Plastic Memories and Dreams

If I knew then what I know now I would not have sold all those cars.

Recently returned to the hobby after a 30 year absence.  I built quite a few kits as a kid back in the 50's and 60's.  There were some great old kits back then, crude by today's standards, but they were always fun to build.  Back then AMT ruled for me and also Johan had some nice kits.  Later in the 70's, when my son was growing up we built quite a few kits.  Thanks to him we still have a few of the old kits and I have rebuilt a few of them.  I did not get back into modeling until 2 years ago when I retired.  Today the great selection of supplies and parts really improve the hobby.  The internet has also really added to the fun of the hobby.  There are several forums out there where you can get to know some very nice people, see their work and learn from their experience and tips.  Also it is much easier today to locate interesting kits to build through the forums or eBay.

I primarily build showroom stock and like to build cars that I or my friends owned.  I grew up in a small town inIowa in the 50's and 60's and if you ever saw the movie American Graffiti, that's what our little town was like.  Cars, girls, street racing and Boooooze.  What a life, lucky to have survived those days.

7/26/07 - I had kind of gotten burnt out building so I took a few months off.  When the weather got hotter I decided to go back down into the basement where it was cool and finish up a few projects I had started earlier. 

For years I have usually built box stock using primarily the pieces that were supplied in the kit.  Recently I have started to make a few minor modifications on some of my builds.  Boy does that increase the build time.  What seem like a minor modification can lead to some major hangups. 

Take that 62 Impala HT.  I had wanted to build one of those for years but the price of those old kits was out of sight, so I took the AMT 62 Impala Convert kits and put a top from the AMT 64 Impala kit.  While I was at it I also thought I had seen too many of these kits built as 409's so I put the 327 in it from the Revell 64 Impala kit.  Kind of slow going but I was pleased with the results.

Also the 65 Ford Galaxie was the Rides low rider version.  Took a little work to build it as stock.  Had to modify the chassis to get the ride height I wanted.  The kit is really strang, it only comes with 2 of the stock wheels so I had to cast more to complete the build.

Another little project I have wanted to do is a stock 61 Ranchero.  The current kit is a custom version.  The roofline has been modified, it only comes with custom wheels and it has some sort of hot rod Ford engine.  So far I have reshaped the roof line to more like the stock version.  Also I have found the extremely hard to find Ford 6 cylinder engine to put in the stock build.  This engine is very hard to find, I am not sure what kit it ever came in.  I was lucky and a friend happened to have one.  I took it and cast one to use in this build and to give some of my friends that wanted one.  I did find and cast a few of the stock Falcon full wheel covers, but may not use them.  I am currently trying to make some Falcon dog dishes to use for the build.  Here is a photo of my progress so far.

Here is a collection of other models I have built.

Here are my most recent builds for the summer of 2006.

Here are a few more of my builds for the summer of 2006.

Here are some of my 2007 builds.  (Updated 7/26/07)

11/25/06 Road Trip New on 11/27/06 - Here are some photos from a trip to visit some Model Building Friends.

Check out these super builds by Fury3 - these are some extremely nice builds by a good friend of mine.  His detail and accuracy is out of sight.

Click here to see my work area     (This may take a little while to load there are a lot of photos)

Resin Casting  If you are Interested In Resin Casting click this link.

Builds by some of my friends  This section contains some very large photo.  May take a little while to load, but well worth the time.

Here are some great links:

Other Photos:

Our Trip to Washington DC - 9/15/2006

If you have comments or suggestions please drop me an email.

Thanks, Steve

mailto:purvissp1@comcast.net

                                 This site was built by and is maintained by: Steve Purvis

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