Peter Lombardo

Do you think they could have thrown in a picture or two? They also could have added a little more texture from Gregg about the hobby. I am not complaining about it, we will take the publicity from where ever it comes, but this could have had some pictures and additional comments, that's all.

Nick, since I have no idea of exactly what you are doing with your Willy’s, I may be off base here, but if you are not doing a bone stock build up, why not look into “suicide†doors that would hinge from the rear. The rear of the door has a very simple straight edge to it so the hinging will be much easier. Just a thought. Also, look at the old Revell Stones, Wood & Cook kit to see how they hinge those opening doors. You should be able to replicate those hinges from scrap plastic pieces. Either way, good luck. EDIT ADDED LATER : Nick, I just looked at the link to your build which I did not see earlier...I see it is an old SWC model......so obviously, you can see the hinges that came with the kit and that is not going to help you. So, I would consider the suicide hinge. I built up a Revell Willy's (new tooling) and opened the doors and added suicide hinges and thay worked out very well. Good luck.

Barbo, congratulations!!!!! You sure have the look of someone who is accomplishing great things. You, and all of the other guys who are beating their physical challenges, have every right to be proud as you guys are an inspiration to the rest of us. Keep up the good fight and remember you are capable of great things if you are willing to work for it. Do the small things every day and the big accomplishments will come. Keep up the fight every day, and if you get knocked down, get up again and continue on. As you know, you don't have to finish first all the time, you just have to finish.

You did a great job on my favorite Toyota street car. Clean and mean. I really like this color on this car...very nice.

Toni, very nice......so very clean. Red is perfect for this car. The bare metal foil looks exactly right. Nothing is overstated but it comes through loud and clear.

Curt, nice job. I have that kit but I have no idea when I can get to it. You did good! It's sure a far cry from the days when Ferrari's were just red with the prancing horse.

I'll reply, you have a rather interesting fender flare there. It actually looks good on that car. My concern is not with the fender flairs, it is that the paint is rather thick. The car has lost all of the body detail.....now if that was your goal, you sure achieved it, but I don't know. Is this a one piece body with no hood and doors? Like a current day Funny Car? Keep going with it, I am curious to see where you take it.

Nice....very clean looking street custom. We all seem to build the Eleanor version, so it is refreshing to see something else that is not stock, bit also not the Eleanor ( I built my '67 as an Eleanor, how boring). Blue and Mustangs just seem to work very nice...I like the wheels also, all and all, a very well thought out street car.

It looks pretty good to me, just leave the hood up and no one will know the fit is poor. Red on red was very popular in American cars in the 1960"s so it doesn't look out of place. All and all, the wheels are a major improvement, it looks nice.

Very nice...back in the late 70's you used to see this car all over the place. My very good friend had the Buick version of this car, the Century Regal in the same color...the only difference was that the vinyl roof was the same color as the interior, the tan color. This brings back memories....very nice.

Very nice....you sure got that late 1960's rear lift thing going on. Back in those days, all the hot cars carried their rears up in the air. I like the charcoal body color, subtle and unassuming until the right foot come down. Nice car.

I think you could put the Chezoom roof on a VW Beetle and it would look great. I like what you are doing and I like what you are thinking. You could slice a chunk out of the side, or do a pie wedge, or leave the side alone....just go where you are comfortable....great start.

I have, for all intents and purposes completed the wood “buck†for my first attempt at vacuum forming. I still have a little fine sanding to complete, but it is done except for that. The block of wood that I started with was just a little too narrow so I had to add some Bondo putty to the wheel bulges to get them where I was happy. I knew all along that I needed to widen the wheel area, but waited until I was finished with the bigger sculpting. I am really happy with the look of the car now. I have made some changes to the rough initial design as I was working the wood because it just flowed better, in my eye. I have the grill opening just as I want it and I am especially happy with the way the little wind splits slide off of the bottom of the grill opening and flow into the front wheel fender. They form a line that is carried all the way down to, and over the rear fender and then end up forming my “Little duck tail†look to the rear. I also love the contour accent line that runs from just behind the grill opening, down the hood line to the greenhouse and then flows down the rear to meet in the center point of the “duck Tailâ€. I am very happy with how the two lines run parallel down the rear and complete the flow. There is a center contour peak that runs down the rear from the roof to the tail. Once the car is formed, there will be a chrome accent piece running down the center of the hood from the rear of the grill opening to the windshield housing. There will be stylized art deco chrome trim pieces running along the bottom of the car to accent the length and to highlight the art deco theme. I have omitted all of the trim, as it will be added to the body once, and assuming that I can successfully vacuum form the body. Obviously I have omitted the headlights which will be added to the plastic body once it is formed. I am afraid they will cause problems with the vacuum forming. I am striving to keep the buck as simple as I can so as to not overload the vacuum forming process. One way or another, this car will be built, I just am a little unsure of the vacuum forming process having never done it yet. I know that I have exaggerated the to length and fender size on this, that is not by accident. I have designed it from the start to be big, round, long and audacious. I want it to be a charactericure of the cars of that era. I am looking for “art deco on steroidsâ€. Extreme and bodacious. I am even going to have fender skirts both front and rear. I am planning on a Viper V10 and most likely Viper running gear. I am building this as if it was a current build, with current running gear and technology, but with a retro art deco body. Why not? With all of the retro designs that the factories did, back in the days when they had the money to invest in concept cars, I think my little model car factory can turn out a retro concept too. I have enjoyed the design and wood sculpting on this so much, I will have to do this again. But maybe next time with sculpting putty over a wood block. I have a few modern designs rolling around in my head that would be really different to create. Ok, next, I will begin playing around with the vacuum forming machine….that will be interesting and quite frustrating I am sure.

Ben, that is very good "weathering" work there. You really captured the rust and dirt look very well. I like'em shiny, but you did a great job on this one.

Hey Dave, what happened……couldn’t sleep? I completely agree with you as to the importance of God in our country. As you stated, belief in God and a supreme power greater than man has guided us and given our country strength through out our history. But, and there is always a but, things are changing here in this land of ours. Little by little, and very steadily the Progressives in our society are chipping away at the cornerstones of our democracy. It begins with the removal of the Morning Prayer in school and than the removal of the Ten Commandments from statehouses and courthouses. Next the banning traditional Christmas displays. There is a strong movement to have the phrase “In God we Trust†removed from our currency. Before you know it, all references to God, and the foundations of our democracy will be wiped away. It is just like that little story I posted a few days ago about “How to boil a Frogâ€. Slowly but steadily, our country is changing and it is not for the better. You can say that I am just a complainer, but I see my discussions more as a call to action or an attempt to awaken those of us who have fallen asleep. Many good people have been lulled into a comatose state believing that we, our country is fine and will always be fine, regardless of the attacks upon it. I don’t see it that way. I see the very fabric of our society being torn apart by misguided individuals who want to change our once great “Landâ€, ruled by the “Rule of Law†into a Godless, virtuous less Socialist state that can no longer stand as the beacon of freedom in a world gone crazy. Am I overreacting? I do not think so. The dangers are real. The attacks are real. The threat from within is very real. Look, we are on the very brink of Socialism. The end of Capitalism and everything that made us great is at hand. Love it or hate it, Capitalism is the force that has made America the greatest industrial and financial powerhouse this planet has, or will ever see. Our financial wealth has given the US the ability to help millions of people world wide annually. Socialism will end that. Socialism will kill personal achievement. It will kill American Exceptionalism. With the socialization of the Banks, Insurance, Automobile and Healthcare industries we lose the very ability to “strive for betterâ€. Once you limit the human spirit from reaching out for more, he is stifled and demoralized. The Noble Peace Prize award is a perfect example of the type of attack we are under. It is an intellectual attack, more than a physical attack. I am not taking anything away from the President, but lets get real here. He was in office for an entire eleven days when he was voted the award. So clearly it was not an award for any actual accomplishments but rather an award, or a “call to action†by a group of extreme Left Wing Socialists from outside of America who are saying, “this man (Obama) is not George Bush, who they hated, and we can try and influence his future actionsâ€. Actions like cutting the Afghan war (I hate to call it a war because we are forced to fight it like a bunch of handcuffed amateurs) and leaving Iraq prematurely. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a war lover or happy to hear of a single American death. I just am fearful of the terrorists and their ability to bring the attack to our shores. When that happens, what do the Liberals say then? We need to stop them now, stop them over there before it comes back to America again…..remember, they started this. The Noble committee see in our President a person very similar in thinking to their socialist ways. If they see it, why can’t many here in America? Sorry, I can’t sit back quietly and watch our great country being torn apart. Most likely my, and others ranting will not stop it from happening but at least I will not go down quietly.

Bill, go and enjoy the day with your new lady.....it is always fun to share. Happy Birthday, "big guy"....oh, wait, let me rephrase that, "not so big guy any more"!

Ok, I'll go first. I am not laid off, but have not taken a pay check in 5 months, working every day to keep my company moving in these very tough times. I do not even get the benefit of an unemployment check....that really stinks. These are hard times, very hard times and mark my words...here, right now it is 7:48 EST on October 9, 2009...these hard times will only get worse, much worse. We are headed down a long dark tunnel and there is not even a glimmer of light way out there in the distance yet.

Andy, very funny! That is a good one!

Harry, you are correct, the deal for Saturn did fall through, but it wasn’t Penske that backed out. The problem was that he could not find any manufacturers willing to let him retail their product here in America. When the deal was first announced, I and a few of my Saturn dealer clients were very happy. We all agreed that Penske was a very successful businessman and he would work wonders with the Saturn brand, but the underlying fear with some was that Roger is known as a tough, tough no nonsense businessman who always must control the situation, not unlike Wal-Mart, in his ruthless efforts to secure the best deal for himself. The fear was that his brand of hardball would keep most manufacturers away. Bringing your brand to the US shores is a big enough challenge, doing it with Penske may have been more than some could tolerate. We may never know the backroom truth as to what killed the Penske / Saturn marriage but I think the Pre-nuptial agreement may have been too much to stomach.

This is a very interesting sent of circumstances here. On the surface most of us agree that Hummer sales are all but done here in America. So “good riddance, goodbye, but, the vehicles will be made here in America by that once highly thought of “Highly skilled American Worker†and only the profits will be shipped over to China….what a concept.. So there may not be much in the way of cost savings to the Chinese owners unless….and here is the big “unless†the workers are non unionized and willing to work for less. Well, faced with the prospect no work, or work for less pay, you don’t have to be Fellini (Reference to Federico Fellini, Italian film Director who is known for making very bizarre, surrealistic almost incomprehensible movies in the 1960’s) to figure out what the workers will agree to…..so my question is, why didn’t the workers, and their union, who is supposed to represent them for their benefit, look to secure the parent company (GM) as it was sinking deeper and deeper into the red? This is just another example of the wholesale dismantling of the American Industrial Machine. GM is now controlled by the union, with help from the Obama administration, which is akin to the inmates controlling the prison with the help of the organized criminal mob. Chrysler, if you believe the well informed automobile press, has one foot on the platform and the other on the train and the train is very quickly leaving the station. Chrysler has NO new product, is at least one to one and a half years away from any Fiat product and we still don’t know if America will welcome them after their last losing adventure here in North America. Ford, even though they are having an easier time of it, is still not setting the world on fire. The Taurus, by all accounts is a great car and the SHO is getting rave reviews, but it is a rather big (by current standards) vehicle with a hefty price tag. It will not be the high volume car that the traditional Taurus was, so it will not contribute greatly to the bottomline of Ford. The Cash for Clunkers program helped the domestic dealers somewhat, but it was a huge help to the Japanese manufacturers. They really benefited as they had stockpiles of product on the shore where most domestic dealers had cut their inventories to the bone, especially thin in the small car segments because they do not sell that many of them. September, in the wake of the “clunker†clucker deal, and now into October, sales at domestic dealerships are way off. There is no reason to buy a car unless there is a great deal on one…at least, that is the message that Detroit, and now Washington are giving the American buyer. Health Care reform is about to be rammed down our throat, like it or not. Unemployment is reaching double digits and shows no sign of slowing. The media is doing their best to tell us everything is OK, and Obama is making everything better, even though the facts point to a very opposite situation unfolding. Have you been following the problems coming down the pike with the American dollar? As of right now, if a country wants to purchase even a gallon of crude oil, they must do it with the American dollar….good for America, good for us. Recently, the German’s, Chinese, Russians, French, Saudi’s and a few other powerful countries are talking about dumping the dollar as the control currency for crude oil purchases because there is no faith in our economy recovering anytime soon. Bad for America and even worse for us. Our dollars have been losing value daily, and with the current administrations love of spending money that they do not have (in all fairness, Mr. Bush is guilty of the same insanity too) we are falling deeper and deeper into the very real prospect of hype inflation. Trust me, you do not want inflation….it is a wealth and prosperity killer. Jimmy, the Goober Peanut Farmer, Carter created huge inflation problems back in the 1970’s. My first house (brought in 1976) came complete with a 17% interest mortgage. Unemployment was in double digits and home values were in the toilet. Mr. Noble Peace Prize Winner is taking us right back to, and then beyond, 1976. I find it just so hypocritical of the media…(remember, I am no fan of George Bush) during the Bush administration days, the economy was actually humming along pretty well (I have said this before, so I will spare you,) but the media kept telling us how terrible things were. Now that things are actually terrible, and getting worse, they run stories trying to convince us that all is rosy and we are headed out of trouble, well I for one do not believe it for a minute. We have an absolute amateur in the White House, and we can not afford to have him learn with on the job training….not in this dangerous world. Iran gets a Nuke, Israel takes action, the Middle East blows up and it will not matter what car you drive, let along a Hummer because the price of a barrel of crude will skyrocket to $400.00+ per barrel. We are all falling prey to the oldest scam going. There is an old line that goes like this….How do you boil a Frog? (obviously, non of us would want to boil a Frog, unless we were a crazy sadistic nutcase) but bear with me here. If you drop a live frog into a boiling pot of water he would immediately jump out, but if you put him into a nice tepid pot of water he would be very happy. You then very slowly turn up the heat. The Frog thinks he is in a hot tub, he begins to look for some wine and a cute female, sorry, that is another story, anyway, before the Frog realizes what is happening to him, the water is too hot, he is paralyzed and can't get out and then falls victim to his own laziness and unawareness. Please don’t be the Frog….pay attention….we are losing our once great nation, bit by bit, industry by industry and freedom by freedom. Remember, redistribution of wealth (Obama has publicly said he wants this) means that someone loses something…..most of us will be losers here. Look what is happening in Detroit, they are giving away millions of our tax dollars to anyone who comes down to the hall, and fills out the form. Not everyone will qualify for handouts, but when participants were asked why they were there, they said to “Get some of the money Obama was giving out†and when asked where that money was coming from they said “From his stash…his Obama stash†Don’t believe me, see for yourself http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:y_news:ad5...of-free-cash-AP Guys, Hummer going to a Chinese company is a grain of sand on the beach full of quicksand.

You really know how to hurt a guy!

To all of you guys that replied, thank you, I really appreciate it. Lee, you are exactly right, the car is too tall from the windows down. I agree completely with your observation. As I was building it, I keep saying to myself that it is such a shame that Chrysler made the Dodge Charger so tall. I chopped the roof down as the concept renderings showed, but that just makes the side panels look that much taller. The front is so tall that there are basically two grills for the car stacked one on top of the other. As I was building the car and changing the panels, I just kept thinking that it is so tall. I really dislike the actual Charger’s style very much. The Chrysler 300 is fine with me because it is more of a “formal†sedan along the lines of a Bentley or a Rolls, but the Charger is supposed to be “American Muscle†and slick, sleek and aggressive……it, unfortunately is none of that, in my opinion. I thought that Michaels redesign was a great step forward and that is why I wanted to model it. I am happy that I built it, but I agree with you, the design has inherent shortcomings in it because it is based on the original Chrysler (Dodge) design and platform.

When I think of 1970's Muscle cars, the Chevelle SS 454 comes to mind. When I think of Chevelle's I see a red one with black interior and stripes. You nailed it. Very nice and clean. Classic GM Muscle from a time when all you wanted was the biggest motor on the road. There was no substitute for horsepower.

Ok, here it is completed. My 2010 Dodge Charger Concept built from the renderings of Michael Leonhard. Here are the renderings to refresh your memory: Even though I followed the body design very closely, well as closely as the renderings allowed, I took a little artistic license with some of the details in the building of this car. Michael did the renderings in orange, red and yellow, all with black roofs and a black stripe on the rear deck. He also did one rendering in a plum crazy purple but with a white top and stripe. I liked the idea of the plum crazy, but I wanted it with black trim and interior rather than white. As it turned out, I installed the black rear deck stripe but removed it because the car looked better to me without the stripe…as with the 68 and 69 Chargers, I was never a fan of that stripe because it made the rear look shorter in my eye…I preferred the longer rear deck look as it flowed better…well, at least I thought it did. The other major difference in my build is the addition of the vinyl roof covering. The renderings appear to have a painted roof. I think the vinyl roof is a classic look for the car. This new design is based upon the 68/69 design and back then, vinyl roofs were very popular so I think it is a more “period†correct design feature. I kept the interior pretty much as the stock interior looks with the exception of the conversion to a two door and of course, I two toned the interior with black and purple. Because of that, I scratch built the door panels to fit better and to replicate the originals. I did expand on the idea of the door speakers with a modern colored speaker face. I wanted to add a red stripe to the tires but because the tires are such low profile it was impossible….not a big deal, but it would have looked pretty cool, I think. Even though I began this build with the Testers Dodge Charger, every panel and surface has been modified. The roof was chopped and repositioned. The doors and hood received some serious scallops which required the back surfaces of both to be built up with sheet styrene as the scallops were deeper than the thickness of the plastic. All of the windows were cut from sheet acetate and epoxy’ed in place. The engine and chassis were built basically stock but I reworked the suspension to lower the wheels, especially because of their enormous size….they are crazy big, but I really like how the Hoppin’ Hydro wheels look on the car. The paint is House of Kolor pearl, but it is a custom mix that I made using three different reds and purple pearls….basically, I had small amounts of a few different bottles left over, and being basically cheap (some might say frugal, but I know I can be cheap) I mixed them all together in the correct proportions to come up with what I think is a great color for this car. Obviously I am happy with the result. I was not thrilled with the way the interior and chassis mated up with the body….actually, I had a horrible time putting it all together. As with most of my builds, at least it seems this way, all of the “dry†fitting is ok, but after paint and detail, nothing wants to go back together properly. The front sits too high for my liking, but I could not get it to fit any better…and I was worried that if I applied too much pressure I would damage something that “showed†so this is the height that it is staying. Next it is on to finish my MGB replica of the actual car that I just completed a 4 year rebuild on….and then the finalization of the wood buck for the 1930’s Art Deco Sports Coupe I will vacuum form. That is a major challenge…..this Charger was minor in scope compared to what I have to do on that build. Thanks for looking, thanks for reading all of this, assuming that you did, and as always, your comments, pro and con, are always welcome.

And another country is heard from! First off, your English is not that bad and second, you made a great first impression with this build....very nice. Welcome.