Chuck Kourouklis

Well, I've long wondered if the front wheels would clear with some proper fenders built up on this model, and it looks like you've answered the question. Very nice, btw! *EDIT* Was there a Charger logo on one of the grille panels? And would foil copies of that reinforced with zapped CA from behind perhaps suit your purposes?

WOULDN'T? Uh, not me. Though if they wanna toss us a full-asssembly 1/12 288 GTO as a bone, I can wait a bit.

Just glad to see the coupe getting ever closer to the light of day! I'll be on the other end waiting for a couple, and the woodgrain looks like a nice excuse to restock an Aero or two. Pretty slick! And good on Galaxie for "pre-sweating" the details.

Prob'ly more bumpside variations (maybe a commercial or service version?) but tellya what - I could imagine a lot worse than an early-mid '60s Styleside done up to these standards. Just to, y'know, say it again.

^ + 3.

Thing evidently comes with a wall mount. And yeah, I'ma get one too... The 36? *low whistle* sucker'd need the garage.

Oh Good Lord... "Experts" and "resumes" now? **EDIT** Actually, let's take this down a couple notches, boil it down to what I see as facts, but would invite anybody to dispute with examples of their own. Both sides of the never-ending kit criticism flap accuse each other of superior attitudes and bolstering opinions of themselves. Objectors to criticism point straight to the criticism itself, but the fact is, you generally have to go out of your way to infer that from most of the criticism typical of this and other forums. If anyone can point to criticism with even a flavor of the critic doing it just to build himself up, you're more than welcome to quote it. Critics, on the other had, can point right at the whole "Real Modeler/Kit Assembler" argument. Self-aggrandizing is not only self-evident to the whole premise, it's essential: "REAL" modelers correct the problems, but critics are a lesser breed, complaining about problems only because they can't fix them. By the way, Steve Boutte has been very frank about about the problems with the drip moldings and front door frame contours in Revell's '50 Oldsmobile. He did this model from AMT's '49 Merc without ANY filler: Come again on that "real modeler" thing? Both sides have accused each other of trolling. Again, objectors point swami-like to the criticism itself, generally imputing to the critic poster the motive of trashing a kit purely with intentions to rile everyone up - another aggressive inference of usually questionable substantiation. The ground's a wee muddier here for the other side too - but when critics are dredged up in a conversation that has NOTHING to do with critics in the first place, it's hard to imagine a reason other than baiting and agitating, two key hallmarks of trolling. Like posts #35 & 36 in this thread: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=74961&page=2 or like post #4 in this one: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=68830&page=1 And in case anybody needs a reminder, it wasn't a critic who first bent THIS discussion in such a way as to make my post topical. These are but a few examples of the sadly typical balance of reason between the two sides. John B. here put it PERFECTLY. That's all any critic is really after, no matter how any objector tries to paint it.

Don't know how much it'll add to your discussion at this point, but there's one thing it might be useful to point out - The tires in the KR (and the Dodge Challenger and Magnum) come from Revell's Chevy SSR kit. For whatever reason, Revell used the larger rear SSR tires - but the smaller front ones will stretch over the KR's wheels and look MUCH better in sidewall profile. The "California Wheels" editiions of the '56 and '57 Chevy kits come with those smaller tires, so if you have one and build it stock, you might not even waste anything to use its custom tires on the Shelby.

Testors One-Coats, baby, 'specially the Wet-Look clear. Bailed me outta many a deadline. Sometimes only an airbrush'll do, though. Got a new Grex gravity feed to break in...

Y'know, I don't have quite the commercial expertise that others on this forum do; but for my money, these just have to be some of the greatest rigs ever in plastic.

Not denying it - but I would like to know how it's A N Y more supercilious than looking down your nose and essentially declaring that anyone who criticizes a kit is a lesser modeler because of it. And the bloviating does pose a point or two. Wake me up when any of you has an actual rejoiinder.

You know, the global, sorta meta joke about that sprawling repository blog I keep pimping is that the objections to kit criticism are all so incessantly repeated for the utter nonsense they express, that I might as well just gather all the obvious rebuttals and stockpile them to the side. There's a certain desperately unimaginative sameness to the objections and responses, so ya might as well just catalogue them instead of repeating them from thread to thread. YOU, Sir, have come up with something profound and not seen 50,000 times before, and for that, I salute and applaud you.

Okay, so let's take "stupid" out of Duff's first sentence and run it again: "Please tell me what other industry, service, or ANYTHING where the attitude of "We should just he be happy we're getting it at all!!!" exists in...name one...and GO!" That becomes a lot more difficult to address, like it or not. You go straight to the four-figure mower, Kerry, glossing right over the botched restaurant meal that's closer in expense. And to state the model's purpose as static display is to vastly oversimplify its reason for existence. Any paperweight or plaque or trophy or flower vase can just sit there in static display. What separates the model is that it's meant as a scale reproduction of something, meant to resemble that prototype as closely as possible. And what's constantly implied but never satisfactorily proven is how it makes you somehow less of a modeler to expect the base kit to do its job as well as possible. There are plenty of modelers, fully capable of correcting kits, who'd sooner dedicate their considerable skills to enhancement rather than those corrections; but from the look of your rules, apparently they're not "real modelers". How does that make any sense? And then there's another element that I've been playing with for a day or two, the notion of kit criticism as "trolling". And make no mistake, I'm flat-out grateful to have this pointed out to me, because it looks like the first tiny window into a mode of thought that's left me utterly bewildered for the better part of a decade. If I understand the concept correctly, to troll a forum is to post content with no other purpose in mind than to agitate other forum members and create a ruckus. To call kit criticism "trolling" is to preclude the possibility that a member may be posting out of actual disappointment with the kit. Fact is, you can't read minds, and who knows - maybe there really are people who trash kits purely to get a rise out of other forum members. But I think that kind of post will have a pretty distinct attitude about it, and to treat any harsh review as if it's trolling has little basis in reality. Post #293, page 15, for instance. Closest thing to an out-and-out diatribe in this thread, and I'll go so far as to say his post was rather more strident than I would've done, some of it maybe even premature. But I'll not presume to judge Roger's content as "trolling", and I'm certainly not to going to reference a totally unrelated thread about another kit to address anything I find questionable about his post. Said it before, and I'll say it again: you look at it objectively, it's not really the criticism getting these threads closed. It's the people who from all appearances just can't get over the fact that KITS WILL BE CRITICIZED. Note that I do NOT claim any of you who object to criticism are doing it for kicks. The outrage I see from some of you is palpable and genuine - I just fail to understand the first rational basis for it. And again, I ask: if you yourself didn't develop the kit, what is it to you?

Sure did! You think the Internet's rough now, you shoulda seen it back in 1969! "Real modelers". Well-played, gentlemen. For those of you taking it seriously, *sigh* - #2, "False Dichotomies", over here - http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?app=blog&module=display&section=blog&blogid=55&showentry=107

And the hubbub about the "hubbub"... well, that's NEVER been an issue, now, has it? Anybody notice how those on the other side of this interminable drama have an actual capacity to make a point without hyperbole and wild, baseless inference? They can pretty much quote directly from a legion of of quixotic self-appointed Defenders Of Kit Manufacturer Honor and let all the irrationality and personal attacks speak for themselves. I'd like to see the last rivet counter - even a TRUE, authentic, miserable one who doesn't fall over himself declaring he'll still buy the kit - to suggest any manufacturer be "burned at the stake". Or even to get in the general TIME ZONE of such a thing.

Wow, lookie there! Can't much fault Revell for listening - looks like they addressed a great deal of what people wished they did for the racing version of the Black Widow. Good show!

Yup. #1, #10, and a nod at #5, all in one short post. It's as if these long-debunked arguments are opiates or something.

The 1:24 G4 is out, btw, "dumbed down" a bit from 309 1:35 parts (guess they're aiming for some car modelers after all), but still not exactly a slap-together at over 240 1/24 parts for 60 bucks US. The body that's a separate cowl, door sections, and rear quarter in the 1:35 is reduced to two halves with lengthwise seams over the cowl and the rear, and about 7 or 8 pieces in the smaller scale are brought together into a single, intricate molding for the front wings, rear fenders, frame rails, and front and rear cross members. Chrome is pretty even, tires are sharp and rubber-like. Molding is generally clean and precise. There's some texture on the body panels that'll need to be knocked down for a really shiny paint job, but then again, a mile-deep gloss was not a hallmark of the 1:1.

Certainly, Art - your point's very well taken, and I trust your meaning is distinct enough from what I cover in blog item #4 that it hasn't actually been anticipated. The deviations I speak of do not encompass uneven grille bar spacing, or side trim that's not yet quite the right length, or misplaced marker lights or any other such obvious, superficial, and presumably correctable hickeys. Was the Dana axle the most appropriate choice across the board? Maybe not, but it ain't in the zipcode of a deal-breaker for me. The stuff that gets my attention is the sort of problem that might be baked irrevocably in the main mold. The biggest such offender I can see here is that there's perhaps too much mass in the roof just over the top of the windshield - and if that's the worst of the proportioning problems, I'm delighted. The wheel arches appear to be placed right and contoured correctly in each fender, the door cut lines are bang-on, and if there's anything like that queasy sense of taffy-pulled headlights or scrunched and bumped rear quarters in the final product, I just ain't seein' them in the pics. The gross proportioning aspects really look the closest of any non big-rig Moebius has done so far, and that's why I'm pretty enthusiastic about what I've seen to date. And I don't think it's mutually exclusive to come to such a conclusion AND realize this project is still very much a work in progress.

Always a pleasure to hear a voice of reason. There are those who react as if pointing out inaccuracies is VERY wrong, and I've debunked the approaches they use most frequently in my last blog (accessible through the "Blogs" button at the top of the page). As for people enjoying imperfect kits, guilty as charged here, and for MANY of 'em. There may be instances of people getting jumped on for liking kits even if they're not perfect - can't remember the last one I saw that wasn't provoked by an avalanche of personal attacks first - but they're far fewer and further between than those who get attacked for pointing out problems. And even after the time I've had since to pore over the preview shots, I'm still thinking these pickups are Moebius's strongest vintage efforts by a margin. There are deviations to be sure, but not nearly so loud this time around.

Yup. Bullitt and the Dukes drilled in that 2nd-gen. 1st-gen next, fuselage cars just behind, then the 2nd-gen 4-doors (the current ones) for me. V8, rear drive. Got no use for any Omni in drag unless it's gotten a REAL drag treatment like Al's above - and that one is slick, no question.

Thanks, Peter! Resto's about six years old, and unfortunately, so was the gas (local garage just un-stuck a valve and drained the tank, got her indigestion fixed). Muffler is original and rough, think I'll get her a new exhaust. Aircraft-style belt buckles are also all wrong, and the armrest replacements are pretty low-quality. Looking to fix it all. Some bias-plies would look soooo killer on this car, but it has a fair modicum of drivability on its Michelins that'd probably go right out the window with the U S Royals that caught my eye. Prob'ly gonna check into some radial pinstripe whites at least.

That '67 Mustang hardtop I mentioned in post 193, p 10: I've also mentioned her in various examples I've used to illustrate how cars have made SOME performance progress in four decades, but Lordie, was she happy to get out of the garage. It's a different kind of fun to grab the wheel that started your passion, and she's my first lady to this day.

Oh, it's been referred to as floor wax too. What it really is, is an acrylic gloss coat meant to be applied with a sponge mop - which is one of the reasons it levels so nicely with a brush-type application. Point being, you just sponge or brush it on. There's none of the leveling with mild abrasive and rubbing that's usually implied in the process of polishing. The fact that it's now called "Pledge With Future Shine" might evoke more closely the equivalent allegedly found in your home market: "Pledge One Go". "Pascoe's Long Life", formerly "Rekkit's", is an ammonia-based product that's close. This info and more is listed here (forum vets have probably seen this many times): http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

Yup, and Larry's work, for not having had any abrasives (and frankly even if it did) is just silly good. Allow me to join in the applause, Mr. Schmidt. Those two are SOMETHING ELSE...