Dennis Lacy

I'm glad you took my comment the right way, Doc, cause it wasn't meant to be insulting... ...just really honest! Hahaha.

I can't deny Cranky his abilitiy, it's obvious he has a ton, but... While it's easy to see this model and make all the "looks great" comments (because it's only a model), how many of you people that commented would want to be seen driving a car painted like this? I sure wouldn't. If I was at a car show and came upon this I would stop at it long to shake my head and ask myself, "what in the hell was this guy thinking?".

Thanks for the positive responses. You suffer from this too???

Beautiful! You're right, those fadeaways look a bunch better sloping down lower to the rear fender. Looks great with the chopped Carson top too!

UPDATE: Lots accompished with the frame. Added some material to the top/forward part of the "Z" then angle cut it. Angle cut the lower part of the "Z" to match the angle of the upper/rear part of the frame. Added corner gussets to the rear cross member. Modified the front motor mounts by adding some risers. Made a simple but effective and strong center frame member. The cross pieces have been drilled for exhaust pipes. Here's how the engine will sit in the frame. I cut the molded distributor off and carefully drilled the tube to take a Parts By Parks distributor. I also decided to use this Model Car Garage resin Offenhauser intake because it's much more detailed than the dual intake from the AMT '34 Coupe. Because of the shape of the frame and that the driveshaft will need to go through the body I had to remove the torque tube and radius rods from the Ala Kart axle. I was able to modify the trailing arms from the Corvette suspension in AMT's '34 Coupe. As it turned out, the "S" offset in the arms was exactly right to come off of the axle and line up with the frame rails. I also added a snout to the axle center housing for the future driveshaft to connect to. Here the suspensions are mocked up. The front is untouched Ala Kart. Here I'm considering changing the front shell to a '32...

I love it! The exterior would have been enough but the interior is a knock-out. You should be very proud of this model. I could just see this little guy chugging along in a train of circus vehicles. (I'd hate to roll over in the morning and nail that counter edge with my forehead, haha.)

Happy to see it didn't stay black and must say the blue looks better than the red. Sweet!

Rat Rod is a style typically based on extreme visuals. It does not automatically mean that the car is of poor, unsafe construction. I have seen just as many safely built Rat Rods as I have poor ones. I have also seen PLENTY of shiney Hot Rods or Street Rods that when you look close it appears as though they were engineered by a kindergartner with a blindfold on. Poor, unsafe construction is present in every segment of the automotive hobby.

That's because 90% of people who build hobby cars with engines making stupid HP numbers are posers and have never opened the trottle more than 50%. Which is a good thing because your average person has below average skills behind the wheel. We all want to think we are a "wheelman", but lets face, we're not. Most of the people you talk to with stupid HP making engines don't even understand what it took to get there, and especially why. They just write a check to the engine guy. These are the same guys you see videos of on You Tube getting pressured into showing off by a crowd of people while leaving a car show. It's obvious they have no clue behind the wheel because the car gets away from them instantaneously as their foot hits the floor. It's like anything else, it's bragging rights for the car shows and magazine articles.

I can appreciate seeing some oil stains or radiator water stains (or whatever) on a feature vehicle because it shows me that the car gets used. If I were prepairing a car for a shoot I would spend a reasonable amount of time cleaning but not to the point that it looks like the car has never been driven. I am definitely NOT the guy at a car show that gets out of his lawn chair every 5 minutes to wipe down his car, haha.

Nice looking '50 but I'm really digging the Buick powered '40 Pickup in back ground. Can't wait to see that one done!

If not a fan of the red, I'd have found another color I liked better because the way you two-toned it looked really period correct. The conversion gets a little lost in a plain black wrapper. It's still way cool, though.

Did you announce on a social site like Facebook that you and your family would be gone for the weekend? Theives out there specifically target those who share such things. Even if this is not the case in your situation it's something to consider. I tell me fiancee everytime we're going somewhere to tell the world about it AFTER we get home.

Not really. It's supposed to represent a small block bored & stroked to 396 ci. Considering Chevy had a 400 ci. small block from the factory it's not unrealistic, although those had a specific engine block. The crankshaft from 400 ci. engines are used to produce the very common 383 ci. stroker engines.

Nah, I'm just a model hot rod geek with too much free time.

Nice F-1! Where did the conversion parts come from?

I love stores that have self check-out. Especially when I need to run in somewhere for one item (forgotten dinner ingredient, etc.) and I can check-out in a minute vs. waiting behind a line of over-flowing shopping carts. Plus, I'm pretty anti-social so the less I have to interact with people, the better!

Wow, your C-Cab is so ###### cool! Perfect shape to the cab and the stretched wheelbase / dually combo is really awesome.

Cool project! I've always enjoyed the Monogram '29 roadster pickup kits. And I say good for you, using an old Blue Beetle. There's enough of them built "box art" style. Interestingly I built a very similar RPU about this time last year. Mine was based off of the later "Early Iron" issues. When I channeled mine I simply cut out the interior floor by scribing around its perimeter until my knife broke through. Since the frame is narrow the interior sides slipped down beside the frame rails, I just had to cut out the back to match the cab for the channel. In the end the floor got attached seperately. Here's the finished truck. I robbed the whole chassis and '32 shell from the newest realease of the '30 Woody which has a hopped up Chevy engine. Wheels and tires are from the various Revell hot rod kits. A lot of guys told me to shorten the bed and chop the windshield but I like the funky proportions.

Not sure what else to call it? It's an extra Ala Kart body (which was originally made from a cut down touring body) with an extra '25 T turtle deck hung on the back of it. So I guess that could be a modified... Anyhow, I was sitting there waiting for glue to dry and I started jacking around with some junk in my parts boxes. I had this Lindberg '34 Pickup frame that had its rear cross member harvested for another hot rod, and I had this Ala Kart cab (which comes extra in the last re-issues of the AMT '29 Roadster) along with a stock '29 hood and front shell. A few pieces of tape and some random thoughts later, I had me an idea! So I whipped out one of my modern-tooled Ala Kart kits which I keep around for hot rod donors and decided I could rework the '34 frame to take all of the AK suspension. Not wanting the usual old wire spoke or solid old Ford wheels I mixed and matched until I came up with a combo I liked. Things are just getting started but so far I have managed to graft the AK rear frame cross member to the '34 frame (luckilly I found another cross member that had already been chrome stripped!), Z'd the back of the frame (will saw some angles off later to make it look right) and modified the front of the frame to take the AK front cross member. I'm gonna keep the rear rails outside of the turtle deck but I might extend the bottom of the deck or something to tie it all together a little tighter. All the modern-tool Ala Kart suspension stuff: Rolling stock consisting of Modelhaus T120 & T180 tires, some Halibrand kidney bean spindle mounts (not sure the source) and the front Halibrand Sprint wheels from the Revell '32 Roadster. The front ones are a smaller diameter & a little shallower and are a perfect fit in the rear tires: Engine is going to be a mix & matched hot rodded flathead. Got the block, headers and super cool finned front cover from AMT's '41 Woody and the dual intake & finned heads from AMT's '34 Coupe. Also a couple of carb options and a beehive oil filter - gotta have a hive! As of now all the chrome is getting soaked off. Soon as that happens I can proceed.

This here is a double edged sword for me. Being in the business of building cars too, on one hand helps me with building models because I have a strong mechanical awareness. It also helps me fabricate custom parts that I need and do so in a believable way both in appearance and structure. However, at the same time I admire the people I see build a killer looking model on the surface that might night be exactly functionally correct but it's obvious that they're having fun. I have a build going on right now that was "supposed to be" a simple project. The point was to challenge myself to not get hung up on details and see what I could throw together from my boxes of leftovers, making due with what I have and not giving into raiding another kit for the perfect parts or spending a bunch of time making parts. Well, that plan is out the window... It will be a better model because of my "condition", though.

As far as I'm concearned, as long as the subject is close and looks like what it's supposed to represent, I'm happy. A bigger concern than the actual scale of the vehicle is all of the parts to the vehicle being scaled consistently. A perfect example is the already mentioned modern-tool AMT Ala Kart show rod and it's (very) undersized engine. Someone fell asleep at the switch on that one! I don't see any point in stressing out over finite details because I already have a job, model building is a hobby and a release from reality where I don't have to worry or take things too seriously. I even, dare I say, mix & match 1:24 and 1:25 parts... The Humanity! When I finish a model and can lean back, take a look and get a smile on my face then I'm satisfied. Now, that is only my opinion and I can respect the opinions of others and how they prefer their models. As for the military and aircraft modelers, those people are on a completely different planet. A very dark, distant planet that I am unable to relate to, haha.

This kit is a great foundation for a hot rod. What's cool is that the frame is the same as in Monogram's '30 Touring and '30 Woody so the hot rod parts found in those kits will interchange with the Coupe. Those kits feature a dropped front axle, custom wheels and Chevy engines featuring either 3-carb (Touring) or 6-carb (Woody) intake manifolds. The newest releases of the Touring and Woody also feature newly tooled parts that offer more possibilities. The roof section is a seperate piece because the original issues of this kit go back to the 60's and it could be build as either a Coupe or Cabriolet. At some point the Coupe and Cabriolet were made into seperate kits and all of the optional hot rod parts deleted making them stock-only kits. Of course, a fully customized version of the builders design can be made too and there have been many really cool hot rods made over the years. Below is one of my current projects where I have replaced the stock hood and grill with the shell and louvered hood from Monogram's old tool '32 Roadser and massaged the louvered trunk like from Revell's '32 Ford 5-Window to fit, slammed on chrome-reverse wheels and whitewalls. I also chopped the top

I have always thought that the Mako Shark II was a really cool and aggressive looking show car. Your model is an excellent representation of the real thing. Awesome work!

One of the nicest '40 Deliveries I have seen seen finished. The color and decal scheme really work well together.