Spex84

"BLAH_BLAH up it's ears"?? Perk up its ears? I can't even imagine what other word could fit there, let alone a word that would be auto-censored. //// RE: trends...I've been noticing that lots of older trends and styles are being re-born and re-mixed, like 1970s vans and chopper bikes, '80s synthwave music, '90s styling (splash graphics, "Xtreme" everything) adopted in a tongue-in-cheek nostalgic fashion. It's all interesting to me! Street-rod specific trends, though? Hmm. I feel like the Rat Rod thing is played out, Traditional has turned into a hobby for the absolute 1% Rodders Journal/Pebble Beach crowd, and the Neo-Trad America's Most Beautiful Roadster trend is feeling a bit stale. The 80s had the easter-egg colored Pro Street builds, which morphed into 90s billet Hi-Tech. The 2000s were still Hi-Tech but Rat Rod and Traditional started creeping in. I feel like things have settled into a bit of a holding pattern, and the edgy stuff is happening in other branches of the car hobby. For instance, I'm kind of waiting for the skeletal, deconstructed, cyberpunk styling on recent supercar projects to make its way to hot rods. In a few cases it has, but hasn't become mainstream yet. I'm talking about the "folded planes" surfacing, cantilever and flying buttress forms, floating LED headlight and taillight clusters, exposed tube frames, etc. That, and the drift/time attack/stance design features that have been appearing on euro and tuner cars for years now. The funny thing is, the "half stripped" styling of some of these supercar projects was probably inspired by traditional hot rods in the first place! *edit* The yellow Firebird below is perhaps one of the better examples of hybrid trends that I've seen lately: It's a '70s car, with Rat Rod patina, huge splitter and fat lettered tires, AWD Nissan GTR system...but also some of that good old American hot-rod flavor in the form of a roots-blown V8...but the engine is set back in the frame to prioritize handling. Weird, and I love it.

Well that's just super cool! No pun intended! :D Love the design of those old coolers. The detail looks pretty sharp and the weathering really brings it out. I like how the internals are included, much more convincing than just a boxy lump.

Love the detailing on this one! The screen floors are a cool touch, really add depth to the model. At first I thought the tractor grille was one of my 3D printed pieces, but I see it has different proportions, interesting! The mesh screens on the injector stacks really do it for me

Beautiful! I love that shade of green, and the way the 2-tone green interior pops!

Wow, that's ambitious but seems to have worked out very well so far! Well done. I like seeing heavily customized '40s every now and then to balance out all the stock-bodied hot rods. It's a beautiful design and hard to modify safely, but your approach keeps the best features of the design and trims the fat out!

I started building a '40 several years ago and had the same problem! I put the project on the back-burner but concluded I'd probably have to cut the rear crossmember out and move it 2-3mm to fix the wheel placement. Phil--looking good so far! That's a beautiful interior, and I like the pale yellow color. Looking forward to seeing more!

Ultra clean and just enough detail to make it stand out in a crowd. Bravo! I also like that it has a hot rod stance and attitude. Those 41-48s are pretty tough looking when they have a more aggressive stance...which is an interesting contrast to the matte light green paint!

Love that oxidized paint effect!! I don't know if it's the paint or your lighting setup, but the black has that blue cast that 1:1 oxidized black hot rods develop.

I like the stance on this one! The tweaked rails look good and the blower adds much-needed visual mass to the engine, helps balance the 1/24 body. Looking forward to seeing more!

This thing is awesome so far! Love the concept.

Man, that 240-GTO Ferrari is actually pretty sweet!! And one of those Fiero-rrari conversions was nice, too. I'd drive 'em! The donk GT40 made me lol. There's one of those bodies in a field near me, on a 4x4 frame. It has potential, haha. Here's a Classic Reflection Coachworks Corvette. Saw one of these in person once, and didn't hate it! Much. I don't hate this Miata either! Here's a Viper-vette pinched from Jalopnik (via Craigslist). Woof! And to finish off, a Miata-stang. Yuck!

That one ain't even close to being the worst offender! But I appreciate your colorful turn of phrase Plus, there's a Juke in the family, so I've had time to make my peace with it.

Ya know what, many modern cars are so ugly, the Aztek doesn't even strike me as particularly offensive any more. It was ahead of its time! ...and I actually like this version!

I don't want to hate on things that are neato and built with care...but hoo boy. Sometimes, I just want a blobby year-2000 GPS unit with sparkly moving pistons inside to cradle on my hairless wrist while I make engine noises...ya know? 280 grand is a total steal for that kind of bliss and status. On a less snarky note, that patina'd ~'31 Cadillac V16 is sweet!!

Looking good! That blue piece would make a great '60s-style custom-rod grille.

Very neat, very classy. Nicely done :) Just goes to show how much can be achieved with old AMT parts! Those front tires are from the Revell Orange Crate kit, by the way.

It's all beautifully and cleanly done, but the wood treatment really caught my eye! Hard to believe it's just Tamiya clear orange. Wow!

Nicely done! Thanks for the parts breakdown. I've been thinking of doing my own '85 Blazer build for a while now (it's not priority yet) and it's great to know there's a source for the grille. Despite the struggle you may have had with the resin components, this project has turned out well. The AMT Tahoe tires are proportionally just what I'd be looking for.

Wow! This is a very ambitious project and I can't wait to see more. I'm very impressed that you scratchbuilt your wheels...not many people attempt that!

If I was going to build a "dream model A roadster" I'd cut the AMT and Revell bodies about 1cm behind the doors...and splice the AMT front and the Revell rear together. The wheel arches could stay raised, especially if I was building a contemporary retro-styled "America's Most Beautiful Roadster" sort of project. Otherwise, I'd have to lower the wheel arches. I know the wheel arch rib stampings are inverted on the AMT body, but that's one detail that I barely care about, considering the wheels largely hide them! Then I'd throw a flat panel behind the butchered Revell cowl/doors and make a ratty RPU or modified out of it. This kit is a kit-bashing dream, regardless of any quibbles I have with it. I only have one, and I'm kinda hoarding it until I can get another to actually build.

I like the dry lakes lettering and "Paso or bust" decals. Cool stuff.

Mucho respect for what you're doing here. Not easy by any means!! Pete--thanks for the comment on actual rim diameter (above). I know I've made that mistake in 3D modeling when matching my wheels to 15" templates!

As the years go by I find myself appreciating a wider range of cars. I use to be "meh" on muscle cars, now I like 'em. I didn't care much for 80s and 90s cars, but I actually quite like the Iroc-Z, Grand National, 300ZX, Supra, etc, so my interest is growing. I had no appreciation for '70s behemoths, but now I'm almost kind of impressed by the size and bloaty swagger of the 70s T-bird, Grand Marquis, Cadillacs, and so on. The concept art from that era was so much cooler than the actual cars. I used to think they were all demolition derby fodder...but I recently saw a mint '70s car (T-bird I think) for sale at $20k. Who knows...the seller might have to wait a while, but they might actually get their asking price eventually, for such a well-preserved example. '70s Custom vans are gross, but fascinating, and I have found I like their cheerful excess. At a certain point, with any luck, I'll love and appreciate absolutely everything, haha.

Nice spot! So...you live in the trailer and the barn is for the model cars, right?? //I work in a library, and we've just closed until further notice. Guess I'd better resurrect some projects!

I'd love to know what stencil material you used as well....as I now have access to a Cricut cutter The Grim-pala is looking amazing so far! Looking forward to seeing the final results of this ambitious painting process.