Junkman

Oh, so I'm not the only one having this overall shape issue? I find a lot of the newly tooled ones 'feel' strangely soulless and artificial. A lot of the old annuals have some nice 'feel' to their shape, even if it might not be entirely accurate from a strictly technical perspective. One of my favourite comparisons in this respect is the '60 Galaxie. The annual has soul, it lives, it screams '60 Ford. The new one is oddly sterile. Same with the '63 - '64 Chevies. The old AMT ones are certainly pure, unadulterated rubbish from a 21st century point of view, but compared with their more modern Revell counterparts, which are certainly a lot better and more accurate, the old ones ooze character. Or just look at that '66 Mercury here. It is so charming. I'm not so much interested in replicating brake pipes or vacuum advance diaphragms on carburetters, at least not in 1/25 scale, for me, it's shape, colour and stance that counts. And for this, those old annuals are superb raw material. I think of the new toolers, Moebius has found a nice way to combine this 'feel' and adequate accuracy and detailing. Their models still have soul. I hope the above makes any sense...

Oh, aye. So Round2 has quite some catching up to do IMO.

Some further kit-bashage comes to mind...

To be fair, we got most of the Galaxies back over the recent years. The '58, '59, '67 and '68 being the notable exceptions. But for example, I can't believe all Lincoln tools were butchered, yet the only one they dump on us until we can't puke it anymore is the '65 convertible. I think a 60s Lincoln hardtop is well overdue, especially in the shade of the "In Time" movie, that featured oodles of them. What about all the other full size barges, like non-66 Mercurys, Buicks, Imperials, etc? Have they all been cut up?

Use the Caddy mill from the Merc wagon.

It's this typical 60s AMT warmed over promo chod. Very charming and full of character, it can be made into a nice model, but it won't satisfy the discerning anorak. I just wish they'd reissue a broader range of these old annuals, than the same five kits over and over, like they deemed sufficient for the past 40 odd years.

With almost 9 million produced, the Renault 4 was at times among the most popular cars in Europe, thus hardly eccentric. They were everywhere. Throughout the Seventies, it was the best selling import in Germany, so go figure. Seen from America, I bet it is eccentric, though.

+1

Doesn't the American hobby industry realise, the we Euros would kick each other's teeth in to get ahold of all the 60s-70s 4-door Detroit tin? We are a market, too! And speaking of snap kits: Reissue the Craftsman Series, Round2! Are you listening? No. Of course not.

You got my attention...

I bloody well like it now! To say I was lukewarm to it before, would be an understatement of downright British proportion. You are the one who woke me up to it. I am now forming that plan in my head, to make a symbiosis of the original design and that hot rod thing that obviously totally normal Dutchman came up with, which you so skillfully adopted for your own interpretation of the theme. You triggered it. I'm not responsible... But when God distributed the OMGSKILZ, you got the lion's share of them. I didn't quite understand the shortening of the frame in the rear. I mean, if you shorten the frame, you need to shorten the leaf springs too, no?

I'm phully aware of the phakt that this is a decidedly unholdenly Phord (which was a serious matter last time I was at Bathurst), but I just found it on Ebay.oz and thought this would be a bloody wonderful livery for your sin bin: Note bonus pole-dancing Sheila beholding it in awe. For further encouragement, I had a phriend, who is one of them there artisterists, do this: So decal printage should be no problemo. Just mirror flick it for the nearside. Yer on your own to do those Thule roof thingys for surfboard carriage, but if I was you, I'd make things looking like Digeridoos as crossmembers.

That hinge thing is bloody brilliant! I like the idea of a stock one, but how would you go about bumpers and wheels?

Did you use any form of reinforcement when you relocated the spindles on the uprights, or did you just glue them back on? If the latter, what glue did you use? Btw. you made me search for my kit - and I found it. So it's all your fault, really. I can not be blamed...

With Heller soon to release the Méhari and the HY van, and all those 2CVs out there, not forgetting Heller's vintage Traction Avant, we'll have quite a nice Citroen Ménagerie. This is how quick it can go. The same could suddenly happen with Detroit tin.

Speak for yourself, I had 50+ of them during the 90s/early 00s.

If I ever build it, I'll go for an out of the box stocker, in a dark colour, like Caspian Blue Metallic, or Olive Mist Metallic. It's a nice enough car allright, and I like it, but not "Special" enough for me to go berserk with detailing.

I think I wrote it before, but according to a gent I knew, who worked at the Sindelfingen factory during the 1930s, only the exhibition cars' engines were painted black. The 'regular' production cars' engines were painted RAL 6011 Resedagrün. However, since this is not exactly a pretty colour, it became commonplace among restorers to paint all 500K/540K engines black, which is strictly speaking wrong. There is some evidence that the above is true. In this cutaway, which is from Skip's collection, the engine is depicted in green: Did the artist have access to an unrestored car? And there is this photo, which is allegedly from an unrestored 540K:

Not even one-and-a-half hours of rummaging down in the dungeon, and I found it. This is the RC2 version.

More stock car than drag car I think. But the choice is up to you.

I didn't say I don't buy it at the price, I just said it's stiff, which it is. I'd happily dosh out 50 quid for a Seventies land yacht from Revell, where is it? I just wonder how those 1/18 diecasters can do it for the money they charge. The superb DS21 from Norev can be had for 40 quid if your're lucky.

I am seriously looking forward to this, since I have a similar project in my mind. My tip: Ditch that engine and get yourself a blown Big Block from GMP. Because that's what I'll be doing.

Pretty stiff that price.

It's a repop of the '66 annual and was available in teh Countdown series. It's typical mid-Sixties AMT ware, so not bad, but miles away from newly tooled stuff. So relief chassis, hovering alternator, no power steering pump, let alone A/C. You can build it into a very attractive model, though.