ChrisBcritter

I don't think the trim rings will fit if you use the Toronado covers; the rings are seated on the center rather than the rim. Thanks for posting those photos, Casey! My first '40 kit was that same issue, molded in tan, back in '66 or '67.

I saved this clipping over 40 years ago and fixed it up best I could. Now who makes 1/25 scale horses?

'58 and '59 Pontiacs, not sure if current Chevy tooling would give a head start. I'd suggest Trumpeter to do a '59 since they've done a '60; but considering all the issues with that car and its price I'd rather leave the job to Revell.

Michael Lamm wrote a piece for Motor Trend back in 1975 about future collectible cars that had some correct predictions; most particularly saying that Superbirds and Daytonas would become "tomorrow's Auburn Speedsters". He also said two-seat Thunderbirds had "probably peaked" at $5000. I'll post it here when I find it.

Very sharp work on this one - reminds me of some of the ones I've seen on the H.A.M.B. with the same treatment. One minor suggestion - you need a little patina/wear on top of the door from the driver's elbow! Edit: Do you have a rear view shot of it?

And foresight is usually 20/400, like the folks who paid over sticker to get a '78 Corvette pace car replica or '76 Eldorado convertible to put away when they could have bought a used Cobra for the same money. My former boss has about 170 cars, but the one that was the best investment was the '89 Porsche Speedster he bought new and drove very sparingly (it now has 8,000-something miles). He's had almost 25 years of enjoyment out of it, and the nice ones are now hitting the $100,000 mark at auction.

'51 Ford Victoria hardtop, since AMT could base it off the '50 convertible tooling '57 Studebaker Golden Hawk, since AMT could base it off the '53 coupe tooling '53-'54 Chevy 2-door sedan, station wagon, convertible and hardtop - all new tool like for the Tri-Fives '56 Plymouth Fury - Moebius could follow up their early Chrysler 300s with this one

Checked an estate sale listing last night and saw these: ... and went by this morning; grabbed 'em both. '66 Wen-Mac Mustang: didn't have one when I was a kid and never found a cheap one until now ($12.00). Missing the steering wheel, shifter, air cleaner and one exhaust and has a small chip out of the trunk lid, otherwise decent. '62 T-bird promo: Four bucks, but the body was shot (A-pillars half gone, chunks out of both fins and a big piece of the LF fender gone) so I salvaged the wheels, tires, axles and glass to fix a '61 T-bird promo.

I remember 12 O'Clock High being on TV when I was a kid; I didn't watch it probably because I was a car nut before I became an airplane nut. When I lived in California I went out to Chino many times for the museum and the air shows, and got to walk through the actual B-17G from the series. Decades later when watching the series I recognized the filming locations at Chino; some of the buildings are still standing today. Lots more info on the series, and the 1½ B-17s used on the show, here: http://www.aerovintage.com/tvtwelve.htm

Amazing! Can we see a night shot with just the house and saucer lights?

Oh, I know that - what I meant was it looks so nice and straight it resembles what a styrene Jo-Han kit from 1958 would have looked like (they didn't make styrene kits until 1959).

Remarkable job on that promo - especially after seeing so many of Jo-Han's Forward Look Mopars shrunk/warped into a banana shape. Looks like the kit Jo-Han would have made if they had started a year earlier.

Got three yards of headliner material for my 1/1 '78 Buick; having little bits of dried-up foam rubber falling in my eyes when I drive gets old fast. The stuff was marked down to $9.95/yard (1/3 off) so I bit the bullet. Brought the roll up to the lady at the cutting table and the conversation went like this: Me: "Three yards, please." Lady: "That's quite a lot - what are you going to do with it?" Me: "Uh... make a headliner?" Lady: "Really? That's the first time I've sold headliner to make a headliner." Me: "What do people usually buy it for?" Lady: "Making covers for laptops." Fortunately I've done this once before on an '82 Eldo so I can do it again; hand stitching the sun visors will be the tough part.

So do you have one of the megabuck, perfectly made duplicates of the '66 Batsuit? I'm also on the 1966 Batman show forum and it amazes me what detail and expense goes into a well-made outfit (matching fabrics and colors especially).

I run into that bubbly business on pretty much every gluebomb I've worked on, especially when two parts aren't quite touching and the glue fills the gap. Maybe clean it up as close as possible, then weather the rest to look like dirt and rust? Good luck with the windows; will a new set from an AMT '63-'64 Impala interchange?

Is there any consensus on what will strip old ('60s) flat black enamel effectively? I have a '62 Continental that needs its chassis and underside of the hood cleaned. So far I've soaked the hood in the purple stuff (Zep brand from Home Depot) and DOT3 brake fluid and it lightened up with some toothbrush scrubbing, but that was it; I haven't used Easy-Off yet but don't recall it working well on flat black either. The rest of the paint, lime gold metalflake and gloss brown enamel, came off with purple stuff and brake fluid (purple stuff wouldn't budge the brown but brake fluid did).

Is Mod Podge Dimensional Magic the same thing as the Inkssentials Glossy Accents? I saw the MP stuff at Michaels and I was thinking about using it along with aluminum foil molds to cast headlight lenses.

Don't bother weathering the bed - just scatter some bits of wood and a few tools like a saw and a hammer, and there you go - Farmer Brown just finished and went home for vittles. Maybe add "This End Up" to one of the slats (upside down, of course ).

And here you go: http://www.imcdb.org/movie_1343092-The-Great-Gatsby.html

'59 DeSoto Fireflite 2-door hardtop, I hope... otherwise I'd have to chop up my X-El '59 and a '57 300 kit and mix well.

Couple quick questions: Since this body is so straight, and Modelhaus doesn't have a '58 Dodge in their inventory, maybe you could loan it to them to make a mold? Also, if you decide to strip the remaining paint, DON'T use Easy-Off on an acetate promo - I had a weird reaction when I used it to strip a '54 Pontiac promo body. The paint came off and left the plastic clean, but on the unpainted areas a thin layer of plastic peeled off - it looked like when you peel string cheese .

That wedge section job is amazing - the lines have a whole new flow to them, kind of like a Hudson. I wonder if any 1/1 Mercurys have had the same treatment?

I'm back to the same workshop I was in 30-some years ago; there's an old boombox that plays what passes for WLS nowadays. Back in the Seventies I had an old '50s tube radio that I rigged up with a "remote control" - a long piece of plastic kite tubing with a notched piece of wood in one end. It worked real good when they started playing anything from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I'd reach over with the stick, hook the volume knob and Samantha Sang sang no more.

Back in the Fifties these cars often had Cadillac or Olds V-8s transplanted when the V-12 gave up the ghost, so that kind of swap would be period correct, at least. You could also get some speed equipment; this barn-find '42 had a two-carb manifold and dual exhaust: (These were taken at the Jack Palance estate auction in Tehachapi, CA back in 2007. I really wanted my boss to buy the car - it only went for about $12k - but he already had a '47 coupe, so he bought Jack's '52 Silver Wraith instead. Converting the kit to a '42 might be a way to improve it by getting rid of that awful grille.)

Someone (Dennis Doty, I think?) once told me AMT was going to make a Continental Mark III in 1969, but it was canceled - how far did they get with it? Any announcements or box art? Too bad; they could have based it off the T-bird tooling like the real car, which would have saved a few bucks...