Begin with an ordinary kit and build the custom car of your dreams! Learn how, step by step, with tips and techniques from one of the hobby's leading modelers. Includes modeling basics, plus bodywork and painting.

This generously illustrated guide to assembling, detailing and customizing model cars presents ten chapters covering plastic model kits ranging from muscle cars and lowriders to race cars, hot rods and pickups. Each project addresses a different set of techniques representing skill levels that grow more advanced as the book progresses. From assembling and painting a muscle car right out of the box to building a hot rod complete with fuel lines and plug wires, as the reader finishes each project he or she develops an understanding of the skills necessary to utilize laser-etched parts, assemble hinged doors and hoods, apply metal foil for chrome finishes and execute custom paint and decal finishes. Step-by-step photos -- including 100 in color -- illustrate all of the skills and techniques described.

In the 1960s, model kit building was a huge hobby. Kids built plastic kits of planes, tanks, race cars, space ships, creatures from scary movies, you name it. Before baseball card collecting, Pokémon, and video games, model kit building was one of the most popular hobby activities. Car and airplane kits were the most popular, and among the car kits, muscle cars, as we know them today, were one of the most popular categories. Many owners of real muscle cars today were not old enough to buy them when the cars were new, of course. Yet kids of the 1960s and 1970s worshiped these cars to an extent completely foreign to kids today. If you couldn’t afford or were too young to buy a muscle car back then, what could you do? For many, the next best thing was to buy, collect, and build muscle car kits from a variety of kit companies. Hundreds were made. Many of these kits have become collectible today, especially in original, unassembled form. Although people still build kits today, there is a broad market for collectors of nostalgic model kits. People love the kits for the great box art, to rekindle fond memories of building them 40 years ago, or even as a companion to the full-scale cars they own today. Here, world-leading authority Tim Boyd takes you through the entire era of muscle car kits, covering the options, collectability, variety availability, and value of these wonderful kits today. Boyd also takes you through the differences between the original kits, the older reproduction kits, and the new reproduction kits that many people find at swap meets today. If you are looking to build a collection of muscle car kits, interested in getting the kits of your favorite manufacturer or even just of the cars you have owned, this book will be a valuable resource in your model kit search.

"Profiles the work of 14 customizers who are still creating and restoring custom cars."--Publisher's description.

Handcrafted, radical, and subversive, these custom cars are designed and made by a small number of specialists