W Humble

The Latham; seldom seen, but Bill Harrah had one on his '58 Pontiac (wagon, I think) and as the story went, outran a Nevada Trooper with it. OC, maybe the speed cop id'd the Poncho and thought it the better part of valor to let him run? I too usually heard the 'oval' GMC pumps called 'trimmed-case superchargers', I guess the body could be bolted to an appropriately drilled manifold just through the bottom flange. I had a Chevy 265 built by a former Beatty shop guys, the late Bob Bohler. My wife's late cousin had a centrifugal blower for his '34 Ford Coupe/flathead, but it wasn't a Frenzel, it was a repurposed Graham, which drove off a 90-degree belt from the front; don't think he ever got it running back in '63. He had the only open-wheel rod in our semi-arctic town (N CA high desert, and COLD!) "It had twin pots, and a Columbia butt..." = "twin carburetors and an overdrive." Per rodder/rocker Johnny Bond. The last closed-drive line or 'Banjo" rear axle on Fords and Mercs came in 1948 (though I heard that light-duty pickups switched previously - dunno') and that was what the breed of Columbia axle we're talking about fit. OC, Auburn and numerous other marques had them as options, way back when. That manifold reminds me of the "Man-A-Fre" 4X2 setup, mostly seen on small-block Chevys, and featured prominently on John Milner's yeller Deuce in AMERICAN GRAFITTI (still mis-spell that word: two F's or two T's? Ha.) A recent tester said it wasn't that much of a performer, but very rad looking. Quite a few early OHV V-8s could fit 4x2 setups; seems like there was one on the Parts-Pak Cad once upon a time?? GarageGuy? This is a fun thread!!

I want to convert the old Tamaiya Datsun 240ZG 1:16 kit to LHD, to replicate my first-year 240Z, #HLS3547, My thought was to cast the RHD version in resin, and use it either to cut-up or as a back-up if I hashed the plastic one. I'm old and low-tech. I know that kit is pretty rare, but anyone consider doing it? The 1;1 Gen-1 Z-car, of course was designed to be either, since home market was RHD, but N America got the LHD. My car was the subject of HOW TO RESTORE YOUR DATSUN Z-CAR (CA Bill's Automotive Handbooks, Tucson AZ 1991) which has been in print for thirty years now, and is coming out as a revised edition (hopefully) this year, as I did revised text in 2016. I have a D/C that I repainted to match my current 1:24 silver '71 -- NISSAN USA bought my original car back in 1995 for display; (then sold it) -- and it's autographed by Pete Brock and John Morton; think I might add my own!

Boy, sanitary! My work area is also tidy -- occasionally! You're right, no one wants spray-paint effluvia, it has a lot of bad attributes related to solvents and the various chemical bases of 2-part materials. However, at the volume that your little spray operation must produce, whether with rattle cans or airbrush, it isn't likely that society will be demanding air-quality standards! Just don't breathe the stuff! I just spray most of mine in the open, while wearing a good mask, oc; when I look at an airbrush cup 1/3 full, I know I'm not making much of an impact on the atmosphere, even when using 2K finishes. One half ounce once a month, on average, plus some rattle-can primer/surfacer occasionally. Don't you experience some problems with the angles available on a turn-table platform, in getting paint just where you want it? The reverse tongs tool that MicroMark sells is okay, but not self-supportive. My solution (cheap and dirty, I suppose) is to tack two paint stir-sticks to the sides of a scrap of 4X4" lumber, mask the base, and carefully tape the car body to the uprights (interior, of course) to allow manipulating it for oblique angles, etc. Only once did this flop on me, and a '60 JoHan Chrysler that I salvaged (to make a pro-stock CHP car, on the Mono Duke's Charger chassis) came unstuck and broke of 1/4" of the tips of it's fins!! Rebuilding those! The heavy wood makes a stable base for the drying cycle, and even used stir-stick serve! Just my way. Wick

In the mid-eighties, I think it was MPC that issued a Datsun 620 4x4 kit that had Jackman-style spokers and big (for that era) mudders. My son had one -- the kit, I mean; yellow plastic.

Love the '51 Ford Victoria! There is always the hazard of the reflection of the camera/photographer bouncing back onto the film; happens even in our digital age! My dad wore his trousers 'high waters' like this overage juvenile with the strange war club. Maybe he was doing lead work when the good guy in the '57 Fairlane 500 showed up? Los Angeles and environs must be the best documented locale in the world, except probably Manhattan, but not much to see, huh? Wick

This is my horrible shot of unfinished first try at a diorama. Memories of our old Hardtop track in the mid 'fifties. There is also a row of four truck tires buried at foreground edge of grout 'track'. Going to re-do freehand lettering! Remember Ramblers rationale for not being in competition? 'Built for the human race!' Also, my first try at sending a photos -- from a laptop!! Hope this works! Wick

Elvira who? The 'Kookie Kar' was of course cloned, and the "Tweedy Pie" they say wasn't even built by B.Daddy, but bought and modified/striped; both have been featured in rod mags in the last few years, so colors should be in print. I REbuilt a 1:16 Maisto d/c '59 Cad ragtop 20-yrs ago with a 'Larry Watson' scallop paint job, and got a 2nd last year in large scale at the Dragonlady IPMS show, and I pose an Elvis bookmark (gold lame Nudie suit) behind it. I'm doing a Maisto 1:16 '58 Cad Eldo ragtop as a 'Stray Cats' car, red interior with DItzler Hot Rod black exterior; but don't like the paint non-gloss I'm getting; looks like PPG DP90 epoxy primer; may have to put matted 660 clear-coat over it. Trying to fake a Grelsch full-dresser electric guitar from an illustration in Musicians Friend catalog; slow going! Wick

Well... Ford did 'sponsor' LITB the first two or three seasons, and then it changed networks and car marques; Chrysler even snuck a few of their 'captive compact' Simcas into the scenery. So many times on the small screen they removed the front or rear glass to obviate reflections that we ignore but the camera emphasizes. Ricky's 'Poni-YAK' was the first I ever noted. Also, applying something to dull-down the shine on the bodies, often done poorly! In the LITB 'pilot', Richard Deacon, later 'Fred Rutherford', lumpys hypcritical father drives a new '57 Fairlane 500, but the emblems are craftily taped over with ole' 3M. I don't think 'Hopper' the heavy in 'A Bug's Life" was a relative, either. So, anybody else want to replicate TV or movie cars -- beyond 'Christine', etc.? Wick

Our local VCCA chapter is batting around emails about a Ford dually that changes into a Chevy in a J.Bond movie today. I drive my esposa crazy calling out car names/years during our watching OLD shows, which we love. Perry Mason, now; lots of great ragtops for Perry and Paul Drake; Cads mostly for Perry, T-Birds and 'Vettes for the private eye. William (Paul Drake) Hopper was the son of Hedda Hopper! Don't know about Dennis Hopper... I coveted the '55 Pontiac ragtop in I Love Lucy, as we had a wagon. A local nut has 30+ '55-6 1:1 Pontiacs for sale, all on full tires, and tarped. I wrote an article about his stash for Hemming Motor News, and when I let him proof-read it, he liked it but then refused to let me sell it to them! Now, hes paying them for a classified ad! But I ramble... I dug out some more unused (mostly) bumpers & grilles from 'my' era; I'll post them. BTW, you once sent me some goodies! Address noted. Wick

Oh Rusty! Like being sixteen, the age I was in my b&w photo, left, again! Lots of car themed scripts on both Beaver and Father; we have the box sets. Real 'fifties stories, too; accidents, breakdowns, embarrassments, driving lessons, home-made karts, home-made flame-jobs, traffic cops (and court appearances), first-car buying, and more. 'Course, I didn't' say they were entirely realistic -- no back-seat action, of course! Rusty will fill you in on that? Oh, Donna Reed has some car situations, too. In one LITB, he backs Wards '60 Plymouth out into the street, screwing around, and is busted. The funniest thing is that the car starts out as a 4-door sedan, then morphs into a 4-door HT, with masonite C-pillars!! Wally's dismantling of a '36 Ford five-window coupe for parts is so silly; the stuff allegedly parted is largely not Ford, and 'the guys' don't know the right names, etc. I asked Billy Gray what color 'his' Model A tub was -- with the brush-applied flames, and he said he recalled it as 'gray' -- but I'm doing the kit with leftover '51 Merc powder blue, with lighter brushed enamel licks; wish me luck! Wick

Brian mentioned 'NOISY': an early '90s Ford Contour; ran really strong, but engine noise was beyond ridiculous; it howled, clattered, thrummed, roared, and ground it's way around N CA; never so glad to get rid of a car! Actually, our 2016 and 2019 Camry fours when accelerating sound like... well, have you ever heard a bartender and customer rattling the liar's dice for drinks? It's that sound, and loud, too! Plus the crazy downshifts from the 'electric six-speed' -- the old Accord was never like this!

A 1959 Rambler Rebel 4-dr wagon -- but it had been through a few hard times -- and though I had to do all the work on it, the thing was my younger brother's first car!* To make a sad story short; he bought used/cheap with a busted three speed; goofy concentric column shift clamps came loose and previous owner ground the gears up. I pulled it, replaced the parts, reassembled, and discovered that the overdrive was shot too! Repeat; fixed that and in the process, I put in a Hurst Mystery-Shifter. Now bear in mind that this involved taking out the rear-axle (a torque-tube car, like old Fords, and quite a few Buicks) and replacing it -- and springs, etc, every time. Back together, and it wouldn't move; the rear axle splines -- the ones in the hub! -- picked that time to strip out. Replaced hub, took it to front-end shop for alignment; ball-joint broke and almost brained the mechanic! Fixed, he took it to a H.S. football game where he was varsity center; called from the bench to see the fire in his engine compartment; the overdrive switch shorted onto the leaking Holley 4-bbl, put out with snow but left a huge brown scorch on the hood. Left for college, and 400-miles from home, the new brakes (front end shop, again) all locked, flat-spotting his tires, Fixed, he sold it -- and ran away, I hope! The only good thing, I suppose, was the front-seat made into a lumpy bed, which he may have needed to camp-out while it was waiting for a tow! He said the frieze seat covers really rubbed his knees raw, too -- but I don't think that was from sleeping. He called it 'The Rebel GT' because it rebelled from ever doing anything right! This all happened in 1966, btw. Wick *(I'm just lucky it wasn't mine!)

Steve (et al) the Loewy/Bourke '53-4 Stude coupes are my choice for best looking American car post-WWII, followed by the '61 Pontiac 'bubble-top' coupe, and the '55 Chevy two-doors; coupes and Nomad. The Chevy's I've owned 1:1, and a '62 Stude Hawk GT which drove very well, but was even a joy just for how it really dressed up my driveway! Never landed the Pontiac, tho I have a '62 LeMans ragtop, a cutie. One good feature about some of the Maisto V-8 cars; they come with spark-plug harnesses for a V-12! My Stude and '58 Cad both had nice ones; very useable on other projects, like my in-progress Miller V-12 phantoms. Wick

I have ambitions to do more dioramas; it really takes model building to a new level! Soon, I'll be sharing my: '40 Ford 'hardtopper', c. 1955, like was raced on my home-town dirt track (used also once a year for our rodeo), a TV sitcom diorama of Leave It To Beaver/episode where Eddie Haskell and Wally Cleaver chain Lumpy Rutherford's '40 Ford ragtop to a tree, and including Bud Anderson's hand-flamed Model A tub, broken down) from Father Know's Best. Also, a lunar rover gag diorama... wait and see! My problem is not having skills at doing figures, which these sure need!! Wick

Oh, and very accurate 265 V-8: the manifolds and oil filter are right on. So many don't realize why a SBC gasket set comes with two driver's side pan rail versions; no built-in filter accommodation until 1957! Some '57's were stock with 265's; as a friend of mine found out to his chagrin; thought he had a 283! I used to drive a '56 Chevy Class II fire tanker for the USFS, and it didn't have much torque, but would really clock up -- if you had a good road for it! GMC's used Pontiacs!!

A head-turner, and I don't just mean the hitcher! Does a C&W song go with that vignette? I wish I'd learned how to do figures; I want to finish a couple of dios (at age 77!) but it's more important for me to use my remaining time to just get my kits done! A diorama is not much without people in it, usually.

Nice indeed! Such a clean build! Did you consider using a Sharpie to delineate the window weatherstripping? I used to drive a Ford C-series semi; large gas V-8 but I forget what c.i. There is a very strange physical effect on the riders in a cab-forward tractor; wonder if anyone out there knows what it is? :-<)* I'm using a C- chassis to mount my resin White 3000 sleeper cab, an interpretation of the '52 (original owner, no less!) tractor that I learned to drive semi's in. It's going to be a straight truck, with a car-hauler bed (yep, round corners, just like in the day), but using Budd wheels rather than the 5-spokers. I inherited it for a while, but had to sell, and now it sits in a pasture... aaugh! Wick *Hint: at certain speeds, they develop a rather weird bounce...

I've been building kits -- for better or worse -- since 1953, and even as a third-grader I had pangs of regret that all those sprues couldn't be reused. It seemed like almost as much polystyrene was expended on sprues as was utilized in the kit parts, sometimes. Our clan (thre 'greatest generation' level, anyhow, were frugal farm-types, and saved and often reused all kinds of materials, and taught we kids to do it, too! Grandma, depression traumatized, had a mantra: 'Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!' So, every time I put a wad of styrene trash in File Thirteen, I wish it could be remelted and injected into another mold! I seem to recall stripping the vacuum-aluminized 'chrome' off of some kit parts c. 1960, and discovering it was 'marbelized' in various bright colors, as if it were indeed that; scrap or sprue (maybe distorted components, or test-sots?) and I believe the company was JoHan. Pyro, also or Renwal? So, over almost seventy years, I've consigned quite a lot of sacred styrene to the local dump. If it were compacted, or even melted down into 'ingots' and collected at model shops, would that work? Maybe an electric sprue-grinder at the store, making lumpy powder from discarded kit stuff? And a gift card for the most donated? Wick

Roger; you and I make mistakes, and no one said anything about a world ending -- even if he 'shoots from the him'. As a consumer of printed information (which is supposed to be minimally informative, I guess; I pay for it) one could ask for accuracy. To me -- old guy stuff, I know -- the printed word has a sort of sacredness about it; just a hang-up I acquired. Blogs, forum posts, conversations in bars and other places of like stature, maybe not so much. Don't you want what you read in a mag like MCM, which must purport to be an authority, to be quote-able with some reliability? Some of us do. I can excuse in-accuracies, but like to have them acknowledged. Now, I like urban legends, bench racing tales, hangar stories and so forth, but one takes them with a grain of salt. You may not love teachers, but a good teacher when confronted by a student question (or even one from a less-experienced cohort) to which he/she doesn't KNOW the answer should admit it ("I don't know") and suggest the remedy ("Let's find out the answer!"), which hopefully educates both learners. At least that's what I got; root out the facts, and maybe 'the truth will set you free". Oh, and not to be too persnickity, but for over three-quarters of a century, I've HAD a life. Hoping for a bit more, too!

Danno, it was >gasp!< another typo. I haven't been able to enlarge the font on this blog so far, and I have big probs reading what is on the screen, much as I have with building my models now. I'm almost 77, and not everything works as it used to -- very contrite, but... Let's hope you never get old and enfeebled, and make no typos, much less mistakes, huh? It was NOT a sexist statement, as I am sure you know; '...shoot from the hip, hip, hip'. I built my first kits in second grade, which was 1952 (again, no typo!], an Aurora 'Famous Fighters' Curtiss P-40 (F-series, if I'm not mistaken), followed by the Revell 'Highway Pioneers' kits -- which my dad and I pretended were for him -- and which you may have missed? Fasten the wheels with a screwdriver blade heated in a candle flame, etc.? In 30-years of my Z-Car restoration book, no one has ever written me or the publisher re: any errors. I am proud of that. Also, that it is coming out, hopefully this year, in a revised edition, thus will be in print constantly since 1991. I DO type with eight fingers, even yet, not two thumbs! Sorry to be so long-winderd but that's another penalty of living so long; I don't have many pals left with which to talk models. Thank goodness for MCM forums! Well, I hope that ends this strand! WICK

Bill, I think you summed it up very well! As a former teacher with some experience of the upper grades, I know about that to which you refer.. but we know better! I wrote for Hemming's SPECIAL INTEREST AUTOS, and Mike Lamm (and Dave Brownell) the editor and he would spare no expense to get faultless research! A good mentor for the younger me, as I liked 'true history' already. As I used to tell my kids, decisions based on untrue or partially-correct information can never be good! Having said that, I made a momentous goof on 'My Classic Car' when they featured my 240-Z and blurted out that the 'S.U.' on the carb design (licensed to Hitachi, oc) stood for 'Stewart Union', not 'Skinner's Union'. I was docked 14-minutes on my '15-minutes of fame'...! Wick

Oh, Bob of Oroville: since we're practically neighbors, why don't we get together for a coffee and discuss how I might help? Wick of Chico (still 'in the book')

Dave, does it matter whether or not one is a professional writer, or getting paid as a stringer, or ?? I'm sorry some of the readers have such thin skin, but when something goes into print, I don't believe in shooting from the him, so to speak. Still: you have a good point. I do have some bona fides: authored HOW TO RESTORE YOUR DATSUN Z-CAR which has been in print over 30 year, was Restoration Editor of Z Car Magazine for six years (along with day job as Kindergarten teacher, plus GrandPa, Husband, and 1:1 car restorer. I'm trying to get some Young Adult market fiction published, right now, while also working hard to get my kit collection (85% bought before 1965 -- not typo this time!) done as my vision and muscle coordination sunset at age 77. I really like MCM (also SA, once, but they were mad at me too!) and the forums; guys are 100% great -- and generous! Best, Wick (not James, if we're friends.)P

Jim, you're right, it does explain it; I suppose even if you knew a 'factoid' to be wrong on the info sheet, you would be presumptuous to challenge it. I judge 1:1 shows but only once rated models, and then that was aircraft! Thank you for answering my query, which is all it was. :-<) Ole' Wick

Okay, I think you make my point for me. I don't publish the product, I just sent a comment as a customer. (OC, the typo was "53" for "63" and I suspect you knew it. Same with "foresight". Sigh.) And I guess getting something right in print doesn't matter, huh? Got it! So, I'd be happy to help within my own field of expertise, which is 1:1 cars and trucks of a certain era. My age would tell you which.