DavidG

The wheels are the Fuchs with the 5 spoke flower. I actually bought the kit to get the wheels for a California look VW I'm doing. But, when I started inspecting this kit, I decided it was much too nice to cannibalize for the wheels so I kept looking for another donor.

I don't think that there should be an "official" limit as long as you make a solemn vow to finish each and every one of them. LOL

It is always amazing to me what a huge difference a change of rims and stance will do to any car. That looks REALLY good to me. Did those wheels come from a Dodge Challenger kit? I hope you were able to save the cool retro roof rack.

It's a Revell. The number on the box is 85-2050. Here's a photo of the art:

Anytime I try to do anything with decals, it's a disaster!! My fingers are just way too fat!

Well, here's a NEW update. I was working on the engine cage. I got it pretty well done and was really happy with it. ....for a few minutes anyway. Then I noticed that, when viewed directly from the rear, the cage was crooked. It was more twisted than I could live with. So when I went to tweak it back, half the entire roll cage collapsed and in an instant, I realized that many hours of work had just gone down the drain. Ergo, I'm going to shelve this project for just a little while. The materials that I'm using right now are just not very conducive to my goal and that is causing a great deal of frustration. I would REALLY like to build this roll cage out of brass that I could solder together but I've never done any of that. It would be a great time to learn but I'm finding that information on techniques is rather limited on the web. Virtually all of it is dedicated to modeling scale locomotives. While I love looking at those, it's not my area of interest. I'm going to order a book from Amazon.com that is supposed to explain the process. Also, the roll cage was to be a primer for the more delicate modeling of the long travel front and rear suspensions. No VW model that I've seen offers an independent rear suspension that I can modify for this project.* So it would all have to be done from scratch. Copper wire and JB Weld aint gonna get it. On the positive side, I now have an excellent idea as to how the roll cage should be built. When I get back to this project, I will build some jigs that will insure consistent bends and dimensional accuracy. Also, I remembered that, when I was an avid reader of Hot VWs magazine every month in the 70s through the 90s, many Class 5 1:1 cars were built using a 3" body lift kit. I had completely forgotten about this and I realized that I could factor that in to the model. This would give me just a little bit more room to play with and could really make a difference. So please be patient and I will come back to this thread at a later date and finish this as soon as I figure out a workable solution. . *When Dr. Porsche first conceived the little VW's suspension geometry, he could not have foreseen how perfect that pivot action of the VW's springs and trailing arms would be to getting slammed around off road. The first VW's and Porsches had what is now called the swingaxle transmission. However, in an extreme turn, this design could actually cause the car to flip. This led to the development of the fully independent suspension that used 2 CV joints on either half-shaft. On VWs, this was introduced in 1969. When the off road community started realizing how the IRS was even better for off-roading than the swingaxle, it wasn't long before all VW based sedans and buggies were using variations on that theme. The problem for me is that ALL the VW models available have the swingaxle design and I really need to build this car with an IRS.

Maybe having problems with black paint is a scale Porsche thing. I had the same problems with this car: I shot it the first time and it orange peeled really badly. So I wet sanded it with 400 grit and took it back down to the primer. Just to make sure, I reshot the primer and then wet sanded the primer with 600 then 1000. It was smooth as a baby's butt. Then when I shot the black on it again, it went right back to orange peel.

Very Nice! I've always felt that the Miura was super car simplicity at its best. But then the Jota made it a REAL RACE machine! It looks like you're going to do Bob Wallace proud.

No I didn't. I've actually never used the kicker. No one here has it and I ..... ok, I didn't know it existed. There is one advantage to the JB Weld for this application. While I tried fish mouthing all my joints, they didn't always fit all that well. With the JB Weld, I can slather it on, cover it up and it will stick fine. At my level of frustration, this is a GOOD thing!!

Dale, the hoop looks really long right now. But that is actually the beginning of the engine cage. I actually made this sort of a hoop attached to a hoop. Starting with the main roll bar and working back, the first hoop will live inside the car body. The 2nd hoop will stick out behind the car but that's where the engine is. Stay tuned and it will make sense as I build more. (Well, hopefully, it will make sense. LOL) Ok, what do you want? Haha. Thank you for the kind words.

Ok, here's an update. As I stated earlier, this is my very first attempt at any type of scratch building. This especially holds true when it comes to roll cages. I also need to point out that, I live in a smallish city with only one genuine hobby store and it caters to mostly RC dune buggies and rock crawlers. Other than a few kits for sale, there is virtually nothing in the way of supplies for the scale modeler. Nashville is about an hour away for me and I just don't get down there very often. Of course, I'm originally from Nashville and lived there most of my life. I used to get all my stuff from Philip's Toy Mart in Belle Meade. About a week ago, I went to Nashville and I was amazed at what Philip's DID NOT have! They are swinging more and more towards model railroaders and pre-school kid's toys. They are carrying only a small fraction of the stuff they used to carry back when I lived in Nashville. Both the local hobby store here in Clarksville and Philip's in Nashville have nothing for scratch building. We do have a Hobby Lobby here in town and so, I went over there to look for some styrene sheets and rods. Hobby Lobby had nothing! They didn't have any brass either. After searching the entire store I finally bought some of this supposedly easy to bend copper rod to see if I could make it work. Well, it is easy to bend. Actually, it's TOO easy to bend and it bends when I don't want it to. But I gave it my best shot considering it's the only material I had available. It tried soldering it. WHAT A JOKE! That was a major frustration. I then tried glueing it with several different adhesives - all with dismal results. Building scale models is supposed to be relaxing and therapeutic. It's not supposed to keep me cranked up and ready to kill something. lol. Finally, I used some JB KWIK on it and it worked. It's looks TERRIBLE but I figure that I can sand and grind and file off the excess JB Weld until I get the look I want. It will eventually all get painted and covered with the body so maybe I should not be so OCD. Another prob that I had was that I couldn't get the roll cage square. I cut patterns from index cards and also drew out how I wanted the roll cage to look. Then I took the pan (that's chassis for non-VW people) from the kit, cut off the rear bulk head. glued in the forward bulk head and drilled holes where I wanted the legs of the roll cage to sit. I got a block of wood and transferred the holes for my pan's roll cage to the block of wood. I made the roll cage's legs too long so that they now extend through the pan and into the wood. When I'm finished mocking everything up, I'll pull everything off the block of wood and cut the legs to the proper length. So here are some photos showing what I've got so far:

I only found this forum a few days ago. I have to say that, since then, I've spent a lot of time perusing all the different builds. I'm blown away!! I feel like I am in the presence of greatness. I've built model cars most of my life but I've never been in a club, never entered any contests and never hung around with any other model builders. As a result, I've never been exposed to the attention to detail and the level of craftsmanship that I'm seeing here. When I close the computer down to take care of my daily business, I feel like throwing rocks at some of my models. You people are just that good!! So I need to get up to speed! Is this "General" board the correct place to ask "how to" questions? There is SO much I need to learn and I am thinking that many of my questions will appear to be very simplistic. It will be as though many modelers might think: "What?? This guy doesn't know THAT??" So at the risk of appearing dumb, I'm going to ask anyway because I really really want to get my models up to the level I'm seeing here. I'm very excited about this forum and I'm really glad to be here.

I think the wing is actually the kit and the Porsche comes attached to it. ROTFLOL

WOW!! What an absolute bummer!! I am going to be losing so much sleep over this bad news item!! Actually, I've never heard of this car. When I followed the link, I thought: "Wow, that really does look like something you would see in India." But then, what do I know about India? This car must be to India what the Jeepney is to the Philippines. If I were super wealthy, (like Jay Leno) I'd buy one for my 1:1 collection cause you gotta admit it. They are neat!

You know... I think you're right now that I remember.... But also, there were dozens of the Fourgonnettes too. The one photo that I was searching for was of a Fourgonnette.

I LOVE your car!! I just got one similar to it today in the mail from an Amazon.com seller in the UK. It's a Tamiya. I'll watch to see what you do with yours so I can get ideas for mine. I'm really impressed with the detail in the Tamiya kit. I only have this one and a 1966 Karmann Ghia kit that arrived a couple of days ago, also from an Amazon.com seller in Japan. These are the first I've ever had from Tamiya but I think that I'm really going to like them.

Yeah, down here in Tennessee, we just make words up! It was either that or Red Necky - which I didn't at all like the sound of.... LOL

Well, I told you folks that I was going to begin my scratch building efforts with this project! Today I started on the roll cage. I'm so not happy with it! We'll see what it looks like when the glue dries and I get some sanding and filing done on it.

I've seen SO many '32-'34 Fords with Chevy motors in them!! Please, would you PLEASE put a Ford motor in it? Somehow, I feel that if you would do this, it would bring all the planets and stars in alignment and help balance the universe! What do you think? Such a COOOL project. I look forward to seeing this one to completion.

Wow!! I'm loving what you're doing. I need to finish up all my VW builds so that I can build some American muscle of my own. You've got me inspired! There is one thing though. Check to see if you've got your shifter in forwards or backwards. Use this URL for reference: http://www.bmracing.com/product_images-high/80706.jpg

My thoughts exactly!! I was quickly scrolling to the end of this thread to say that! It looks SOOOOO good!! It's going to be perfect.

I started by trimming away the rear clip. I didn’t want it to look like so many Baja kits we all saw back in the 70s and 80s. I wanted it to look like a genuine Class 5 car if possible. I think the little bitty bobbed fenders get that look. I also took out the wing windows because no self-respecting Class 5 car has any side windows anyway. Then I sanded off the chrome side moldings. Next I wanted a complete fiberglass type tilt front end. So I gingerly (and I do mean GINGERLY) started bobbing the front end in the hopes that it would give me the look I had in mind. Unfortunately, as you can see, I broke the driver’s front fender. I’ll have to figure out how to correct that. I scored my cut lines with an X-acto knife and then just kept rescoring those lines until the cuts were complete. (I wonder if there is a better way. Hmmmm) Next on my list will be to scratch build the roll cage and frame. I also want to build a long travel front and a beefed up long travel IRS. I have no idea how I’m going to do all of this but I’ll take it one step at a time.

So here's what I've gotten done so far:

I’ve been building one of Revell’s 1/24 ’68 VW Beetle, California Wheels edition. This is a really nice model. The pieces all fit well and there is certainly more than enough detail to keep me happy. I want to lower it and put some Porsche alloy wheels on it. For those of you who are not into VWs, you should know that the Porsche Fuchs style wheel is like the Holy Grail for VW perverts such as myself. I’ve always loved them and have never had the coins to actually put a set on any 1:1 VW I ever owned. So I figure, since building model cars allows us all to live somewhat vicariously, I should put some alloys on this model I’m building. So off I went in search of a model to donate the wheels and I found two. One was Revell’s Performance Porsche Slant Nose model. But when I opened the box, I found that the Porsche model was SO nice that I didn’t want to take the wheels away from it. I kept looking. Then I found this old Revell VW Street Machine on ebay. It showed the Fuchs wheels on the box and, when I got it, sure enough – it had the wheels I was looking for. This model is nowhere near the quality of the California Wheels VW even though they are both Revell offerings. In fact, it’s rather cheesy. To make matters worse, the VW body has flared fenders. I hate hate hate VWs with flared fenders. They have always looked really red-neckity to me. I thought to myself, What am I going to do with this? Then it occurred to me that I might make a very cool Class 5 pre-runner out of it. It would take some scratch building and so, I figured that this could be my first attempt at scratch building something.

Wow, this is a dio that tells a story. I think that's great! I also think that, if Snake Girl didn't want to get caught, she could have easily but put some distance between herself and that wimpy Willies. Haha.