Atmobil

I guess my 32 Ford Supply vehicle could be called a doodlebug: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=98987&hl=

Thank you very much for the nice comments from you all

That's great to hear, will do that

Well, I now have saved your ebay store in my favorite ebay sellers list but sadly I have no money at this moment but will order some stuff later on. But I do have a question about shipping. Is the listed alternative the only one? I see there is quoted 30$ shipping (to Norway) for a 4$ item like wheels.

Yes, and I am very glad that some of the aftermarket people are doing such thing. I have some Model Car Garage etch sets for some of my kits and thats very great. But I still would like to see a complete coversion kit for a kit with all the parts you need in one box. Take on example, the Revell 64 Ford Fairlane that was reissued some years ago with the stock small dogdish hubcaps and flat bonnet but still was very much the thunderbolt under that. What if they (Revell or some aftermarket person/s) made a conversion kit where you could get the a straight six engine, a smaller v8, bench seat, full wheel covers, decals for different interiorpatterns and photoetched badges on the body of several different types and maybe also a right hand drive dash and parts for that. The reason I could have wanted to see this come from a bigger manufacturer like Revell is economy. For a aftermarket producer it would be expensive to resin cast different sets of hubcaps, seats and engines (and other parts) to put in a box where maybe only 1/4 of the parts are used but for a bigger manufacturer like Revell or AMT, MPC, Hasegawa, Tamiya and others it would not be so expensive to mold such parts in styrene once they have done the tooling and I think it would add extra sales to the kits they got as some people would that initailly would be turned off from the original kit because they can not build the version they wanted would now all of a sudden buy this kit and the parts pack. Ofcourse I do assume that the partspack would be cheaper than the kit of the car (and also in smaller boxes) as they contain less parts. They do already do (and have done) partspacks with race engines and race tires and such but I could have wanted to see a partspack with more mundane parts. Infact, I could have wanted to see a engine partspack with only straight sixes and fourbangers and other common "mundane" engines. Would also be great if they where detailed enough so that one could build them without cylinderheads and such as it would be great diorama accesories. Think of a garage/workshop with a couple a year old scrap engineblocks laying around in the bushes behind the building.

ooohh...I want that reissued. I'm far too young to have seen the Six Million Dollar man when it was on tv the first time but I do remeber seeing it on SciFi Channel in the 90s (that was also where I first saw the movie Killdozer).

Tamiya 1966 Volkswagen 1300 beetle

Alclad II Chrome, that is the best. But it also requires skills and and an airbrush. I use BMF because it looks very good but I do think it is very fiddly and will many times postpone the applying job or do it in part over several days. Silver or aluminium paint is ok if you don't want the shiny look that the BMF gives. I use q-tips to burnish it to the body and a sharp knife to cut it. I don't know what q-tips you guys in the states have in stores but I have found that the best type for this kind of work here is made by Johnsons and has a dark blue stem that is quite stiff. There is some cheaper brands in stores with either a babyblue or white stem but they don't work very well because the stem is to soft and flexible.

This is a little off-topic but at the same time on topic. I wish either the kit makers or aftermarket producers would release partspacks for kits with parts to upgrade/downgrade the kit to a different spec model. Lots of cars out there share the same body as the cars that are in available kits but only need minor detail changes to make them in to a different spec car. Changing the exterior trim, wheelrims or hubcaps, tires and different grilles, headligts taillights and bumpers and so on. Take one example, I want to build Al Bundy's "Dodge" from the tv show Married with children. In the show they called the car a Dodge but in reality it was a 72 Plymouth Duster (a lot like this one: http://www.moparclassified.com/cars-for-sale/1972-plymouth-duster-in-ca-15.htm#!prettyPhoto) and I got the AMT 71 Duster 340 and I got resin dash and grille (Maybe copies from old MPC parts) and tailights but what I really could have needed is the wheelcovers. I guess I have to try and scratch build them somehow.

I'm liking this a lot, very cool

Your not alone about having owned cars that are difficult to make models of. In my short 13 years of car ownership, there is only three that I can build a model of and that is my first: the 1969 VW beetle, I did build one from Hasegawa 67 combined with parts from Revell 1:25 68 and I plan on building a new one from the new tool Revell 1:24 68 combined with parts from the new tool Revell 1:24 70 cabriolet. The rest of the list: Mercedes W115? No. (I have owned two of them) Mercedes W110? No. (I have owend three of them) Mercedes W123? No. (I own two of them, in wagon form) VW Passat 1993? No. (I owned two of them) VW Golf II? Yes, with some modifcations on the Revell GTI kit I can build one. VW 1303? Yes again, but the kit depicting it is really bad and will never look good. I have also been wanting to build the cars I have grown up with, my father had a Toyota Corolla KE70 when I was born and that one can be built by modifying Aoshimas kit. Biggest mod needed is converting the dash to left hand drive. When my sister was born three years later he got a Toyota Carina TA60 estate and that one is not only impossible to build a kit model of it is also impossible to find any form of model of it. After that he bought a Toyota Model-F (Spacecruiser) and that one is again very difficult to get a model of. I can in theory make a model from a very rare old kit of a Toyota Lite-Ace and modify it but it will be expensive and take a lot of time and skills. After the Model-F he bought a Ford Escort estate and that one is also impossible to build a model of and the current car he owns is a 05 Toyota Corolla and as far as I know their is no models of that either. I think this is the same for most people living in Europe as there is almost no kits available of the cars that have been common on our roads.

I don't have pictures of any bad builds and to be honest I am proud of most of my builds even if they are not good by my current standards. Every model has been steppingstone for better skills. But I have wrecked some models, one that springs to mind is Tamiyas Jaguar mkII in racing version. I decided I wanted to make a convertible, so I cut the roof off. Then I changed my mind and tried to glue it back on....it did not get on straight. I also tested out a differnt type of spray can paint and I covered it in a very thick layer of mettallic blue that covered any remaining details on the body.

I once had a kit of the ISS (The International Space Station) made by Heller but I sold it. It is not really that weird, just spacy and I never got the urge to build it. I do have a Weird-oh kit, the Sling-Rave Curvette....not really weird that either, just ugly. I kind of like the idea of the Heller figure kits of the Simpsons family, want to get my hands on them some time.

I guess that Mercedes is newer than my 85 230TE W123? Mine has 374 000 km (232 000 miles) and it still works just fine, so does the other one I have (85 300TDT W123 with 456 000km, that 283 000 miles). Both have power windows that work very well and not really much other things go wrong on them either. Only need to change oil, filters,headlightbulbs and brakeparts. I'm currently replacing the balljoints in the front suspension on the 230TE and the ones that I'm taking of are the original ones from 85. Mercedes really plumeted in quality from the early 90s and onworths and all I can blame is the beancounters trying to squease more profit out of the each car.

It says on the box that it is 77,8cm tall, about the same in height as a 1:25 semi-truck in length but with a base of 30,2cm I guess you need a very big shelf to put it on

OOOHHH!!! I sure want that one

Yes, I also have one of the Chinese limos from Trumpeter, my version has a "sunroof" with microphones and such on the edge for the dicatotor to stand up and address the people from the car. A huge car and a huge kit but sadly a little bit short on details. This could be a good idea for the kit: http://www.carnewschina.com/2012/09/13/hongqi-ca770-makes-us-cry/

Modelhaus has a 75 Impala four door sedan and a 73 Caprice wagon. Maybe it would be possible to combine the two?

How does the speedlimiter work? Is it an actual limiter put on the car? I ones owned a red mkII Golf aswell, a 1990 1,8CL Sport. Worst car I have every owed, broke down once a week and I replaced almost everything other than the body and interior. Here is a picture of it when I bought it: Owned it for 13-14 months and had the engine out 5 or 6 times during that time. Replaced both engine and gearbox but at different times. The original engine blew its headgasket and the original gearbox lost all it's oil out through the driveshaftflange. The speedometercable jumped out of the gearbox several times, the clutchcable had a automatic adjusting thing on it that got stuck so it would not release the clutch. The radiators platsic side broke and spat out all of the water, the startermotors housing broke so it fell off (the startermotor still worked but was no longer possible to attach to the engine). The grille came loose everytime I drove it over a bump in the road, the ECU died two times in one winter because of roadsalts getting in to the connections and shorting it. It would not run properly and kept stalling with less than half a tank of fuel and when it got below that it would also stop charging the battery so one would run out of electricty before running out of fuel. The C shaped springclamps holding the exhaust kept losing their springiness and that resulted in the exhaust coming lose from the manifold making more noice that imaginable (I replace the C-clamps everytime I had the engine out and also 3 other times). The gearchange linkage kept missadjusting it self so that it was dificult to select gears and some beancounter had desided that they where going to use a plastic oilflow-control cover over the camshaft and that melted and was on the cameshaft making a really terrifying noice. I also replaced the clutch, CV joints, front and rear springs and dampers, front and rear brakes and two sets of tires (winter and summer). I paid 1500 kroner for the car, and spent almost 30 000 kroner on it in parts over that 13-14 month period and managed to sell it for 6000 kroner... Today I do however have a plan, I got Revells GTI kit wich is mostly the same except the fuel injection system and I plan to build a diorama of it with the front dissasemled, jacked up on axlestands in the front with a figure of me working on it. I plan to put it on a base with a built in mp3 player and speaker with a record of myself swearing and working with tools

If one acctually wants the electric car to survive in to the future one could do what has been done here. Electric cars have no registration tax, almost no road tax, no road tolls, is allowed in buslanes, free parking, free ferry tickets, cheaper insurence, cheapers bankloans and one can get a chargerstation at home paid for by the goverment and they are building more and more fast charger stations all around the country. Here we have the situation now that a car like and E-Golf is cheaper than petrol or diesel powered versions and because of the savings from taxes, runningcosts, insurence and lendingrates plus the fact that they keep their value better means a normal family will actually make money on owning an electric car. I'm not joking, a friend of mine bought an E-Golf to use as their everyday comutercar. They are a family of four, two adults and two young daughters that are going to kindergarden. He did the maths and found out that the savings on using the E-Golf instead of the Rav4 they had before means that he can theoretically sell the car after a year and in total come out with a profit despite selling the car for less than what he paid. That means that if he saves the money he would have otherwise used on car running costs for the Rav4 for a year and then sell the E-Golf he will have more money than what he paid for the car.

Rowan Atkinson has proved to be a very capable driver, both at Top Gears track and at several events like the ones at Goodwood and being interested in cars and very knowledgeable would make him a good candidate but I do think that the BBC will need to make changes to the program and its format as was done in 2002 from the old Top Gear to the current one as it will not be wise to just try and replace Clarkson. Would be a lot better if they get someone that has personality that could bring the show forward. Something new and maybe different to the Top Gear we have seen the last 13 years, as different as new Top Gear was from old Top Gear.

You should come to Norway then, here a Tesla Model S is cheaper than a base model Mercedes E class

A guy I know is married to a woman from Ukraine and she came back from a visit with rolls of toiletpaper with this guys head on it. I guess it will be difficult to sell such an unpopular figure and maybe even dangerous.

Nice flower and nice paintjob aswell

I have made several propositions on that site: Mercedes Benz W123 wagon: http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/item/6222/ Mercedes Benz W107 SL http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/item/5438/ Reissue of the 1984 Ford Transit by Esci (assuming that Revell has the molds) http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/item/5257/ United Stated Forest Service vehicle, they could make one easily with say the 64 Chevy pickup, some decals and a few extra parts. http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/item/5232/ Ferrari 456, a "modern day" Ferrari that is not in kitform. http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/item/4389/ Citroen Ami6: http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/item/4339/ Mercedes Benz W114/W115 http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/item/4275/ But I am really wondering about the votes on some of the things on that site. I have seen sugestions get several thousand votes in a few days and how they do that is to me a little strange as other sugestions that have been posted at the same time may only have a few (less than a 100) votes.