Junkman

Not a chance in hell.

Since it seems to be Corvette show off time, here is mine: Admittedly, I only drive it on Sundays, which makes me a typical Sunday driver. The car was built in 1986 on a 1969 Corvette chassis. It won the STT (Special Touring Car Trophy) in 1987, 1988 and 1989. Two time Le Mans participant. Three time 24h Nürburgring participant. Best lap: 7:08:37, that's half a second shy of the Formula One lap times achieved there. Six time 24h Spa Francorchamps participant. The car is still competitive in the Supercar League. It's powered by a de-stroked 454 (to A. meet the seven litre limit and B. achieve higher revs) with Crower injection from a power boat, Doug Nash 3-disc clutch and a Muncie M22 rock crusher, backed by a BMW diff. Steering is courtesy of an Alfa-Romeo 2000 Berlina rack-and-pinion and it has Brembo brakes at all four corners. All we had to do for that is knock on the Brembo guys' shoulders and they did the brakes for us. The entire setup weighs in at less than 2425 lbs. And if you didn't get it by now, it's a noisy thing.

One of my Gurus is actually Dennis Doty. The other is Peter Ziegenthaler. Albeit the latter only ever built curbsides, he has a superb 'feel' for colours. He is only intrested in shape and colour, not the oily bits. So Dennis is the one who wanted me to become a better builder and Peter is the one who opened my eyes to the world of colours.

Interesting. They remind me of Richard Petty.

Something for my ever growing 1:20 scale collection: If you have/know of any whacky Japanese 1:20 kits for sale, please let me know.

I only ever exhibited at one show and that was in 1987 in the factory canteen of BMW in Munich. I had a 1:24 Heller Citroen 15/6 with me. It was black, a notoriously tough colour to get right, at least for me. It was painted with a special PU paint for motorcycle helmets, then clear-coated with PU clear. It gleamed like a grand piano. I had also replaced the kit 'glass' with acetate (which is not too difficult because the windows of a 15/6 are completely plane) but the effect was so good that it got noticed by quite a few people at the show. I had also glued tiny yellow beads into the headlamp pods to simulate the typical French yellow headlight bulbs. The entire interior was covered in grey velvet. I was very, very proud of it. It was knocked off the table accidently and landed on the floor. It completely disintegrated. On these, the front wings are glued to the body before painting the entire assembly as a unit. Needless to say that the wings broke off and left severe paint and glue marks where they were attached. Same with the spare wheel cover on the boot-lid. I wasn't too upset, since those kits were still plentiful and cheap back then. I was actually less upset than the chap knocking it off the table by accident, who was downright devastated. He wanted to pay for the damage somehow, so we both had a schnapps and a cigar at the bar (smoking was still allowed and alcoholic beverages were still available in the BMW canteen back then) based on my suggestion how to compensate for it. I built quite a few of those 15/6es since then, I think six or seven. But I still have this wreck and maybe, yes, maybe, there will be the day when I strip the paint off and start it all over.

I'm really enjoying this build. My baker-boy-cap-wearing art teacher had one in exactly this colour, how's that for matching stereotypes? Can't for my life remember what it looked like inside, probably never checked. How does the ordering from Paints4U work? Especially for small amounts of paint? I visited their website and the smallest I see is 1/2 litre for 20 quid. Or a scratch repair kit which comes in as little as 30ml bottles, but they toss in a plethora of unnecessary stuff so they can charge 14 quid.

Very nice! Who makes those chains?

Wasn't it just a matter of time? I expected it to be Dodge Daytona, but oh well...

Mine was blue.

You can always drop Don a line and ask him whether he can do you one. He is very generous in that respect.

That must be the lowest thing I ever heard about in the context of a competition. I always thought it can't get any lower than fighting in the paddock area, but this beats it by not a narrow margin. No idea how I would have reacted. Man, is this low.

All these airplanes do is take you to countries where the beer is worse. No bloody thanks.

Where I can't travel with my car, I don't want to be.

A wotzitt?

Yes, there are. And yes, there are quite a lot of them. But for classics? Not sure. Most of them do Borranis and stuff for Ferraris. And make no mistake, even a PE wire wheel will never be as nice as a laced real wire wheel. For which car do you need them?

I was quite surprised myself, when I found out. It wasn't exactly cheap to begin with, I think also around 60 Dollars or thereabouts. I bought two, one for a friend, one for myself. That must have been around 2005. When another friend saw them, he wanted one too, that was last year. So I tried to get one for him, but faced being outbid on three occasions, all ending in the 300$ neighborhood. If you check now, there isn't one on Ebay, and a quick search on the interweb didn't yield any for sale either. Those hardcore movie memorabilia collectors must be in a different income group than us poor car modellers.

It's metalized plastic. There are no metal parts in the kit.

What's this 'build' vs. 'assemble' thing? Huh? Huh? Are you using this in a derogative way against box stock builders? Huh? Huh? I think y'all just want to insult box stock builders. Uhum, that's all you want. This used to be such a good forum but now it is deteriorating into a place where jada...jada...leave...jada...jada...rhubarb...

I have seen them sell on Ebay knocking at the 300$ door. No kidding. And I'm not talking asking price. They were bid to those amounts.

Spot on!

Most of the noted automotive writers started writing for club magazines. And the English Karmann Club is the second largest in the world!

Chaps, I just noticed the noticeable absence of a total 70s icon. Is there a particular reason why nobody mentioned the Boattail Riviera yet?

What do you mean, sort of? You are getting published, period. There is no sort of pregnant or sort of dead either. Oh, and congrats btw. What you did with that ruddy kit is well worth being published.