For many years, a 1:20 scale Tamiya kit of Richie Ginther’s 1969 Mexican Grand Prix-winning Honda RA272 Formula 1 car has been languishing in the bottom of my wardrobe. I – like many of you reading this – have fond memories of building countless model cars as a child.
The problem, however, is that as much as I enjoy the building process, the finished product never lives up to expectations; I admittedly lack the patience, finesse and skill required for intricate painting. So, while the RA272 is one of my favourite classic Grand Prix racers, it has remained in wardrobe purgatory while I naively deceived myself into thinking: “One day, I’ll finish it.”
Serendipitously, however, my RA272 is in the twilight zone no longer. It’s now on its way to the Cathedral of Model Building’, where ‘The Pope of Plastic’ – Rick Schad – will anoint it with glue, primer, paint and topcoat – transforming the neglected kit into a finished masterpiece that will be installed in a consecrated position on the centre of my shelf.
Rick is well known in model-building circles, and has built a reputation as one of the finest builders and painters in the business. He creates everything from cars and aircraft to sci-fi replicas and military miniatures, each finished with an astonishing level of care and detail. To him, model building is more than assembly – it’s art and storytelling. Every panel line, weathered surface and hand-painted motif brings his models – and the tales behind them – to life.
“I’ve been an artist for more than 30 years,” he explains over a video call. He’s sitting in his parked car, and has agreed to chat with me while doing one of his weekly runs to the hobby store. “I got my start in the screen-printing world as a T-shirt designer, but I slowly moved away from that to develop a golf product that I took worldwide. After that, I went to Hasbro, where I worked on packaging and toy design.”
Rick’s eclectic career path then meandered via a creative director role for a bicycle company, before he arrived in the car world, becoming executive director of Newport’s Audrain Auto Museum in 2018. “I created and founded the Audrain Motor Week – it was my baby,” he says proudly.
“When I was at Audrain, I was looking for something to occupy my time when I wasn’t working. I needed something because – and I’m not ashamed to admit this – I was a bad alcoholic and I was new to sobriety. So, I thought: ‘I’m going to build some models.’ I built models as a kid, and I kind of missed it. When I was at Hasbro, we used to buy a lot of model kits that we would use for kit-bashing and things like that, and I still had them in my basement.
“I then decided to share my models on LinkedIn because there were plenty of people on there who were following me for my other art and design work. It got a huge response, and I started getting messages from people saying: ‘Hey, my father had this car; could you build this model for me?’ So, that’s when I started building models on the side for commission.”
Just as Rick’s modelling career seemed to be taking off, life threw him a curveball. “After leaving Audrain, I went back into the car space to develop events at the M1 Concourse in Michigan: the Woodward Dream Show and the American Speed Festival. I took a break from model building while I was building those events.”
Then, Covid swept the globe. “After those two events, I found myself in a tough spot,” Rick confesses. “Unfortunately, I started drinking again and, around the same time, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. It was one of the lowest points of my life. I knew I had to get myself back on track, and that’s when model building came back into my life. I was unemployed, had no job prospects and thought: ‘Maybe people would be interested in me building models again.’ So I gave it another shot.”
That pivotal decision led to Rick’s big break in the modelling world: TikTok. “A friend of mine suggested I get on TikTok, but at first, I thought: ‘What the hell am I going to do on there?’ I don’t dance, I don’t sing, I don’t have a cat and I wasn’t going to give make-up tips,” he laughs. “But my friend insisted, saying: ‘You’ve got a funny personality, and people will enjoy watching you build – just try it.’ So I decided to give it a go.”
When I signed up, I needed a name. I wanted to create a persona – something unique. I started thinking about plastic – since that’s what models are made of – and somehow, my mind wandered to religion. ‘Jesus of Plastic?’ No, that would offend people. Then it hit me: The Pope of Plastic. Now that had a nice ring to it.
“So I ran with it. At first, I just posted short updates on the models I was working on, but once I hit 1000 followers and unlocked the ability to go live, that’s when things really took off. I leaned into the whole Pope of Plastic persona, and I even named my workbench the Cathedral of Model Building. And somehow, it just clicked with people.”
For me – both an onlooker and a woefully bad model builder – Rick’s appeal isn’t just the intricacy of his creations but his humour and authenticity, especially when contrasted with his openness about the personal challenges he’s faced. This approach is rare in the world of social media, where most people airbrush and curate their feeds into a personal highlight reel, carefully filtering out the strife and negativity that life can inevitably bring.
That also extends to the art of model building itself. If you log into TikTok and watch Rick build, you’ll discover that even professionals such as him face setbacks and challenges before a high-quality creation is finally completed. “When people are watching me, I’m always talking and looking at the camera. I want them to feel like they’re speaking to someone that they can relate to,” he explains.
“There are plenty of model builders online who won’t talk, and all you see is their hands or the finished product. But I get mad, I cuss, I throw things. When I drop something, I get pissed off and the audience loves it. They hope I stab myself with an X-ACTO knife; they want to see bad things happen to me as I build, because it’s funny. And it happens all the time – I’m not always happy when I’m building.”
Comedic missteps and setbacks aside, the real draw for Rick’s followers is watching the satisfying transformation of a kit into a piece of art. Over the course of many hours, blank plastic parts on a runner evolve into miniature, lifelike representations of something real.
“I don’t really consider what I’m building to be a model – it’s a piece of art. Yes, it comes from a kit, but I’m pouring my heart and soul into this model, and I’m channelling the souls of the people who want me to build for them. I have to make sure it’s an exact replica of what they had or what their family had,” he explains.
To ensure such accuracy, Rick prides himself on the amount of time and research he dedicates to each project. “Detail and accuracy are key. Anybody can build a model, and I can teach anybody how to build a model that looks like it came out of the showroom. I specialise in cars and I put in hours of historical research on a vehicle before I start building it. If I’m building a race car, for example, I’ll find out its history and where it raced, and I’ll check period photographs to see what the weathering looked like – because it will weather differently depending on location.
“I’ll painstakingly replicate the precise weathering from the photographs and recreate the mud, rain, tyre wear and wiper strokes on the windshield. I’ll also do custom detailing, paint-matching and custom decals. Then, when a project is finished, I create a PDF file to accompany the model that includes photographs of the car being built and all the historical research that went into it.”
Rick now builds nearly all his models live on TikTok, giving you the chance to watch my long-neglected Honda RA272 take shape in the Cathedral of Model Building in real time. I’ll certainly be glued to the project (pun intended) – and who knows, it might even inspire me to pick up modelling again after years away.
Either way, I can’t wait to see the final result, which you will be able to see in Magneto issue 26, mailed to subscribers from May 1, 2025.
To watch Rick bring my Honda RA272 to life, catch him live on TikTok at 7:00pm ET on weekdays and from 11:00am ET on weekends. For more information and to commission a model of your own, click here.
