Richard Bartrop

Right, everyone has to stop getting excited about things I'm not interested in, and they have to do it right NOW! Seriously, maybe it isn't some people's thing, but it's still a big deal that it's coming back from the dead, and it's a very encouraging sign that other obscure kits might be brought back from the dead. Me, I'm hoping Atlantis will bring back some of the vintage car kits, and some of the hypothetical spaceships.

That's how you tell who the serious modelers are, right?

Info on Scripps marine engines seems pretty scattered. Here's a piece on the founder http://ohiosyesterdays.blogspot.com/2008/12/e-w-scripps-hermit-of-seas.html

Just about everything you want to know about the 1959 Imperial http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1959/index.htm

The roof is pretty obviously different, and there's no spare tire on the rear. Also, on stock Imperials, it wasn't a real tire. The car in the photo is a modified 4 door hardtop, where the resin body is a sedan.

Meanwhile, at GM, the folks working on the '59 Chevrolet were thinking along similar lines...

That Imperial looks promising. For those wanting to add some internal detail, how close is the chassis of the Chrysler 300C to what was under a real '59 Imperial? I know they dropped the Hemi for '59, but would the Chrysler in the '49 Mercury kit be close?

An old pic I did for a Rod & Custom contest of a track style rod inspired by 60s vintage Indy racers.

I have some sheets of clear styrene, so I'm thinking maybe a sandwich of that, and a thin styrene frame, and then putting a slight curve in it. Either that, or cheating a little, and do the early version without the windshield.

You can definitely see things that ended up on future GM cars, and from the back, it even looks a little like a Jaguar Mk ! from behind, but put it all together, and it doesn't really work. It shows just how much designers struggled to figure out how to make an envelope body look good.

I remember those fondly. If the numbers don't work for selling them separately, maybe combine some of them into a complete model as was done before?

Thanks for the photos! I have a build of the car underway in Under Glass.

Yes, we most certainly do need a model of it. It was sold as the AC 428. If anything, it's a dead ringer for a Maserati Mistral, which was also styled by Pietro Frua.

They most certainly were, though with the 289 instead of the 427, and the Cobra eventually became the basis for this beauty that they sold into the 70s. It was eqipped with a Ford 428, and a few come with a 427.

Shown with a Hudson, the previous model Cadillac, and what would be the 1948 Cadillac. The Interceptor was originally going to be the design for postwar Cadillacs until they decided to start over. I think they made the right choice.

AC kept building Cobras for years after they stopped selling them in the States. The only difference between them and the Shelby Cobra was the name.

the Leg Show is pretty cool. It looks almost like a roadster version of the Uncertain T

And a little correction on the backstory. The Meteors were originally introduced to give Mercury dealers a Ford priced product. You could still get Fords at a Ford dealer

I'm waiting on some parts for the other roadster, so I thought I'd start on this one. I've wanted to do John Athan's roadster for a while, not because of the Elvis connection, but because it's a survivor from the earliest days of hot rodding. Some claim it was the first time anyone put a model A body on a '32 frame. I got AMT's '29 roadster to use as the starting point, because the body was still in a stock configuration, and the latest version also came with a Deuce grille. The original plan was to use the frame and running gear from the Lindberg '34 Pickup, but the '32 frame left over from the Revell '29 Roadster was so much nicer. The Revell custom '48 Ford I bought for parts had a dropped front axle with the pring mounted in front that was almost identical to what was on the Athan roadster, and the rear axle was also a very close match. Revell's '40 Ford coupe supplied the engine. The frame did require some mods. The rear crossmember for the the '48 frame located the rear axle just where it's supposed to be. and I scratched up a stock looking K-member and some motor mounts from sheet styrene. I also added some styrene to smooth out the step in he back. I was planning t use the wire wheels from the Lindberg '34 pickup, but I am very tempted to get a set of Billingsgate's excellent 3D printed Kelsy-Hayes wires.

Oh, I think the Ivo T is by far the better looking of the two.. It is the classic T-Bucket. But if the goal is to build a replica, the bad is just as much a part of it as the good.

I picked these up today. That's two off the grail list.

This scene from Lawrence of Arabia sums up modeling for me. We are people who are possessed with what could be described as "a funny sense of fun", and some people's sense of fun is funnier than others.

Oh, the Isky roadster is definitely noteworthy if only for surviving so long. and Grabowski's T still deserves to be recognized for it's influence on hot rod design.

And Iskenderian wasn't even close to being the first person to hot rod a Model T.

I think it's a big deal. I'm just acknowledging that there might be people who don't know about the history, or don't care.