tim boyd

Nicely done Chuck.....I particularly like that turbo'd six banger.....TIM

Harry....simply gorgeous! It's your call to make, of course, but if it were me, I''d forego that straps and leave that incredible engine compartment available to show off from now until....well....many, many years from now. Way to go! TIM

Del...I'm thinking exactly the same along those lines. I've already cleaned up and painted the headers (Tamiya Chrome Yellow with Tamiya Flat clear) to simulate late 1960's flat yellow header paint....they actually look pretty cool.....TIM

Just under two hundred photos, all generations of Mustang (and heavy on 2005-2016's) at the Ford World Headquarters, the day after the world famous Woodward Dream Cruise Over 850 cars were there, making this the claimed-to-be second largest Mustang event in the nation. Great modeling ideas; thanks for looking....TIM

Oh be still my heart. I had a 1990 Lincoln Mk VII LSC, in the same light blue metallic with the factory BBS wheels, just as in Bill's picture above. It was one of my all time favorite cars. Wish I still had it. Sadly, today the closest you can get to this in a new car is the Mercedes S-Class Hardtop (S550?), which is a pretty cool car by the, but also WAY too expensive for my tastes. Seems there just isn't a market for this type of car today - everyone is buying luxury SUV's instead. Makes me very sad.... In the meantime, Bill, thanks for the memories! TIM

Mark....I think that is a very intriguing idea.....TIM

I should have addressed this before. My objection to how Tamiya treated the so-called engine in the Aston kit had NOTHING to do with the idea of using it in other models, such as street rods or the like. My concern was that they gypped me of a complete engine in what was the only "full detail" kit of an Aston Martin that had been tooled in the last 40 years. For a good ten years of my career, among my various assignments and responsibilities I worked closely with members of the 1/1 scale Aston Martin team on various projects. With great dedication and spirit, they achieved wonders with relatively constrained resources vs. other 1/1 scale exotic car makers. And a great deal of the character of their cars derived from that wondrous V-12 engine. I was so looking forward to building a model of the 1/1 scale cars I had seen in development, in their design studio, on their assembly line, and on their showstands at the top motor shows around the world. To open that kit and see what they did (actually, did not do) with the engine was a bitter disappointment to me, and in my view highly inappropriate for a "full detail" kit of one of the premier exotic car makers in the world. It has nothing to do with how the finished model appears; it has everything to do with the completeness of the entire model including all the parts that are not seen at the end. I know those parts are there (or not there). This treatment seemed incredibly disrespectful to the Aston brand in my view, and as a result graded as an "incomplete" on my kit evaluation matrix given the scope of the rest of the kit and the cost of it. That was my view then, and it's still 100% my view now. I understand others see it differently; I respect their point of view, and I don't expect to change their (or your) minds. Cheers.....TIM .

That's a good question. The International Model Car Museum focuses primarily on the historical works of model car builders, rather than the broad array of kits and building genres. They prioritize identifying and then collecting some of the most famous and popular model car works from past national model car contests and the pages of historic model car magazines such as Car Model, Model Car Science, Rod and Custom Models, the Auto World Catalog, and the early years of Scale Auto Enthusiast Magazine. Given the era in which these models were built, they do tend toward the categories you mention, as for instance Muscle Cars really became a dominant build theme starting in the mid 1980's and onward. The kind of museum you are looking for might have been better satisfied by Dean Milano's Chicago-based Model Car Museum, but as noted above, it never generated enough traffic to become a sustainable enterprise. That's really sad, as there was some really good exhibits there too. TIM

Bob....I have much respect for your point of view here, and you've built and completed many more Tamiya kits than I've even opened the box on, much less started. Taken as a whole (throughout the entire product offering) you offer a very compelling argument for your assessment of Tamiya's kits relative to the global competition. Yet there are American-designed kits, that on occasion fully challenge even the best Tamiya kits, in my opinion. The one that most comes to mind at the moment is the Revell series of Offy and V8-60 Midgets, and the '50 Olds kits. Other recent offerings from the domestics? Not so sure.... I've not built the Moebius Hudson kits, but from what I read, they might???? be in the same category. The new AMT '16 Camaro SS, depending on how it assembles, might be the in same league. This assessment does not factor in the price disparity between Tamiya and the Domestics, but if it did, the domestics would blow away the imports in value for the dollar (or yen). I am highly doubtful that Tamiya could have delivered kits as good as these domestic-designed kits of these subjects, especially in terms of their drivetrain/chassis completeness (which may not matter to most of you here but does matter greatly to me) regardless of the price point. So when individual efforts are concerned (vs the consistency of the entire product offering) I don't see Tamiya's position as unassailable. I realize that the group following this thread will again probably mostly/completely disagree with me, but I've never been one to back down for the sake of popularity, either. Then again, as you said several times in your post, subject matter trumps all, and I can sure agree 100% with you on that point. Thanks for taking the time to state your case. ....TIM

Harry....I think Bill captures it well....it may also be a generational thing. My family environment growing up did not include car maintenance or car building as a way of life, or even as a weekend driveway exercise. The only way for me to learn about cars, then, was to build models. In doing so, I wanted to build every component in the car in my scale exercise, whether it could be seen on the finished model or not. Ultimately, what I learned about cars from building models was a key, key competitive advantage for me vs my peers in my early sales and marketing jobs at Ford, and it gave me exposure and experience that greatly benefited me later in my career. Also, as Bill and I were coming into the hobby, the addition of engines to model car kits was just becoming a key competitive selling feature. It was a feature that we came to expect, even demand, as we traipsed to the local hobby store to consider our next purchase. Now, fifty years later, to be in a situation where some of the most expensive kits on the market either simplify, or even just "suggest" the elements of the engine, seems a huge step backwards to me personally. I wouldn't have learned about the mechanics of cars if these were the kits I was building as a kid. It should also be no surprise that I generally prefer American-designed kits over Asian-designed kits. While each have their advantages, American-designed kits as a whole do a better/more realistic and lifelike recreation of components in the engine compartment (and often, with other areas of the car that are unseen in the finished model), while Japanese and Korean kits often have their own advantages in other areas of the model kit. I also generally want my model building experience to be an exact scale recreation in 1/24th or 1/25th scale of the same assembly process that I would follow if I was building the car in 1/1 scale. For all these reasons, the Tamiya Aston kit was a huge disappointment for me, and I was very vocal about that. I'd like to think that my objections, along with many others including respected members of this board, led them to move to separately-molded engines in their high-end kits that followed. But even with this, I'm not sure that they are yet, consistently, at the full level of engine detail found in many American-designed kits today (ergo the comments above about the 300SL engine...). For others who first entered the hobby a few years later, the overall finished appearance of the model, rather than the process of recreating all the internal elements of the 1/1 car in scale, may have become the greater consideration. And there are others who simply grew up preferring Asian-designed kits for whatever reason, And under these points of of view, my objections to the simplified or even simulated engines would seem irrelevant, silly, or even, yes, stupid. So I can try to understand and acknowledge the opposing views here, but for me, my own position remains unchanged. Thanks for everyone taking their time to explain their positions here. It's great dialogue like this that makes me want to revisit this forum every waking day of my life TIM

Jonathon.....call my judgment stupid if you wish, but that's my verdict and I'm sticking to it....particularly for a kit replicating a 1/1 car where the engine represents such a significant factor of the character of the automobile and its brand. TIM

Well. OK, I can see the different points of view here - I think there are legitimate points made on all sides. . As I probably said years ago in this thread, I took the omission of a real engine from the DBS kit as a real affront to all that the Aston Martin brand and development team stood for in the current range of "DB-" products. Much more than the latest high priced, low volume Lexus supercars that few will remember in 10 years, the engine was/is the sole of what an Aston Marti product. Have any of you ever heard an Aston V-12 started and revved? Run through the gears? The only way Tamiya can make up for this grievous (in my opinion) error is to reissue the kit with a full engine included - as it should have been from the start. What's more, I still don't think Tamiya always gets the engine right. Let's take the new 300SL kit. In the real car, there's a heat-shield type part that runs directly beneath the exhaust headers. Without having a 1/1 in my driveway but having studied photography extensively, this appears to me to be an entirely separate part - but on Tamiya's model kit, it's molded together with the exhaust headers. Given the highly prominent/visible position of this assembly in the SL engine compartment (It's the first thing you see when you open the hood), they should have been molded as two separate parts. When I saw that in the kit, it alone was enough for me to put the kit box on the "maybe I'll build it someday" pile rather than the "desk-clearer" kit I had hoped for and expected. Having worked in the 1/1 scale auto industry for 35+ years, I often observed a tendency to place foreign-manufactured cars - particularly from the Japanese brands - above their American counterparts, whether deserved or not. Sadly, I've sometimes observed the same discrimination in the model kit world While no one would rightly say that ALL Tamiya kits are lacking in the engine compartment (and I think that is perhaps Bob's point), and the American kitmakers have never delivered the kit after kit superior consistency that would fully rank them the Asian kit makers, I do believe that kits developed by the American kit industry are often superior to their overseas competition in the way they design and manufacture their engines and engine compartments. I realize many of you ((probably most of you) will probably disagree with me on this, but that's my view. In the meantime Bob maybe you can convince the Tamiya team to do another Aston kit with a proper, fully detailed, separate engine. Or maybe a '62-'64 Berlinetta Lusso. Yeah, that's it, do the Lusso with a proper kit and engine, and I'll permanently cease and desist on this. Until then.... Cheers (smile).....TIM

Chris....excellent composition and build so far....this one will definitely be on my watch list. Y-Block as you described it should be super-cool, too!. Cheers and keep up the great work! TIM

Here's an extensive photographic tour of the International Model Car Builder's Museum in Sandy, Utah. They have been trying to update the website but finding volunteers to do the work has been problematic. The physical presence, on the other hand, is truly awesome. Check out this link and see if you agree.....TIM

Craig....when I built the first round tooling/development prototypes for Revell 2 /12 years, I built the Coupe channeled version with the Nailhead and everything fit fine. I am going to do another one with the Nailhead in the Highboy version momentarily; I'll make careful notes and check the fit, and report back if I find any issues. In the meantime, really appreciate the heads-up. TIM PS - really looking foreward to seeing those resin parts you mentioned just above! TB

Scott....as Bob said above, there is also a simplified assembly version of the Camaro SS from Round 2 on the horizon,,,,ask and ye shall receive! I just hope that sales of the full detail version vs the simplified version justify the expense/investment in future full detail kits of current automotive subjects......TIMe

Bob....agree on all points! (smile back at 'ya!) Cheers....TIM

Well...maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but the team at Round 2 are readying a huge shot across the bow of the hobby kit industry. Feast your eyes on their new, just about to be introduced 2016 Camaro SS FULL DETAIL model kit. We're talking many innovative features here, such as the glass unit with pre-applied blackout panels AND a full-color rear window defroster grid! An independent rear suspension comprised of 20(!) individual, highly engraved components. And, yes, bless them, a fully detailed, stand-alone engine and transmission assembly under a lift-off hood. You can see and read the whole story at this link, which includes 45 individual pictures and captions for each image. Make sure to use the "roll" feature when viewing so you can see the info and commentary that goes along with the pictures. My initial reaction is that this is a hugely significant development for the model kit hobby. Not only for this individual kit, which is a definite "buy and build" category of kit IMHO, but also for the promise it holds in re-invigorating the domestic kit industry coverage of all-new 1/1 scale automobiles with FULL DETAIL 1/25th scale assembly kits. Yet once again, is this a great hobby of ours or what? Thanks for looking, TIM

What? Chuck??? Shocking!!!! TIM

http://public.fotki.com/funman171OK 2/from-the-pages-of-y/from-the-pages-of-s/from-the-pages-of-s-1/ OK all you Supra fans....any of you remember this? Yep, that MPC Supra kit was really, really good. All it needed was some minor body rework to cleanup the over-busy Japanese design cues of the era, and the result was a really sharp car for the era. 17 pix including detailed engine and suspension shots and kit commentary, all at the link above..,thanks for looking.....TIM

Complicated/yes/yes/yes/several days/it gets very, very soggy! TB

Rob...I really should try to build one that way (body and top glued together before painting) to see how that works out. Hmm....maybe I should add that to the list of features for build #5. Best...TIM

I just finished my own Coupe kit builds #3 and #4. My comments: In addition to the blower drive illustration error in the instructions and the reversed numbers in the instructions for the front radius rods of the highboy version..... Referring to Rob's comments above (using his same numbers to address the topics....) 1. I mounted the windows in the top before mounting the top to the body I assembled the windshield to the windshield frame, then inserted the assembly into the top from underneath. Make sure to push it ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP of the underside of the roof. If you fail to do this, you'll too have the problem with a big gap where the top fits to the body during final assembly. 2. I also did the interior assembly to the body first rather than to the floorboard, as Rob suggests. It's very easy as long as you make sure that the interior side panels are located all the way up in the body. The interior panels extend above the body side (subsequently hidden by the belt line of the top assembly) You also have to push down on the body and up on the chassis during final assembly to make sure that the interior side panels fully engage the notches on the floorboard, both at the front and the rear of the interior If you model is sitting with an exaggerated rake, you still need to push further down on the back of the interior to get it fully flush with the floorboard. 3. I finished the fuel cell and battery box anyway. But they are irrelevant for the Highboy version unless you also open and hinge the trunk. 4. I used the two big IP decals, but omitted the smaller side gauges. The gauges are provided with both black/white and cream/black faces, the latter looking very cool! 5. Agree completely. 6. I believe Rob is referring to the junction between the shock mount to the frame rails of the chassis, and it has a dual step that allows the part to be used for both the highboy and the channeled versions which have two very different frames. As a result, it does look a bit odd in the channeled version application 7. I plan to start my version #5 this week.... using the '30 Model A grille shell on the highboy version (there are parts in the box for this, although they are not mentioned on the instructions) and probably the Nailhead Buick from the '29 Roadster kit (there are radiator hoses for this application, though they are not mentioned in the instructions), plus a number of other minor mods and personalized features. Bottom line....this kit is challenging, but in a good way. Take your time, personalize it to your own taste, and you will almost certainly get an excellent result. Cheers....TIM

Craig.....sorry to hear that. The general vibe from the participants (exhibitors) is that the show is much better since it moved to St. John's than it was at Meadowbrook. Far less political intrigue, much,much better facility (the St. John's staff just bends over backwards to be accommodating) and a more scenic show field. Yep, the tickets are getting expensive, but it's still far, far less than a ticket (including airfare) to Pebble or Amelia Island. It's easier to get to as well (less than a mile off of the M14 Expressway...) TIM

Yep.....the blower belt is upside down and backwards in the assembly manual, and the numbers are reversed on the front radius rods for the highboy version. Revell has been notified on both of these issues. Bert....glad to hear your take on this kit, and of course, I thoroughly agree with you! I think that blown Chevy engine fairly BEGS for some cool '32/'37/'48 et al Chevy hot rod and gasser builds.looking forward to seeing your done too. Cheers...TIM