Peter Lombardo

Nice job on a kit that I think leaves much to be desired (age of tooling and scale sizing). The car was always compared to the Corvette because it was the second car to be mass produced (more than a handful) that had a fiberglass body, Corvette being the first. Actually the car had a decent amount of power, it was just that it was aimed more at the "personal luxury coupe market" that the Thunderbird and soon to be presented, Buick Riviera had established. As a kid I remember running to the Studebaker showroom in late 1962 to actually see the car in person. The style and sophistication of the fluid European lines impressed me more than I could say at the time. Most all written reviews of the car loved the style and the "Coke Bottle" look, they were just not impressed with the Studebaker quality control. This was, in my mind, one of the first cars that actually made me think that a cars design could be more than just transportation. The "Sting Ray" Corvette, the aforementioned Riviera, the Mercedes Gullwing coupe, the Jaguar E Type (even the C and D Type too) and now the Avanti were examples of art, more than auto transportation to me. I have always wondered at why so many auto manufacturers would produce "Bricks on wheels" when they could have designed a beautiful piece of art. A rolling sculpture, a vehicle that thrilled the viewer and exhilarated the driver. I always wonder about that today....it does not cost any more to make the car beautiful. I will give you one more example of what I mean.....think for a minute about the Mercedes CLS, or the Volkswagen CC, or even the Hyundia Sonata.....all similar and all beautiful, sleek and sexy. Now think about the Ford 500 or the Ford Flex or even the Dodge Charger. All cars that bore me with their "brickism" design. Cars that have no soul, no excitement, no "get in me and drive me hard and fast" feeling to them. No, Raymond Loewry understood design and how the proper design could take that object to a much higher level. A Brick with wheels will get you from point "A" to point "B", but a car designed properly will move your soul, along with your body. The Avanti did that for me.

First, it is the Bunny Ranch or the Mustang Ranch, N.J has the distinction of Franks Chicken House. I can say in all honesty that I have not visited any of them...but I do pay attention. Now, believe me, you really don't need to be going to a hobby shop in Vegas. They have the same AMT, Revell and Tamiya kits that your hobby shop has. I am willing to bet that the Restaurants, Casino's and Hotel Shows blow away anything in Citrus Springs (don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Florida)but come there is only one Las Vegas. Go there and enjoy as much of it as you can. The hobby kits will wait a few days. Oh, please, have a drink for me at the first Casino you stop at....I don't gamble at all, but I love to sit next to the Casino and watch the unbelievable array of characters that stroll by....yeah, and the scantily clad hostesses aren't too bad either.....enjoy yourself, just watch out for the sun and the one armed thieves.....they both are everywhere.

Hey guys, thanks for the understanding. I am going to get this completed soon, if for no other reason than I can't wait to see what you very talented guys will do with the body. I am more excited by that then anything else.

Good Luck....I am sure you will be fine....my Brother had this years ago and he is 100%. My golf buddy had it a year and a half ago and he is great now. Have a speedy recovery.

Thanks guys. Charlie, I have seen the 2011 Chrysler 300. It looks nice, but it is more of the same. If you have seen the new Grand Cherokee, which I think looks really nice, it is basically this years body with a softening and smoothing effect to it. Nice,very nice, but it is the same design just smoothed out. Well, the same is true for the new 300. Take the current 300 and soften it and round out some of the sharp edges and that is the look. Again, nice and "safe" but not exciting to me, certainly sale able, but not unique. The American auto industry has been promising "future" cars but in my mind has yet to deliver on the promise. When I was a kid (early 1950's) they said by the year 2000 we would have flying cars and cars that ran on computer that followed electronic tracks in the roads. I am still waiting.

A few weeks ago, Fujimi 1/20 Williams FW16....a couple of weeks ago the Hasegawa 1/20 Lotus Type 79 JPS and this past week the Fujimi 1/20 Williams FW13b. Still waiting on the Tamiya Lotus Type 79 JPS. It has been a great couple of months for us 1/20 scale F1 guys. Oh yeah, I just got my Chrysler 300EX Concept that has now become the 300EX Opera Sedan Concept. Now all I need is time.

Congrat's on third place. She sure looks mean with the black wheels. Very nicely done. It just looks "fast".

Super clean and top notch. Very close to real. Great paint job...back in the day, I saw many Impala's in that paint scheme. Just beautiful.

It’s a nice Sunday morning and my wife is outside doing one of her favorite activities, pruning shrubs and small trees. Personally, I like that cozy overgrown look to the greenery around the property, but my wife just loves to cut down these fine little trees in the prime of their life. I would get her a small chain saw for Christmas one year except that I fear that I would have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of my life. I have fear enough of her with a pruning shears in her hand so a chain saw may be too much for me. Anyway, while she is outside playing, I snuck away to my workroom to contemplate the door situation on my Chrysler awhile and I think I have the solution for my dilemma. In the course of trying to decide the door configuration on the Chrysler 300EX Concept I thought about a number of designs. I recalled the Subaru Tourer Concept from a year or so ago and remembered that I liked the large open expanse of the double gullwing door. I like how there is a huge opening for ingress and egress but I think it might be too much for both sides of the car. Then I thought about the 1928 Buick Opera Sedan that my brother-in-law had, which my wife and I used as our wedding limo 35 years ago. The neat thing about this car was that the rear did not have a door on the driver side of the car. Instead, it had a curved couch seat that started at the passenger side rear, went straight across the rear and then turned and curved to the front and went to the back of the drivers seat. It was effectively in the shape of an “Lâ€. The front passenger seat swiveled to the rear so that all of the passengers could “face†each other. Buick also made an Opera Coupe model (he had one but it was not restored at the time) which had no front passenger seat, just the driver seat and the “L†shaped rear seat. So I am thinking that this car will get the full Opera Sedan treatment. The large passenger side door (drawn on to the car body, which will open as a gullwing, to also provide a shield from rain when entering the car, all dressed up for a night on the town on a rainy night. The front passenger seat will swivel to gain assess to the rear passengers. The rear seat will be an “L†shaped couch and on the driver side of the car, only the front section will open to give the driver assess to the area. I will have to change the name of the car to the Chrysler 300EX Opera Sedan Concept proving once again that “everything old is new again†and the fact that some of the best new ideas are stolen from others who went before. As a small side note, I was kicking around the idea of articulating the gullwing door to hinge in the center, directly at the point where the window and side come together so the door would “fold†up underneath itself….I don’t know, I am thinking about that idea. It would be even more different…we’ll have to wait and see how this progresses. My designs tend to be a work in process (not progress) until the last minute. I am always willing to change up ideas if something else looks better.

Tony, after all of your prior problems, this car is working out just great. I really like the opened up grill...nice job. This will look great...the green is my favorite color on this car. Looking good.

Very impressive workmanship. The interior and engine look great...loads of detail. It will be an attention getter when complete, of that I am sure.

Ok, he might be hard to read, but what red blooded male doesn't like a black Porsche? Nice job....Black on black is always in style.

Lee, very nice. Great color combo and the finish on the red is beautiful. Very convincing replica.

Darin, that is a neat little trick...very easy and elegant. That would also work with round rod and half round too. Very cool.

Romell, here is the link to the flickr site where the pictures of the wagon are. Sorry, there are not that many but what I have are there. You just need to advance forward to see the Chrysler pictures. Did you know???, Chrysler gets all the credit for the design of the 300 nose on this car. In Europe this is how the car was/is sold. A few years ago Chrysler had a concept car on the circuit call the Citadel which was basically a "Station Wagon" design with a sliding minivan rear door....I lifted the idea from that...as for the Lambo doors, they obviously are popular in many places. Anyway, here is the link (I think)

First, thanks for all of the great ideas on how to handle the doors on the Chrysler Concept car. I have seen the doors that swing down under the car, there was a video making the rounds a few years ago showing the system installed on a Lincoln Mark VII (I think it was a VII), anyway that is a pretty neat set up and it may fit this car, I need to see. I also like the idea of the minivan slider doors too. I few years ago, 2007 I think, I built a Chrysler 300C touring wagon (basically a Dodge Magnum wagon with a Chrysler nose grafted on it) that had Lambo front doors and sliders on the back. I thought I could repost some of the pictures of the construction since there is a question on how to make Lambo doors and the hint of a question on how to make sliding doors. The Lambo doors use a dental floss holder/pick, cut up to form the hinge for the Lambo door… cheap, quick and easy. The slider doors used brass rods bent and fit into tracks in the floor and roof to allow the doors to slide out and back on the car. I think the pictures explain the process pretty well, but if there are questions, I think I can answer them.

Excellent work, but you knew that, this is really coming along very nice. Each little sub assemble is a model unto itself....just the way it should be. Great craftsmanship on every little detail. Just amazing...it will be a very impressive model when complete.

I already did that….this is a Caddy STS with Suicide Lambo doors that I had at NNL East in 2008. But thanks Justin. I need to try something different.

In between all of the other nonsense going on, I made a little headway on the Chrysler Concept car. If you will recall, I designed this car to ride on the current Chrysler 300C chassis so that I could use its running gear and keep things in the same size requirements that Chrysler laid down for the current edition 300. As you can see, the chassis was almost a perfect fit under the body. I only needed to trim the rear quarter sections of the chassis since my design pulls in a little more than the current car. I have formed a section in clear so that I can use it for the windshield and side windows. I want to do something different with the doors on this car. Most of the time the factory showcases some crazy features on their concept cars to test public opinion and I think this needs a “hook†too. Lambo style doors are getting old….suicide have been done too….even gull-wing has been done to death. I don’t know, I need something different, or at the very least a new twist on an old idea…..I am thinking about it.

David, you are exactly right, and as I said, I was so concerned with making sure the tops fit right that I neglected to have solid sides for the plastic to not slip in underneath the master....live and learn. I should have known it but I was more worried about the shape and fit that I forgot the vacuum form requirements. As for getting a body, no problem, just send me your address to my e mail address....aegisgolf@optonline.net and I will get you hooked up....same is true for anyone else, just send an e mail and I will send it out. Cost should be in the $10.00 neighborhood, most of it for shipping.

Robert Burns, In “Of Mice and Men†wrote: “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft agley." (translated it means…doesn’t always work out the way you plan). AAH, so true. I finally got the necessary sheet styrene to complete the bodies for the dual cowl art deco roadster, and fortunately I completed them tonight…as evidenced by the nice little stack of the newly formed shells. That worked out fine, but the tops and windshields have been causing me a number of problems. First I planned on forming them in clear styrene for obvious reasons. But I have had no success in locating a supplier of the very thin .020 thickness that I need. My brother, a sign maker with many industrial contacts has had no success either, so I will have to result to forming the tops and windshield frames in white styrene and provide each body set with a thin piece of acetate in which to form the window glass. Actually, that is not a problem. The problem I am having is with the “masters†of the tops. I originally formed them very thin so I could gauge their size, shape and fit on the body. That worked fine for the shaping, but it creates a major problem for forming the plastic tops from the master. When the very hot plastic is sucked down onto the masters on the vacuum machine they “cave in†under the pressure. It makes perfect sense now looking back at the process. I just did not see this coming, hence the reference to the “best laid schemes†line in the beginning. Anyway, I now realize what I have to do to rectify this situation, but it will take me a week or two more to have the time to set this straight. Since I have taken longer then I planned with this, I will send out the bodies early to middle next week. The tops and windshields will follow as soon as I correct the issues I had with the last attempt. This is exactly what I love about this stuff. I really enjoy trying out new techniques and processes and when encountering problems, working through them to find a solution. You know no pain, no gain. So, to everyone who sent me an e mail, I will be sending out your order very soon, and once I get the tops and windows to my liking, they will follow. Sorry for the delays….some of it was because I needed more styrene, some of it was because the top and window debacle and some of it is because it is summer and the warm outdoors always calls to me. You don’t need to read this….I just need to vent a little…..you can go about your business…. You know, it is always something. The other day my one year old car battery dies. Ok, it wasn’t the battery; it turned out to be the alternator. Trust me; it is not a great way to spend a Sunday under a G35 replacing an alternator. You have to remove the bottom pan, get the serpentine belts out of the way and then loosen up and half remove the huge anti-sway bar just to make enough room for the alternator to drop out so it can be replaced. Then a week later my driver’s window dies in the open position with the forecast calling for rain in the afternoon. Now the passenger window died two years ago, but it died in the up position so “no big dealâ€â€¦but I had to remove the interior door panel, remove the door inside “plate†and remove the motor. I then had to disassemble the motor so I could turn the armature by hand to very slowly crank the window up. I had to reassemble the door and order two new window motors. Two weeks ago they came in and I had to spend a Saturday afternoon replacing the two motors. Yeah, I know the Infiniti dealer would love to have my business, but with my business struggling to survive I can’t afford to give them the profit if I can do the work. And, yes, now the windows work great and I often lower the passengers window and drive around just because I couldn’t for the last two years. Then a few weeks ago I go to open up the pool in the backyard. Now I have done this procedure for the past 15 years and I never have an issue. Sure enough, this year, after the cover is removed and the lines are hooked up, the plugs are removed from the lines and the pump is primed I turn on the power to the pump. It runs for 5 seconds and then begins to pour out black smoke and really stink up the place. A second later, it shuts down….dead. Three Hundred dollars later the new pump arrives UPS. I have no idea which idiot designed this set up, but to replace the pump motor you have to disassemble the pump, with all of its delicate gaskets, rings and impellers, and me not all that well versed in pump mechanics it was a real blast. Well, long story, short and three additional trips to the pool supply store (they sure charge an arm and a leg, especially in the late spring when they know they have you over a barrel. Why doesn’t this stuff break in the off season (it isn’t running, I know) but it breaks at the most inopportune time…every time. Thanks, I feel better having vented….I just wanted to explain why I have been slower than I thought providing these bodies.

I love this....if they won't give you what you want..you went out and made it. Great job. That is what this is all about...expressing your creativity and having fun. The satisfaction of doing it yourself is immense. Keep it going...we're all watching.

That is great looking!! Do you get to wear a Captains Hat when this boat gets out on the open water? Just kidding, but man that is one big boat. My brother has a 1966 Caddy convertible...it is the biggest car I have ever been in. Anyway, great job, very convincing model. Ultra clean.

So very sorry to hear about your loss. Even though it is all a part of living, it always hurts. Hang in there. I agree...may he rest in peace.

Lyle, that is beautiful. You sure have quite a touch for these classic hot rods. The light green is set off perfectly against the black. Clean and classic, it is what I have come to expect from you and you never disappoint.