Nicole Kidman plays essentially the same role that Kelly McGillis played in Top Gun.  One of the famous 1990’s Hollywood relationships began when 5’7” Tom Cruise married 5’11” Nicole Kidman after they worked together on Days of Thunder.  One of the more technically interesting aspects in the film was how the director was able to de-emphasize this height difference between these two on screen.   Pure Hollywood magic!  

​Testors released a hypothetical 1/48 F-19 Stealth model aircraft during the summer of 1986.  A heavily publicized crash of the real thing, super-top-secret at the time, propelled this kit to be their #1 top seller.  ​

​Real race cars on a real racetrack during a real race.  Days of Thunder is universally praised for its action-cinematography.

Top Gun’s success no doubt contributed to interest in the kit, which sold over a million units.  Building on this success, Testors smartly decided to license Top Gun model kits.  Testors didn’t normally produce licensed kits and this was a pretty unusual move for them.  They capitalized on the popularity of the movie by selling existing model aircraft kits in Top Gun movie markings.  Thanks to Top Gun and Stealth Fever circa 1986, model airplanes were a fairly hot commodity, at least briefly.
 
Fast forward a few years and Monogram Models hoped the presumptive blockbuster movie for the summer of 1990 about stock car racing, Days of Thunder, would be just as popular.  They crafted a licensing deal with Paramount Pictures to feature the name of the movie and images of Chevy Lumina stock cars in three different Days of Thunder model kits in 1/24 scale.

This is probably the most popular of the Days of Thunder model kits, Cole Trickle’s Mello Yello car featured in the climax of the movie.  Do you think that Tom Cruise’s character will win the Daytona 500?

The Chevy Lumina was GM’s new midsize car, which debuted for the 1990 model year.  GM was criticized by some for its lack of response to the groundbreaking jelly bean-shaped 1986 Ford Taurus, but by 1990, the aerodynamic Chevy Lumina sedan was finally ready.  To tantalize prospective buyers, GM sponsored the Lumina body in the Winston Cup NASCAR season in 1989, before the “real” car was available in Chevy showrooms.
 
NASCAR model kits were popular in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s with a good selection of body styles, color schemes, and drivers.  NASCAR ran Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Chevrolets, and Fords in their “Big League” Winston Cup races during this period and kits of these racecars could be found for each of these brands at one time or another.  

Circa 1990, “neon colors” were all the rage and Monogram’s Days of Thunder model kits capitalized on this style trend with black backgrounds and intense colors for the movie title and the cars on box tops.  Three kits with this dynamic box art included different NASCAR schemes for the same Chevy Lumina plastic representing different cars featured in the movie.  Two cars (City Chevrolet and Mello Yello), were driven by Tom Cruise (as Cole Trickle).   The Hardees car was driven by fellow team driver/antagonist Russ Wheeler, played by Cary Elwes.  

Kit builders will do well to be notified of a couple things.  Not being a NASCAR knowledge-freak, I can’t vouch for the total accuracy of the cars.  The movie cars have exhaust exits on the left side of the car, and the models have a “Y” exhaust with pipes that exit on either side.

Decals in the kits look a little better than the typical thick-film sheets that came with most Revell/Monogram kits circa 1990.  However, the ubiquitous sponsor stickers are obviously sparse (read: missing) compared to the movie cars.  ​

Same plastic, different colors.  Here’s the contents of the Hardees car kit.

In the 1990’s, model kit manufacturers had increasing difficulty depicting corporate logos on model kits without the necessity of crafting licensing agreements.  No doubt the movie licensing for Universal Studios alone was expensive for Monogram.  It is notable that nowhere on the kit box or instructions is NASCAR even mentioned.  So Monogram probably didn’t have to pay a NASCAR licensing fee for these kits.

By the 1990’s, model kit manufacturers worked hard to produce kits that would attract serious modelers, and the Monogram Chevy Lumina kits were very nicely done.  The complex tubular frames are well depicted and a couple nice details such as a clear fan shroud inspection window and distributor with attached wiring harness were also engineered.  No need to string ignition wiring!

To get around the sparse sponsor sticker issue, modelers who have built a bunch of NASCAR racers probably have spare decals to complete the movie schemes.  Another great alternative is the aftermarket sheets available.  Powerslide makes very high-quality decal sets for the Days of Thunder cars if the modeler doesn’t have a stash of the in-scale sponsor bumper stickers that festoon the fenders of the cars.
 
Two Days of Thunder cars not featured as kits but seen in the movie can also be built thanks to Powerslide’s aftermarket decals.  Tom Cruise AKA Cole Trickle  drove (and spectacularly crashed) a hot-pink and white Exxon Superflo lubricant car, and the early antagonist, Rowdy Burns (played by Michael Rooker) drove a black Exxon car that was actually based on Dale (“The Intimidator”) Earnhardt’s famous #3 Goodwrench racer.  Monogram didn’t release kits of these cars, but aftermarket decals aren’t hard to find.  The cars depicted in the movie were not totally fictional, or at least they didn’t end up that way.  ​They did become part of actual NASCAR history, so don’t ever let a model contest judge tell you they are “fictional” and should be entered in a science fiction/entertainment category.

For the movie production, Hendrick Motorsports ran some of the movie cars in several actual races--NASCAR would not allow the cars on the track during the race to film scenes for the movie unless they qualified as official competitors.
 
The #51 Mello Yello car driven by Bobby Hamilton and the #18 Hardees car driven by Tommy Ellis both qualified at the back of the field for the 1990 Daytona 500.  Neither entrant was scored as they were parked at 40 laps (100 miles) as planned after getting footage for the movie.  From 1991-1994, Kyle Petty used the same black-and-green Mello Yello scheme on his car.

Model kit companies don’t usually divulge numbers of models produced.   But I have a distinctive memory of a massive floor display with probably hundreds of kits at our local Target store as the movie came out in 1990.  Multiply this by a bunch of Target stores as well as other retail chains that sold the models and you can bet the numbers of kits produced were much higher than usual.  Many were sold on clearance at very low prices for years betraying the fact that far more kits were made than market demand for them. 

​All three kits can still be found on eBay at low prices, which would lead one to assume that they definitely are not rare, in spite of what eBay sellers might say.    Revell/Monogram must have taken a bath on these kits.  Days of Thunder wasn't nearly as successful as Top Gun, not even cracking the top-ten list for ticket sales in 1990.  Plus, in 1990, kids were probably more interested in Days of Thunder video games than building models of the cars from the movie.  

These color schemes definitely did not fade into obscurity after the movie’s 1990 run.  Kyle Busch ran the same yellow-and-green City Chevrolet scheme on a Camaro at the 2013 Nationwide Series race at Daytona as a tribute to Days of Thunder.

​For modelers, the Hardee’s car seems to be the cheapest and easiest to find.  The film’s main antagonist, Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker) turned into an ally of Tom Cruise’s character, Cole Trickle (based loosely on NASCAR driver Dick Trickle).  Another antagonist, Russ Wheeler, came along a little later to replace the original antagonist once Rowdy Burns and Cole Trickle become back-slappin’ buddies.  Actor Cary Elwes’ Russ Wheeler character was played as little more than an irritating jerk and his Hardees car just wasn’t as popular as the Mello Yello and City Chevrolet cars driven by Tom Cruise’s character in the movie.

If you want to build other versions of the Chevy Lumina, buy the inexpensive Hardee’s Lumina on eBay and use it with aftermarket decals for the NASCAR scheme of your choice.  Of course the Hardees Lumina is molded in bright orange plastic, so you’ll have to use a good primer to cover up that day-glo styrene.

I noticed that the mold quality in the Hardee’s Lumina kit I’m working on appears to be better out of the box than later releases of the same plastic sold as other NASCAR racers (such as Dale Earnhardt’s 1990 and 1991 cars).  There are fewer sinkholes in the orange plastic, the mold parting lines are less pronounced, and the ejector pin marks are much shallower.  This would be consistent with heavy mold use required to make many thousands of Days of Thunder cars before using the same mold tooling for later NASCAR releases.  

It’s pretty unusual to find decent quality quarter-century old model kits in near-mint, sealed box condition for half the price of a new model.  But the market is still relatively flooded with these Days of Thunder Chevy Lumina kits.  So have fun, build models, and keep web-surfing with Dem Brudders.

Like many car kits. the front subframe has sink marks that ought to be filled to make a contest-quality model.

The body from the Hardee's Lumina with the body from the Dale Earnhardt Lumina (rear).  I've glued the rear deck spoiler on the Earnhardt lumina.  It's the same plastic, different color.

Closeup of the engine halves.  There is a little flash to deal with on kit parts.  But cleaning that up is part of the fun of building models, right?

(Click the images above to learn more at Amazon.com about how you can own Days of Thunder if you don't already!  We're Amazon Affiliates!)

There is a thin spot at the front of the engine block halves (top of picture).  I'd recommend a dab of epoxy glue or CYA adhesive on the inside of the parts over this thin spot to strengthen it.  Don't use a solvent putty; it might distort the thin plastic there.