Remember your old cars with a scale model

Like most people, I sometimes miss the cars I sell. Usually, I get rid of them for a good reason—like the new one is better—but still, I get attached to them.

Of course, unless you have unlimited funds, you can’t keep ‘em all. And since that is the case, maybe the next best thing is to pick up a diecast or build a model of your long lost prized possessions.

I got in the habit of building a model of whatever car I own years ago. Truth be told, my models aren’t show winners or anything, but they mean something to me. I still find myself studying my old models and thinking about what it was like to drive that car, or I think about the fun places I went in that car. I’m pretty sentimental anyway, so it doesn’t take much to send me into dreamland.

Vintage 1/24th-scale Monogram stock car model kits are fun collectables for NASCAR fans

It seems like NASCAR diecast models are everywhere today. You can get a nicely finished version of pretty much every car out there, and usually every special paint scheme. There are so many different diecasts are available, it would be virtually impossible to collect them all.

It wasn’t always that way, though. In the 1980s, if you wanted a scale model of your favorite driver, you pretty much had to build it yourself. And the most popular; and arguably best 1/24th-scale plastic model kits were made by Monogram Models.

Monogram had been building kits since the early 1950s, but the stock car business really took off with the introduction of a new NASCAR line in 1983. At the time, these kits were state-of-the art. They had features and details never before seen in race car kits. Even the construction of the chassis and the way it mated up to the body was similar to the way a real racecar was built.