Richard Bartrop

If they followed the example of the Thunderbird, the Corvette could have ended up looking more like a Monte Carlo than the sports car we know today.

I think even without Sen. Ferguson's "help", I still think Tucker would have had a tough go of it. Would they be able to keep it looking fresh in a market where competitors were able to offer new designs every year? (IMO it was the annual model change that really killed off the independents after the war) How would the company handle Preston Tucker's death in 1956, and the "Eisenhower Recession" two years later?

I can see that too.

I've often wondered about that too. It might have lasted a little longer if Studebaker hadn't dragged it down, but based what was happenning with the other independents, it was struggle to keep fresh looking product when the Big Three were able to crank out a restyle every year. Packard would have needed a sugar daddy to survive, and Ford, GM and Chrysler already had established luxury brands of their own. I tend to agree with the idea that the aborted merger with American Motors would have been the key to Packard's continued existence. Now, it may just have meant that they ended up folding thirty years later than they did, and the last ones were restyled Hornets instead of Studebakers, but then again, they might be just the thing to keep going a little longer, and in any case, some interesting things could happen along the way. One of the plans that got shelved for lack of funds was a brand new V-12 good for some 400 hp. A merger with AMC just might have made that possible. If it was successful, it's not hard to imagine a response from the Big Three. Would the sixties see a cylinder race as well as a horsepower race? Would engineers try to squeeze one into a Rambler to produce their answer to the GTO? With upgrades and refinements, would the Packard 12 be the new hot mill for the racing set? Would we see V-12 Javelins and AMXs blowing the doors off 'Cudas and Chargers? With a proper luxury brand to sell it under, would the midengine AMX/3 be okayed for production, only this time with power by Packard? Just my $.02

Basically, it works out that making each one is indeed more expensive, but the setup costs are a lot cheaper, which is why it's attractive for making a relatively small number of cars. If you're going to make a lot of cars, then pressing metal is the way to go, but the down side is that you have to make a lot of them to justify the cost of all those presses. It's like the difference between injection moulded kits, and resin.

Simple, pressed steel involves pressing, so large presses, and dies that are able to withstand the pressure. In any case, whenever I've read a history of Corvettes, the rationale for going with fiberglass has always been that the tooling was less expensive, so I assumed they knew what they were talking about. 1961 SAE paper on Corvette construction that might be of interest. http://corvetteactioncenter.com/specs/c1/1961/61sae.html#.Ui5f-D9OIuQ

That would have meant less money to put into things like independent rear suspension, and higher sales would have been needed to make it profitable, so Corvettes would have probably ended with a solid rear axle Stingray some time in the 1960's.

As far as models go, just go peruse Bernard Kron's builds. He has a talent for coming up with hot rods that consistently have all the right proportions. Also, Darryl Starbird's designs for Monogram. His T and Deuce models are just about the platonic ideal of what a hot rod should be.

I could have easily made that list 10 times as long. There's plenty of good stuff that I left out. The black and copper number is the Peugeot Onyx concept that made its debut last year.

I haven't been following newer cars a lot, but I think this thing is flat out gorgeous.

And the 80's I still think this is the best looking generation of Firebird.

From the 1970s:

From the 1960's. I have a particular fondness for the "Less is More" aesthetic that was going on:

from the 1950's

From the 1940's

A few highlights. From the classic era:.

That is a thing of beauty. Thanks for sharing!

I love the classics too. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom seems to be that there aren't enough of us to justify running the existing moulds, let alone making new ones. I think every era has made some interesting cars, though we usually don't seem to realize this until long after they've gone out of production. For modern "normal" cars, the Ford Focus might have some potential. A hatchback that in it's ST version can outrun a Mustang sounds like it might be at least a little bit interesting to some. I'm trying to wrap my head about anyone waxing nostalgic over a K-Car. At the time, they were considered the ultimate generic car, so I would say that future generations of Camry lovers are pretty much a mathematical certainty.

I'm 54 now, and I've been reading up in the history of automobiles since I was a kid, and that particular refrain has been constantly repeated throughout the years almost word for word, with periodic updates to the official date as to when they stopped building "real cars". When I hear yet another chorus of this, I hope you'll understand if I'm skeptical. Are most of today's cars boring transportation appliances designed by the timid, and built by the disinterested? Of course they are, but it's been that way since the days of the Model T. What makes the old ones special is the passage of time. The world changes, most have been scrapped, and eventually that transportation appliance becomes a rare artifact from a bygone age. A 1953 Hudson in 1953 is as boring a thing as was ever created, but one in 2013 is something pretty special. So a lack of interest in modeling contemporary cars is understandable. What's the point of building a model of something you can see every day on the street? When Revell got into the model car business, what was their first release? Not a contemporary car, but a 1910 Maxwell. 40 years seems to be the magic number for turning automotive lead into collectible gold. I don't think the model car hobby is ever going to go away entirely. People have been building models since before recorded history, and there will still be people building models after all the kit makers have crumbled back into the earth. Even if all the kit companies were to shut their doors, we have a wealth of tools and materials at our disposal that we never had before. What will get younger people interested? Despite the best efforts of some, interesting cars still get made. The exotics are always a good choice, I think. They are fantasy vehicles that are designed to appeal to children of all ages, and they seem to have been a moneymaker for companies like Tamiya. The latest Lamborghini certainly looks promising, and maybe it's worth checking into how much companies like Panoz and Keonigsegg want to license their designs. As Charlie mentioned, young people remain interested in the strange and exotic world that existed before they were born, so maybe it's time to start looking into more 70s land yachts. My personal vote for a winner would be a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. In its own way, it's as much a symbol of its time as the 1959 Cadillac was of its time. Likewise, I think a 1971-73 Riviera would have enough flash to appeal to a wide audience. Anyway, that's my $.02

If it's like the Ethiopian place I went to, you learn what Ethiopians eat, how they eat it, and the joke about Ethiopian cookbooks is wildly inaccurate. Based on experience, what I learned things from building models that wasn't always in books. I learned that the transmission in a blower Bentley isn't bolted directly to the engine like a modern car, I learned about Formula One suspensions from building Tamiya kits, and kits with detailed chassis, taught me about cars that I just didn't have access to. I certainly don't claim to be an expert on any of these things, but I did end up knowing more about these things than I did before. Even when I did have a whole bunch of facts and figures on a subject, having that three dimensional representation was very useful for understanding how they all related.

Before anything, let's consider how much of the retail price the manufacturer gets. Now, it's been my understanding that a 40% markup is standard for retailers, because they like to eat too. If this is so, and assuming a similar markup at the wholesale level, that would mean about 50% of the price at the store makes it to the manufacturer. It was mentioned earlier that someone like Chrysler wanted 8% of the retail price, so we're already down to 42%, and that's not covering whatever costs are involved in making that kit in the first place. It wouldn't take too many royalty deals like that to wipe out whatever profit is left.

Candy blue, with flames.

Since we're dreaming in technicolour here... I want a new tool 1/24 Auburn Speedster, a Cord L-29, and a Mercer Raceabout. And a pony.

Don`t some of the dragster kits come with flattened slicks?

And it looks like Art already beat me to it...