unclescott58

Does anybody make a conversion to turn one of these into a Canadian Mercury pickup truck. If they do, I'll need another one. Scott

Dodge brothers made engines for Ford. Serval companies made bodies for Ford. But, not Dodge. They never even made their own bodies. As you correctly noted in your third posting here, Budd did that. Scott

How about the Jo-Han Toronado? I know both my '70 and '72s have 455s in them. Scott

By the way, a fun story which has nothing to do with clear models, but one to do with the theme of me working with kids and yearbooks. I also sub at the high school I use to attend in Columbia Heights, MN. One day while in the library, some kids asked to see a photo of me in an old yearbook. We found a yearbook, and opened it up to my picture. One girl looks at it and says "That's not you!" I said, "Yes it is, see here's my name next to it." Again, she insisted that that's not me. After several times of trying to convince her it's me, I finally ask why she thinks it not me? She pointed to the picture and said, "That guy is hot." Ah, out of the mouths of babes. I guess I should be happy she didn't look at me that way now. But, I'm left wondering why the girls didn't seem to think that back in the day? Scott

You guys may have noticed I've not posted anything, or commented on anything in this thread till now. I'm afraid to show my ugly buildups, I have to show every model kit I've built in my collection. Scott

Okay, I'm not a computer guy. But the photo above should show up if you click on it. At least that's the it worked when I tryed it. Scott P.S. I'm the fat old one in the striped shirt with glasses.

Visiable V8.bmp Okay I hope this works. The above is suppose to be a picture from the yearbook I was mentioning. Scott

This thread reminds me. The first Renwal Visible V8 I got, was given to me for Christmas of 1971. I was 13 at the time. I had no understanding of how a four-stroke piston engine worked. Even though I had seen and read books trying to explain it, I just couldn't get my mind around it. And my dad was no help. He just told me that car engines were real complicated. Yet he was able to do most of the repairs on our cars, himself. I was surprised as I went along building my Visible V8. A four-stroke gasoline powered car engine turned out to be a lot simpler than I was lead to believe. Now I understand there were details the model didn't show or explain. But, the basic principle and the basic parts to a car engine I found amazingly simple in their design and function. This perked my interest in working on real car engines down the road. To this day, I'm still amazed how simple car engines really are. The only problem I had by the way, in building my first Visible V8, was in my haste, I forgot to put in the spacers between the rocker arms. Everything worked well, except certain rocker arms would slip off their push rods and valve stems. Not a big deal. You just had to lift off the valve covers, and slide them back into place. Another story dealing with a Visible V8 came up a few years ago. At a charter school I use to sub at a lot, every tenth grader had to do a major project and write a paper on it. One of the special ed students was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do. He wanted to do something like a model of a cutaway dragon or dinosaur. And since his adviser knew I was into models, they came and talked to me. I knew of no cutaway dragon models. And the dinosaur kits I knew of at the time were not cheap. So I suggested Revell's version of the Visible V8. He was not too happy with idea, but after a while he decided to do it. He and some other younger kids living in his foster home, had so much fun and learned so much from the model. When he wrote his paper, he made a big deal out of me helping him and suggesting the project in the first place. Being a sub, I'm never pictured in the yearbooks. But, this project had such a positive impact on this young man, they had to include a photo of him and I together with model in that year's yearbook. Naturally, I had to buy a copy of that year book. And you know, I more proud of that picture, than I am of the pictures in previous yearbooks that I was in as a teen. Scott

Only five? Okay. 1. 1960 Chrysler 300F convertible 2. 1967 Buick Wildcat convertible 3. 1959 Ford that is not a Galaxie (but Fairlane 500 is okay) or a retractable hardtop 4. 1970 Mercury Cyclone GT 5. 1966 (or '67) Ford Bronco That's it. My top five. Scott

Oh come on. Go for the rant. It's much more fun. Scott

SAL and his donkey doesn't sound like he could ever be mean, like a FedEx lady and her truck. Some how a FedEx lady with a truck just plain sound like a mean combo. SAL and his donkey doesn't sound mean at all. Scott

The government may not do as good job of regulating the automotive industry overall. Or at all. The bureaucrats do not know as much about cars as they should. This is all true. I can not argue with you guys on these points at all. But (Don't you just love the butts? For here it comes! A difference of opinion you know you will not agree with.), in the days before government intervention/regulation the industry did a very poor job of regulating itself. Nobody wants the government to stick its nose into anybodies business. Especially since the government doesn't do a very good job of it. But, industry would not do the job, so somebody had to. The government agencies that do this stuff didn't just come about out of thin air. There are reasons for their existence. Right or wrong. Again go back and read history. Contrary to belief, the "good old days" were not very good. By the way, the government is over zealous in a lot of cases and takes things too far. And humans having differences in opinions and experiences give us all a different perspective on life. What can we do if we don't like something the government does? We can lobby our Senators and our Represenitives. And if that doesn't work, we can vote for one who shares our same values and beliefs. The only trouble with that is, in many cases the majority (right or wrong) may not agree with with us. And they may vote for people or ideas we don't agree with. Also, here again right or wrong, are indivual lobbiest with more power and money than I. I don't always like it. But, that's life. As I tell the kids I work with, "Life isn't fair. But, sometime that is not always a bad thing. And for the most part things seem to work out for the best in the long run." Now to wait. And see the disagreements that come up over this one. Scott

Have to pull this tread forward again. A lot of cool stuff here. The only sad part is that Jim Keeler wrote some great stuff here. And never more. I wonder what happened? I hope Mr. Keeler is okay? Again, like I say in most of my postings. Pictures help a lot. I'd like to see more things people have built using parts pack parts. By the way the links to the one web site showing all of the known parts packs is great. This is the kind of stuff I love see on these forums. Scott

Thanks guys for sharing both your knowledge and photos. This it the type of stuff that makes this forum great. Scott

Though I do like the '74 Roadrunner. I'd love to see a '72 Roadrunner model kit again. Always like the front grille better on the '72, than the '71. Plus '72 was the first year Plymouth offered the single four-barrel carbureted 440 engine in the Roadrunner. With that engine you got small GTX emblems (also true on '73 and '74 Road Runners too). Replacing the GTX as true model in the Plymouth lineup. I know the odds are against see another '72. So I would be almost as happy if they would the last reissued MPC '71 Roadrunner kit. As far as the missing Roadrunner emblems in the Daisy Duke version of the '74. I bought decals from Keith Marks up in Canada. Better decals, with the correct Roadrunner emblems. Plus the GTX emblem for the hood if your building a factory style 440 single four-barrel '74 Roadrunner like I did. Scott

Great link Greg. A few engines like the Ford Turbine engine I had never seen before. Now that would be cool. And I wish Revell would restore the tooling of the old Renwal Visible V8. I over the years I built at least two of them. And from time to time I think about how I'd like to give the kit another try. But, taking out the electric motor and light up spark plugs ruined the kit as far as I'm concerned. Unless they fix the kit back to the way it was, I'll never buy another one. And last, I wonder where the tooling for Revell's old Slant Six kit is at. It would be really cool to see a reissue of that one too. Scott

??? I agree with Tom too. But apparently not in the same way you do. Back in the 1950's especially, the automobile companies were getting away with murder. Cars were dangerous in the way they were designed and built back then. Warranties? Some cases one month or a 1,000 miles, which ever came first. Cover ups? Buick's famous brake problem of 1953. No recall to the public. The dealers were barely warned of it. Until a mechanic in a Buick dealership as crushed by a Roadmaster. And still there was no public recall. No teeth today? Read your history. And be glad we live in a time where the government is watching out for us on this one. By the way, despite Buick's brake problems, they had a record setting year in sales. When they started grinding out axles in '56, is when the public started turning away from Buick. It took Buick years to rebuild its reputation from that debacle. I love cars from the 50's and 60's. It's my favorite era in automotive history. But, I'm realistic about those cars too. I still get a kick when I hear people at car shows say, "They sure don't build them like that anymore." And I think to myself, "Thank god." The amount of work required back in the day in simple maintenance compared to today. The lack of safety and convenience features we have now. There's no way do I want to go back to "the good old days". The cars from back when are fun now as weekend play things. But, I'll stick this a modern car for daily driving. Recalls and all. Scott

SAL donkey? What is an SAL donkey? Scott

By the way, how can anybody forget the coolest ever molded in clear. The Renwal Visible Pigeon? Scott

I'm okay with polite 25-26 year olds. Scott

Forgot about the the DiDia 150. Owned by Booby Darin, and shown from a rear view by Bill at the bottom of post #9. Another great one. Scott

As far as cars with fins. Here are two of my favorites. GM's Firebird III and Lincoln's Futura. Only Harley Earl and crew in the late 1950's can design a car with 7 fins and still make it look good. And we all know the fate of Futura. As much as I like Batman and the Barris redesign. I like the Futura in its original form better. Scott

I love big fins!

Congrats Chris. Ten years, that's really, really great. Remember we can do it one day at time as they say. I've been doing one day at a time for 12,839 days now. And life has never been better. Keep up the good work. Scott

That is a very nice '60 Rambler wagon, above. Scott