mikemodeler

Nice pair of pickups, helps to have the real thing to use as reference!

Nice job! Love the color choices, looks perfect!

Might want to consider something other than the AMT/MPC Elky chassis as it is pretty basic with little detail. Might want to use the new Cutlass chassis and modify it as needed.

I dunno Joe, have you priced a dozen doughnuts at Dunkin lately? $270 is about 25 dozen, even less if they bought a couple of boxes of coffee!

I like Graveyard Carz for the education on Mopars, could do without the antics of the owner. I like how the cars are restored to day one and not all customized. I also like Bitchin' Rides as I think they crank out some really nice customs with minimal drama. This contradicts my statement above, but you asked! Also like the helping someone out aspect of Garage Squad. Some drama there, but a lot of the action takes place in my home state of Illinois, so I try to look around for familiar areas. And they tend to be budget minded and not about the $250k custom builds. Restoration Garage for it's variety of vehicles, nothing boring there! Finally, Iron Resurection because of Joe's wife Amanda.

That is beautiful, very nicely painted and detailed.

Right now, there are only 3 car manufacturers in NASCAR and Hendrick has 2 of them as dealerships. Considering the cost of being in NASCAR, I can't see Dodge returning any time soon so the only logical move would be to Toyota cars. Given the history HMS has with Chevrolet and the number of championships they have won, the fact that HMS gives GM their best chance at winning, I would tend to think that GM will do whatever they have to do to keep HMS in the GM racing stable. Give the GM teams another month of racing the new Camaro and I think you will find they get it figured out and find the winner's circle. While Jimmy tends to play down his 7 championships, you know he and Chad would love to win #8 together and cement their standing among the best driver/crew chief combos. But hey, what do I know? I didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I will the next 5 nights!

I'm no business analyst but I can do math, so if there is 23% of A/R to Assets, that could be a good buy for the right company. Of course if that A/R is more than 60-90 days, that would indicate a collection problem unless they have a policy for certain customers to extend payment, which sometimes happens with large accounts (HL, AC Moore, Michael's). It will be interesting to watch this unfold and see where Revell lands, just might fall into the hands of a foreign company. Maybe Marcus Lemonis from The Profit will step in and buy Revell, he lives in the Chicago suburbs not too far from Revell offices!

They briefly announced on the evening news here in Charlotte that Lowe's Home Improvement is leaving HMS and NASCAR at the end of the season after over 20 years in the sport. I am sure they will find another sponsor for Jimmy but his lackluster performance the last 40 races might have had something to do with them leaving. That said, they have to be happy with their association with HMS and JJ.

Search the internet, there might be a die cast of a 2003, otherwise like you have stated, the Revell kit is a starting point if you are up for scratch building the grille.

Working on my taxes, let's see how well I do before I commit huge sums of money to saving the hobby.

While the Steel Wheels album was successful for the Rolling Stones, I am a fan of the Some Girls album.

Nice color choices and I like the idea of using the Foose kit under the Chebbie!

Nice job Jim. I have an old version of that kit as well as the newest release (bought it mainly for the snowmobile). Got some ideas of how I will build mine, thinking a snow plow on one of them as an old municipal work truck (could be my first rust job!) so I don't have to worry about shiny paint!

Me like, very much! Love the color choices and the wheels don't look obnoxious.

Thanks for sharing, some nice looking rides!

^^^^^^^^What he said!

Nice job on that Brian, glad it finally stopped fighting you and it's done. Can't wait to see your next project, any hints?

Very nice article, did not realize the work he contributed to the hobby. May he rest in peace.

Also keep in mind that when filing for bankruptcy, the debts and assets are listed as a range, the exact amounts are disclosed when the court officer goes through the company and determines what is owed and what is owned. A 10:1 debt to asset ratio is unlikely because their lenders probably would not let them get that far into debt, unless the debt is mostly attributable to lawsuits or unfunded pension or stock plan obligations. A company typically files for bankruptcy because they need to get their financial house in order and usually some bad management or business decisions are the root cause of the filing. In some cases, it is the business environment and nothing management could have done to avoid the situation. The losers in this case will be the employees, they stand to lose their shares of the company, possibly 401k money, and likely their jobs.

This is a quite common procedure as one of my customers recently went through this process and ended up being pursued by three different suitors before settling. The good news is that usually the company ends up with a well funded owner and the company thrives afterwards. The unknown here is the effect on the Hobbico employees in Champaign, IL headquarters long term as the new owners may have similar operations and would consolidate them into one location.

Like others, wheels and tires and for some reason, they are also what I tend to order from resin casters! I also have about a dozen of the snow plows from Revell's GMC pickup kit. I plan to install them on various other trucks in due time. I probably would have been better off learning how to resin cast them but figured I could trade the trucks (which I did!) and use the plows. I have also "collected" about 8 or 9 of the MPC Deserter pickup kits to use as donors for 4wd conversions of other trucks.

Very accurate statement, and I will leave it there.

I have been a NASCAR fan for over 40 years, long before TV and big dollar sponsors ruined it for us real fans. I like Kevin Harvick, feel like he is a true racer and isn't afraid to drive it like it he stole it! That said, watching the races this season, especially the last three, hasn't been that exciting to me as he seems to have a car no one can run with. Yes, sometimes a team and a driver click and they dominate but if the rest of the season is going to be Harvick, Larson and Truex running up front and taking turns in the winner's circle, people will not watch. I think NASCAR will "give" the other teams/vehicle makes a little something to level the playing field and try to make it more "entertaining" for the fans. All one has to do is look at the empty seats and wonder how NASCAR will figure out how to fill them.

The Japanese tend to favor their own and if we were to ever see a NASCAR kit, it would either be from Japan or in collaboration with a US kit company. The Camry has the highest domestic content of any car sold in the US, and most of it's components come from Japanese companies' US factories. The company I work for is partially owned by Toyota and we sponsor Brett Moffitt in the NCWTS as his team runs a Tundra and is owned by a Japanese businessman, thus the favoritism. There are other examples of where a Japanese company is involved in motorsports due to either a driver or owner being Japanese. They are proud of their countrymen!