This is a toughy. My first real armor kit was a Monogram Pz IV. I didn’t paint it for years(wrong color no less) and built it in a night.
One of my earliest models was a Dauntless in 1/48 by Fujimi or Hasegawa. Can’t recall. I got glue all over and didn’t follow the directions at all. Cost me a lot in those days. Anyone got a fave from the past that they might be serious about redoing or even collecting?
Monograms 48th Wildcat and Dauntless.
First 2 models I ever built when I got into modeling. I was 14 or so.
What got me started was reading the little paperback book called Midway with the painting of a Japanese carrier on the cover. Anyone remember reading that book. Cant remember the author but I think I’ll pull it out and read it again.
I love that book and those kits, some of the best memories I have growing up.
I haven’t built them since but I will soon enough.
Mike
I loved the old Monogram kits. The dauntless was one of my favorites with it’s bomb release, wing-flaps, spinning prop and retractable landing gear. Lots of fun and value.
Id rebuild my favourite from my childhood years the Apollo Saturn V by airfix in 144 scale
1/32 Corsair from Revell, I think it was…
I still have one of my first childhood tanks, the old Aurora MBT70. In the early days of eBay, I found a partially built one for $5 and used it to rebuild my original tank. I should have left the kit in its vintage state and just found another to build.
I have since aquired 4-5 others, but J-Hulk has talked me out of a pair of them (original tool and the retooled one). Still got a couple in the stash, and I will someday build one up properly. Fortunately for me, I have a restored actual tank sitting right in front of my building.
And thanks a bunch for that pair o’ MBT70s, Rob! You know, I got the original tool kit finished last year, and I’m trying to get the retooled one finished for this year’s Shizuoka Hobby Show, where I’ll display it with the original tooling and the one I detailed up. Love them MBT70s!
However, although I had many of the 1/48 Aurora armor kits as a kid, I never had the MBT70. Got my first one of those about three or four years ago.
One of my earliest builds was the 1/48 Bandai “Porsche” King Tiger, which I still actually have!
Get a load of this:
Built when I was around 9 years old…a very long time ago! I thought all German tanks were gray…probably thanks to the film The Battle of the Bulge.
A couple of years ago I found the old Bandai kit again at an LHS, and picked it up with an eye towards reliving the early days. With the excellent 1/48 Tamiya version out now, there’s really no reason to build the Bandai kit as a “serious” model, but the nostalgic value is immeasurable! It’ll be a straight OOTB build.
The two kits from my childhood that I’ve been searching for for years are the Aurora 1/48 Blue Angels Phantom II and 1/108 C-141 Starlifter. I’d love to find those two old kits and build 'em straight out of the box! I’m sure we’ll cross paths again one of these days…
On a trip to Cape Canaveral when I was 8, I convinced my mother to buy me the Revell Space Shuttle with the 747 carrier. I told her I didn’t want anything else the entire trip, just that model (we were going to Disney World the next day). She helped me put it together and paint it. Several months later it came to an untimely end during a move. I would love to have that kit again.
Actually there are 2.
1928 “Gangbusters” automobile. I remember all the little “extras” that came with it. I tried to hand brush it with Testors gloss yellow, didn’t work out very well. Recently acquired one!!!
The “Snark”. There was a full size model on display at the entrace to our local air force base. This one must not have been re-released as often as many rocket models. Way to many $$$ on ebay. I want to build it, not collect an unbuilt model in a box.
Mine is 1/35 Tamiya (or academy- a copy of Tamiya) British Chieftain tank. I used to look at it displayed at a local stationary store, but couldn’t afford it (well, it was hard for a 7 year old to have that kind of money anyway). I think this kit is still available and easy to find.
Several years ago, I ran across a Lindberg Stuka. I built it once or twice as a kid, and thought it might be fun to do again. Haven’t got around to it yet. Over the years, I have bilt several kits that I did as a youngster (geezer word). I also brought home several models I did as a kid, when we cleaned out mom’s house. A Sherman, T34/85, a LVT(A)-4, some jeeps, a howitzer and a lot of figures, all Revell. Another day, I’ll have to repair them.
I’d like to have all of them Monogram and Revell kits i had as a child in the 50’s and 60’s .Cant believe i threw them in the trash when i enlisted [sigh]
Oh, wow - there’s a whole list in my mind!
First off, the Monogram 1/32 F-51D Mustang kit - not the Phantom Mustang, but the one with retractable landing gear, dropping bombs, and whatever else it could do. It was my very first kit - My dad came home from work one day and put 3 boxes on the kitchen table for me - the Mustang, a 1/48 Monogram P-40B, and I think it was an Aurora 17/72 Huey Cobra. We had no glue, so my dad mixed a batch of epoxy and we went to town that weekend. Sadly, they made me blue all the movable parts in place, since it was a model and not a toy. So I’ve been on the lookout, ever since I came back to the hobby (December), for one of these kits on eBay. (No luck yet, though.) This time I’m building it my way! [:D]
I also want another crack at the Hasegawa 1/32 kits of the 1930’s US aircraft (P-12, F4B, BF2C, P-26) - I had pretty poor luck with them the first time around, as a teenager. I also want the Monogram 1/32 Grumman - the one that retracts the landing gear when you turn the propeller. That was always so tempting, but always out of my price range as a kid. I’d see it listed in that little brochure that Monogram included with all their kits, but it always had that super-out-of-range price (probably no more than $7.95, but with an allowance of maybe a buck a week back then, it might as well have been $100).
Airfix P-80 Shooting Star…built it when I was about 5 yrs old. I have always wanted another crack at it in later life. I’ll have to start looking…
I would love to get my hands on the Revell UDT Boat with the Frogmen. If my memory serves, that was the first model I actually built and painted. That was fun, the frogmen and the boat were some shade of gloss gray.
There were 3 plastic models of dinosaur skeletons, a T-Rex, a Brontosaurus, and a Stegosaurus that I remember building as a kid. They were an impressive size (the Brontosaurus was at least 16" long if I recall correctly) and with incredible detail. I would give up half of my current stash (seriously) for another shot at those, simply because they were (and for me still are) some of the coolest kits I’ve ever seen, and something you just don’t see at all nowadays. I haven’t seen or read anything about them in decades. My guess is that they would be next to impossible to find today.
I can’t remember who made the kit, but it was 4 Blue Angels F-4 Phantoms on a yellow display base. The parts holding each plane was like a lightning bolt.
Wish I had that one again…
stretchie -
I may be totally off on this, but that sounds like a kit I saw in those mini-catalogs that Monogram used to include in all their kits - this was back in the 1970’s. I remember thinking how tedious it would be to build 4 of the same airplane. [:-^]
Thanks Alumni…
I’ll look into it. I don’t remember anything about the build, but it looked cool the 4 of them on that stand. [:)]
I remember the catalogs. I used to circle all the ones I wanted and X’d off the ones I had. Oh the memories.