Kit: ERTL MPC Back to the Future II 1/24 Scale
This poor car. I learned so much of what not to do with this one kit.
To be honest, this wasn’t ever (even at 13) considered my ‘best’ model or anything, but it was my first Back to the Future kit. And it shows. There’s nothing right with this model. It spent years in bags for waiting for me to take pictures and write its eulogy.
The doors were done in such a way that they did actually stay up by themselves, but were entirely inaccurate in the way they worked. I give myself props for the effort since it was my first and I was all of 13. I even thickened up the doors and added the little lights, although they are just bits of paper with flourescent marker.
I cracked the windshield in half while doing the doors, a common problem unfortunately. I glued it back together rather than trying to make a new one. Probably seemed ok at the time. I also managed to crack the driver’s side window near the bottom, and I don’t recall how.
I joined the DeLorean Owner’s Association in 1993 as it’s youngest member at 15, and in 1994 my dad and I went to Temecula, California with 2 models in tow, this one and a much cleaner homemade BTTF III car. Natually, they took a nice photo of this wreck on it’s proudest day and put it in the magazine, Volume 11, #2 1994. It was all downhill from there.
Since then most of the BTTF parts have fallen off or were stripped for some reason or other, the entire system of flight mode and wheel attachment was stripped, the roof section and doors have broken off, and all electronics were removed. “Electronics,” you say? Yeah, try two 12v lights for the front headlights. Sucked a mini 12v battery dry in no time.
The paint was a whole other issue. Either I didn’t see it or it hadn’t come out yet, but instead of my favorite Stainless Steel buffing metalizer paint, I used “German Silver.” It’s practically got chunks in it. Some of the real closeup shots shows how thick this stuff is. I practiced stripping paint with this model so I wouldn’t screw up my good DeLorean. This did not help the model’s appearance any. An incident with a lighter deformed the quarterpanel.
As you may have guessed by now, this car is no longer with us. I kept some of the parts but the rest was sadly garbage. R.I.P.