ChrisBcritter

Great job, Emmanuel! Do you think the Trumpeter chassis and running gear would fit under the AMT '59 Pontiac body?

Got the photoetch grille for the '60 Chrysler over the weekend, then hit Michael's with the Labor Day 50% coupon and picked up Testor's light yellow for the '61 Continental. (Was debating picking up a Badger 350 with the coupon, but thirty bucks is more than I want to spend right now.)

Makes me wonder how he thought he could possibly get away with it - with security cameras all over stores now plus detectors at the doors as well. Maybe his defense attorney will use that - "It was a cry for help, Your Honor." Either that or "This was all a big misunderstanding. He was testing the security system, Your Honor."

"Burning Rubber" by Carol Cummings, Checker 983, 1961 - many thanks to Dennis Doty for that one. B-side that really should have been A.

I see they slipped a certain green Mustang's license plates in there...

One detail about the Jr. Series kit: The taillight lenses are chromed rather than clear red plastic (which they were on the 3 in 1 kit); cost savings I guess. The Modelhaus has them in clear red resin. The other round lenses on the ends of the chrome spears have to be scratchbuilt, but it's not too hard.

Don't forget licenseplates.tv - their fonts are usually much closer to the real thing than Acme. Drawback is they no longer do California, Florida or Texas (although if you use an older version of the site on archive.org you can at least pull up and copy the blank templates).

Speed limit 65 But I was doin' 94 Police tracked me down And that made me kinda sore It took a little while But I got right back on the go (Hint: A rare one - it's a girl singer on a Chicago R&B label)

Wow! Original non warped fender extensions! So how does he maintain it? Hopefully he runs it up often enough to keep all the seals tight, never keeps more than a gallon of gas in it, and drains the cooling system every winter. And tell him for heaven's sake, don't wash it without taping off the vinyl roof trim and window moldings - I know of a pristine 14K mile '74 CDV that's spent most of its life in the hands of two very careful collectors in California, and it still has a tiny rust spot peeking out below the rear window. So why was this one put away? Most of the speculators in 1976 bought Eldorado convertibles.

Cute as a bug's ear! I like the '58 even better, especially gasser style:

Because it somehow never occurs to the folks who run AMT that spending a few bucks to tool up a roadster body/deck, top and seat for the '27 T touring car they've been selling for the last fifty years might get some more life out of that tool?

From a fellow carrier of the Lincoln sickness who can't stay away from gluebombs - great job!

My mother used to talk about getting a Checker as a family car back in the mid-1960s; it seemed logical to me since it would be replacing our thoroughly rusted '56 Chevy 210 and offered more or less the same size, height and interior/trunk layout. Instead we got a '63 Dodge 440 eight-passenger wagon.

Modelhaus goodies for the '61 Bonneville (taillights and fender spears), '65 Impala promo (taillights), and '65 Monaco (rear trim piece). Happy day!

Note what happens here: When the tow truck pulls this Impala back over, a big puff of dust comes out from under the front and the car lies flat on the ground: I bet the car they were testing had air suspension that failed in the crash, probably one reason GM gave up on the idea. Also note they somehow managed to air it up a bit before they shot the closeup :

Maybe separate 8-lug wheels and drums? That's never been done. Meanwhile I'm continuing to beat my Bonneville into submission... purely by coincidence I was looking at brochures and photos online today, and most likely going with Bamboo Cream with a black roof and gold/brown/tan interior. Got the C-pillars faired in and puttied, along with the sink marks in the trunk lid, cut the convertible extensions out of the interior, and patched a damaged rear wheel opening. Before that I added the missing material to the leading edge of the hood (AMT's error - they're all like that), shimmed the front bumper/grille to fit straight, and now I'm trying to build up the nerve to cut the molded-in trim from the grille to attach it to the hood where it belongs. Yee-ha.

Check the sold listings on eBay for a seller named blzzzfn - he's been selling off a lot of unboxed older kits over the last several months. He says he got hold a collection of several thousand models, and many of them had had their boxes thrown away and were put in bags to save space. You might find some matches in his sold lots.

On the way home this evening I passed a red '70 Impala convertible, top down, lowered in front, with big 'n' little drilled aluminum wheels. Paint was a little dull but otherwise a nice big cruiser.

I bare-metaled a Jo-Han reissue '58 Olds 98. I've recovered to the point where I see shadows, and can name three countries: Belgium, Belgium, and Kansas City.

My personal favorite :lol: : The whole phrase: "PLEASE COVER UP... BEFORE STRIKING LIGHT" I copied both sides onto a t-shirt once.

Somehow I keep thinking of a school bus when I look at it.

Brand new license plates, fresh out of the envelope!

At this point, I'm sticking with estate sales rather than garage sales - they seem to have more older stuff; plus the sale companies post photos online. And if I do spot some models ahead of time I don't need, I'll post about them here for my fellow Chicago-area model nuts.

Every little bit helps. That said, I've found out that Jo-Han messed up on a few things, probably due to working from early drawings? What this really turns out to be is an odd mix of Windsor (shorter wheelbase, flush grille, no front fender spears) and New Yorker (trim and emblems, grille bars). Luckily MCG has photoetch grille material that is a very close match for the Windsor, so that and the wheelbase make it an easy choice - it will be a mild custom Windsor.