Junkman

It's the usual €14 and change from France. I ordered from Heller directly two days ago, £56.75 for two vans and a Mehari. I paid €58 posted for the Ebbro DS from Littlebolide in Belgium a while back. Still a tad stiff in comparison.

If you add it to an order of several kits, you'll save a lot on postage.

Now available from Oops: http://www.oupsmodel.com/nouveaux-produits#fabricants_heller €22.20 for a newly developed kit is pretty aggressive. Also proves that we don't need China.

The models depict Y30 series Cedrics/Glorias, which were built from 1983 - 1987. The Wagon and Van versions continued in production after the introduction of the succeeding Y31, Y32, and Y33 versions, with the Wagon version ending production in August 1999. The wagon trim packages were the V20E SGL at the top, with optional woodgrain, the V20E/28D-6 GL, and the V20E Deluxe. These cars were never exported to the USA, but the entire Asia/Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand, as well as Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Outside Japan, they were called Nissan 300C. So for American military modellers, they would be mainly High Visibility Ground Targets.

I still have pretty much all of the Matchboxes I had as a kid, as well as my Corgies and Dinkies. They are far from mint, though. Restored a few Corgies and gave them to my daughters to play with. Once they are done, I'll restore them again and give them to potential grandchildren to play with. That'll make it three generations playing with the same toys. So much for consume/obey/conform.

Can I have one with a two-row, please?

That's how I still do it. What's wrong with it?

The Heller 1/24 kit builds into a pretty much stock version if you leave the roll bar and driving lights away.

Not sure whether I entirely understand what this is about. Any pics?

The idea is not exactly new and was actually entertained by AMC themselves. They toyed with idea to lauch it under the Jeep banner, but ultimately shoved it exactly where it belongs. At least they never considred those duff chav wheels.

That '70 LTD was like a lost child. I now have the entire AMT 1970 Motor City Stocker Series. Complete. Done and dusted. How many people outside the USA can claim this?

IIRC it's the only kit of EVAH that yields a Lancia engine in 1/12 scale. I bet you always wanted to know that.

When will the model kits be released?

Centimetres, which is bad enough. Almost 15 inches. Even if this was economical for Heller, it's not economical for me, which once again proves the point, that everything that's good for The Economy(tm) is bad for me. And it's certainly not ecological, no matter how you look at it. Those boxes sure are 'standard size' (I wonder to which standard), but they are a new generation Heller didn't use previously. They used to use box bottoms with separate lids, these new ones are one piece with folding lids.

Sod it, I just ordered two HYs and a Mehari from Heller. Christmas is only once a year...

This is the new Academy Hyundai Grandeur: Not quite as bad as Heller, but still an awful lot of wasted space.

Needless to say this newfangled practice is detrimental for the remaining space down in my dungeon.

There appears to be a contest going on among non-American kit manufacturers "who can pack a few plastic parts in the biggest possible box". Madness, when you think of the insane postage costs we have to pay since the parcel services got privatised and the eco dogma of reducing waste wherever possible. Pretty much all of the European and Asian kits I received lately came in boxes a lot larger than required. At the same time, they build ever bigger container vessels and new harbours to accommodate them. Crazy. For example, this is how Heller ships the R4 kit: Gives the term "air mail" a whole new meaning.

This is how they ship the R4:

Have they listed the HY on the Heller site already, Geoff? Weirdly Oups Models has neither one yet on their site. Edit: I wait for Oups, because they sell Heller kits a lot cheaper than Heller themselves. http://www.oupsmodel.com/59-1-24-et-1-25-voiture-maquette#/fabricant-heller

I corrected it.

So the overwhelming majority of them had no shock absorbers.

So for 22 years they didn't. They had this:

It strikes me oddly, that apparently only very few people seem to understand the ingenious suspension system. 2CVs have no torsion bars whatsoever. They have a compound coil spring system. Front and rear suspension arms act via bellcranks onto a combined spring package housed in horizontally mounted cylindrical containers on each side of the chassis. If each of those cylindrical containers was rigidly mounted to the chassis, you'd have an independent suspension. But they aren't. They are mounted by means of an additional set of springs, called "volute" springs (later models used rubber mounts). This setup allows the front and rear suspension to interconnect. Let's say a front wheel is deflected up over a bump. The front pull rod compresses the front spring inside the cylinder, against the front of the cylinder. It also compresses the front "volute" spring (C), pulling the whole cylinder forwards. That action pulls the rear wheel down on the same side via the rear spring assembly and bellcrank. When the rear wheel meets that bump a moment later, it does the same in reverse, thus keeping the car level front to rear. When both springs are compressed on one side, let's say when travelling around a bend, the equal and opposite forces applied to the front and rear spring assemblies reduce the interconnection significantly, or even completely. This stiffens the suspension after a certain amount of body roll has been achieved. It allows the 2CV to have very soft "bump mode" absorption, without wallow, uncontrolled float, or pitching, which is often experienced in cars with soft suspension (just drive - let's say - a '60 Buick). Also note, that this system requires very little damping. Note that 2CVs (and in fact all Citroen A-Series cars) had no shock absorbers prior to the 1970s. The only damping they had was by means of the cylinders you can see near the hubs in above drawing. These cylinders contain oil and a relatively heavy weight. This gives the suspension system a bit of inertia and that's all that wass needed for damping. A bit like Wilmot-Breeden counterweights, just more intelligently applied.