unclescott58

By the way, one of the things I like about the 2nd generation Corvair is the 4-door hardtop body style. Only compact car built in America that offered that body style. Sporty, good looking, and somewhat practical. What's not to like? Scott

Notice the gas tank just behind the front suspension components. I think it was still left in the car, despite what was said at the beginning of the film. Scott

My folks had two cars in 1957. A 1950 Oldmobiles 88 and '55 Super 88. Again, I'm not so sure this was "normal" in 1957. But it wasn't uncommon either. I think you maybe trying to read too much in to this. Some people had one car 1957. Several had two or more. Some had none. It depended on needs and money. My parents were not rich. My dad had a blue collar job. My mother worked up until I was born. Their first new car was a 1961 Comet. Six years later they replaced that with a 1967 Comet 202. Both Comets were basic, cheap, stipped 2-door sedans. We thought we lived in lap of luxury because the '67 had a radio and carpeting! My dad drove used beaters back and forth to work. Mainly late 50's Fords with no floors in the back because of rust. For safety reasons we weren't allowed to ride in those cars too often. He did have a fairly nice early 60's Studebaker Lark in the late 60's. Then a very nice '63 Beetle. Finally he got a new Toyota Hi-Lux pickup truck for himself in 1971. Again, the only option was a radio. In 1975 the '67 Comet was traded in on a new stripped Mercury Monarch. Pop replace the Toyota with a new "stripped" Mustang II in 1977. Oh, the Mustang II did have an automatic transmission, besides a radio and carpet. Boy, we were moving up in luxury now! By when I owned my own cars. My sisters would follow shortly there after. Finally my mother decided in 1980, she wanted something different than a stripped compact Mercury for "her" car. She had been back working for several years by then. So she had me take her out to buy a new car. She like the Oldsmobiles my folks had back in the 50's. So she wanted another big Olds. And she wanted a few goodies. Mainly air conditioning and bucket seats. The local Olds dealer had the perfect car for her. A beautiful new 1980, Delta 88 Holiday coupe. It had power steering and brakes. Air conditioning. And the Holiday package gave the big two-door bucket seats with an automatic transmission on a console. Two-tone gold paint paint on the outside. Gold cloth buckets. Wire wheel covers! But still had hand cranked windows and an AM radio. And no cruise cruise control. But it was a big step up from the Comets and the Monarch. She drove that car for twenty years. And loved it more than any car she had own before or since. Even the 2000 LeSabre, which I now have, that she replaced it with. Her last car. But back to the basic question at hand. What was "normal" in 1957? My over all point is there was no real normal in 1957. Some people had one car. Others had two. Talking with older guys who could drive at the time, their family may had more than two cars. I think rarely did people then or now, have two brand new cars at the same time, of the same year. Scott

Ah Harry, do I have to learn anything here? It's it more fun to spread the wrong information? Scott

Two very nice models of two very cool cars. Scott

Looks very good. I like it. Scott

My mother didn't work when I was young, and we had two cars. It interesting to go back and look at info from before World War II on both car and home ownership in this country. Especially if you lived in a city before the war, you more then likely did not own a car or your own home. Less than 50% of the population of this country before WWII owned a car or a home for that matter. Car and home ownership are really postwar concepts. The government discovered during the war, how important a stable work base was to the war effort. And encouraged things like this after the war with the GI bill and FHA. And notice, with that stable work base the country prospered. To the point that not could a family now own a car, but by the 1960's many families could afford to own two or more cars. Scott

Fun watching the above videos. The first section in the first video, showing them trying to roll a Corvair, my thought was that driving any car in the same maneuver could be a little hairy. By the way the begining of the film, I thought it said the gas tank was removed? When they were manually rolling the car back over, you can see the gas tank is still in the car. The Ford tests. I don't know what to make of those? Corvair is the most misunderstood car in history. Corvair's real problems were economics and the stupidity on GM's part for trying to discredit an unknown, at the time, young lawyer by the name of Ralph Nader. GM and the public never understood Corvair. Ford's convential Falcon out sold the Corvair in way that Chevrolet rushed out its convential designed Chevy II to counter it. In they mean time, the late '60 addition of Corvair Monza showed some signs of life. Lee Iacocca at Ford understood more than the guys at Chevrolet what was going on with the Monza version of Corvair. And a conventional, "cheap" to build, sporty Falcon based Mustang was his answer. Corvair's biggest problem is it shared little to nothing with other GM products. A few parts here and there. But not enough parts to justify its somewhat low sales figures. Camaro which share most its mechanical underpinnings with the upcoming '68 Chevy II/Nova and other GM cars made a lot more sense. Corvair was designed around an aluminum air cooled flat six. At a time when Americans mainly wanted convential V-8 engines in their cars. Eventuly even in their compact cars. It was not economically practical to develop a V-8 powered Corsair without a back seat. People also forget, in the end the government exonerated the Corvair and its handling problems. Most of lawsuits against the Corvair were won by GM. So much for "unsafe at any speed." Scott

Everything I've ever gotten from Tamiya is amazing. I've never been displeased with any of their products. I just wish they made models of American cars. Scott

I'm a child of the year of the Edsel, 1958. In my family we almost always had 2 cars growing up. Nothing fancy, but two cars none the less. My mother always drove the new or newer car. My dad would have an older car just for going back and forth to work. Normal family stuff, even with father driving, would be done in the newer car. But, in the early 60's we seemed to be somewhat of an exception in this. I remember the neigbor lady living behind us never learned how to drive. And not thinking that was odd at the time, even though my mother did. By the mid to late 60's it seemed like everybody had at least 2 cars in there family. Part of it was we moved to slightly more affluent neighborhood in 1966. But, you could see the change going back to the old neighborhood at the time too. By the way, we were very close to the neighbors who lived behind us in that first house, that when my folks built their new house in the new neighborhood, those neighbors built a nearly identical house next door to us. Yet the wife never learned to drive a car, ever. The Volvo commercial shown above, has to be from the early 70's. I have not watched ad yet. But, just looking at the begining still there, you see a couple of GM wagons with the clamshell tailgate. Those cars came out starting in the fall of 1970, as '71 models. Scott

I suspect Bill is right on this. Box art changed to match what JL was offering. Scott

It looks like the '57 Fords one use to a lot of when I was a kid. I like it. Scott

Not my style. But, a great job on the build. Nicely done. Scott

Ian. Unseal them. Build them. Scott

Very nice. The envy of many I'm sure. Including me. Scott

Oh, and by the way Harry. Those were the good ones. I did not include all of the corn jokes from that site. One because it was in bad taste and not family friendly. Scott

Oh come on Harry. Two things. One, I didn't write the joke. And two, most people do consider corn a vegetable. Plus I thought it was funny and "corny." Scott

Thanks Jim. Rub it in. Scott

How about some real "corny" jokes? Q: Why didn't anybody laugh at the gardener's jokes? A: Because they were too corny! Q: How did the tomato court the corn? A: He whispered sweet nothings into her ear. Q: What did the corn say when it got complimented? A: Aww, shucks! Q: What does Chuck Norris do when he wants popcorn? A: He breathes on Nebraska! Q: What does moldy corn flakes have in common with Charles Manson? A: They are both cereal killers! Q: Why shouldn't you tell a secret on a farm? A: Because the potatoes have eyes and the corn has ears. Q: How is an ear of corn like an army? A: It has lots of kennels. Q: What do you get when a corn cob is run over by a truck? A: "Creamed" corn. Q: What do you call the best student at Corn school? A: The "A" corn. Q: What do corn use for money? A: Corn "bread." Q: What did the baby corn say to the mom corn? A: Where is my pop corn? Q: What has ears but cannot hear? A: A field of corn. Q: What did one ear of corn say to the other ear of corn? A: Don't look now but I think someone is stalking us. If corn oil come from corn, what does baby oil come from? One day two corn cobs, who are best friends, we're walking together down the street. They stepped off the curb and a speeding car came around the corner and ran one of them over. The uninjured corn cob called 911 and helped his injured friend as best he was able. The injured corn cob was taken to emergency at the hosipital and rushed into surgery. After a long and agonizing wait, the doctor finally appeared. He told the uninjured corn cob, "I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is that your friend is going to pull through." "The bad news is that he's going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life." A guy walks into a doctor's office. A banana stuck in one of his ears, a corn cob in the other ear, and a carrot stuck in one nostril. The man says, "Doc, this is terrible. What's wrong with me?" The doctor says, "Well, first of all, you need to eat more sensibly." After a minor mathematical error on routine report, a worker's boss tried to belittle him in front of his peers. Angrily she asked, "If you had 4 corn cobs and I asked for one, how many would you have left?" Quickly he replied, "If it was you who asked, I'd still have 4 corn cobs." Okay I'm sorry for that. I got these jokes off of jokes4us.com. They are bad. And there are more waiting on their site. Scott

Hey! Copy cat! It can't nice down there, if it's nice up here. Can it? Doesn't seem right. Presently the temps here are in the upper 60's. For late October this is great. Normally around this time of the year, I'd be wishing I had the money to retire, and spend my winters in Arizona. Those thoughts maybe delayed a month or two the way this fall is going. But, being this is Minnesnowa, the hell will come. Late January, early February it will be so cold the windows will be frozen shut (hopefully). And Russin Roulette will be looking like a game that might just be fun. Isn't that a cheery note? Back to the here and now. Back to living in Paradise. Scott

Very kool! I like it. Scott

Very kool! I always loved Rat Fink. Great job on the painting. Scott

Looks kool. Scott

Greg, what did you post above? I could not get it to down load. Scott

I still think the rise of 4-doors in general, is partially because of things like car seats for kids. It's a pain to install both the seat and the kid in the backseat of a 2-door car. When car seats became a requirement for carrying young children, fewer people bought 2-doors. And there are a lot of guys in the hobby now days taking their kids or grandkids with them in their collector car. 4-doors makes that a lot easier. In the old days when I was a kid, and we weren't buckled up, much less in a car seats. People like my parents bought 2-door cars back then because they felt their kids were safer with only 2 front doors. No back doors for the kids to play around with and/or to fall out of the car with. Scott