Working on 1/64th scale diecast is not my usual go-to but it is a nice distraction and potential slump buster. That may explain why I finished so many this year?

My builds ranged from brand new Civics that I wanted to repaint, detail and upgrade. My son found the Challenger on the ground at our local park. The rest were part of 5 cars I found while digging out bushes in my front yard. More on that shortly.

Here are all the finished projects for 2021. This was my busiest year for finishing projects! These seven were part of my second busiest year. Most were upgraded with Monoblock wheels while two were upgraded with wheels I found on Ebay.

The first project finished this year was this EF Civic hatchback (88-91) It is painted Porsche Meteor grey metallic by Zero Paints. Clear is 2 part automotive. I used decals I found on Ebay. Monoblock 10 spoke bronze wheels wrap up this build.

While digging out bushes in my front yard, I managed to unearth five cars that I lost as a kid nearly 40 years ago! I “found” them with the axe I was using causing significant damage to the Beetle. It will be repaired. After finding the beetle, I worked carefully and found four more cars.

There is the Beetle, a Porsche 911, a Citroen Wagon, a ~79 Honda Accord, and this Speedseeker thing. I cleaned them, tore them apart and stripped the paint. They were in poor shape, as would be expected, but they were salvageable.

Mostly clean, here they are prior to being disassembled and stripped.

Stripped and ready. Several projects are in the works. You can see the Accord is in especially poor shape.

The Porsche was one of the easier restorations from the “yard find”. I cleaned up the body, filled in some pit marks and scratches and eliminated a badly damaged front license plate. One that was done, I painted it BMW Barcelona Blue by Automotive touchup paint. Cleared with 2 part automotive paint. I used Monoblock 8 spoke silver wheels.

The CRX was another new car that I repainted. It is painted with Automotive touchup Milano Red paint and automotive clear. Decals were found on Ebay and I used gold 8 spoke Monoblock wheels with small tires. (The Fiji Blue CRX was a build from last year).

The Challenger was a car found in a playground by my son. It was badly beat up, or well loved depending on how you want to look at it. Either way, I stripped it, corrected damaged the best that I could and painted it Dodge F8 green (like my 1:1 challenger) Added Ebay wheels and used a soda bottle to make new windows. Details were completed with bare metal foil and Molotow chrome.

The second “yard find” build is this Hot wheels Speedseeker. Both the body and Chassis needed significant repairs for pitting. For the body, I used Porsche Arena red paint (from gravity) and then a high flake finger nail polish for the top coat. It is cleared with automotive clear. The chassis was chromed with Spaz Stix paint. Lastly, the wheels were found on Ebay. I lowered it to get the stance right and avoid wheel well gaps! Lastly, the interior was missing the steering wheel. I made one with a piece of wire and a disk cut from sheet styrene.

The ’79 Honda Accord, a copy of the 1:1 my mom had when I was a kid, is another “yard find” It was by far the worst of the bunch with respect to corrosion and missing parts. Originally, the doors did open but I had to glue them shut to give the body structural rigidity. I made new A pillars with sheet styrene. I did my best to fill in the pitting with putty.

For color, I mixed different paints together to come up with a blue that I felt was close to what remember my mom’s 1:1 accord. To preserve the Honda badges on the sides, I scraped the paint to bare metal. Then cleared with 2 part automotive paint. Details were finished with Bare Metal foil and Molotow chrome. A set of grey Monoblock wheels were added to finish the build.

The final CRX I repainted was finished in Dodge F8 Green. I love this color! Again, Ebay decals were used along with gold Monoblock wheels with small tires.