plastic model cars – Lee Duigon

Model Car Parts - Etsy

You could have a field day with leftover parts!

My brother and I built a lot of models, especially in the weeks after Christmas. Nothing like pretending to be sick (I doubt my mother was actually fooled) and spending the day in bed, putting together car and airplane models.

Many of these kits gave you spare parts galore, and after a while your inventory builds up. But that was an opportunity to build weird contraptions that didn’t actually exist! Extra car bodies, airplane wings, and battleships’ gun turrets–you could put them together into any crazy thing you pleased!

My favorite creation had a jalopy body, long legs made of oversized exhaust pipes (think War of the Worlds), a swiveling gun turret, a smokestack, and a number of attachments whose function was purely conjectural. It stood on a shelf on our bedroom wall, defying analysis. I wish I had a picture of it!

Do kids still build plastic models? Do they still scavenge the unused parts for imaginative creations? It certainly gave the imagination a workout, and was light-years more fun than anything we had in school.

Image result for images of plastic car model-making

When I had to buy and install a new computer monitor yesterday, I was afraid it would turn into a fiasco. But once I opened the box and saw the parts, I discovered the assembly was so simple, even I could do it. In fact, it was just like assembling a plastic model car–a pastime which my brother and I enjoyed many times.

You got a box with a picture on it, which contained a bunch of parts and instructions that we really didn’t need. After all, we knew what cars are supposed to look like. So we put them together, and used our imaginations to customize them with the extra parts provided for that purpose. My father built us a display shelf for the models. One great big hot rod model that we got for Christmas had so many extra parts, we were able to make completely imaginary extra cars out of them. I was even able to create a Martian invasion thingy on long legs made from extra exhaust pipes.

I wonder if kids are still making model cars. It requires an attention span, which is hard to come by nowadays.

In addition to being fun, the skills you pick up in passing just might come in handy, years and years later.