Neil Bass

Yeah, I thought that about the ship model in Titanic..... I remember when the old Gatsby movie with Mia Farrow came out, there was a scene with a fender bender in her white Packard. I read a mag article at the time about that car and the dented fender was a fiberglas fake. That was a good thing. I cringe when old cars get wrecked in films because the astronmical budgets films have make it possible for them to buy and destroy some very nice cars!

Just great! The top's framework and rags and the seat springs were all fantastic!!

Small car, small scale, big results!! Very clean and inspiring execution!

Thanks very much! I forgot to describe the build; the AMT '66 T Bird kit that comes with two hoods was the beginning. I combined them and and slid the dashboard and cowl back so that the rear sit formed the cockpit. Although the hood is glued shut there is an engine under there. Unfortunately AMT put a hole in the crank case!

This a melding of a PT Boat and a '66 T Bird. It was built for a cartoony cross country car race. The weapons are designed to eliminate other racers but I don't think the torpedoes are going to work out too good, if you think about it.

Nix!! That's ivory, not white! Just gorgeous peekay!

My theory is that if they made all colored plastic bodies as good as this there'd be more people starting in this hobby. My other theory is that you (peekay) put as much work into polishing this one as some folks (me) put into painted ones. Enough theories! Beautiful!!

Oh man, I laughed so hard my dentures fell out!! Okay, first I went to the window and looked out but then I laughed!! I admit I'm exaggerating. It was only the top plate.

Well, in the early spring of '76 a couple of Valleys came over the hill from San Jose in a cherry custom Ford pick up. It was metallic red with wide rubber on what we called "mag" wheels (we were probably wrong) and there was new chrome everywhere, including the grille. They drove up the coast, looking for the nude beaches but I reckon they got a bum steer because they ended up on Last Chance Road. That time of year, Last Chance is a muddy slalom run that you have to take fairly fast or sink. The Valleys were loving it until they came face to face with a psychedelic VW van full of Deadheads. The truck slid off the road and bounced down a ravine past pot farms and the shallow graves left by serial killers. They finally landed in a limestone quarry and, fortunately, walked out. They never came back. I got a lot of wire and that shiny grille from the wreck. It came in handy because I had crunched my grille pulling a tree stump from my front yard. I made all that up; I don't have a real pick up. However, I have gone to junk yards and bought a lot of grilles, bumpers, hub caps, and interior parts that were not for the same year or original equipment, as my car. The tricky bit is making sure that you pull all the mounting brackets etc. that allow you to adapt the parts to a different car. So regardless of who is right about what grilles appeared in dealerships in 1953, I don't think my model's grille is wrong for an old ranch truck.

Doesn't matter a bit; it's beautiful.

Hi Tom, Thanks for your encouragement and generous offer of an engine. I really do appreciate it but I thought it over and I reckon I've moved on to other models and I'm content to leave this one as a curbside. It was an understatement when I said I built it several years ago: I think I built it in the 1970's during High School. It definitely pre-dates the introduction of BMF. The flash photography makes it shinier than it is but even so, one thing I'd do differently is to give it a shot of dull-coat. Also fewer scratches more deliberately applied. But I'll save that for the next one.

Thanks everybody for your comments and suggestions with a special thanks to Skydime for explaining exactly what I was trying to do. His description really nailed it. At first I was very confused about all the comments about brush marks because I couldn't see any (except a brown one on the left door near the steer's horn). Now I understand: The "brush marks" really are tree and brush scratches I made with sand paper and highlighted by India Ink thinned with alcohol. The hood, bed, and rear fenders actually have two shades of yellow paint, one revealed from beneath the other by sand paper (check out the rear fender above the license plate). That is supposed to represent a home made spray can paint job fix. Rust is just starting in some crevices (and about to flake through on the panel under the tailgate). And, finally, the truck is cleaned up for a Saturday night in town. It did get a little dirty on the way down the hill to town but it's got all its hubcaps on! I guess maybe it depends on where you live or what you're used to. Cattle ranches around the central California coast are on steep hillsides with meadows and deep forests. Paint gets stained, faded, scratched up, and rusty.

I built this one several years ago. I think it's the AMT version. I swiped the engine from it so it's a curbside now. The decals came from a Johan Caddy El Dorado.

Spray painting bodies for sure. I think I was better at it when I was a kid. I notice a lot of folks listing BMF. I'm old enough to remember the bad old days before BMF existed so even when it kicks my butt I'm grateful I can just peel it off and try again. I can't imagine hand painting the chrome strips on the side of a '40 Ford Tudor again.

Oh sure, I get that John, it is all good. I was just responding with my point of view to the "why ask why" and "kicking a dead horse" remarks. The original question seems legit and innocuous.

I have those moments when the model comes alive and tweeks my nose. I seem to arm wrestle every model and finally I have to let the model win. By sheer coincidence I'm working on a '50 Ford truck from an inferior kit. The gage area is completely blank with out any molding or decals. The best I could come up with for gages was some bits of diagrams that I cut up and glued in. The speedometer is pretty silly but it did make me smile. Later I covered it with "glass" from a blister package.

Hubley had some nice ones too:

I quoted the original question from the first post because it seems like there's a debate going on instead of an informal survey. For me, like I said, I'll see something that looks toy-like and out of scale, or is totally absent from a kit and I'll feel compelled to detail it. I enjoy it.

I don't usually plan to do any extra detailing; I just find that things are missing or look toy-like in the kit and there I go, scrounging around for something to make it look better (I hope!). Also, I just get ideas about how old the car is, or how many miles it's been driven so I add weathering and decals to personalize it.

Perfect! It definitely does pay to keep your models in an airtight case!

Aw, that's nice. One of my favorite cars very well done! Love the tea strainer; I have to remember that one!!

Hey, thanks for all the great compliments! I enjoyed them very much. I forgot to mention that the tail light was a little after market gadget from the Tiffany's Speed Catalogue. I wasn't too happy with the molded on tail light so I glued on a cheap (but real) ruby.

I'm trying to think of some adjectives that are better than exquisite and beautiful and fantastic etc. Well I'm stumped. Besides being a great model, it's fascinating to see what's really under that transmission bulge.

Yep, you got it. James May and Oz Clarke tried to drink a bottle of garlic wine near here on their BBC wine testing show.

Hi, I'm up near Watsonville, in the Monterey Bay area.