Brudda

Thanks Rich. Well I looked at it and it went back on the shelf.LOL. I’m just going to look at yours. 👍

I was at laguna seca several weeks ago with MG1 Ferrari. I had my MG1 shirt on walking the pits, I’m talking to people from all over the world. The owner from MG1 must have told them they had a guy repairing their cars. Guys and girls from all over wanted to shake my hand. People would introduce them selves and I did not know who they were. Danny Sullivan was walking by and stopped to shake my hand and asked me if we could talk for a few minutes. He wanted to know how I straighten out aluminum Ferraris. He has several in need of repairs and asked me to stop in at his Los Angeles house. I was like a deer and a car comming. I did not understand any of it. Then Scott, a guy (billionaire)from Seattle told me that there is only 5 guys in the US that can do what you do. Everyone wants to hire you to repair their cars. I did get offers from all over the world at laguna. Told them all that I’m ready to retire. They did not hear that and kept throwing numbers at me for three days. I’m getting calls from every where. The call today was from London. Really? No more guys that can repair aluminum in a short period of time? Scott told me these people only expect the best. And only a handful of people are accepted in this community. I’m very lucky to be one of those guys. But where has the talent gone? I’m just stunned. Also very lucky to be in this elaborate community. My dad taught me well on sprint cars , Indy cars and hand made Ferraris. I never thought I would be doing this. Another thing he taught me is to be humble. I’m trying not to let any of this go to my head. I’m lucky I have a beautiful wife that settles me down,LOL here is a pic of my latest project. It was hit every where. I’m putting her back together, this car is Scott’s, the billionaire from Seattle.

Yup, glad I’m passed those days. Same goes for collision repair. I usually can read a customer. We have writers and they are good. And we have to deal with insurance companies. That’s a whole discussion in itself. Had a corvette customer come in and thought he was king sh.. Was bossing people around. I have enough and told him to f…. O.. and said I did not wreck your f….. corvette. Take it out of here now!!! He wanted the most experienced guy on his car. Guess what that was the guy that told him off. It’s weird he actually apologized and was really great after that. But I no longer have to deal with that nonsense. I have one customer, Ferrari and they do not care about costs, they just pay their bills. I’m very lucky in that way.

Great job!!! I have the union kit and it looks like a handful! I heard about the fit issues and always put it back on the unbuilt shelf. You made it look great !

Cool , a bidders contest. Kurt I believe you are close. $88,000,000 is more reasonable but the rich are not so much. I have seen the craziness of billionaires. Unreal. If two ego maniacs go at it , the price will be crazy. I just worked on a Ferrari splitter front lower bumper on a challenge 296 car yesterday. I told them it was just about impossible to repair. The price of a lower splitter is around $7500. If you can find one . And you cannot right now. So he said I do not care what it costs, can you have it done by Monday? So the bill is around $10,000 and he is glad to pay it. Insane? Probably but who says the billionaires are sane. So attach this mentality to bidding on a very rare and beautiful car. If egos go insane , who knows what it will bring. A billionaire told me at laguna that he will spend around $100,000 for three days of playing with race cars. Three days?……he told me his car prep, mechanics, catering people, shipping cars , renting laguna seca etc, etc around $100,000. To me it’s crazy , to him it was a great weekend.

Oops ….a real 289 fia engine. Fell in the pics. Sorry it’s real. Was going to take it out but thought you guys might like it.

Here are some 1/12. a mock up of a 911-78 Moby dick Porsche. The black 427 cobra took the 1st place in special awards in the 2021 IPMS Las Vegas Nationals.

I have a few 1/8 cars built. Here are a few pics the Toyota 2000 GT is 1/10 and the Red Bull f1 is 1/7

I’ll play. I’m really not into 1940 cars but with that being said I thought I might try a 49 merc. I loved the build. Put a GT 500 supercharged engine in her, anyway here is a pic

I loved my focus. Great car. Gave it to my son who still has it.

Like this one

A Z06 the only thing I do not like when I drive her is the front end like skids at slow speed . A little weird. But at high speed , pretty nice

Ok the last 250 on the auction block was $42,000,000. The private sale of the silver 250 was bought privately for $72,000,000. So $100,000,000 is possible. History, history, history is everything. …. For instance take a regular 1965 mustang fastback. It sells for this much. If Carroll Shelby put his number on that car what is it worth now? Carroll Shelby has history. And if a famous race car driver raced or owned that car it goes up in price. History. Yeah $100,000,000 is possible.

Ready to have the suspension and engine installed. After the install I get it back for the sheet metal. Just a 1:1 model.

Hello Micheal. I never had that kind of money. These guys and gals have so much it’s unbelievable. There is a guy that just sold his computer company for $250,000,000 and he was at the bottom of the wait list to buy one of these. Insane! The guy at the top of the list has over 15 billion. He gets what he wants. I talked to him for several minutes and it was like we were friends forever. He just asked is my car going to be ready? I said yes and he’s a happy camper. Did not even care about cost. Boy to have that kind of money. I just charge a fair rate and it makes everyone happy. Now if it needs to be done faster they know the price goes up. A lot! And usually it has to be fixed fast. Another strange thing is that no one gets pushy. I have never had a guy or gal get weird on me. Now the guys who think they have money are the ones who try to get pushy. But I just mention one of these billionaires name and they shut up. I just got back from Denver to look at a wrecked ferrari. They paid for everything. These guys and gals do pay for everything. So I’ll be working on his car soon. Ferrari has also notified me that they want to make my city a port of entry for the challenge cars. It’s kind of getting bigger than I thought. Oh well let’s see where it goes.

Just a big .1:1 model kit ….. well a very expensive model kit.

Getting quite an assortment of parts. A little over $100,000 in parts, absolutely insane. My little 1:1 Ferrari parts and cars. Totally crazy.

917/30 engine. And tires and wheels. Framework next.

Won this in a raffle at the Fremont Hornets contest

Car finished and ran at laguna seca

Claude you are amazing. The creative touches to car modeling is outstanding. I like this build. A glue bomb to this! Great job sir. The studio is still producing beautiful builds.

A McLaren m8a tamiya kit. The orange parts are out of bags but the rest is bagged. All parts are there. Looking for Fujimi Ferrari street cars. Fujimi cobras. Same value or close. I have all Ferrari f1 kits, so no f1.

Beautiful car. It’s cool a car company has the grit to come out with something cool, not a suv. On the subject on horse power, 550? WOW. I agree with Ace , not many can handle the power. Muscle cars are the prime example. It’s not the horse power that ruins muscle cars , it’s stupid people. Back in the day, 400 hp was big, so people bought muscle cars but could not control the power and crashed. Hence the big insurance premiums. If people did not crash their cars , the insurance company would provide reasonable rates, but nooooo idiots who cannot control their mega horsepower cars are the ones to blame. For example: I drove a 1993 svt cobra on the ford test track in phoenix. It was way more car than I could handle. Great car , average driver. It was 285 hp. I even had a little race experience in sprint cars and midgets back then. 800 hp in a sprint car and about 400 in a midget back then. So I was not green by any means. But that 285 hp svt cobra was very quick and even I could not get its true potential out of it. Bob Bondurant gave us a quick lesson in being a road corse driver. I humbly learned that the car was more than me. Fast forward to today…. More idiots , a lot more and these guys crash. Same old story. I also agree with Micheal on complaining. If there’s something new , there’s some guy or girl complaining about it. My dad said ( about cars) if someone is complaining , they cannot afford it or are jealous of it.

Thank you Mark

Thank you sir