wdcav

This is exactly the case. I can get by using the airbrush indoors. But right now with it being so cold out and me living in an apartment, I have nowhere to spray paint.

I finally got ahold of a Revell SRT8 kit today. I'm wanting to take it the Hemi Orange route, but it's currently 12 degrees here and I have no other space to use a rattle can. But I can comfortably use my airbrush inside. So does anyone know a good stand in for the Testors/Model Master Hemi Orange they offer in the laquer line? I prefer acrylics if at all possible.

I like this idea, and I'm going to combine three suggestions into one. Yours of painting the spokes, diymirage's two tone gun metal, and scalefinishes of making the rims match the side blade (gun metal at this point). Thanks guys.

I'm working on my Audi R8 still, the body is Testors One coat White Lightning. But I'm really not digging chrome rims on this car for some reason. So I'm going to probably strip the rims of the chrome and go with a color. Problem is I don't know what to go with. 1: blast them white like the body? I dunno about this one. 2: black or gun metal? Black seems to harsh and would jive with the white. Gun metal sounds kind of exciting, but ultimately remains to close to black. 3: had thought of just tinting them with window tint to get dark chrome, but again, not digging the idea. So is there any other ideas anyone can chime in, or which idea above would you go with.

It's so weird it only happened there though. I used long sweeps back and forth the body. And everything around those bubbles came out great. It's disturbing. How could I strip this if that's what I end up wanting to do?

I painted this yesterday, using Testors White Lightning Lacquer. Shook the bottle plenty, but I still got some odd spurts in the paint that look like speckles of pure color or flake. But what's really made me mad is that rigt there along that body line going from the front of the door to behind the air scoop, the paint bubbled really badly. I have no idea why it did that there, it's the only spot on the whole body that did it. But it looks like ######. (edit: it bleeps out c-r-a-p?) How should I fix this? Sand the bubbles out or could/should I strip the entire body and start over?

Absolute rubbish. Nothing but a conspiracy theory. Same general idea as the old myths that Detroit (yet oddly no other country ever seemed to have) invented an engine in the 60's that ran on nothing but water. The real question for the Detroit haters is why then didn't you buy a 100mpg car from beloved Toyota or Honda? Where were the infamously inventive Germans at with their 100mpg cars? Both the Japanese and German home markets would have benefitted more from 100mpg cars then Americans would have because of gas prices. But wait! Toyota, Honda, and GM all offered models that were capable of 40mpg on the highway! You can throw billions of dollars at any problem and always achieve a moonshot solution. But who can then afford it? We could absolutely build a car right now that was made from carbon fiber and weighed less than a third of a current generation midsize sedan (think Camry, Accord, Malibu, Fusion, Altima, Mazda 6) from any maker. It could have all sorts of green systems on board to help it achieve high mileage figures. But it would bankrupt any company that tried to mass produce it and you certainly couldn't afford to buy it. Telsa Motors can't even make it's 100,000 dollar Telsa Roadster electric car profitable, and they have pretty much borrowed everything but the powertrain from other makers. Of course the idea that electric cars could have been done in 1982 isn't outlandish for the simple fact that electric cars pre-date the internal combustion engine. But once again, battery technology and electric motor technology in the 80's wouldn't have allowed for cars that Americans could actually live with. You would have to so load down the vehicle with conventional battery systems that it would be inefficient and lack the range American drivers require. It would have cost 20x more at least then the standard auto. And it still comes back to there has to be a demand for the product. Gas was extremely cheap for a very long time. Makers bring product to the market that consumers demand. Look at the current events for proof. When gas was over 4/gal I heard people SCREAMING for GM to get the Volt to market. Now that gas in my town is 1.44/gal I haven't even heard the media or automotive journalists even mutter the word Volt. But it's still in the works, being tested and evaluated right now for it's 2010 release. On the flip side, Toyota is bringing a new generation Prius to market in 2010 that basically uses the same tech available in the current model. It initially will not be anything special. It will not debut with Lithium Ion batteries like the Chevy Volt. It will not debut as a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt (which is essentially an electric car with an onboard charging unit). It will have a LARGER engine because that's what consumers WANTED most when asked about their Prius. But essentially it's more of the same. Before you hate Detroit, take a look at the entire industry and notice that nobody is doing more then anyone else.

I also put this assertion out for everyone to think about: I've never met anyone that works for Citigroup or AIG. I've met thousands of auto workers.

Compare how many retired GM/Ford/Chrysler workers there are in the United States to how many retired workers BMW/Toyota/Honda/Nissan/Mercedes have in the United States. Even by the 1960's and 1970's when the transplants started gaining a foothold into the US market, the D3 already had thousands of retirees. Example: my grandfather is retired GM Salary, he retired clear back in 1979. Market share was better then, life expectancy wasn't what it is now, 401K's and self saving weren't the norm and you expected a check each month. It was this way with nearly all American industry. US companies have yet to benefit from a new generation of retirees that have saved money for retirement through 401K investments. Toyota with the few, if any, retirees they have stateside, will incur little to none of those legacy costs because they've operated under a system other then pension checks. There are still many US retirees right now that are from the WW2 generation, still drawing money. It can't be helped, it has to be waited out, as mean and harsh as that sounds. Someday soon my grandfather and his peers will fade away, yet it'll likely take another 20-30 years for monthly pensions to disappear completely and GM/Ford/Chrysler can benefit from the same kind of retirement system as the relatively new transplants. If the D3 survive long enough, someday they will be playing on a much more level playing field. Now if only the US could get ahold of it's exploding health care costs to help American companies compete against countries like Japan and European nations that all have national health care systems in place. GM could knock another 1,500 off it's cars.

I'll be quite frank in saying this: there are a lot of ignorant and ill-informed views in here about how our auto industry "supposedly" works. I applaude those that are speaking reason here. Sure, some can't stand the idea that GM (feel free to swap GM for Ford or Chrysler) isn't the devil the media makes it out to be. But they refuse to listen to facts. Facts like GM and Ford are currently building the best quality cars they've ever built, in most cases tying or beating nearly any maker, including Toyota and BMW. This past year, GM and Ford took the 3 out of the 5 top spots in JD Powers quality surveys. Facts like GM was well on it's way to a turnaround until the economy melted down. Evidence? Read a ###### auto enthusiast magazine, specifically Todd Lassa from Motortrend, who vehemently acknowledges the General was turning a corner until credit became a distant memory. Facts like the government drove the American consumer to SUV's with their stupid and inept CAFE (Corp. Average Fuel Economy) laws, which they just managed to sneak another version of past the American consumer recently without many realizing the implications of. Facts like Toyota, BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Nissan, and Hyundia are all extremely selective about where they build their factories and what the local economy will sacrifice for a piece of the pie. They build in areas where they can avoid Union interference. They build in areas where the economy hasn't matured, so that the jobs they bring can be (rightly so I believe) viewed as "good work". Yet they do not deal with Unions. Ah, there's the rub, because overseas, BMW and Mercedes are dealing with powerful unions in their home countries that are preventing and even sapping away profits just as the UAW does here. Or that Toyota employees more temporary workers in Japan who don't receive corresponding wages and benefits then they do "normal" employees. Facts like the market demanded SUVs and any and all auto makers responded with. Evidence: Toyota last year introduced an all new model fuel guzzeler of their own called the new Tundra, and only this year released the new Sequoia, both are as thirsty as any D3 truck or SUV. Proving even Toyota didn't foresee gas prices inflating as rapidly as they did or foresee a stagnant economy that would cripple ALL makers. Evidence: Toyota was down over 33% for the month of November 2008, more then Ford, GM was down 41% and even Nissan suffered a horrible 42% loss of sales from a year ago. Toyota Tundra led the depressed sales pack for full size trucks with an astonishing 52% sales loss from last year. Facts like GM tried to market an electric car, but when demand wasn't there and gas prices and technology couldn't entice buyers-let alone make economic sense-at the time, they killed it - only to be hated for it years later by the same public that was uninterested before. Facts such as GM was already responding to gas prices inflating this previous year, evidence being the GMT900 hybrids that came to market earlier this year, the first of any maker to bring to market a hybrid to the most inefficient catagory out there. Facts like that while gas prices were raping the American consumer, Oil company CEO's were getting record level bonuses and salaries that exceded 400 MILLION on one person, all the while the media and the government sacrificed Detroit at the alter of blame. Or facts like Toyota/Honda/and Nissan are at this very moment asking the Japanese goverment to devalue the Yen to help protect their profits from exports and transplant sales. Or that mighty BMW stated less than two weeks ago that due to the current sales environment, they can weather this economy for roughly two years before closing their doors. Or that all the mainstream European makers are currently asking the European Union for handouts to help them remain solvent through this economy. Or when VW's CEO last month publicly stated that when the time came in the US for dispersion of the promised 25 Billion to automakers, his company would hold up it's hand for a share of the US Treasury's money. And what of the notion that GM, Ford, and Chrysler have brought this on themselves because of past mistakes, so lets punish them and the current management now? To that assertion, why don't we punish VW and Mitsubishi for producing arms by previous management officials that were used against the US in WW2? Or what of the time that Chrysler was under the flag of Germany, owned by Diamler (or as it was sold - a merger of equals)? Did the Germans flip that sinking ship around into a profitable entity and then set it free out of good will? Hell no, they came, they failed, they bailed. They didn't properly understand the undertaking, they misjudged the situtation, and they bungled the solutions. So do we punish the current Chrysler team for mistakes made by Diamler? Sure, mistakes have been made, even recently. But who among us is perfect, who among the competition hasn't made their own mistakes? Why the hate? We as Americans, whether it be consumers, media, or government entities, have made it en vogue to self deprecate our industry, to hate everything our own companies stand for. It's shameful to be honest.

I like the 4.5 idea. And I'm eagerly awaiting the real deal 4.5, can't wait to see all the uses for that thing. Reason stands to me that since it was designed to fit where the Chevy small block fits, so imagine the possible uses: trucks and suvs obviously, but what about a G8 with 520 pound feet of torque. I like your project. I'd love to tackle a Silverado if Revell would update it to the new body style. Or a GMT900 Avalanche, that'd be even better for me. Love those things. Or maybe we'll get a new Ram. I could work with that as well.

Okay... Not being mean, at all. read on. But it doesn't look like a Duramax to me. Of course I'm extremely bias because I used to work for DMax in Moraine OH. So that's why it doesn't look like it to me. lol. The 6.6 is a huge imposing hunk of iron when you see it. Makes the 5.3 look tiny. But hey, since there isn't a 6.6 Dura out there, good work using your imagination and available items! Nobody else will notice unless you've seen it going down the production line. *note, not being critical at all, more of just light hearted humor, in case it wasn't obvious*

Looks good. I myself have been working on a Fiery Orange Shelby GT-H since early October or so. And I also used the orange for the interior, but I mirrored your look, with orange mostly replacing the black and vise versa, except the seats, where I went straight black. How many coats of the Wet Look Clear is that? I put on several and was never quite happy with the way it looks, even after being polished.

Holy Smokes. I thought I'd be the only one that liked the Gunmetal on the hood. I thought it gives it a Mach 1 kind of feel and feels like something that could actually show up somewhere. Thanks guys.

Well, my sorta GT-H is still in progress. It's Fiery Orange Metallic with Gunmetal ground effects, spoiler, and window trim. It also has dark chrome rims now. But since I had a spare hood, I added some gunmetal to one and polished the other all in Orange. I'm torn which way I want to finish it now. So I need some votes to sway me. Here is what it looks like both ways.