djflyer

I was going through a box of junkyard pieces and found a Pantera body - '71/72 with split front bumpers. It looked as if it had been painted with a cotton swab so it went in the purple pond. After the layers of bad paint came off I found it was molded in a blue that can best be described as French Racing blue. There isn't any markings to indicate who made it. Does anyone have one like this? I would like to see if I can find the correct parts for it. Thanks all in advance.

The new HRM kit of the Chaparral 2 just arrived so here's a look at what you get. It is definitely a re-pop of the Cox slot car, which is a pretty good place to start. It has the feel of styrene so I'm not sure what the process is making these is but does fit together well. The upper and lower body are bagged together with three smaller bags for HRM's excellent wheels and tires, the structure pieces and smaller detail parts. Everything is molded in white except the tires, windscreen and taillights. Not pictured is about 12 smaller pieces that detail the suspension - my camera apparently doesn't like very small bits of white plastic.

Excellent!! I had seen some pictures of this car not long ago and added it to the future "build list". I will definitely be following this one as I picked up the Gunze 928 with the complete driveline. One thing I noticed from the pictures is it looks like the top has been chopped on the 1:1 (at least compared the Golf/Rabbit kits I have). One question is did you extend the engine compartment to fit the chassis?

I did look through the old threads, unfortunately many of them suffer from Photobucket-blight so many of the pictures that illustrated the problem(s) are no longer visible. The post by Darin Bastedo from 2007, Fixing The Revell Aar 'cuda, showed a fix where he chopped the roof and hood area from the Revell '70 cuda and grafted it on to the Monogram 1971 kit. The pictures showed it as a definite improvement there and echos the previous post by Snake regarding the c-pillar/rear-window area problems. This gives me some idea of what to do about one of the most discussed problems. Thank you all for your information.

ok, so this thread brings the question I always have when a kit (new or reissue) gets bashed as being junk or all wrong. In the case of the 24th scale R/M cuda, what EXACTLY is wrong with it? Dimensions like wheelbase, or size of the rear window, or what? Wrong scale is not part of the question. For any kit my thought process is either like it as is, try to fix what I see or know is wrong with it, or take a pass. I come to this forum to learn so I would like to hear from the people that know Mopars what makes this one so bad.

Definitely underrated and some times maligned by the Porsche purists. Still a great car and am glad to see the build you have going. Considering how many kits there has been of the 928, I seem to recall only one had a complete driveline. Looking forward to what comes next with this one.

Thanks for the info. It's sometimes difficult to really see what you get from pics on a vendor site.

Thanks for the photos. Isn't the Renaissance kit supposed to be 24th and the other two 25th scale? It should be noticeably larger than shouldn't it? It also looks like a fair amount of visible details despite being a curbside. Excellent builds on the other two btw.

I know Mark IV's technically aren't GT40's (re. the original post). My question is has anyone seen and/or built either the Renaissance or LMM kits of the MkIV ? I am curious as to how they compare to the IMC and MPC kits.

I would agree with all accolades and say amazing is the best way to describe the transformation. I saw that kit years ago and its almost unbelievable what you were able to accomplish. One question I have is what did you use for the metal exhausts? They look quite convincing and that is a major focal point in cars of that era.

Am really liking this build so far - smooth is good (at least for me). That color looks great and can't wait to see a few more shots of it. Nice interior also - what did you use for the metal trim on the seats? It looks very real.

After seeing the heading for this thread I was curious if anything I purchased on the 'bay was a pirated copy. So far all look legit but I am going to keep checking and file complaints on everyone that turns out like meditrans65. I looked at his page and he's still at it with a wide range of stuff he's ripped off from other companies. It also looks like he's trying to up his game with claims of being higher-quality pressure castings. He seems especially fond of Hobby Design's products, one of which should get him in real trouble. He's selling copies of their Honda F20C engine listed as "Hobby Design", not Hobby Design-like, or based-on. So he's using their name to promote his copies. I did find what looked like the Fireball Modelworks carbs and reported him to eBay for selling unauthorized copies of this and ALL of his items. Everyone that uses this forum should do the same. Joseph, you should also put something on your homepage in bold print about this guy and warning people about him.

Dam - curbsides again! I said it before about the 2002tii and will again - this is definitely one kit that should have engine detail. Maybe there's hope. Scale Production did a resin transkit to provide complete underhood detail for the Belkits Ford Escort. Its amazing - full engine compartment, inner fenders, etc, with your choice of Ford BDA or Lotus Twin-cam. I have already suggested they do one for the the BMW 2002.

Definitely this is the best update to the P1800. There are actually several places that are building this Bo Zolland design. One got the crucial greenhouse correct but no one has gotten the DB-5 style headlights right. I actually kinda like the Russian one - the exterior could be good with some refinement. The retro-interior is great tho. Finally a dash that's something other than one big touch screen. (which is almost like texting and driving isn't it?)

The RX-7 is an excellent kit, but wasn't part of the original Monogram Exotics series. All of those were curbsides with a very limited parts count - I think my Triumph TR-8's has maybe 15 if you count the wheels/tires as one. Another identifier is all of the original releases had kit numbers starting with 2100.

Did some research as I have bodies from other vendors that are also printed in WSF (White Strong Flexible). The printing process uses powdered nylon and the finished product does end up being porous. Its recommended that you seal it before finishing.. You can sand the item to a smooth texture but that doesn't prevent paint from soaking in. There are several methods I have found. Coat the item with thin Super Glue (works great on smaller pieces) and will also stiffen the part a bit; or two-part epoxy thinned with denatured alcohol to water consistency then brushed-on (Smooth-On makes a product called XTC3d that' formulated just for this), or dipping in a product like Thompson's Water seal. A water-like viscosity appears to be the most important factor. Best process is to apply first coat, let dry-rough sand; apply second coat, let dry- medium sand, then finish with primer and paint. Acrylic paints are recommended most often. Some people claimed to go straight to a primer like Tamiya Fine white or Duplikolor High-build but didnt indicate method used. I will post any other information I get on this.

What are the other ones on either side? Without seeing the comparison, I would have the Testors looked pretty good.

Not long ago I picked up a blue Boss 351 and was surprised at the level of detail. The drivetrain was gone (fortunately?) so I can get on with correcting that; some of the decals are damaged and it sounds like Keith Marks is the only choice there. The taillight panel is also incorrect as I see it. Rex - the nose on the black car in the middle looks narrowed compared to the others. Is that a different model?

Great information about how it gets done (sometimes). If that tooling is still around I wonder if it would sell - maybe as a "Special Edition"? I have the 924 Rally and a built-up 450SL that's set for a re-do. I don't recall the TR-7, but I do have two of the TR-8's and that is definitely the only kit of that car. I also have both cars from the Ultimates series - 289 Cobra and 427 Vette. Fantastic detail and relatively easy to build. I had such hopes the 289 Cobra would get scaled up to 24th to go with the RM 427 Cobras. Dam. I guess this also proves that if you create an accurate body shape and decent visible detail at a REASONABLE price, people will buy it. Now we get curbsides for big retail prices.

For anyone that is interested in Sprint cars or Midgets, you have to check out Woodguy Racing on Shapeways.com. He has at least half dozen different styles of sprint cars - from vintage to VW powered to Chili Bowl style. It looks like they are intended for slot cars but have some really good detail and could be very interesting with a little effort. Pricing is around $50- 60, which isn't cheap, but you can pay at least that for a good resin kit. He has a bunch of other stuff for dirt track and modifieds in 25th and 32nd scale also. BTW - I have no relationship or financial interest in these products - just found something interesting while surfing.

Excellent build - 914's have always been a favorite of mine. Disappointing there hasn't been a really good kit of one (kinda like the 289 Cobra). Not to throw a monkey wrench at this point, but how about replacing the pop-ups with some clear-lens led projection beams? I recall a build where the guy took a piece of clear acrylic cut in a wedge shape, drilled the back of the vertical wall to represent the "bulbs", then foiled the back. If you can cut out the pop-ups without damaging the paint it might complete the new-meets-old theme. Just an idea.

Excellent job with a feisty kit - mine has the warped rear deck lid also. The color choices are excellent! Definitely far too few Maser kits, although the die casts seem to get them. I seem to recall a Merak kit from somebody many years ago, perhaps Testors/fujimi.

Hopefully the rest of the pictures came through for you. This was actually car #33 as the display sign showed, they had to modify it to #39 with tape. Interesting story about the car from the team: It is pretty much in "barn-find" condition as it appeared at Road America this past weekend. The car was a factory light-weight version with fiberglass hood, fenders, and doors; the roof and rear quarters are steel. They went through the engine to get it up to running in the Saturday qualifiers but something broke (in the diff as I recall) and they couldn't run in the Sunday race. They still ran the stock brakes - disc fronts and drum rears. The wheels are actually new units that were made to look like the originals. Their big question was restore to original or bring to current competition specs...hmmmmm.

Just happened to see one at the Road America Historic races this past weekend. Was in un-restored/barn-find condition but they did have it on the track for some laps.

There was also a series of articles in MRRN many years ago on detailing/converting the Monogram kits into TransAm spec