Mel's Drive-In Model Set - 1:64 Scale Hot Wheels Diorama

George Lucas wrote and directed the movie American Graffiti, a coming-of-age story inspired by Lucas' upbringing and experiences in California during the 1960's. The movie highlighted the car culture during that era and featured Mel's Drive-In (the original restaurant in San Francisco) as one of the main locations in the movie. While the Mel's Drive-In has since been torn down, the restaurant lives on in Lucas' movie. During my research, I came across a great article that I'll link below that tells the history of the restaurant and what made it so iconic. 

deeprootsmag.org/2013/07/23/mels-the-true-story-of-the-worlds-most-famous-drive-in-part-1/ 

The Mel's Drive-In restaurant has so many unique design elements which made it the perfect project to make into a model set. The main rectangular building is bright yellow with the large “Mel's drive-in” logo that immediately catches your eye. Next to that is the round building which is the main diner, and has neon lights around the roof and round spot lights on each of the posts of the walls. The cars park all around the round diner and along the yellow building. The road sign is an angular design with bright letters and logo and a large arrow pointing directly at the restaurant. The aesthetic and design is truly unique and so recognizable. 

Some printing notes:

• The large logo sign on the yellow building has some small pieces like the dots for the letter "i" and the dash between “drive” and “in”. I was able to use my fingers, however, tweezers may be necessary to help glue these in 

• I used hot glue for the small rectangular roofs and the posts. Glue the posts to the roof pieces first before gluing to their bases 

• The round building walls can be glued to the base if you want them to stay together permanently but can still be assembled without glue too. The round roof can also be glued to the walls or just rest on top. The pieces for the round building fit together like puzzle pieces

• The assembly guide PDF is available 

• Models sliced in Bambu Studio and printed on Bambu Lab printers

I'm really happy with how this model set came out and I hope you all enjoy it! Feel free to reach out with any questions.