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This kit has been part of my life for a long time, it seems. I started the build thread back in September 2020; it's been a challenging journey in places, partly because of the design of the kit and partly because of the decisions I made during the build process, but I think the end result was worthwhile. Why did I get this kit? I've always loved 1960s GT cars - Jaguar E-types, Ferrari Lussos, Aston Martin DBs and the like - but I'd sort of forgotten about the Maserati until different examples popped up on Jay Leno's garage, Fantomworks and Chasing Classic Cars all within a couple of weeks. That prompted me to see if anyone made a kit and there were a few available on eBay. This kit was slightly incomplete but much cheaper than the "vintage" sealed in box examples. I didn't know what exactly might be missing when I bought it but I could see that all the major stuff was there and apart from the things I fabricated to enhance the kit I think I only had to make four bits; the tail piece of the gearbox, the two front wing grilles (I had one but it would have looked odd if they weren't a matching pair even though you couldn't ever see both sides at the same time) and the fuel filler neck in the boot. In terms of additions the biggest was reshaping the front grille, and that provided a convenient excuse to replace the solid moulded grille itself with something open. I'm not sure that the grille shape is entirely correct, but it's more correct (at least to me) than the way the kit was designed. I wasn't brave enough to tackle the windscreen shape, which is also slightly off from the real cars. I also added wires to the spark plugs (12 as this is a twin-spark straight six) and a few other under bonnet details. On the interior I slightly reshaped the seats and gave them runners, changed the steering wheel and indicator stalk for aftermarket metal parts, reworked the door cards, tweaked the handbrake placement and added seat belts. The colour scheme was inspired by a real 3500 GTI (body is Tamiya TS-58 Pearl Light Blue, upholstery is TS-33 Dull Red). Anyway, you didn't come here for a load of waffle, how about some pictures? A quick "before" a bare shell, if you like, pulled out of a barn and ready for restoration. Technically the script is wrong, the typeface should be slightly different and read "Maserati 3500 GT" while the spear through the trident badge should be script spelling out "Injetzione" (or something like that), but I had to make do with what I could get from eBay. Apologies for the improvised boot prop, not many people will ever see this view but it's quite pleasing to know that the boot is nicely finished. Build thread is here, if you're interested and haven't been following along. Thanks to everyone who has liked or commented on the build thread.

I feel a bit bad about starting another build, but I'm struggling to find enthusiasm for the Airfix Aston Martin (it's the moulded plastic one-piece wheels and tyres) and having had a bit of a setback with my metal TVR (I wasn't happy with the paint finish). This kit has sat tempting me for a few weeks. The funny thing is that I came buy this almost by accident; I love classic 1950s and '60s GT cars, they are so stylish and redolent of a more glamourous age (a world that was probably mostly a creation of books, films and television). It happened that three of my favourite car shows (Jay Leno's Garage, Chasing Classic Cars and Fantomworks) all featured examples of the Maserati within a week or two of each other. That set me wondering if there was a model of the 3500 GT and it turned out there was; of course it was made ages ago and any sealed examples were silly money. This one was reasonably priced because it had been opened and parts cut from their sprues. However, the pictures with the listing showed at least enough parts to make a passable model (all the body parts, glass, wheels and tyres, I figured I could bodge anything else I needed even if it ended up as a kerbside model rather than fully detailed). This is what I saw when I opened the box; it seems very much of its time with the opening features, colour moulding and (although you can't really see here) all the engine parts were chromed. As I often do with build projects I've done a fair bit of internet searching to find out more about the Maserati 3500 series. This kit represents one of the later 3500 GTI cars, which were Italy's first production car with fuel injection (produced by Lucas in Britain). Being a low-volume car it seems that the history of most examples is known, the closest match I've found for the car represented by the kit is chassis number 101-2334, which was a USA-market 1962 3500GTI in a similar colour to the maroon plastic but with a slightly darker tan interior and wire wheels. The combination of maroon (which is sometimes described as red) with biscuit or light tan upholstery as depicted by the kit does not appear to be a catalogued combination; but that doesn't mean that it couldn't have been done to special order. I'm not sure whether to paint the body in a similar colour to the plastic (I have some suitable paint) or go for a colour change? I quite like the idea of blue with dark red leather. I've made a bit of progress on the build; cleaning up the body and assembling the engine so I'll post some progress photos tomorrow.

Maserati 300S pics thanks to Stuart.

This is the ancient Aurora kit, re-issued by Monogram in the 90s. It's actually pretty good plastic, with plenty of detail to work with. The opening doors, bonnet and boot bring their own issues, but the end result is rather nice compared to today's buttoned-up kerbside kits with aerodynamic under trays. As you can see, there's a fair bit of work to fine-tune the kit into a more accurate representation of the original classic, which is a truly beautiful, and very purposeful looking GT car. The windscreen is still not right -- it should be more upright, and the base is much more semi-circular, not the large rectangular cut-out Aurora gave us. Personally, I think all the shape issues in this area come from placing the firewall to make room for the operating door hinges, which mean that it's too far forward. The engine is nice, and a bit of time with wiring pays big dividends. Many thanks to Skip Jordan who has been nudging me to give this a try for a couple of years, provided invaluable reference resources, and acted as chief cheerleader along the way. I'm now going to go away and build something from a state of the art kit, out of the box, before I even THINK about tackling the Singer 911 kit-bash... bestest, M.

This started life as a nicely moulded but crudely painted (and in many places not painted) Mondo die-cast. I stripped all the paint, and detail-painted the nicely detailed black plastic parts for the interior and engine. I still need to add some chrome badges and scripts, but that may take a while since I'm still working on how to do it! bestest, M.

It's the only way to get one, so I'm treating this as a white-metal kit, rather than a "detailed die-cast"! It's the Mondo Motors model. The one I received shows every sign of corner-cutting and cost reduction compared to the reviews of the model on the web. There was nothing like the level of detail painting you can find online -- just one overall red body, a few black grilles, and nothing else... So, I stripped all the paint, and primed all the black interior plastic for a new colour scheme... ...and a couple of days later, here we are... The moulded detail on the dash and the engine bay is actually pretty crisp -- at least the equivalent of a current Revell Ferrari. The colour is the same Rosso Brunello as the 3500 GTi -- I want them as a pair/compare and contrast... The dash isn't glued in place... The main problem is access around the seats, but as you can see, there's a good level of detail to paint. Black carpets, and dark wood trim with this leather, all picked from the configurator... bestest, M.

... a "golden oldie", which I believe started life with Aurora, back in 1964. And by popular vote (thanks, all...) here it is on the work bench. Job #1 is to fix a significant shape issue with the kit, which changes the look significantly. The top line of the windscreen is too high. I think there's maybe one car where the roofline is like that on the kit, but most of the photos I've found show a much lower line, continuing the gutters above the doors horizontally, parallel to the ground. The kit has a "wide-eyed" look, because the windscreen top heads upward over the roof at 45 degrees to the level. It's taken me a while to figure out how to do this! What I decided to do is cut the top section off the windscreen and glue it to the body, and then make a new windscreen. Here's the top part of the clear part stuck in place, and filled. ...and here it is sanded. You can see where the original roofline goes. The clear piece is backed up with Milliput just in case the sanding makes it a bit thin! It also needs a "trim" to continue the chrome above the doors. This is just a thin strip of plastic card, applied slowly, a bit at a time, with liquid cement. ...and here it is with a bit of primer to see where the imperfections are... Of course... this means we need a new windscreen. Apologies if this is familiar, but people often ask me what "plunge moulding is", so here we are. The original windscreen is backed with Milliput (it cracked as I was cutting it ;-() I cut a hole in a piece of hardboard from a chocolate box to make the outer "mould". The plastic is packaging from some Sennheiser headphones. Basically, any of those "clamshell" packs that you have to cut your way into, and avoid being cut by the packaging afterwards, make good material for this kind of thing... ... I made quite a few. This is to allow for my incompetence while I try to trim and fit them... This one looks like it might be a long haul, but it'll be a rarity on the shelf! bestest, M