Mine was a Christmas gift from Grandma and Grandpa... a 1984 Nissan Fairlady 300ZX.  Almost positive that it was a Tamiya kit circa 1986.  How do I know?  I vaguely remember the box art (stark white background), it was mostly molded in colour, and I had that thing together without a hitch within a half hour, at age 11.  Who else but Tamiya could make such a fine kit that a child could interpret the Japanese instructions and get it done without any bad fits?  Keep in mind that I didn't paint anything (had none at that time).  Without paint, it still looked pretty good too.  2 shades of gray & black for engine/chassis/interior parts, a white body, and rubber tires.

I was hooked.

I think that pretty near every christmas or birthday after that amazing first experience, there was ALWAYS at least one  model kit waiting for me. However I have to give special mention to my dad, who thought that I should get to know my Canadian heritage a little better with a 1/72 Avro Arrow, at age 13.  My first model with paint!

Man, I can almost list them all!  1/72 Space Shuttle, F-19 Frisbee, F-15 Strike Eagle, F-16 Falcon, Peterbilt truck, a 'Cuda, Enterprise TOS, A, B, D, E (never finished), Klingon & Romulan Birds of Prey, Maquis ship, a Lambo Diablo, some Jag concept car, a couple MF's, a tuned Honda Civic (my first mod)...

Then the 18+ Army days: British Challenger 1, M1 Abrams, M2 Bradley, BTR-80, 2 British Scorpions, Israeli Merkava, and one of those US tracked missile launchers.  Oh, and a British helicopter (Cheyenne? Ch.. something?) and an F-14 Tomcat, just to keep it interesting.

Next on the list?  After a 12 year hiatus, my current War Wheels build, the Cougar AVGP.  Watch for it in the War Wheels topic!