Junkman

Skip was at it over 40 years ago and did a bloody good job: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=62237&hl=%20airfix%20%20bentley&st=0 This is John Teresi's effort: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50534&hl=bentley Sean Morgan is building one while hanging off the Earth upside down: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=56391&hl=bentley

My mat. (German) Grandfather never owned a car and to my knowledge never had a driving license for cars. But he was an avid biker all his life. He was a customs officer in the 30s at the German/Czech border and had a government issue NSU 600 sidecar outfit for patrolling. He privately owned a Zündapp K800, which was commandeered in 1939. After the war, he bought a US Army surplus Indian on credit and fed the family riding it in a Wall of Death at carnivals and also at speedway races. After things became normal and he was reinstated as a customs officer, he would always have the biggest contemporary BMW with sidecar. After my mom and my two aunts had outgrown it, he no longer used sidecars. He finally stopped riding at age 86, and his last bike was a six cylinder Honda Goldwing. My grandma never rode herself, and never drove a car. I think she didn't have any license at all. My pat. (Austrian) Grandfather bought an old clapped out beaten up 1926 Tatra 11 when he was still at university in the 30s. My grandma, still alive and kicking at age 96, says he pushed it more than he drove it. He must have pushed it around until 1939 when civilian driving was halted altogether and the car was scrapped. After the war he set up business in Munich and like every self-respected Wirtschaftswunder entrepreneur bought a new VW Beetle as soon as he could afford one. I'm not sure when exactly that was, but it was a split window. He had it until the mid 50s when he bought a Simca Aronde, which he traded in for a Simca Chambord V8 in the late 50s. My father learned to drive in it and he sometimes borrowed it when he dated my mother. I still remember it from when I was a toddler, with its towering tailfins, at least from the perspective I saw them. In the late 60s he replaced it with a Simca 1501 Speciale and that gave way to an Audi 100 (C1) in the early 70s. In the late 70s he bought yet another Audi 100 (C2), a 5E, and this was the last car he drove. For a brief time in the 60s, again, I remember it as a toddler, he also had an Amphicar as a second car. My grandma from this side of the family only ever had one car, a Renault Caravelle ragtop. She got it around 1965 and drove it until she stopped driving altogether around the year 2000.

I'm down to one single collectible car besides my daily drivers - a 1975 Rover 3500 V8.

No! I would miss those 2.5 hours of sleep.

Kojak's Buick.

Watch the movie again. JPM 351 is on Carol, Judy and the other girls' Studebaker, Steve Bolander's '58 Impala and the De Soto on which Curt is sitting.

Christine. Carol, Judy and other girls' Studebaker, Steve Bolander's '58 Impala and the De Soto on which Curt is sitting when he first meets the Pharaohs.

Builds per year? You mean years per build, right?

Rockford's number was 853 OKG.

And what would be next? Dig up Kennedy so that you have a candidate to vote for? It doesn't work this way.

Correct.

Correct.

Colorado OA - 5599 California 938 DAN Iowa 3 * 6126 Texas 86 - 523

sic

Great stuff so far, pplz. I finally started my first contribution, which I fear is rather subtle in comparison to your gentlemen's efforts. What I have in mind is a very traditional Roadster. Smooth is the overall theme. I don't want to see hinges, door handles, etc. I want it gold metallic, white interior, and big'n'littles on Babymoons from the '51 Chevy. Stance is everything... And since tis particular Roadster kit came with a not fully moulded windscreen frame, I'll use the surplus chopped windscreen frame from one of my Phaeton kits. So here we go. Cut out the rear wheel wells since 'out of the box' it just doesn't allow for anything wider than the skinny stock wheels, without protruding from the wings. This is the stance I want to achieve. -ish: For me, it's all the subtle changes that add up to a wholesome something. Rootliebed the bonnet: The headlamps sit too high for my taste, so I had to fill in the openings for the headlamp bar. I'll drill new ones below the original ones. I did away with the front cross bar at the same time. Trying to rework the rear dumb irons and petrol tank:

Streat Freaks are road legal Gassers. Any car can be made into a Street Freak. There is no limit, neither in selection, nor imagination.

How about the Amphicar? Complete and utter rubbish on the road as well as in the water. Flying off a cliff is the only thing it's really good for.

Günther and Gerhard pay me a visit and take them with them.

I came across this today: http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/1210_1986_cadillac_cimarron_v6/viewall.html I worked for the US-Army PX Garage in Munich from the mid to late Eighties, so I experienced these cars first hand. That this wasn't the brightest era for the American car industry would be an understatement of epic magnitude, but the cars weren't nearly as bad as they try to make you believe nowadays. The only thing seriously wrong with them is that they are just about as lacklustre as the inside of a ping pong ball. I settled for a 1987 Plodge Granfifthlomat, mine coincidentally wore the 'Chrysler' badges. Pretty much all American family cars were cut-and-paste jobs of one form or another back then. East Germany could have done the same and sell the Wartburgs and Trabants with 15 different badges to have a more diverse car lineup. It didn't look much brighter in Western Europe either, what with such colourful creations as Audi 80s and VW Passats, for which I still struggle to come up with a single USP to this day. Then again, I just re-read what I wrote above. I'm not convinced that it still holds true today. The idea, to park a yellow Cimarron with those stupid 13 inchers with a narrow white band, a tan interior, a padded vinyl top and a luggage rack on the bootlid, in a sea of silver metallic Kias and Hyundais with beer can holders, I find oddly appealing nowadays. But that's just me I guess. My vote for the worst car ever built goes to Australia, who gave us the Leyland P76. I was tempted to vote for something from the former East Block, but they just had to produce what the government forced them to produce and from materials the government allocated to them. Contrary to that, the P76 was created completely voluntarily in a free free-market society with every imaginable resource available in abundance. They didn't even bother to give it a model name. Wonderful. However, the worst experiences with cars I've owned, I had with BMWs, believe it, or not.

The spectrum could possibly be further broadened by contacting modeling forums in other countries than the USA. Different societies may have different outlooks on the hobby, who knows. Modeling is as old as culture itself and in one form or another has been practiced in every single one of them. Even the cavemen were modeling, as countless finds prove.

1. What is a model kit? Something that comes in a carton box with an illustration on top, consists of injection moulded polystyrene plastic runners or sprues with components attached to them, that can be assembled into one or more three-dimensional objects. 2. What activities (e.g. painting, sanding, burnishing) do you associate with modelling? There are very few activities I don't associate with modeling and I won't list them here. 3. Do you follow instructions when building a model? It depends on the complexity of the model, but as a rule of thumb, real men don't read instructions. 4. How skilled are you at modelling? ROFL. Go ask John Teresi. 5. What are kit conversions? Have you ever done a kit conversion? Very few. But I have started hundreds... 6. What is kitbashing? Have you ever kitbashed? Kitbashing is combining components from two or more model kits in order to create something neither of the kits would have yielded on its own. Yes, I kitbash frequently. This leads to a chain reaction. Since many of my kits aren't complete because of said kitbashing, I have to kitbash ever more. 7. What is the object of model-making? What is the end product? I assume you mean 'objective'? The objective is to create an image of something one loves to look at, and it is generally motivated by the same appreciation of form and function, as creating art, or artefacts. The end product should be an object resembling this image as close as possible.

The worst car ever made is usually the one I currently own.

Would make an interesting phantom though, if you'd smooth it and paint it one colour as if it was all steel. Maybe make it a four door at the same time? With rear suicide doors a'la Lincoln...

The pic is from Scandinavia. Headlight wipers are mandatory there on any car built after 1974. If they aren't available from the manufacturer, they have to be improvised using parts from another make. And no, they were not available on Gremlins from the factory. Here are a few more examples of cars that had been made legal for use in Sweden: You get the picture (pun intended).

I just mentioned it to enable the discussion take on a DoH twist. We could philosophise whether door lock knobs and a gearshift lever need to be added to build an exact replica of the car in the book/movie...