those little plastic grilles, bumpers, and seats were coming from.

 

This thread just reminded me... when I was in 5th grade (around 1970 or so) they opened up the Boys Club craft room and they had a stack of models, mostly unassembled, about 3 feet high. The director said "Take what you want!" Ended up kit-bashing a rail dragster with a Ford Victoria body on it. Looked cool as hell. Between that stack of kits and the Andy Granatelli book I spent every rainy summer day in that room that year.

 

And how!!!

 

I remember mine I built the Monogram Wild Cherry w/the custom bike.Very cool.

 

Yes I do, and it was an AMT BEFORE they were the 3 in 1 type! Had to make my own fender skirts and dual exhaust tips, lake pipes etc. It was a '56 Mercury (my best friends Dad had one). I heated up the axle on Mom's stove (she didn't really care for that) and used the hot axle to poke holes in the "chassis" higher up so the car would be lower in the back! I learned that you should use pliers or something to hold the axle against the hot burner! LOL! I was about 7 years old ....

 

Now days we use pin vises and micro drills for those mods..