(first posted 9/7/2017) There it is, at the intersection. You’re looking at my fifth grade dream car, the ’85 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, complete with T-tops. This car seemed to me then to be the perfect chariot for a successful, professional adult, one of which I had aspired to be one day. There was the sleek, Italian-inspired shape. The hidden headlights. The tasteful, two-tone black and gold paint scheme. A sporty rear spoiler and ground effects. Why would anybody with the means choose anything different?
The Corvette was for fancy people. The Camaro, while also a great-looking car, lacked something in the Firebird’s image that was slightly upscale, and more hip and urban… at least, in my eyes. The Mustang was alright-looking in GT, SVO, and convertible forms but, to me, the general image of this generation up through the mid-’80s was dragged down considerably by the appearance of the spoiler-less hatchback more or less resembling a big Escort, or some other nondescript compact car, especially in strippo “L” form. By contrast, the base-model Firebird looked fabulous. With more points in the Pontiac’s favor, wasn’t K.I.T.T. on “Knight Rider” basically a mildly customized Firebird? A great show, and another major plus.
I loved the looks of the newly-refreshed ’85 Trans Am so much, I purchased a Revell Monogram scale model of one, along with Testor’s model paints and glue. I miss the days experiencing the pure joy of when a trip to Toys ‘R Us seemed second only to a jaunt to Playland Arcade in Flint suburb Grand Blanc (pronounced “Grand Blank“) to ride the go-karts and play video games. I still own many such model kits purchased around the dawn of my age progression to double-digits, with many of them in their original packaging (albeit in storage). If I remember correctly, my thought process regarding putting them together had usually been not to start until I had the time to do it right. My 1:24-scale Trans Am model, however, was just too good to let sit in that box. It bumped my Fiero kit down a notch on my list of priorities, which was no small feat, given the novelty of the newer car.
Patience has been a learned and practiced virtue for me. In adulthood, it’s been easier to see and reap the benefits of deferment of instant gratification. It takes time to do my day job accurately and with correspondence, both written and verbal, that is well-considered and thought-out. Editing my photographs takes a substantial amount of time, with rotation and / or cropping of images being something I do painstakingly, until my images meet my standards. Additionally, years of piano lessons had taught me that there’s just no way to fake the time that it takes to practice in order to master a challenging piece and put on a quality performance as a participant in a recital.
Still, around the time I was ten or so, and as is true of many boys that age, waiting was simply something I was not keen on doing. I was that kid who was intent on gluing parts of my model kit together on the same day I had painted certain components, against the strong recommendation of my older brother. “Oh, no.” I’d reason. “The paint is dry to the touch, so I’m good to go. He’s just trying to spoil my fun. Stupid him.”
And, ahhh… the smell of Testor’s model paint and glue. I sat at my newspaper-covered desk in the bedroom I shared with my younger brother, with the window cracked open for ventilation, painting the T/A’s ground effects on the little, plastic parts-tree with gold metallic enamel, breathing in the delightful (and yes, intoxicating) aroma of that paint. A small bowl of turpentine for my paintbrush sat nearby. I wasn’t deliberately “huffing” any of those fragrant, chemical substances. I just really, really liked their smell. Perhaps this, combined with my impatience, is why the results of the hard work on my model kits turned out to look substantially less glamorous and lifelike than the finished car model shown on the box in the second image, above.
My Trans Am, in the same colors as our featured car, ended up looking a little like the shirt Denise Huxtable made for Theo on “The Cosby Show” for thirty of his dollars (in 1984 – about $70 / adjusted). My car sat lopsided on its wheels, had glue smudges on it, including on that cool piece of rear wraparound hatchback plastic “glass”, and some of the parts that weren’t falling off just plain didn’t line up. Sadly, as an emblem of my disappointment (both with the finished product and with myself) and shortly after it rolled of the “assembly line” of my bedroom desk, it ended up being one of my go-to crash-’em-up cars when horsing around with my younger brother.
This real Trans Am had passed by as I was sitting outdoors at a coffee bar after work. I immediately sprang out of my chair and got these few snaps, right before texting my niece who had just visited me in Chicago a couple of weeks prior. Maybe I was prompted to text her just from missing that sweet girl so much. Maybe this car jogged my memory, being something I had considered one of the ultimate expressions of automotive supremacy and machismo, when I was a boy of about my niece’s age. It was probably a combination of both of these things.
My other thought was that the last, major reference to this generation of Firebird that I could remember in popular culture was when it was the ride of Dwight K. Schrute in “The Office” – who is one of my personal heroes, but one probably not shared with too many others. Regardless, spotting this black & gold Trans Am was a great reminder of what it felt like to want to grow up. And yes… I still think it looks cool.
Ravenswood, Chicago, Illinois.
Thursday, August 10, 2017.
Wonderful imagery and you’ve reintroduced the smell of Testor’s glue this morning.
Seeing your picture, I immediately thought of Mr. Gunning, my high school history teacher. He had a quite similar Trans Am, although it was likely an ’83 or ’84 model. Nearly everyday that Pontiac would be sitting in the parking lot near the access door at my school, in the typical place he parked when he and Mrs. Gunning (an amazing looking woman who was considerably younger and taught first grade) arrived at work.
Thanks, Joe, you now have me thinking about Facebook stalking to see if I can find out what she looks like now!
Oh the models! I had a streak in my early teens where I was building 1-2 model cars per month. Exactly NONE of them ever came out right.
It wasn’t entirely my fault, either. It was a combination of poorly designed (aka cheap) parts that didn’t perfectly align, along with that slightly floaty feeling I would get every time I opened up the sticky tube of glue. And the spray paint I used to cover the body of the car never seemed to fully dry, taking on a dull tackiness that permanently recorded my fingerprints.
Oh well. My cars rarely lasted more than a week anyway in my somewhat abusive hands. The wheels and the rear view mirrors were always the first casualties (esp. the mirrors on the 1970s era pickup trucks and Broncos).
All of the fun was in building them anyway…and dreaming about how amazing my life would be with…a Dodge Lil’ Red pickup (I know that’s not the right name, but I can’t think of it offhand) or an ’81 Z-28 in black with reddish graphics, which I know I built on at least 2-3 separate occasions.
Ahh, the 1978-1979 Dodge Lil Red Express.
360cid/225hp 4bbl; faster than my 1978 280Z by quite a bit.
. . . and those twin exhaust stacks.
This whole story made me smile. I’m older and my models consisted mainly of Long Island’s Grumman aircraft from WWII and cars of the 1950s.
But, the odorous glue, the tiny paint jars and brushes, shaving off the nubs that held the parts on the tree with my boy scout knife . . . all of what you describe here are still wedged pleasantly in my memory.
Different places, different times, same youthful joys.
Warm pleasant and funny read on a damp and dismal Thursday morning.
The glass jar of paint reminds me of the old Airfix paints which came like that in the ’60s. All too soon the screw tops would be solidly attached to the glass jar rendering it unopenable. I thought I had the solution, sticking it in the vice. The tin lid would squash a bit, then slip. Tighten some more, squash, slip. Tighten some more – broken glass and paint to clear up. The run of paint was still there 40 years later!
The trans am I fell in live with was the 84 Indy car. White with recaro seats that had fish net headrests. These were my cars too… Till the 87 mustang gt came out. Funny tho… I never really cared for the GTA.
Rick, I was (am) also a fan of the ’87 Mustang GT, extra plastic bits and all. Though I’d probably prefer a nice, stock LX 5.0 in present day, back then, I felt the ’87+ Mustang GT was a legitimately hot-looking car. I felt it was like alchemy the way Ford had restyled that ~10 y/o body to look that great – in both GT and LX forms.
I did also like the Firebird GTA, but was torn on the looks of the notchback-look hatchback option. I felt I sort of knew what kind of flying-buttressed look Pontiac was going for, but that look always seemed just a bit off, for lack of a more descript word.
If there ever was a car that relied on a L shaped piece of plastic for cooling, this is it.
Not a big fan of glue or turpentine, but ohh that testors enamel. I can smell that gold just looking at it.
I think I was nearly 30 before I was really satisfied with a model car project.
Dan, unlike me (and judging by others’ comments in this thread), at least you got there! 🙂
What a great memory of model cars and impatient boys. I spent many hours inhaling Testors paint and glue fumes as I built those $2.25 plastic masterpieces.
The first one was not a masterpiece. I saw no need for instructions and sort of engineered my way to a finished 66 Mustang fastback. It is really hard to make it sit level when you attach the wheels by gluing the tires to the inner fenders.
I still occasionally stop and check out the model cars if I happen to walk by some on a store shelf.
Those model cars, many from the original molds of way back, are at or near the $30 mark now. So much for $2.25, especially on tooling that was amortized long ago!
The 82-86 Firebird brings up many nostalgic and pre teen memories and emotions for me as well.
I remember first seeing it as a Matchbox car and being impressed at how different it looked from the previous generation, I thought it was beautiful and futuristic. Then of course Knight Rider came along and in 8th Grade, one of the young and cool female teachers had one. It was a base model with the iron duke four cylinder and manual windows but since I wasn’t old enough to drive none of that mattered.
I butchered a few plastic models myself. My Porsche 928, Mercedes 560 SEC, Ferrari 308, and ’53 Corvette were all total loses. I screwed them up so badly that I scrapped them before or shortly after completion.
My best looking ones: 85 Corvette, 80 Four door “Corvette America,” 84 Dodge Daytona, 82 Chevy Cavalier, and of course, KITT. I think the Daytona is still somewhere in my parent’s basement.
I’ve been watching Knight Rider on DVD. Both KITT and The Hof are still cool 30 years later.
You’ve touched on two of my favorite things here. I always liked this particular generation Firebird from the time I first saw it in Airfix’s 1982 kit catalogue (like the other bigger scale cars in that year’s range, it was sourced from MPC) and then “Knight Rider” (showed at 6 p.m. on a Saturday evening in my part of the world) only reinforced it.
I started building model kits at eight years old with aircraft (an Airfix 72nd scale Hawker Hurricane which I never finished) but got into building cars at ten with a Valliant Porsche 934 (which survived till 1991). In what I describe as my first phase (8-12 years old) it was a great source of pleasure to buy the kit, come in from the store and build it immediately. Never mind the fact it wasn’t painted (that didn’t happen till later since that first Hurricane lived up to its name – a disaster!) or the decals were literally ‘all over the place’, I was happy with it and my mum and dad always complimented my efforts.
I still build model kits to this day, nearly 40 years since I started in the hobby, but not as frequently as before, and kits take years to emerge as finished models rather than the matter of hours they took in childhood. Early last year I bought my first one again just to see how much I have learned.
At one point, I counted over 300 model cars, ships, airplanes, tanks and other models in the basement room I shared with my three younger brothers for hobbies. Add another dozen or so balsa airplanes, some rubber-band-powered, and a few with the ubiquitous Cox .049 and U-control. So we had the Testors paints and glue (remember the “safe” alternative glue that smelled like oranges?), plus ‘dope’ for the balsa kits… it’s a wonder we never burned the house down with all the flammables around, as we frequently used a candle to stretch sprues for simulated pipes or rigging, or simply to simulate damage on a warbird.
Great memories. They say smell is the sense that’s most strongly linked to memories, but I also can often remember exactly what song was popular in Kasey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown for a particular model.
Most of our collection got “blown up” after my parent’s divorce when we emptied the house, but a did manage to save a few book boxes worth of the better efforts that are still in the attic today.
But come to think of it, I don’t think I ever built a Firebird model.
That sure brings back some memories. You’re surely not alone in your frustration over models that never turned out right. Mine were always riddled with fingerprints, gobs or drips of excess glue, or were repainted so many times that any detail was obliterated by a half dozen coats of different colors of that oh-so-heavenly-smelling Testor’s paint, as I could never decide on the perfect color combination.
As for the Trans Am, I was beyond model building age when these came out, and was actually of driving age. I never aspired to own one of these, as by the mid 80’s the yuppification of automotive envy had set in, so of course I lusted after a BMW. I did have several friends who drove these as their first cars (mostly my female friends in high school, as 80’s conspicuous consumption was alive and well, and it was very in vogue for Daddy to buy his little girl her dream car immediately upon licensure, at least in my area). While I was jealous as all hell when one of my close girlfriends showed me her brand new Robin’s Egg Blue Trans Am with silver ground effects, T-top and giant silver screaming chicken decal, my jealousy was short lived. Her Dad had taken her to our local Pontiac dealer while she still had her learner’s permit and bought the car (stickered at just over $18,000 1986 dollars, IIRC from the sticker that was still glued to the window as it sat in the driveway), and we spent more than one evening sitting in that car while the V8 burbled, the a/c blew ice cold and the stereo cranked Dire Straits’ ‘Money for Nothing”, just waiting for the day she passed her road test so we could cruise like bosses in that fine ride. while my friend took care of the car as well as any 17 year old could be expected to, by the time it had survived its first NJ winter and we were able to pull those glass T-tops off and tear down the Garden State Parkway to Seaside Heights the following Summer it was a rattling, rough riding, gas guzzling has-been. The cool factor had been completely used up once the reality of crummy build quality, completely space-inefficient packaging and totally impractical foul weather driving dynamics set in. And this is not to mention the absurdly poor ground clearance for such high school hijinks as field keggers or dirt road bombing. By the time I came home for the Summer break of 1988 she was driving a new Escort GT, which was head and shoulders better for a girl starting college and needing a practical but “cool” car for that purpose.
Thanks for the evocative descriptions that bring back so many memories. Despite hours of careful assembly, my models never quite resembled the perfect picture on the box.
After a disastrous experiment with spray paint (I had candy-apple red hands for several days), I stuck to the little bottles of Testors and became proficient at hiding most of the brush marks. For me, application of the decals was the hardest part – I never could get them to align properly. My 1975 Nova SS ended up with decals only on the driver’s side due to the impatience of a young teen, with the ones for the passenger side pitched in a messy ball into the garbage can.
I have a weak spot for Trans Ams, but prefer the first-gen 1977-79 models in black with gold decals, properly aligned of course.
The olfactory bulbs and hippocampus are rather closely located and very “ancient” brain structures, so smell memory is indeed relatively robust. This is why we take people back to places they have been to help them remember things-because the smells can help trigger other memories that may not have been so readily available.
Just make sure your room is well ventilated when you open those jars of Testors, or you will have an interesting time trying to do the evening chores. So I learned, working on my Estes model rockets.
” My car sat lopsided on its wheels, had glue smudges on it, including on that cool piece of rear wraparound hatchback plastic “glass”, and some of the parts that weren’t falling off just plain didn’t line up. ”
In other words, it was a totally authentic model of an F-Body.
Roger628 wins! 🙂
+1
Comment of the year.
Thank you for the fun article, and vivid memories Joseph.
Perfect for those times when you had the urge to build a model car as a kid, but weren’t interested in the smell of glue or complex assembly, Revell Monogram started offering their ‘Snap-Tite’ line of models. I believe this collection was introduced in the late 70s. As one of the first ‘Snap-Tite’ kits I bought at the time was a ’78/’79 Chev Malibu police car. I recall there being much fewer parts to assembly than usual, and the final assembled version seeming too easy to put together to be much satisfying. At least the completed model was quite rugged, and virtually impossible to screw up. 🙂 The biggest challenge being to apply the transfer graphics properly using water and tissues.
Ah yes, the 1/32 ’79 Malibu police car with the rear door windows molded “open” (glass stopped in the quarter window) when the real car’s were sealed shut even in the normal noncop version!
I had that one
Daniel, I had almost completely forgotten about the “Snap-Tite” model kits! I’m sure I owned a few, though not from Monogram. I had (what I think was) a Jo-Han ’74 Olds Cutlass S (! – not a Supreme) 2-door, that was molded in beige plastic. Instead of “risking it” by trying to paint it, I just snapped it together as-it-was. It had chrome “hubcaps”, and taillamp lenses molded in clear, red plastic. Unfortunately, it was another casualty of several moves and my own carelessness. I loved that it was such a “plain-Jane”.
That’s too funny about your Malibu and the window of the rear door being molded in the “down” position. The first time I rode in the back seat of one of these (a newly-rechristened “G-Body” ’81 or ’82 Buick Regal sedan), I searched and searched for the “down” button and was so utterly confused when I couldn’t find it.
Joseph, I loved some of the eclectic car choices you could get from some of the lesser known brands. For example, I recall a Lindberg Ford Granada ‘Snap-fit’ model. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to have the same quality of construction and design tolerances as the Revell Monogram kits. Though they were correspondingly more affordable.
We never thought the snap-tites were ‘sporting.’ (c:
After I discovered the beauty of ‘Snap-Tite’ model kits, I was able to explore more social childhood pursuits like playing sports, bicycle riding with friends, or seeing my girlfriend. Rather than spending an afternoon in my bedroom painting the ‘chrome trim’ on the grille of a Cord 810. 🙂
I think the snap kits were designed for kids on backseat road trips, or home from school with colds or the flu, who were feeling better by 2pm but didn’t have the desire or energy to work with glue and paint.
Snap models were the ‘TV dinners’ of the modeling hobby. 🙂
Neither kit represents the nature of building an actual car particularly well, so I appreciated the snap together ones since there wasn’t so much of that tedious positioning and waiting for glue to dry. Snap together had a mechanical element to it, which I appreciate. Plus I enjoyed taking things apart and redoing them as much as I did putting them together. There’s no going back with glue. Come to think of it, this is where Lego won my heart.
Wow, Joseph… such memories! I had built a 1970 Chevy Impala and painted it in that very same Testor’s color. It was later blown up by a large firecracker. Why did we do such things as kids?
Later, I learned to respect the model, and built them with more care, but I can relate to the impatience of youth. Sometimes, I would just build them without the paint and just do the decals.
But your description of the smells of that paint really takes me back. While I built more airplanes (mostly airliners like the 707 (in Pan Am livery) a 727 in TWA livery, and a large 747 in United livery), I also built some cars too.
The last car I remember building was when I was 17, and my Dad just bought a ’77 Chevy Concourse 2-door coupe in Firethorn Red with a red valor interior and a 305 V8. I found a similar Nova model (most likely from Revel) and this time I was going to do it up right. I got all the matching paints and made this kit to resemble my Dad’s car. This 40 year old memory is a little fuzzy, so I don’t recall if the kit came with the Concourse grille and extra taillights that this “Caprice of Novas” had, but the resulting car looked pretty close. Of course, instead of the Concourse full wheel covers, I went with the Nova Rally Wheels (color keyed of course), because I liked them better. IIRC, some model kits came with everything you needed to configure it the way you wanted and some did not. This kit may’ve had the Concourse pieces. If it didn’t, I probably just customized it as best I could with leftover balsa from an Estes Model Rocket project.
Good Times.
Oh, and as to the subject car… it too was my favorite Trans Am. It was like a modern tasteful interpretation of the Smokey and the Bandit car when done up in Black and Gold like that. I also liked these in Red over Silver, and Dark Blue over Silver.
I miss two-tone cars. Maybe someday they’ll make a comeback. ;o)
I was more impulsive and less patient than average (still am), so my models came out even worse than all of yours.
I still struggle to avoid painting on/in houses too soon, before the prep work is done. I have this itch to just start spraying/rolling/brushing, just like back then, but I have mostly conquered it.
My messy models made some great fiery crash scenes out on the driveway.
I had lots of patience, but no skill. My car-model days should have been an early warning that I wasn’t good at fixing things. But of course, I didn’t heed that warning because I desperately wanted to build stuff.
So when I was 14, I bought a derelict MGB for $250 of lawn-mowing money and tried to convince my dad that I would fix it up. My dad was my polar opposite — he could probably build anything from a birdhouse to a suspension bridge. He scoffed at my ridiculous plan, and said “you can’t even build a plastic model.” Mean. But right, of course. I did buy that MG, took it apart a little bit, and then and it sat in my folks’ garage for the next 10 years.
Since then, whenever I see scale models, I remember dad’s blunt but painfully accurate comments. Still, I look back fondly on the days when I’d peruse the model row at our local hobby store. And I still wish that I could have built one of those things right.
Paul, I (too) had some fun with “pyrotechnics” and things I had built, but I usually had to keep such experiments confined to the concrete pavers in my parents’ backyard. They must have though they had raised some sort of pyromaniac. LOL
What memories! Building models as a kid was one of my favorite pastimes. I can still smell the Testors glue and paint! One of the funniest memories and/or practical jokes that I have with building models was with a friend that had a gold 1980 Firebird, just like the Rockford Files car. The only difference was that hers had the deluxe wheel covers instead of the Rallye wheels. The kit had both the hubcaps and the Rallyes in it so you could choose which way you wanted to build your Firebird. So, I built her an exact replica of her car, right down to the hubcaps! We took her keys and hid her car down the street – and in place of her car, I put the newly made “replica” of her car. At first, she thought her car was stolen. When she finally saw that little model in the street she was hysterical with laughter! We still laugh about it to this day – and she still has the model I made for her. The original car is sadly long gone, but the memories of it live on in her “replica”!
Just the sort of thing I’d have done!
LOL! I can remember that day clearly like it was yesterday!
Third generation F bodies haven’t quit hit the point of mass appreciation like the second gens have but the small signs of it seem to currently favor the Camaro, which is a shame because the proportions are far more flattering to the slope nosed Firebird. Seeing a clean Trans Am like this one is a rarity.
My model building days were short lived. I had a few diecast models in 1:24 and 1:18 beforehand and that completely spoiled me. When I’d get plastic model kits I had the expectation that the end result would be to the level of detail and quality of the manufactured diecasts… yeah… first one I built I want to say was either a 58 Cadillac or a 58 Impala, it was a snap together model, “level 1” I think it was called so no glue issues. I painted the entire body candyapple red with that testers paint bottle and it looked like a crime scene happened on it. Other one I remember was a a Ferrari F40, which was molded in red, so that was easy, but it was a traditional glue together model. Well glue together was an understatement, glued it to my fingers, my shirt, the table, and occasionally a part, which was so thick with glue you couldn’t tell what it was anymore. Pretty much gave up after that one, my parents would just start buying me 1:18 diecast cars so I didn’t make a mess of the house lol
Joseph, thanks for the article, and the memories.
I built a ton of these models as a kid. my parents’ apartment building had a unfinished basement so I had my own workbench and didn’t have to worry about spilling those little Testors bottles everywhere, and could use the spray cans for the main body paint. I also screwed up my fair share of models- I recall a C4 Corvette I had painted in my favorite color at the time for that car, a bright yellow. Lots of drips, runs, and smudges for sure.
Years later, in my late 20s, I was at a hobby shop and saw a ’67 Riviera model which I immediately HAD to have. I bought the kit, all the paints and glue, and a few tools. In a couple days I had an almost perfect model- I was even able to brush silver on the “R I V I E R A” lettering on the front and sides, and get some black paint in the grille. Amazing what about 15 years or so makes in the level of skill and patience necessary to build these things.
I’m so glad to find out some of the CC readership had similar experiences with painting and assembling these model kits. I think part of the reason I left so many boxed model kits in their cellophane wrappers is that I figured I’d get to them later, when my skill set improved, or when I had more time. Practice makes perfect, and I haven’t attempted to build a model since a Jo-Han issued ’71 AMC Javelin AMX, over 20 years ago. Similarly, I don’t see any increase in the amount of time I have to take on such hobbies. 🙂
Who knows?… maybe one of the next generation of Dennis nephews (or nieces) will take an interest in building my old model kits.
I still have a half-dozen or so still in the box from when my buying overran my interest and time for building. When my boys were in their mid-teens, I’d buy each of us a model to build over Christmas break, which was a lot of fun. They never got into models like I did, tho.
I did that with my two kids a few years ago. I made an Airfix Triumph TR4A, my son made a late model Dodge Charger and my daughter made an Audi R8 Spyder.
We managed to finish them, but enthusiasm was flagging by the end and they were the first and last models they made. Checked the box for the experience though…
+1 Ed… “…still in the box from when my buying overran my interest and time for building”.
This happened to me with an Estes Model Kit I bought at 18 years of age in 1978 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was a Skill Level 4 model of the Space Shuttle, with the caption, “Fly the Space Shuttle before the REAL Space Shuttle lifts off” or something to that effect….
…I came across it about 2 months ago in my attic, still sealed up in the package.
NASA’s ‘REAL’ Space Shuttle Program ended in 2011 when the Atlantis touched down for the last time…
Did I mention the Estes kit is still in the package? LOL
You remind me that I knew a guy who, until his mid 30s, worked for a hobby store as a professional model builder. When I sounded surprised he explained that there are many people who want a model of a car, ship or plane but who don’t have the skill or patience to do it themselves, so the store would have him build it and sell it that way.
I miss building 1/25 scale model cars, and used to love just going to local hobby shop and browse the box art.
First snap kit was a Revell ’57 Chevy Bel Air. They had a 3 others of a series of 1957’s released in late 60’s: Corvette, Ford Fairlane and T-Bird.
Ha! I loved building plastic models as a kid. Back in the ’80’s all the stores carried them and they were all $5.50. I liked the ones where the doors and trunk and hood opened. There were varying degrees of quality as to the model kits. Tamiya had the best made parts with the best fits and then monogram and revell and then Lindbergh.
Any mechanical ability I may possess now is entirely due to building model kits. I wish they were still available but they are hard to find and EXPENSIVE. I think only Michaels carries them around here.
Perhaps I was brainwashed as a teenager by Pontiac marketing, but with regards to the third generation F Bodies, I always equated the 1982 Trans Am in red with the ‘bowling ball’ wheels as defining the new look for the 80s Trans Am. Red seemed to be the official Pontiac color of the 80s.
The black and gold versions held too much 70s Burt Reynolds/Jerry Reed//Dom Deluise baggage for me. 🙂
Interestingly enough, that’s the EXACT same paint and wheel combo MPC and Monogram chose for their versions of the 1982-84 kits. Monogram’s first Trans Am (which was updated to the kit Joseph posted above for 1985) and MPC’s 1983 Trans Am (With T-Tops ?) used the red body / black wheel covers.
Count me in as another model builder. I started modifying and repainting Matchbox cars, progressed to the 1/32 scale Airfix kits, then got into 1/24-1/25 and never looked back. Clumsy social skills kept me building through the ‘girl years’ and beyond. That was about fifty years ago, and I still have almost every model I ever built. I’m still building them, about 20 or 30 a year.
Testors paints were hard to come by here, so I used Humbrol, and a brush. Mother was an artist, so I soon picked up brush skills, and only progressed to spray cans after the first 20 years or so.
Here’s my version of an ’82 Firebird. I never built the ’85.
Thanks for another great article. Again you articulate a lot of common experiences and responses I’d completely forgotten about.
I built mainly WWII aircraft and remember mostly the spindly landing gear failures…and tanks – the flexible tracks never laid correctly around the rollers and sprockets. I think it’s time to call the whole styrene model kit industry out for blatant deception! Nothing ever looked like the serving suggestion on the box.
I agree with all the comments and the wonderful memories (and laughs) this post brought back. I hadn’t thought about it in years but have spent the last few minutes remembering my modeling days.
The next town over from us was called Campbellford and it was always a treat to hit the local Stedmans store. The basement was the kids department and the back wall was floor to ceiling models. Being a small town, it wasn’t a big store but they seemed to have models of everything.
I don’t know if it was the same in them all, but that one the owner put the for ages 5 or 8 or whatever and under models at the bottom and as your skills grew you went higher up the shelves.
Probably like a lot of us, those models built a lot of the grown up appreciation we have for cars.
Now I am going to drift back to a time when life was simpler, cars were simpler and I had a lot more hair.!
Thx guys!
Thanks for bringing back Model building memories, at my old ‘L’ stop! I had great patience when it came to building models and painting on details, but got easily frustrated when doing mechanical things like putting a bicycle chain back on.
Fun Fact: while Actress Susan Saint James was growing up Rockford, Illinois in the late 1960’s, her dad; Charles D. Miller, CEO of Testors Corp was the key figure in putting horseradish in glue to put an end to the glue sniffing craze.
I liked the 1982 F bodies, but was never that crazy about the Camaro or Firebird. My dream car when I was in my early 20s in 1985 was the brand new Subaru XT (Alcyone) – try finding one of those!
Now you’ve done it, Joseph!! I just spent the last hour perusing Jo-Han model kits on eBay!! Growing up, I did have the patience to assemble my models properly, and amzaed pals w/somwe custom paint jobs & attention to details. In my experience, Jo-Han kits had the most detail, AMT was next, followed by Revell and Monogram. I sneered at “snap” together kits. The few remaining models that I kept have probably melted together due the summer attic heating! And now, back to eBay, as I ponder paying $45/plus shipping each for some of the identical kits I used to own, but only paid $2.25!! 🙂
My mother-in-law loved these cars back in the day. She had a 1983 Camaro Berlinetta that she absolutely loved, and then after totaling it (and almost getting killed in it – it did save her life, however), she got a 1984 Buick Regal that she hated. After the Regal engine decided to quit she had me look for another car for her. I found (and this was in 1994) a 1988 Firebird with only 54,000 miles on it. It was a 2.8 V-6, somewhat loaded – tilt, cruise, A/C, cassette, delay wipers, power locks (but no power windows?), appearance package – the nice TransAm wheels – in a cool rust and gray 2-tone color combo with gray cloth buckets. She drove that car for about eight years and well over 150k miles when it was starting to really show its age. A neighbor bought it for his son and destroyed it in about 6 months!
Joseph,
Thanks for posting the 1:1 Trans Am, and it’s lil plastic cousins. I still build model kits, and I do have the 1985, 89 Turbo Trans Am, and 92 Formula Firebird from Monogram in my stash. I remember as a kid when when Monogram, Revell, and MPC had kits of the 1982 Firebird and Trans Am for sale, and Monogram, Revell, MPC and AMT had the new Camaro for sale too. Models were popular and the kit manufacturers made annual kits to keep the kit current with the 1:1 changes.
Like you I made the 1985 T/A but could never keep the Testors gloss spray paints from getting paint runs around the rocker panels on any car models I painted. I learned patience to NOT touch the body for a day or two after painting so I didn’t put a nice big thumbprint on the roof, door, or hood ?.
Thanks for bringing back memories from when the cars and the kits were brand new.
That’s right by my work! Is thtat Starbucks? I go to Spoken, right under the EL there, at least twice a month. I love your posts, keep up the good work!
In 1987 Monogram released a Snap-Tite 1/24th scale 1985 Z28 model. I bought 6 and was going to build them in different color schemes. I built them and bought 6 more. In 2012 there was a re-release and I bought 6 more. That’s 18 I have built and I bought some extras for a total of 22! I think I have built every possible color combination for the 1985-’87 Z28 there was to offer!
I bought an ‘85 T/A three years ago. The attention it gets is staggering. These all but disappeared a decade ago, so seeing a clean example takes people of my age back to the roaring ‘80s., and teenagers go nuts for it as all things ‘80s are cool again. This was my dream car in high school, and I love it even more now that is old and unique, but far from ubiquitous like your typical 69 Camaro.
That is a sweet car.
I built many an AMT model back in the day. I had one experience like yours, a model that just would not go together. If I recall it was a 1966 Mercury Meteor or similar car. I finished it, got it painted in a gold Testor’s paint bottle colour, and promptly smashed it to pieces. The windshield would not fit in the opening. The interior was way misaligned. The chassis did not line up with the body. Enough I said.
Many a trip to Rigby’s Hobby store in Toronto resulted in a car model coming home with me. Every one of them turned out better than this merc.
Great post. My favorite Tester’s color was silver – can’t tell you how many airplane models I had that were shiny silver for that reason.
This generation Firebird looks better to me now than it did when new. The best part about the one you captured was the lack of the Screaming Chicken hood decal. The addition of that thing always turned that car into something that belonged in the trashy neighborhoods.
You might want to visit paulooimodelworks.com. He doesn’t do cars- mostly ships and planes. He built two Monogram planes for me- a Convair B-58 Hustler, and a Convair B-36 Peacemaker. Both are featured on his website under “modern planes”. He photographs every single step of the build process. The photography is stunning. After I picked up the B-36 I emailed him that it was too big for the bakers table I had in mind to display it on. I told him I was thinking of affixing it to the wall. He forbade me to do that since the plane had been specially weighted to rest on a flat surface. Every time I get a new Polish cleaning lady I have to use pantomime to explain to her not to touch the models under any circumstances.
Checked out the website – stunning work!
Thank you for this!
I doubt so many of my models would have survived if I’d had brothers!
Nobody ever commented on the smell of the glue I used (Selleys Instant Grip, and later Britfix), but the paint smell was an issue – I always had the window open. And I kept my turpentine in a screwtop jar, only opened when I needed to clean a brush. Still do, though these days I increasingly use acrylics.
This isn’t the same colour, or the same year, but….
I built model cars as a kid, and it taught me patience that served me well later in life.
My model days were in the 60s, but other than what they were models of, I’m not sure much was different. My memory is different though. IIRC, and I might not, I recall assembly with the solvent glue going pretty well. Learned a bit about what different engine parts looked like, at a visit at an older cousin who by that time was way into Corvettes, real ones, not models, he and my Dad quizzed me on what different parts were. I believe the only one I missed was confusing the starter and generator. Rather similar when in 1/24 model scale.
But, but, my big but was paint. Didn’t matter if it was brush on or spray, it came out bad. Then to make it worse I read about spraying and sanding between coats. So not knowing any better I’m trying to sand with what must have been about 60 grit sandpaper. I might as well have been using gravel it was so coarse. I was what, 8 or 10 years old, I had no clue there was different grits of sandpaper, I just knew what sandpaper was.
Assembly and gluing, I think was ok. But painting either with a brush or spray can was not ok, but once I tried sanding between coats it was immeasurably worse.
What I really like about this was that building model cars for you was something of an educational experience, with learning about some of the engine parts, etc. I’m sure this kind of the thing set the stage for some who later went on to do work on actual cars. Knowledge I wish I had.
I can’t remember when I didn’t build model cars as a kid. The very idea of going into a Ben Franklin store, going into the model car shelves and shopping for one of those kits was so exciting. The worst part? Having to wait to assemble the car after it was painted. Then, after getting the approval from my dad or my older brother that the paint was thoroughly dried, I went to work like a surgeon.
I always strove to create a replicate of each vehicle as accurate as possible. My interiors included cloth seats, carpeting and I would use a paint pen to carefully highlight dashboard features. I would take days.
Then there was my younger brother. His cars were built with the same care and quality as a lot of those cars – not good. He never waited for anything. His cars were either straight out of the box white – or painted with visible fingerprints on them. He used glue like it was toothpaste and his rides looked like some kind of mutant versions from the box. Yet – he enjoyed doing this as much as we did. And – when we had all those models sitting on our dresser, we imagined driving all of them – even the mutants.
I was 15 when this came out. I saw my first on in these exact colors in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, sitting all by itself on a wharf that hosted several businesses. It was sitting all by itself, absolutely spotless. I was stunned and walked carefully around it. Not a speck of dust, shining in the sun. I was captivated so much that I remember the moment clearly – my family drifting off to the shops and me just starting at this car.
A couple years later the VP for a printing company I worked for after high school classes bought a white one – I thought he was the coolest – a well dressed guy in a tie pulling into work each morning.
In 1992, I bought a Polo Green T-Top Trans Am to celebrate my college graduation in the spring, which I still have and drive.
These were such great looking cars. They were designed with the future in mind and not the past like so many retro performance cars today. I bought an 85 TA like the author spotted in the early 90s (my early 20s) although mine was the more common red/silver combination. Even though it was saddled with the base LG4 305 and 700r4 auto, it was so much fine to drive and be seen in. T-tops off and pop up head lights up made it feel special…like an exotic. Such a great memory. As is the smell of testors model glue and sticky fingers!