Joe Handley

Got to thinking about it this weekend and I remembered that Aoshima has sets of more vintage aftermarket wheels for older Japanese cars, including Cragar 5 spoke style and Ansen 5 Slot style wheels, with the latter being licensed from Enkei Wheels. So Dad and I took a ride out to a little hobby shop that I was pretty sure would have what I was looking for (he’s a regular bender at a lot of the local shows too and has had them at those) and sure enough he had multiple sets of both styles. Now because they’re of the Big and Little variety and they were going to go on the Corvair I recently posted, I bought 2 set of the 5 Slot Enkei’s to get the little fronts and they are the perfect size for the AMT Corvair kit! The first 2 are similar pics to what I posted last weekend, but on those wheels followed by a slightly angled profile shot. Then the final pic here is of the stock Michelins and optional Firestones in the kit plus the Aoshima Firestone tire from left to right. I really like the appearance of the Aoshima 1/24 15’s vs the kit’s 1/25 13’s, they seem to fit the body and stance far better, also give the car more of the attitude I’m going for with it.

Yup, they even have some sort of office or warehouse facility that is maybe about 10 minutes from me in the Chicago Suburbs! Did a double take when I saw the sign for the first time either last year or earlier this year.

Was playing around with an AMT ‘69 Corvair this weekend, going to be Yenko Stinger inspired too!

Happy to hear that you’re healing up, I slipped and fell back on February, landing hard on my chest. Didn’t break anything but I hurt like a S.O.B for a month, so I can only imagine what you have to be feeling!

Was able to take my old Losi Night Crawler out for a run today, it’s only the successful run since 2021. the original speed control died back then and I finally replaced that with a new speed control/receiver 2n1 unit only to find that both batteries I had were also bad. Got a new one and the axles started to squeak on me, so I tore those down last weekend and regreased the worms and spools in both axles. Planned on running it Memorial Day, but all the places I like to take these trucks were either busy with people or had somebody getting a traffic ticket, so we gave up and tried again Thursday night, only for me to discover that the front drive shaft was not in the output on the transmission and was late enough that I couldn’t fix it before sun down that night.

I just watched Speedtrap with him and Tyne Daly this past January, remember his character Jack Wade from the later Pierce Brosnan Bond movies too.

I’m more impressed with my new R/C rig, it shouldn’t really be going what it is in this video, especially with how little actual money and work was done to mod it so far!

Took my new Traxxas TRX-4 Sport High Trail out on 4/30 to try it out box stock then again today after some body trimming, paint work, then softer springs, a gear down and forward mounted batteries vs the more rearward placement from earlier in the week. The first 2 pics are two different climbs on the same rock while the 3rd is after the final climb today that was not possible on the 30th. Kinda kicking myself for not buying some wheel balancing putty for race/speed run vehicles. Got a few parts still on order for this and Dad’s truck and will pick that up at the LHS once those arrive. Think I’m going to fully pack the inside of the spokes on the front wheels and and partially on the rears to help with traction on the climbs, especially the steep, as tall as if not taller than the truck climbs!

I updated my post now that I’m home and they’re out of their boxes. They’re both the Sports, so it was the generic pickup bodies, mine is red and Dad’s is blue. I eventually want to ditch the RTR body for the version of it with a topper on the bed, should be a lot less top heavy than the stockers with the cages on them. Only thing that would suck is that they don’t have a clipless version of that yet.

The Traxxas TRX-4 Sport High Trails I ordered for Dad and I arrived today, from what he texted me, pics will be coming after work 😁

I just ordered a couple Traxxas TRX-4 Sport High Trail R/C trail trucks Friday while they still had their spring sale in effect and before any tariffs on Taiwan kick in. I’ve wanted one for a while and got mine and Dad one too while they were still CHEAP. Also grabbed another Revell C8 Vette and AMT ‘69 Corvair kit before those were affected too.

About a month ago I saw a new Chevy Traverse that was painted an interesting dark purple and decided I needed to try it on styrene too. Did some digging and found it was specific to the chromeless Traverse RS within Chevy and was called Stardust Metallic and thought that the Revell ‘65 Impala SS396 would look good in it as an otherwise showroom stock build as well as the AMT ‘69 Corvair, both of which I already have in my stash! Well, I was talking to the guy I get some of my supplies from a couple weeks ago about it as he can mix paint and put it in rattle cans for automotive touch ups. Ended up having him mix a spray can and we discovered Buick calls it Truffle Metallic too. After that I remembered I also have an AMT ‘62 Buick Electra 225 that I already started lowering, but never got farther than mocking it up on the kit steelies and thought it would look good on that with Testors Diamond Dust lacquer on the roof and in the hood sculpting and as a low rider. Finally got a chance to do a spoon test on Sunday using Duplicolor primers. Shot two with the grey sealer primer, one in grey filler primer, and one in black Sandable primer. Then applied the Diamond Dust to one of the two with the sealer primer, masked off the spear shape then laid the purple over all four with no other surface prep, the cleared the snot out of them with Duplicolor acrylic clear, getting the below results. Dad, Miguel, and I all noticed a slightly darker appearance to the one shot over the black primer (left most in top and right most in bottom pics) and lighter for one one shot over the silver. As a side note, I ran across a Corvette forum or blog where somebody thought this color needed to be offered on the C8 Corvettes as well. Just so happens to be one of those in my stash as well that may get this color too. As the weather permits, I’ll start posting progress pics of the cars in this color too.

I would be shocked if they don’t noticeably go up, not just models, but supplies too.

Thanks Gerry and sorry about just now getting back to you on this, I’ll on you shortly!

Thanks Gerry, that link helps a ton trying to figure this kit out and let me know if you do find those tires! I think I got this kit through one CARS club auction before you moved, come to think of it too.