ChrisBcritter

Oh well. More to the point, it's based on the old Shala-Vett kit car - clean off the Death Race 2000 decor, and you have the proportions. I may have the Rod & Custom article on the Shala-Vett if you need it.

The paint jobs alone make me green with envy! Always enjoy seeing your clean builds.

Why not go all the way?

That's the JoHan kit - good luck saving it; hope it looks better without the paint.

Here's an idea: How about a small dimpling tool/die set in different sizes and shapes that could be used to make headlight buckets from thin aluminum sheet? Maybe one of you lucky fellows who owns a lathe could make and sell them.

Two bucks? I bought a '66 Chrysler convertible kit around '72 from a junk store for 50 cents (could have bought two but the other had a busted windshield frame). Built it, gave the body (only) a decent saddle tan metallic paint job, and thought I'd made out like a bandit when I sold it in around 1979 for $9.00...

Oh boy. I need about $200.00 worth - of each...

The ITC Mercury shows up fairly often on eBay; almost always unbuilt. If you're lucky you can get one for around $50. I was fortunate enough to get a gluebomb for free years ago; finally got the missing hood this year. It's only a so-so representation of the real car; the rear end is fairly good but the body sides taper in at the bottom too much (more like a '40 Ford) instead of being rounded, and the wheelbase is about 3" (about 3mm in scale) too short. The extra length looks like it should be added in the front fenders between the wheels and cowl. The windshield looks a bit chopped, too.

If I had known back then - I'd have stockpiled every '71-'75 Impala I ran across. I did buy up a batch of Jo-Han reissues around 1980 when I first heard the rumors that the molds were gone, but I missed the '63 Plymouth and '68 Caddy.

Two more: '31 A-400 convertible sedan and Victoria based on the Monogram 1/24 '30 A tooling.

Well, I'm finally replacing the rear end/exhaust in my '70 LTD - a firecracker shattered the original 35 years ago when we were using it as a miniature in a homemade Godzilla-ish monster movie - does that count?

Still like this one best.

Went to an estate sale in town on Sunday to scope out an '01 Eldorado (sealed bids, top bid was $5100 on a car that would Blue Book for about $4200 plus it needed brakes, crank and O2 sensors and a fuel tank sending unit - FAIL); in a neighbor's driveway was this nice Mustang: Looked at the other side, and the missing rocker trim revealed... ...a nice big rust hole. Welcome to Illinois.

There must be a lot of different versions of that SOHC engine - I also have three sets of valve covers and none of them match yours: Bottom ones were on an original issue AMT '68 Shelby engine I got from eBay. Note the #1 plug on the driver's side would be firing into the cam gear instead of the cylinder. Middle ones were on an unidentified mishmosh blown 427 that was in a "Here Comes the Judge" '57 T-bird (but probably originated elsewhere). Top ones were also in the "Judge" T-bird and I think they're original to the kit; I'll be using them on the Shelby engine since they look closest to correct, plus I have the breather caps for them. Now to find some kind of headers... maybe from a Revell gasser? Pat, what did you use?

Oof - and I though my '58 was the worst I'd seen. Were you able to save the front bumper, at least?

Man, I wish we had Ollie's here! Cheapest I could get the LRW in this neck of the woods is $16.79 (Michael's with a 40% off coupon).

Good Lord, haven't they heard of the Davis? If you want to build a retro-styled three-wheeler, copy THIS:

I noticed that too, but I thought it might be the tires being a bit large? I wasn't going to say anything because they could have been off-the-shelf ones used to get the build done.

1960 El Camino, thereby saving the sanity of anyone trying to make the old AMT kit look good Stock parts (including seat and door panels, this time) for the '40 Ford pickup, and while you're at it PLEASE finesse the fit of the body/fenders/hood/doors so we don't have to perform surgery to make them all line up Lincoln Zephyr coupe based on the Continental tool (I'd even suggest a '48 Continental to put that Pyro abortion out of its misery once and for all, but the ship has probably sailed on interest in that one) 1959 Ranchero based on the Skyliner tool And finally, correct wheelcovers for the '58 T-bird.

Gotta give that one a prize for "Most Creative Location of a Fake Continental Kit"...

AMT '63 Nova wagon, followed closely by the AMT '57 Ford.

I remember the IMC buggy as being a pretty good kit; the one I had came with three back tires and one front, plus I dropped it and broke a rear axle so I never finished it. I recall trying to kitbash the remains with the old Pyro 1/20 VW to make a Baja Bug. (Might still be a workable idea if Pyro VWs weren't so rare now.) I still have the surfboard.

The Corvair got here this afternoon in perfect shape - the seller wrapped it like it was a Ming vase. Not much glue used; six antenna/mirror/spotlight holes to fill, and that's about it. Looks like an easy restoration!

First I dismantle it, strip off the old paint and start repairing the body damage, then polish the scratches out of the glass, scour my parts stash, eBay and the Wanted! forum page for missing bits...

Any James Ellroy fans here? Being a fan of L.A. noir, I got into his books after reading My Dark Places, his autobiography/investigation into his mother's 1958 murder, after I discovered that the events happened near where I lived - in fact, I'd driven past the scene of the crime in El Monte many times. Then I found out my boss's mother had worked with Ellroy's mother at Packard Bell in the mid-'50s, so I really got into reading all his works (just wish I'd read the L.A. trilogy in the correct order). After I ran out of Ellroy books (now I'm waiting for the sequel to Perfidia) I dug around for books I'd seen as movies to see what their full stories were like; thoroughly enjoyed The Caine Mutiny and Thomas Berger's Little Big Man and The Return of Little Big Man. Now for a change of pace, I'm going through the collected short stories of Mark Twain.