Hmmm... depends on which way you want to go.

1) Preserve them as relics of your younger days?  Then clean them up, reassemble detached parts and put them on your shelf.

2) Rebuild them to your skill level today?  You can strip the paint and rebuild, but decals would have to be obtained.

IMHO... the Buick looks like it was built well and would probably clean up and be a great shelf model as is.  They have been out of production for a few years but still aren't that hard to find if you want to do a fresh build (example: https://www.spotlighthobbies.com/mo19bugsx.html).

Johan models have been out of business for a few decades now, and those Superbirds are a lot harder to find, and more expensive when you do find one.  It's the best kit to build a NASCAR replica from, as it doesn't have the vinyl top like the old Monogram 1:24 version does, plus it has some reasonable (for a shelf model) racing parts in the kit.  Yours looks like a good candidate for a rebuild, if you want to go that way.

If you do decide to rebuild, you would have to decide how you want to do it, though, as out of the box it's not entirely accurate as a race car, but it would look good on the shelf built that way if you don't want to be a stickler for details.  This is probably the way I'd go, as you can drive yourself crazy trying to make it accurate (not to mention that the cars changed from race to race, plus there were different versions of the car for different tracks).  I would make sure I painted it the proper Petty Blue colour, and you can purchase decals for it online, for example: https://www.mikesdecals.com/4340-stp-richard-petty-1970-road-runnersuperbird-powerslide-091-p-120.html

Like most hobbies, it's all in what you want to do and how deep (crazy) you want to get into it... 

I think for now I'm going to clean them up. As for the Superbird I'm just going to reassemble what fell off. I did clean up the mating surfaces and painted the handle of the pistol grip brown lol. I'm missing a hub for the front wheel so I may have to try to fabricate something. Years ago I had boxes of spares but it seems they all disappeared. Unfortunately my home wasn't "smoke free" when I was a kid and there was a lot of nicotine on these models!

Cool finds, I like em'!!!

Canadian Poncho wrote:

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I think for now I'm going to clean them up. As for the Superbird I'm just going to reassemble what fell off. I did clean up the mating surfaces and painted the handle of the pistol grip brown lol. I'm missing a hub for the front wheel so I may have to try to fabricate something. Years ago I had boxes of spares but it seems they all disappeared. Unfortunately my home wasn't "smoke free" when I was a kid and there was a lot of nicotine on these models!

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 Good call. Clean them and restore them a bit.

Good idea. I just need a 1/25 scale pit crew and jack.

That's a good price for it.  A new kit now costs fifty bucks at the local hobby shop.

BTW, I have done the same with a bunch of old model cars I built as a kid, in the 1970s.  Brought them out a number of years back to photo them, then put them back in the box, as relics of my childhood.  I have the Petty Superbird and '64 Plymouth somewhere in storage too.  Both of them were molded in Petty Blue (and I recall the boxes were labeled as such).

Here are a few of my old 'basement finds':

There are more...

An interesting side story about Johan models is that they were a small company that got some promo contracts from the car companies in the sixties and seventies.  They did stuff for Chrysler, GM, Ford, and AMC, different models than the ones that the larger companies like MPC and AMT got contracts for.  Like the other companies, Johan made kits from their promo work - typically separate molds with opening hoods, engines, etc.  Johan's body proportions and engraving were typically much better than any other company, but their chassis details were less accurate - which meant they look fantastic on the shelf, but if you wanted better chassis detail you would want to swap in a chassis from another company's kit.

They continued to produce models for several years, and I found as years went on they didn't introduce any new subject matter, so their business was in decline somewhat.  As time went on, Johan kits started appearing in many different colour plastics, some not so attractive, and the word that I heard was that they were buying cheap leftover plastics (polystyrene) from wherever they could get it.  I've seen Superbirds in that robin's egg blue, I've seen them in dark brown, etc.

Eventually the story goes that the Detroit neighbuorhood out of which they operated started to decline, and they had some questionable people working for them who would smuggle out the mould inserts and sell them for scrap, as apparently that high quality steel brought a good price.  A sad end to a company that made some pretty cool models over the years.

That is a cool story about Jo-Han. Mostly built MPC and Monograms back in the 70s

Cool!  I have all of those except the Lark and the Cuda, some built, some unbuilt.  It can be a fun hobby, but I still like the real ones better... 

-- Edited by MC on Wednesday 30th of December 2020 10:19:07 AM