Junkman

That would be correct, Sir. And never mind the petrol, he did it with 34 year-old brake fluid, coolant, and 1977 air in 34 year-old tyres.

Then we have this baby sitting at a US car dealer in Stoke-on-Trent: It was sold new to your proverbial old lady in Phoenix. After 3 years, it was sold to a gent from England, who shipped it back to Blighty and put it in his car collection. It had around 3000 miles on it when he bought it and it now has slightly over 6000 miles on it.

My aunt in Milano, Italy, got a new Alfa Romeo 2600S Spider in 1963 as a valentines day gift. Soon afterward she broke up with the guy who gave it to her. The car is still sitting in an enclosure in the underground parking of the appartment block she lives in - with less than 400km on the clock. It wasn't exposed to sunlight in almost half a century.

Have you heated the cans? Also, shake them well. And I do mean well. At least five minutes of rattling (there is a reason why they are called rattle cans), which is a cigarette length for us smokers. Also, never ever use the nozzles which come with the cans. Art supply stores sell nozzles intended for grafitti artists. Get an assortment to start with (a few bucks will buy you a bag of 20 or so different ones) and test each one until you find the one that works best for you. They are colour-coded. Once you found the one that suits you, buy a bag of 20 of those.

Yeah, but one could dissolve. Plus, I only know one thing more awful than cold water in your whiskey - cold water in your boots.

'Nam? You mean Cheltenham? That's not a place to go to, that's a place to run away from! You go from 196 Pounds to 135 Pounds in less than 8 minutes there if you don't watch out for pickpockets.

Since Today, 12:56 AM to be exact. Where does it say it's a Goldfish topic? It says "Fish in the model room" and fish = food for me.

Superb footage! As it happens often nowadays, I only wish they would have left away this stupid wellness spa muzak which always makes me want to reach for a chainsaw. Hence I have to turn off the sound and watch it as a silent movie. Why can't they just leave the 'natural' sound?

Hey, thanks! It was for the very same reason. Keep in mind, that the motion lotion has always been roughly four times as expensive over here and the Buick was gulping leaded premium at a 12 mpg rate.

Hey, as long as there is enough Pimm's in it...

We have a heat wave here, too. It's a blistering 55 with only ten hours of downpour per day. It's definitely too hot to cycle to work, hence I have to use the car.

Mmmh, sounds marvellous. And yes, it's herring. We call it "Bismarckbrötchen" where I am originally from, literally Bismarck - sandwich. I love them, but you can imagine the halitosis they provide. It can only be neutralized with beer

Occasionally, I do have fish on the workbench:

Actually, a photo of a medieval iron maiden is impossible to find. They are believed to be a hoax by historians: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-iron-maiden.htm

Explain "plan".

On an average around 20 years it seems...

I started collecting 1:43 diecasts before I was a teenager. No, I didn't play with them, I collected them. They went into my 'museum', which was in an old cupboard. Despite my father is an excellent modeller (albeit he does railways) I never considered myself to be one. My forays into modelling merely consisted of restoring and improving diecasts, save for the odd Monogram 1:24 classic I got sent for Christmas from my Aunt in America. When I was an early teenager, I had amassed a collection of about 400 models. However, what was dearly missing were American subjects. I loved American cars already back then, but only very few were available as 1:43 diecasts. Or in 1:43 scale generally. At that time, I was completely unaware that a lot of them existed as 1:25 scale kits. Then - we are talking mid Seventies here - AMT went into a partnership with Matchbox, and for the first time American car model kits became generally available in Europe through the regular retail outlets, which were called 'toy store' back then. The impact this made on me was severe. I sold most of my collection at swap meets and purchased American model kits with the proceeds. So you can say, I became a model builder not because I wanted to, rather because I wanted models of American cars, and there was no other way to get them, than building kits. Mind you, we are talking the dark ages here. Even the Fax wasn't generally available yet, the Internet didn't even exist in science fiction movies! America was an exotic place far, far away. But me trading my 1:43 collection for American model kits did not go unnoticed with other people who were collecting and building US car kits at the time, and one of them showed me an Auto World catalogue. Just by browsing that catalogue, I got hooked as if he would have injected me with heroin. I believe this was in 1977 or thereabouts. From that day on I was constantly broke, because all my money went to America (remember postal money orders?). While other guys my age started with their rutting and mating rituals, I sat at home and built American plastic model kits. I also seriously worked to improve my English, to an extend that I became best of school in that subject (you may have noticed that English isn't my first language). By the age of 18 (driving age over here) I had built a sizeable collection, and despite they wouldn't fare well by today's standards, they were well constructed, painted in carefully selected colours, and fairly well detailed. Colour selection was often courtesy of my mother, who is a fashion designer, and the initial building skills my father taught me. On the downside, I was considered a lone wolf, weirdo, and what not by my coevals, especially the female variety ("are you not too old for playing with your toy cars?"). Anyway, long story short, word got around, and a local pimp (I am NOT kidding you) who was an avid collector of real US cars, somehow heard of my collection and contacted me asking whether he may see it. Now, we are an open minded bunch, but I can clearly remember that we felt a bit awkward. Still, I invited him to our home (with the consent of my parents) and he not only turned out to be a very nice person, but was so impressed, that he offered me a real 1960 Buick LeSabre convertible he had for sale in exchange for my built models. I thought this over long and hard and after about five milliseconds I said 'yes'. Now, imagine an 18 year old weirdo still playing with his toy cars suddenly cruising around in a Munich suburb with a 1960 Buick LeSabre convertible formerly owned by a notorious pimp. The usual first car was an old Beetle, 2CV, or Renault 4. Over night, I became the top dog! I was not only instantly popular with the girls, but also with the local fuzz. At least until around the tenth of each month, when I had to revert to my trusty Zündapp scooter for obvious reasons. A lot of things happened and changed since then, but two things always remained part of my life: - collecting American car model kits - letting other people talk me out of my buildups

He is driving it on public roads???? I would just LOVE to videotape him showing up at an English MOT test station with it. Especially looking forward to the emissions test...

I was only impressed by the shape of the PL Beetle. The Tamiya kit has severe proportion issues. If the body is rubbish, the kit is rubbish, no matter how accurate the underpinnings are. I'd like to kitbash them, but that's not the theme of this thread.

I was toying with idea to mention it too, but I, too, have too little knowledge (three 'too's in one sentence, beat that!) of the real car in order to judge the accuracy of the kit. In terms of car model kit technology it set new standards and I bet it would be recognized as a milestone by the Milestone Kit Society if such an organisation existed. The Jo-Han classic car kits play in the same league, IMO.

But you can use the bench seat in the Dart, which virtually all of the 1:1 cars had.

What about the Tamiya Jag MKII? Can't find much wrong with it apart from that hideous fan. I'm also impressed by the Polar Lights Beetle. The car seems to be tough to model, considering what atrocities have been made the past decades. PL captured the shape reasonably well in comparison.

We hardly ever have such nice weather over here.

Palmer. Definitely Palmer.

The Anycar was built by none other than Gene Winfield and parts of 22 cars were used. It starred in commercials for the Hanover Bank promoting auto loans for 'any car'. The ads should be on youtube. To my knowledge, the car is alive and well and resides in a private collection of TV/Movie cars in England.