A fun kit from start to finish! Or "Orange you glad Round 2 re-pops the classics?"
What a fun kit, certainly had some challenges, the biggest being that the instructions have you install the chain and sprockets before you paint the frame. I simply did kind of what you would do on a real bike, separated the chain and slipped the whole assembly in after the frame was done and painted. The chrome was mostly good and I used a chrome touch up pen where needed. I did not add all the extras, horn, headlight, speedometer etc. as I felt all that detracted from the sleek lines of the bike. On the real bike those were all add ons. I chose a tiger stripe seat as my trusty old Schwinn Stingray had one very similar. I was not lucky enough to have an Orange Krate, too rich for my working class family, but I had a great metalflake gold one with a sissy bar and that great tiger banana seat. The decals were so so, it took a bunch of micro sol and then a bunch of future to get the ones on the curved frame parts to settle down. It should also be noted there are decals in the kit for all the Krates except Grey Ghost. So there are Apple, Orange, Cherry and Lemon Krate decals. And my guess is when they package the kit, they don't pay any attention to the color of the plastic, as my parts were all yellow, and some of the chrome was red underneath, some yellow and orange! Anyway great kit. Last picture is of all the "fun" kits I have built this year. In fact I have only completed one "serious" project the Tamiya F-14A! These kits have really breathed new life into my model building. Ok, now back to that Dragon Panther G smart kit...time to get serious...?
Now that's a blast from the past, as the locals back then said ,'far out!' I had a tiger stripe banana seat on an old Ross standard bike that I converted, I think I had tiger grips too.
That's pretty awesome!
Thanks guys, between Round and Atlantis so many classic kits are coming back again!
This is very cool. It brought back a lot of memories for me. I had almost the exact same bike but mine was green metallic, almost a candy apple green color. When mine was new it looked like this one... believe me mine didn't look this good...
I couldn’t afford a brand new one, so I found one that a friend had. It needed some work and I ended up trading some stuff for it. Baseball cards, hot wheels cars, a baseball glove and possibly a few plastic models later and I pushed it home.
I fixed it up as best I could and was very happy with it.
Those bikes bring a premium price today ... if we had only known back then what we know today.
The one I had was called a "Pea Picker"
Thanks for posting this for us.
“Liked”
Sweet!
I had one too! Mine was a cool metallic red and I put a sissy bar on it. I used to tie my skateboard to the sissy bar and lean it all the way back and ride wheelies all over the neighborhood!
Wow, brings back a ton of memories! I had something similar and I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Schwinn. But it was cool for sure. Fat slick back tire with a long sissy bar and a 5-speed stick shift on the column. Of course Speed Racer was all the rage at that time and that's what I called it. Several years latter when I was turning 13 I stripped it down and change it to a single speed and fitted it out to deliver the local news paper. Lot's of miles and fun on that bike.
Nice finish on that kit Rob!
Wow a Schwinn Krate model. It was Christmas 1968 when I got the Lemon yellow one, my sister got the purple. Great memories. Of course I got careless and it got stolen right by the side gate to our house when I left it for just a moment. I didn't even know there was a kit of the bike existed until today. Rob your the man! Before today's high tech Cannondale's and Treks, It was Schwinn, Murray, Raleigh, Huffy and even Peugeot Bicycles. Banana seats and sissy bars. Thanks Rob.
Yep - me too - I had the purple version! You could really pop and ride a wheelie with those banana seats!
You sure pick some obscure subjects Rob. What does that say about you...?! 😉
LOL, yeah I was looking at what I have built this year. What I can say is it has been a relaxing and fun year of model building. Much like when I was a boy and I would build whatever looked "cool" on the shelf of the store all us kids bought our kits at! I am enjoying my Panther G smart kit, but is it fun?
great job