Turbo Mustang & Wetbikes

Chaz Gordon
This one is pretty special to me. I can remember the day the original kit was bought, when I went shopping with my Mum in East Grinstead (Sussex, UK) which was rare expedition, I spotted a Model shop, which was something of a rarity to me, as the town we lived in, model kits were only found in Newsagents and toy shops. I'd been to Brighton's amazing Beatties Model shop, and just down the road to Model Aerodrome too, but these were in a big town.

These three model shops, the only ones I knew existed until I was 16, are now a Charity Shop, A Pizza Hut and an Espresso Shop respectively. Browsing through the newly discovered model shop, I spotted The newly released Mustang and Wetbikes, the Box art really trigger the imagination. Until then, every model kit box I'd seen had an artists impression of the aircraft, which may or may not look like the finished article. This was a photo of the finished model, and it looked cool.

Without further delay, my pocket money was advanced a couple of days early, and the Mustang was coming home with me. Looking back, it's quite likely that some extra was added to my pocket money on that day.

The Mustang was painted and built in less than 2 days. Original interior was painted Gloss black, the body shell left in white plastic, and the blue stripe painted on the lower half. The louvres were painted matt black, but I never painted the blue bonnet stripe. The trailer was painted entirely gloss black, and the wetbikes had black skis, and silver motor pods, with bare white plastic upper and the seats painted black. Engine bay on the mustang was matt black as was the engine. All the paint was Humbrol enamels brushed on with questionable accuracy (I was 9 years old!), and no concept of primer.

Thinking back, this was also my first attempt at painting a kit "Properly". Not long after, the Mustang and Trailer was joined by the Turbo Cobra, and the Turbo Capri, from the same shop.

I remember just two more Kit purchases from my first 30 years of model making, one of which involves a now lost kit, and the other I have just remembered is still only part built after 40 years, and I think I still have the whole kit. But these are stories for when I do those builds, and they will be coming.

Chaz Gordon
Before I get started with this, I've decided to restore the originals at the same time. I also have a Turbo Cobra kit from the same era that I got for next to nothing because it is incomplete. Picture Number 7 shows the originals, and you can see the scale of the task ahead (scuse the pun). So, effectively it'll be 5 builds, 3 of which are full restorations, and 4 of which will require the manufacturing of parts in Resin. Fortunately, I have all of the parts that I need for the patterns.

The Front ends on the originals got switched around so the Capri front is on the Cobra and vice versa. Colour schemes are going to be interesting, The two Turbo Mustangs will be done in their original White & Blue scheme (with a twist), the Cobras will be in different colours, at least one of which will be red, and the Capri in the original Silver

Tom ...
Damn, those guys saw some action! Looking forward to seeing this!

Chaz Gordon
I've put up an unboxing Video for this kit:
Youtube Video