Bernard Kron

Thanx so much for this, Harry. I guess I'm a sort of beginner/intermediate user of P-shop, aware of all the tools and filters and what they do, but still learning how to create approriate areas and how to control my mouse for accurate shapes. Also how to use the brush and erase tools expressively. It's great to get to see an experienced (and talented) hand at work. Thanx again!

Very cool! There's got to be something liberating about a wheeless design, it allows you to focus exclusively on the shape of the body without the added aspects of ground clearance and the details, shape and size of the wheel assemblies and wheel openings. A little like building a slammer. I especially like the nacels from the Prowler along the side of the grill and the pan extension below the grill. Gives the whole thing a new set of proportions appropriate to the hovercraft concept. I don't often say this, but have you considered chopping the top? Regardless... build on!!!

Came out great. Anyone not having seen the buildup should go to the workbench thread to see the super cool details on the underpan and engine on this one! :lol:

Uber-cool. :lol: I especially like the under-pan detail and the motor. The interior mates up well, too.

Great stuff, Art! And so well written, always a delight to read. This is something I know know a litlle about. My recollection, too, was that the record was set around 1950 but it turns out that Alfred LeTourneur, a French 6-day racing cyclist who already held the world's motor-pace speed record for a bike behind a motorcycle on an indoor track set this record on May 18th, 1941 in California, near Bakersfield. He went 108.92 mph behind a midget driven by the great Ronney Householder. I knew that midgets had been around before the war so that must have been a relatively early example of Frank Kurtis' production. IIRC he opened up shop on his own around 1938. Here are a couple of pictures of Ronney Householder and Alfred LeTourner breaking the land speed record. Those must be the steel wheels you refered to. That's some chainring on Alf's Schwinn Paramount! Musta taken him a while to get that thing turning over...

I order parts from The Parts Box ( http://www.thepartsbox.com/ ) in Australia quite regularly and get delivery in approximately 15-25 days from date of order. My most recent order was last month and took 20 days to arrive here in Seattle, WA, USA. Very good quality for everything I've received from them. IMHO, the best Stromberg 97's are from Model Car Garage. Very pricey at $14 for three but this includes beautiful photoetched linkages and all fuel lines, etc. ( http://www.modelcarg...0&idproduct=250 ) Norm Veber's Replicas & Miniatures Company of Maryland is without a doubt the finest supplier of cast resin parts in the hobby. His carbs aren't as completely detailed as Model car Garage but they are very nice. He also makes a dropped front axle setup appropriate for a Deuce. However, delivery time is 6-8 weeks. Norm has no website. Here is his info: Replicas & Miniatures Company of Maryland 317 Roosevelt Ave., S.W Glen Burnie, MD 21061 Tel: (410) 768-3648 M-F 9AM-5PM EST e-mail: replmincomd@aol.com Here`are some Fotki sites with pictures of some of his stuff: http://public.fotki....cas_and_miniat/ http://public.fotki....can-and-miniat/ http://public.fotki....casminiatureof/ Another very good source for Stromberg '97's is Early Years Resin ( http://earlyyearsres...accessories.htm ) . Service is excellent with typical delivery times being about 2 weeks.

From the "origami" period of F1 when the cars were made of folded sheet aluminum. If you've ever been up close and personal to one of these they are pretty scary stuff. Virtually nothing to protect the driver. When things went wrong, they went very wrong! I like the clean build and the detailed engine bits. V. nice indeed Mr. Raitz!

Great build of a beautiful car. I've thought about getting some of these kits for the late-period long wheelbase FED chassis, but everytime I see one of these turned out to this level it makes me consider building one out-of-the-box. Thanx for sharing!

First off the MCM board is very big and things sink fast. So many of my favorite builders sooner or later remark on how quickly their projects can disappear from the first couple of pages, especially if, like me, you use the "View New Content" filter. I must remember to give my faves the occasional "bump" when I'm having a look. So here goes: BUMP And of course, neither you nor txrat are anybody's idea of a hack! We should all be such hacks! Hack, hack, hacking our way to some pretty sublime builds. And finally, thanx for the brief reprise of the track-nose roadster, one of my all-time favorites. For some reason I can't recall ever seeing it with the full complement of decals. Looks sharp! Any, if you'll keep on buildin', I and many others will keep on lookin'! (And maybe we can remember to occasionally keep on bumpin'...). Your builds are invariably imaginative and finely executed, and your W.I.P.'s well detailed, full of interesting and useful observations, and most definitely something to look forward to. P.S. There's another Austin Bantam rod being built on another board. Totally different in approach and look, even the body being used is different. And both are equally great! But what is the chance of something like that ever happening?!!!

Yeah, this was pointed out on the TRaK board, so I'm not being enitrely fair to Mr. Flintstone. After all he merely says "Revell '32 Ford sedan chopped Rat Rod" and makes no mention of which Revell '32 Ford sedan it is! I definitely enjoyed having to fab a new frame for it. But the resin is still rather rough on the inside and thick...

That came out verrrry niiiiice indeed! The extensions along the running boards and rear pan really worked out well once the painting got done. Stance is so solid, too.And I love the contrast of the wood trim with that shiny paint. Lotsa thumbzupz dood! Now you just need to call Rent-an-Elf....

Thanx everyone. If I wasn't traveling I'd probably have this thing done in another week or ten days. It's really "talking to me"! But darn good advice... Cool! Looking forward to it!

Thanx Sully! Can't wait to dial those puppies in! Thanx to everyone for the extremely generous words. Forgive me if this post seems a little repetitive. Looking at the pictures from my last post I noticed that as a result of moving the center crossmember the motor sat nose up. I also realized that I had more rake in the body than I had intended because I hadn't clearanced the wheel wells after setting the rear axle a little further back. So, after making the necessary changes to the motor mounts and the wheel wells I also added the carburetors and exhaust pipes (those are Lyle's limefires mastered for RepMin, they're so nice I'm gonna use 'em) to get a more complete sense of how this thing will come together. I also discovered I had a can of Tamiya Pearl White so I did a test shot and the stuff is fabulous. Goes down without a wrinkle and sets up real smooth. So when I get back from a road trip in a couple of weeks I'll be ready to tackle the interior and body prep, but the overall look is nailed down now. Thanx for lookin', B.

That's good news! Re: the chassis, the Garlits chassis has a fairly unique roll bar shape (a shallower angle), different than the 3-point on the G-B-P's Rod Stuckey/Kent Fuller design. Maybe AS's own 186 chassis, shortened, would be a good donor. Certainly worth asking since the gallery shows a completed car and he would probably know. Other sources to consider for a more appropriate shape might include the Revell Tony Nancy Double Dragster kit (IIRC the 22 Jr. Comp. Roadster is a Kent Fuller chassis) or possibly the Ramchargers or Tommy Ivo kits. Regardless, all of them would require extensive shortening/lengthening and reworking. From the awesome Straightline Modeler site here are great references on the West Coast style frames: http://www.straightl...r.org/rice.html and the Wynn's Jammer frame: http://www.straightl...its/garsr6.html

I'm afraid it's probably not Altered States. I don't see a GBP body on their site.

Thanx for all the kind words, guys! I've made a few changes to the chassis since the initial construction. I moved the rear axle back a smidge to open up the space between the rear door line and the tire. I also eliminated the crossmember that held the rear coil overs and substituted two tabs, leaving room for a gas tank which I fabricated from the two halves in the Revell '32 Ford kits. I also moved the center crossmember back quite a ways so that it supported the bearing on the transmission tailshaft as it was designed to do. The combination of these two changes to crossmember positions allowed me to run the Revell traction bars. This goes well with the overall look that seems to be developing: shiny paint and shiny chrome. The wheels are probably what got me into the shiny paint & chrome thing. The fronts are Winfield "Terra Thrust" wheels from the AMT '25 Ford roadster and the rears are pseudo Cragars from the AMT '39-'40 Ford kit in its more recent releases. They all needed to be cut down some to fit. The front Terra Thrusts are pretty worn from bouncing around the bottom of my parts box. Absent a clean set of replacements, I'm hoping to get my hands on some proper Cragars with the logo in the center that aren't too deep to fit these skinny tires. For the shiny paint I decided to do the chassis in Duplicolor Toreador Red metallic over gold, the result being a deep candy red. With the chrome wishbones and traction bars and the shiny chrome on the engine it's more of a show car look, reminiscent of Barris' Emperor chassis ('though not as much chrome!). The wishbones, from the Revell '32 Ford 5-window, will have to be shortened some because currently they interfere with the body's channel over the frame rails (see inset pic below) The engine is nearly finished, with a gold block and heads. It will be pretty much the out-of-the-box version from the Revell '32 Ford 5-window with exception of limefire exhausts. I haven't decided yet whether to run the beautifully detailed set that Lyle Willits mastered for Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Maryland, or to run the somewhat plainer but chromed version from the AMT Pantom Vicky kit. Which brings me to the paint and interior. With this shiny show chassis I'm beginning to think pearlescent white to contrast with the frame rails. This is not without risk as I have yet to shoot a successful pearl white paint job. I did have success with a Tamiya pearl green so I'm thinking I'll go with Tamiya for this one. Any suggestions regarding a nice stable rattlecan pearlescent white would be most welcome. For some reason the Testors pearl white has never worked for me. For the interior I'm thinking of fabricating panels that nestle between the frame tubing so that they show in the interior as well as underneath the car. The door panels would be tuck and roll and I have a small pair of 60's show car style buckets that might work. That's it for now. I'll be away from the bench for a couple of weeks starting in a few days so I wanted to get as much of this going as possible so I could have some think time on how to finish it up. Thanx for lookin', B.

Massive coolness!!!

I bought some bodies from Jimmy Flintstone a while back and this was among them. My original intention was to do a full fendered car but, even though Flintstone says this is for the Revell '32, it doesn't fit either the chassis or the fenders properly, primarily because of the common problem with Flintstone resin, the body is too thick. I continue to believe that it's an open question whether aftermarket resin bodies actually save you any time on a build. I think mainly they should be bought because they're pretty, represent something unobtainable any other way, or because they involve work you either can't or don't want to do yourself. So I decided since the body didn't fit the Revell chassis I would build my own frame which would be designed for it. The front crossmember is from an AMT Model A Ford roadster and the middle crossmember is a cut down Revell '32 Ford. The rest is made from Evergreen strip and rod. The front 2/3rds of the side rails was traced from the Revell '32 frame and filed to shape. The suspension is Revell '32 all around (without the airbags at the rear 'natch…). Plans are to run hairpins at the front and parallel links at the rear. The motor will be the Hemi from the Revell '32 5-window with limefires. Not sure about the wheels yet, but the rubber you see, from Modelhaus, is what I'm using. Grill shell will be a Deuce piece with a 4" chop. Paint scheme and interior are still up in the air. Thanx for lookin', B.

Multiple thumzupz! You do this so well. A master of the style. The shape and colors of the panel work really suit this body. The careful detailing is just a bonus to what would already be a great curbside. Like I said,

Questo modello mi piace molto. Si tratta di un'idea unica che solo è possibile creare. Molto bene amico mio!

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...

Thanx Dennis! I know this isn't your type of build, and most of the time it's not mine.... It's got fenders! Sure soaks up a lotta paint!

Thanx a lot guys. I'm glad you all dig it! Ford Blue, don'tcha know... Actually I don't know for sure. I was tired of doing red or gold engines and the bottle said "Ford Engine Blue".

Thanx for the incredibly kind words. The learning curve is still very steep, but I suppose as long as it stays upwardly steep that's a good thing! For those that may be curious, here's the original March 1956 Hot Rod Magazine cover: Not much to work with. Who would've imagined a cover feature on a showboat DOHC MG? Sportscars were hot about then, though. But I lucked out with the "Wringing Out the '56 Ford" headline! The added headlines are all from real articles inside. I had this idea that somebody from the HRM staff might have stumbled on this car at Xmas time out in Palm Springs, being driven by a Ford exec, and snapped a few pics, then got FoMoCo's permission to run this teaser article. Maybe it got built in the Stroppe shop using some prototype '57 fenders - pretty doubtful stuff but fun to think about...

Immaculate. Beautiful paint and foil.