papajohn97

You did an excellent job Steve on this old Tamiya kit. I have the Tamiya 1/18 Lola T-160 kit in my stash that I believe is the same vintage with the battery compartment and your build is inspiring me to take a crack at it. The TS-56 “Brilliant Orange”spray came out spot-on for McLaren Orange. Did you use the original Tamiya decals or Indycals replacements?

I attended the LA Auto Show yesterday with a very old friend (+50 yrs). We don’t live nearby each other and it’s been a tradition for us and a few other friends who have passed on to “reunion” every year at this show and then share lunch. We last attended the show together in 2018. Impressions: 1. Less than 1/2 the normal big name manufacturer-exhibitors attended. No Cadillac, Buick, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Honda, Acura, Infiniti, Mazda, Mini, Volvo, Volkswagen….and a few more I’m probably missing. A few of the cars I just listed were on display but it was a local LA car dealer (Galpin) and not the manufacturer. Needless to say, there was alot of empty square footage in both big halls. 2. They had a number of test drive tracks set-up indoors to make use of all the extra space. It appeared that most if not all the test drives were e-vehicles only and patrons were given rides by company drivers (for obvious liability reasons). 2. E-E-E! Big theme this year was electric vehicles nearly everywhere. Many many new e-vehicle manufacturers, too many to list. ICE’s seemed to be the minority / dying product category from a promotion standpoint. 3. Many of the new e-vehicles are huge trucks/SUV/ maxi-van platforms. They all look super $$$ and super heavy. Totally un-appealing to us “old car guys”. I only took a few pics, the new Z looked good in person and unlike the ongoing trend of making sporty cars bigger, it’s a nice compact size: Porsche showed this new spec racer, very nice: This is probably the last auto show I will attend. LA has nearly fully transformed into the scary city from Blade Runner but with many more homeless people and the hassle-factor (traffic, cost to park, crowds) is just not worth it. I think the golden age of automobiles may be coming to a close very soon…..

A friend and I enjoyed a brief visit to this car museum in Los Angeles yesterday, amazing place: Lions Automobilia Foundation Museum Its a private collection of drag, custom and street stock cars owned by one family (only a few cars are in loan). Here are pics of just a few of the cars, many more that I didn’t photograph.

Very nice build and photographing it in the rain really adds to the realism. You may have started a whole new under glass trend here!

Good color for this Riviera. Maybe it’s just my childhood nostalgia but it seems like these 1960’s Bill Mitchell GM design studio years produced some of the most attractive auto stylings of all time. I also must compliment you on the effort you make in your postings, the backgrounds and bases you use in your photos always make your models look so realistic.

Impressive kit-bashing job, love the first gen. flipper FC’s that still resemble a stock body. You did a great job on those large red decals and effective fixes on the cracking. Can you post a pic with the body raised?

Despite the challenges, your big decals came out beautiful. Also impressed with your braided fuel lines. Nice build!

Big thank you Dave to you and your team for this fix - latest body mold shot looks fantastic!!!! A mold mod like this is not trivial, so impressed that you listened to your customers and addressed it. Definitely getting 2-3 of these kits when they are available. Any word yet on what decals will be provided?

Great pics! Sure would like to drive that white ‘62 bubble-top (409?) home.

Looks like a wonderful variety of wheels on a beautiful fall day. Wish I was there! Thanks for posting!

Here’s two more pics of the “piece-of-pie” that I took:

Hi Ray, it’s the “piece-of-pie” tribute car, here’s an article that includes info: https://www.edelblog.com/cars/edelbrock-equipped-rick-kersh-1929-ford-model-a-sedan-delivery-with-324-olds-v8

Yeh, it’s been awhile since I breathed in that wonderful smell of nitromethane and burned rubber….I’m going to miss it. Makes you wonder what’s going to happen to all of these beautiful museum pieces when the grandkids inherit them?….

Nice show! I would love to hear them start up that McLaren (chevy powered Mk8?), those old Can-Am cars are ground shakers. Thanks for sharing!

I enjoyed attending a fabulous vintage drag meet yesterday at Irwindale Raceway east of Los Angeles. This is an 1/8 mile track at the edge of a speedway complex, not the original 1/4 mile track that was operating in the 60’s. I’m guessing there was +100 vintage AA/FD dragsters and fuel altereds as well as a nice group of 60’s gassers and SS’ers. I believe the nitro burning cars that ran were limited to lifting off the pedal at half track (probably for liability reasons?) but the gassers and stockers put on a great show with lots of wheel stands. The participant and crowd demographics were at the white hair and wheel chair side of the curve so I suspect these shows may go away soon. A number of legendary racers were supposedly in attendance (Prudhomme, Ivo, Karamesines, Butch Leal) but the autograph lines were mobbed so I missed that part. I took a gazillion pics, here’s just a few. Enjoy, John

Nice job on this wonderful Moebius kit. Yes, the front grill fit and front/ rear window to body fits are both challenges to sort out on this build. Your window fits look great, much better better than I was able to do. On the hood fit, It looks like you needed to remove just a little more material on the rear of the grill and/or inside surfaces of the front bumper wrap-arounds to fully seat the front grill/bumper to the body/ hood. Most of these builds I’ve seen posted are the Ventura with the finned wheels, it’s nice to see a stock Catalina posted.

Fabulous job converting this crappy Revell gasser kit into a nearly stock J. The continental kit really ties the overall look together, nice job! My dad bought a $99 “Allstate” from a used car lot with I was a pre-schooler, many fond memories of riding around town in it (before seatbelts), always standing on the back seat floor and leaning on the front seat between my parents to be able to see out of it! I remember it being a very bare-bones car (no radio, no heater, JC Whitney seat covers, slow as hell).

Wow! What a beautiful execution on this old Revell kit! I’m particularly impressed with the decal job, all of them perfectly aligned and no yellowing! Yes, please build and post an entire Roth museum for us!

Beautiful job Jim on the fuel lines. I’ve never had much luck using braided wire lines on car models and you’ve really mastered it, yours look very realistic. Looking forward to seeing this one come together.

It’s a beautiful kit Seth, Moebius did a great job on this cammer and can be made even better with a pair of Fireball Resin Holleys 4160’s in place of the kit carbs. I have this same kit in my current queue of auto builds on my bench and will enjoy watching your build.

Amazing under-the-hood detail! Also love the plain-Jane white over blue cloth sleeper look. Nice job!

Beautiful clean accurate build of a kit I never get tired of seeing built and displayed here. Something about the styling and stance of these ‘64-65 Comets, they just look like they’re screaming by even when they’re standing still. You did a particularly nice job on your window frame foil work and slightly orangey red metallic looks good with the yellow decals. I’m about to start this same Dyno Don comet and hope I do half as a good a job as you’ve done on yours.

Other favorite car at the street fair. This is one fabulous custom Merc, a famous car no-doubt? Saw this driving down our local streets a year ago and wanted to follow it but it wasn’t where my wife wanted me to take her. So nice to encounter it again and be able to study it up close. I do believe it’s the nicest custom car I have ever seen. If I were a very wealthy man, I would make the owner an agreeable offer just so I could park this beauty in my living room.

Love-love-love this ‘65 Plymouth Belvedere 426 Hemi SS/A. I’ve had a fetish for these since the 7th grade and have built a few 1/25 models of these in my old age from the excellent Moebius kit. Think I’ll build some more ?! Wish I could have stayed at this show long enough to hear this beast fire up.

Here’s a few more of my favorites from this same street fair car show,