Snake45

Good to see the '55 Bel Air 2DS back. I've picked up a couple of these at toy shows just because you never seem to be able to find one when you really need one. Hopefully they'll throw ALL the parts in the box this time so you can build it either stock or Gasser or anything inbetween.

Any Corvette promo, especially if in new condition and in its original box, is theoretically "collectible." That said, many of them from the '80s up were produced in such quantities that they're not worth all that much $-wise. I've bought quite a few of them for under $15, and don't feel bad at all about liberating them from their cardboard prisons and laying some Model-Fu on them. Here's a page with details on your '98: http://www.corvettepromo.com/annual_issues/annual_1998.asp?nav=annual&subnav=c5&subnav2=s2

I'd buy one just for the history of it. No real desire to build, at least not according to the instructions.

OB=Original Builder (used in reference to glue bombs and other builtups) SOD=Shelf of Doom, where half-finished projects go to die

And also many parts such as tie rods and stabilizer bars, which are forgings.

Tamiya has a rattlecan that's very close, too, if you prefer those.

I think your molding is darker than mine. Mine's not far from '86 Chevy Medium Gray Poly. I don't think I'm gonna use the kit graphic decals. Been looking at google pics of them, and I think I'm gonna dull-foil the strips down the side of the body, just to keep it as box-stock as possible. Your foilwork looks fabulous, by the way.

It came out pretty darn nice! I'm working on one of these even as we speak and I'm going to polish the plastic. Thanks for the "preview of coming attractions."

+1 on all this.

My mother once made me a tuna fish sandwich with the same knife she'd just used to spread some peanut butter, so a little peanut butter got on my tuna sandwich bread. It was pretty darn good! I made myself an occasional PB&Tuna sandwich every now and then for years. I know, it sounds horrible.

Thanks. I'm not 100% sure that what MPC used on the promo is really actual authentic "code 40 lime poly." They might well have used whatever they could get cheap that was close. And I'm not wild about spending, what, $15 for enough paint to paint about one square inch. I found a craft acryic that's pretty close (it's even metallic). I think I can tweak it to an acceptable match.

I WANT one! Not a model--a REAL one!

It's amazing what some of us see and some of us don't. For example, I simply can't take the front end of the Revell '67 Camaro or the back end of their '69 Nova, and think their '67 Vette roadster is a complete backbirth, but others don't see the problems and go on and build nice models out of them. And I'm sure I've built models (and will build more) that have built-in flaws that render them completely unacceptable to others. Ah shucks oh well. Whatcha gonna do? As always, we have three choices: Fix it; Ignore/Live with it; throw it back in the box and hope that something better will come down the road eventually.

JoHan did a '64 Dodge 2DS?

It's not just the front bumper. All the bodywork at that corner is just gone. The rear bumper is missing completely, too. But it looks like it should be easy enough to scratchbuild that, especially since I can just paint it all-black to match the front (molded in black plastic). The poor little thing is just too nice otherwise to chop up.

That is just badass and cool, and also very cleanly built. If you don't mind a suggestion: If you could foil or Molotov or even just Silver-Sharpie your vent window frames, it would look darn close to PERFECT!

He said he was gonna build it "inspired by" the shop truck, so I'm not sure he's concerned about 100% replication accuracy of every detail.

I've noticed that many manual transmission cases seem to have mold/casting lines that have been somewhat crudely ground off. So you don't want a glue seam there, but you don't want it perfectly smoothed down like airplane fuselage halves, either.

I just dug out and finished up an MPC '77 Monza that I started back in the '80s. Meanwhile, last year I came into this "distressed" '76 promo that I'm gonna try to fix. Oh, I can fix it all right, the tough part will be matching the cool lime metallic paint...but I'm working on some ideas....

The sit/stance of the real one you posted is very similar to what I hope to achieve with mine. Giving serious thought to putting a SBC in it. I was just gonna graft in a whole Camaro subframe but discovered that the truck is SO much narrower than a Camaro that THAT wasn't at all practicable.

I'd never heard or noticed this, but looking at the first two pics you posted, first thing that jumped right out at me was the shape of the rear side window is wrong. I now see the other points you're talking about, too.

My three kids were constantly exposed to my modeling, even going to club meetings with me, yet none of the three ever showed the slightest interest in doing it themselves. My youngest genuinely appreciates it when I build a model for him, but still has no interest in doing them himself. The other two would rather get a $5 Starbucks gift card from me than a built model. I don't buy Starbucks gift cards for anybody, so, their loss.

It's been that way for a long time now, even before the last general update. I've occasionally found that "feature" useful. Other times it's caused me problems. Sometimes, even with the autosave, it still would never let me post that post.

You're worried about scale accuracy?

Here's something that can dull the frustration: Write your post in Word or another program first, then paste it in. Then if the board pukes, you haven't wasted your time. A variation of this is to type your post into the board as normal, then highlight and copy the text before you hit Submit Reply. Then if it pukes, you can paste it into Word or your email program or something and not lose your message.