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Russell C

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Everything posted by Russell C

  1. Probably. The Monograms are '73s with the thin front bumpers, as was my full size, but I swapped a '77 bumper onto it. Now I can see what bugs me about the Monogram kits, I think the headlights are too large in diameter, which in turn made the grill too narrow and too tall.
  2. You're welcome. I keep an eye on ebay listings for Chevy Luv kits, and a current listing reminded me that I had that old Petersen's magazine with the Bergeman full size in it. Well, the Revell versions do have their problems, no doubt, and they were created at a time when stock/custom kits seemed to be out of favor, which disappointed a lot of us stock fans. As for the mid- late-'70s, I lived through it and it is an acquired taste. For me Bergeman's custom was mostly ok, could have used a more inspired tailgate, anything but plaid cloth for the interior, and the front bumperless plastic snow shovel look air dam is not what I'd prefer, that's for sure. I abandoned my own sheetmetal air dam on my full size about a year after I made it. Too hokey looking. They sure were trendy back then.
  3. Probably an understatement, whereas my humble collection consists of that one plus a cartoonish Muscle Machines one, a red/yellow stripe Hot Wheels, some generic cheapo 1/64, and a Model Power white/blue stripe 1/87 scale. I figure I can round out the collection by acquiring maybe a 43rd scale one that jumps out at me, and likely a Wix/Icons Inc 1/24 version. Or I suppose I could get in gear and finish my long-dormant Cobra berlinetta.....
  4. (Not to be confused with the Monogram 1/24 Luv kits seen over in this other thread here). The choptop 1/25 scale Revell kit is the one seen in Frank Rizzo's glue bomb restoration thread and in Jake Bridges' Mini Truck Team thread. From my web searches for kit boxes (with images lifted from other guys' ebay listings), my best guess is that this kit first came out with artwork illustrations on the box... Then Revell switched to actual photos of the model, which was still molded in yellow... As near as I can tell, one of the later variants was in a series called "Lightning Rods", where the other kits were a VW Bug and Chevy Monza. The best I can dredge up here is just an enlarged blurry thumbnail photo, where the kit is molded in black... And there was the River Rat version, molded in orange, with a little speed boat on a trailer. One difference in this version seems to be a rear step bumper instead of the previous nerf bar. I thought I'd bring up this whole topic because an old 1977 Petersen's Trucking Trends magazine's pgs 68-69 seems to indicate the kit was based largely on a full size custom stepside made by Vini Bergeman's Kolor Me Kustom shop in Anaheim. The most noticeable differences between the kit and the full size version (besides the tire sizes - ugh!) is the rear nerf bar and the fog lights in the front nerf bar. The full size has round taillights vs the vertical rectangular ones in the kit, which were likely incorporated into the Revell mini pickup parts pack (?): Bergeman mostly customized vans, but also rather famously muralized a Datsun pickup that ended up in the same Petersen's Trucking Trends above and in Hot Rod Pickups & Mini Pickups, and he apparently did a similar chopped roof / stepside conversion to a Dodge D50 back then (prior photo link worked, but now it is behind a subscription sign-in wall at this forum thread). Got one other reason for all of this, namely I'm an idiot and made the mistake of not only getting a yellow Luv as my first daily driver, but also liking it despite its maddening electrical gremlins, lethargic motivation (which was only good good as a source of reference for my Mercedes stock car engine buildup) and its various other shortcomings. I still think Luvs are prettier than Datsuns or Ford Couriers / Mazda B-series mini pickups. I'm probably missing varieties of info on the Revell kit versions, so please feel free to add on to the thread with better photos and/or other info.
  5. Since someone else wanted to see a photo, I thought I'd pop this one in, a Shelby Collectibles 427 that I was able to snag a couple of years ago at a swap meet for just $20. Not bad overall to my otherwise untrained eye, but the model builder in me wants to fix the reflectors for the turn signals and taillights and tidy up other details. I'd prefer silver colored wheel spinners, and much better looking tires if such a thing was available. Bright sunlight makes the metallic paint look like fuzz specks are all over the surfaces in this photo, but it is really much more eye-popping in person.
  6. GSL-bound, right? Lowlife, I've only barely lopped the roof off of a car for my usual "Group" category entry monstrosity. You'll be done way ahead of me, on something destined for a much higher level category.
  7. x2. Will be interesting to see what ends up being used for the new headlights.
  8. Tried to clear the neck of a Zap bottle into a tissue so it wouldn't have fluid to turn onto a clog. Just the sudden evaporation created the white vapor then the flash fire. DO NOT try that yourself. Meanwhile, another cautionary tale from first hand (pun) experience, when I thought It would work to make brake rotors by cutting thin sheet aluminum into four squares, drill a hole through the centers and then bolt them into a fixture that would allow me to grind off the corners so I'd have perfect metal circles. It did work out in the end, but a delay was encountered when I gripped the four squares between my thumb and index finger while drilling the hole. Let's just say I made it through the first three squares without incident, but upon going through the 4th, they all bound up on the drill somehow and starting spinning with the drill at 10k rpm or so. Four jagged and sorta parallel deep cuts on the thumb and finger, took a while to heal up.....
  9. Ditto, and bookmarked for future replay. Nice of the van and two pickups to clear out of the way. I always do that at the first opportunity when something like that comes up behind me, and it is refreshing when random slow folks realize my old hotrod hatchback has a little more zip than them. Man, how I'd love to have that level of torque, tires and brakes under me....
  10. Nuts. Every time I see this B-N-L thread topic, I can't help but think of the B-N-L commercials.
  11. Good question. Being an old fuddy (still livin' in the late '70s) duddy who doesn't keep up with pop-culture cable TV shows, I had to look up who he was. I found this pic of him leaning against the car, but other Mustang & such forums suggested it could be a replica of the movie car. Unless my search skills are letting me down, I can't find any reference to the car right at his main web site. I surfed across a thumbnail pic of a black convertible undergoing that conversion, but now I can't find it. Here's someone else doing that conversion from a few months ago, though.
  12. Sharp! Makes me nostalgic for the days when I saw something similar to it roaming around where I used to live. Senility these days prevents me from remembering what that was, but you've captured the look with this model.
  13. Me, too. Drives me up the wall.... "Vincent: No questions. No answers. That's the business we're in. You just accept it and move on. Maybe that's lesson number three."
  14. Very good, the remake with Pierce Brosnan. A brief write-up of that 'Baja' Shelby is here.
  15. Meanwhile, how about the fake Shelby offroad thing here?
  16. Ronin, some time after the point where the characters played by Robert De Niro and Jean Reno ambush the Russians and have to chase 'em down. The other chase later in the movie of De Niro vs Natascha McElhone must rank in the top 20 best movie chases.
  17. Some progress, temporarily taped together for 'yall's viewing pleasure…. The basic problem with this model is that Aurora made it too chunky overall. Overweight, considering how delicate the full size car is. So, I put it on a diet, whacking out a significant amount of material from the bottom edges of the fender openings and bottom running board edges, reducing the length of the seat cushions, and most important, shortening the whole model right behind the vertical door edges by about an 8th inch. The too-tall radiator wasn't lowered at its top edge, I sliced off about a 16th inch of its bottom edge, removed material from the bottom of the inner fender edges in front of the radiator, and raised that 'pan'/front axle piece up into the fenders. The model was sitting too high overall anyway. Another 'weight' removal is the loss of the way-too-thick panel ridges at the back of the hood edges and where the back of the front fenders meets the front on the running boards. Finally the too-tall convertible top cover was reduced in height, along with that whole body area above the rear fenders. Along with those removals, I also removed the headlights from the grille, erased the molded on parking lights on the front fenders, erased the taillights, and filed down the bar ridges on the fuel tank. Perhaps the Gowland & Gowland (a.k.a. Highway Pioneers) little kit might have had more accurate proportions to deal with, but I still really like the rich red color of the Aurora kit's plastic, which shines up very nice.
  18. I tend to favor going mostly original in my car ventures (some would call a few of my works http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/uploads/gallery_12144_1240_130902.jpg). But every once in a while I spot somebody else's infinitely clever model that I'd really like to replicate just to I can have my own copy of it. Cheaper than buying it from the builder, I'll bet, such as Michael Turk's "Das Heir Uber KerBoomerVagen" Red Baron bomb truck custom.
  19. Bob Paeth, funny guy. I snapped this blurry photo at the 2001 GSL contest of his teddy bear-powered chain drive racer. If I remember right, he said the car 'body' was made out of a plastic razor shaver handle (sorta like this one).
  20. Found 1 1/4 pages of mostly AMT truck kit announcements in the May 1971 Car Model mag starting at the bottom of pg 42, but it begins with the never-produced IMC Dodge LVT-1000 cabover that was mentioned by Tim Boyd in his modelcarsmag post here.
  21. Always had a weak spot for 427 Cobras, and one of these days I need to get on with my V12 berlinetta project. Slightly annoying thing about all my various projects is how my photo & web link references come from so many scattered places. The link above is fabulous for having so much in one spot!
  22. Thanks for the kind words, glad to prompt some of the inspiration your main project here. Thanks also for the parts offer, I'll have to figure out what I have to trade at some future point, parts all need to go to good appreciative homes. The Raider project is quite some distance down the road, but at least I have the front end for it.
  23. No school like old school. Thought I'd use the occasion to dig out what remains of my original http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/uploads/med_gallery_12144_1240_329954.jpg, painted with what ended up to be a sort of matte finish Krylon blue. Many of the parts ended up in my http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/uploads/gallery_12144_1240_51429.jpg (which needs restoration). But as can bee seen in that first photo link, I still have plans for that original cab and a few of the leftover parts. But, that's likely a much-future project, at the current rate I'm going.
  24. Harbutt Plasticine Ltd Bugatti Type-35. I completely forget where I found this one long ago. This site shows the set it came from, where there's a one instruction sheet for all 10 cars in the set.
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