This HO scale rendition of Mel’s Drive-In from the movie, American Graffiti, comes with a colorful and attractive box art. It’s a multi-media kit, with the exterior structure in plastic, but with the interior supplied on pre-printed card stock. The instructions are easy to follow and consist of 7 steps.

The suggested colors are listed, but are basic, such as white, grey, and brick red. After a little online research I found an interior shot which I used for reference. The research indicated that the diner had a black and white floor. I simulated this by painting the floor white, then using black decal trim film for the tiles.

Hobbyboss has an excellent series of hits coming, and their line of F3H Demon kits is most welcomed with their foldable wings and engraved lines.

Like most modern planes, the kit suffers from the ability to do a really good ejection seat. Quickboost gives modelers an option with a perfectly cast five piece seat with molded seat belts. The seat comes with the main body, headrest, center stick and two loops for the sides of the seat. This is an early seat, those early seats being replaced by the MB series.

Assembly is straightforward after removing the parts from the mold block. Notice in the comparison pictures that the kit parts do have some large ejector pin marks and that there are no seat belts. The Quickboost seat is a direct drop in and much better in shape and accuracy. This is the kind of resin I love- large improvement, low cost and easy to use.

It's amazing to me how many of the kits that were not around at all are actually being produced now. One of the companies coming out with a great selection of kits is Kinetic and their S2F Tracker is a lovely kit with options for wing folds and nicely engraved panel lines. One small deficiency of the kit is that it ignored the engine exhausts which are above and below the wings on the nacelles. For a lot of modelers, this is no big deal and the kit still is wonderful. View the images in the slideshow which clearly illustrate the location of the exhausts, with arrows indicating where they should go.

Installation is easy. I used a small drill bit to open the holes and then refined them with files and a knife. Once the holes have been opened and cleaned up, the exhausts were added. Total time, to open the holes and satisfactorily test fit the exhausts was about 15 minutes. This is a great addition to a great kit and would be a great start to weathering the Tracker.