horsepower

Wrong! Even the example you posted shows the misalignment, just look at the Z in the front of the intake manifold, it's there to align the ports properly with the offset cylinder head. This is a result of the crankshaft and the inability to have to rods and pistons exactly across from each other, and the larger the cylinder bore is the larger the offset required, each crankshaft throw has two connecting rods on it, one going to each side of the cylinder block, the fact that they are one in front of the other on the crankshaft means one cylinder (and its head) are offset from the one on the other side. Usually the side that the number one piston is on is the forward head. I hope this explains it better to you. I googled the engine that this is supposed to represent, and in all the photos I found, it is the drivers side head that should be the forward one on the block.

Putting this next to the Holden ute they look like Proton used the same design and put a shrink ray on it. That rear end treatment looks like an aftermarket add on, or a way to get around the import tariffs imposed on bringing complete pickups into the country, that is one of the reasons why you don't see Subaru importing Brats, Toyota and Mitsubishi and others got around it by shipping cabs and beds separate and putting them together in the states, kind of a loophole but it worked.

Like the way you put the four link suspension in the rear, but a four link with straight lower links, and angled uppers from the top that angle outward make a little cleaner set up since they don't require a panhard bar to keep the rear end centered, most street rod set ups that are intended for street are going this route, even chassis manufacturers like TCI, and a couple others are doing this on the ones that they produce, and it's a lot less work in 1/25th scale. But I DO prefer your set up to the long arms that Revell put on theirs.

Plus you'll also notice if you look closely that the airplanes all have air outlets larger than the inlets that create a venturi effect, basically a low pressure area behind the radiator to help pull air through. We do the same thing with our control line stunt planes. But it's a little hard to do with a street car, again most designed for racing cars have the same thing, even the Shelby Series 1 had this incorporated into the grille and hood.

Considering the hemisphere is a scaled up model of a scale model Chip built as a design exercise while still attending Pasadena school of design and a Chrysler rep fell in love with it and had it commissioned as a full size running concept vehicle to put the New Hemi motor in as a concept vehicle says wonders for the staying power of his designs, also IF you ever get to see the Impression, or Grand Master, after walking around the car and looking at the obvious, look at the builders book that the judges can see, it will take you weeks to find some of the subtle details that the normal person will never figure out, like using drilled stainless allen bolts used to fasten the fenders to the body as the overflow drip line from the A/C condenser so there's no obvious drain hose, and that all fuel, brake, and electrical, along with hvac lines and hoses are hidden under a false floor so they are completely out of sight, but with the removal of the false floor, all the items are in the open and easily accessible to work on. Its the little subtle details that the general public will never notice that separates the masters who build a Ridler winner (one of several) or a couple of AMBR winners, one that failed to take the award the first time, but after bringing the Coddington car to Chip for a freshen up won the AMBR that year. A real show car is in the nit picky details that the public doesn't even notice, but when you get to the level of eight and nine figure cars and six to eleven years of build time, that is what makes the difference between a contender, and a champion.

Also rear wheel opening is enlarged quite a bit clear the big slicks.

Sacrilegious to put Ford taillights on a Chevy, lol.

I'd have to go with the Grand Master, and Hemi-Sphere, just since NO model company has anything in their line up that resembles either one. It's also a tribute to the abilities of Chip Foose that a design study done while he was still studying in school could be picked up by a full size concept hot rod using the "new" Hemi engine and factory drive train parts to build a very popular with the public show car.

The impression is also totally built from the ground up, it just appears like a '37 Ford, but in actuality is a completely hand formed body from Marcel Dulay and sons.

If they used the Foose truck and actually followed the dimensions you'd never see a stock one done using the same tooling, the Foose truck is chopped, the hood is pancaked, the cowl is modified and the fenders front and rear are changed and it has independent front suspension, a nine inch rear end on modified suspension. Its like a lot of Chip's work, very subtle, not enough done to really stand out, just enough so you know something is different, you just aren't sure what it is.

Judging by the colors on the other pre painted kits, and the photos of the box I would bet that the 'Vette will be released in the "Tint Red" color, it appears that this is a three stage color from Chev with a metallic red base, a transparent red (thus "tint red") and a clear top coat. I've seen a couple of C-7s in this color and it's fantastic, it is a very deep appearing Candy Red.

Yes the most teams and the highest popularity per capita are in the Chevrolet and Toyota camps, but along with them is also the highest level of licensing fees and sponsorship deals to have to deal with their licensing rights also. I've said before that due to the limited contingency stickers carried by the team Penske cars that they were probably the easiest team to put the NASCAR experiment behind.

And if anyone did use that as their basis for a kit according to some of the experts it would never sell, and "they" would never buy one if it were produced the front bumper's all wrong, and the roof has to much angle along the drip rail,.... you get the idea, some nice person posts a picture posing the possibility of something being thought about, and fifteen people start tearing it down because they can tell from a very small part in a bigger picture that the dimensions are all wrong, and it's not worthy of being offered to intelligent people.;-)

I'd love to see any '32 - '34 Chevrolet in a coupe, or sedan, in the '32, they even offered a deluxe edition coupe that is often called a sedan because of its resemblance to the Ford Victoria sedans. Engine choices would be a gimmee anything from a 270 c.i. six up to a new LS series engine, and the big block 396-454 will also work.

Want to bet that area where they aren't as good is on side collisions, and I've noticed that since KIA nabbed the top designer from Audi and released their new body style for the Optima in '10 that almost every manufacturer is getting closer to the same silhouette every year since. Thankfully KIA has announced a totally different design in 2016, then the other guys can battle for the five year old design.

As soon as the government and insurance companies quit wanting safer cars in side collisions we will start getting lower door tops and larger window openings, but you know as soon as that happens people will start chopping tops again, and we'll be right back where we are. Glad you have a good enough climate to be able to drive around with your windows down, we aren't so lucky, either it's cold and wet, or you can cook your lunch on the flat surfaces of your car. The other reason for the strange proportions and the inability for your not being able to rest your arm on the window is even though every drivers training course from high school through any performance driving school tells us that the safest position for your hands when driving is both hands on the wheel, people keep forgetting this so they design the performance cars to make it uncomfortable to drive in any other way, lol.

I'd buy a few of those Target cars when/if they come out.

Penske cars is probably one of the best kits licensing fees wise since they don't carry a lot of contingency stickers, just the ones that actually contribute to the team, so the decals on the cars won't be as many as other teams have and all licensing fees should be already worked out with team Penske. There are a couple of other teams that run their program like this Petty Enterprises comes to mind, they actually didn't get to run the Busch Clash one year because of Petty's refusal to put alc contingency decals on his race cars, kind of a little bit of hypocrisy to me, someone who won't run an alcoholic beverage decal because of what it does to people, but raises tobacco and had no problems promoting Winston when they were the series sponsor. But that's just my thoughts.

He said he took the tail lights from the '91 convertible kit that the wheels came from, should answer the question about them.

But how would you guys who are getting your stuff from Japan and spotlight hobbies finding out what they have without the internet? Back in the early building years for me, our tiny town had three places that I could find models at, the local drug store, one of the local grocery stores, a kind of general store that sold a little of everything, and what would pass for a hobby shop in most places, a sporting goods store that sold almost everything a hobby shop carried, but also rifles, ammo, hunting license, supplies.

Want to bet that if one of us were to post a built up of one of Dr. Flintbone's adult figurines that it would've been pulled by a moderator by now as being inappropriate or offensive, but yet this fore mentioned piece is still here? I thought this would be a great thread for my seven year old grandson to go through with me and show him some of the weird kits that are out there (he has a kit of a Polar Bear, and a horse) but I just couldn't come up with an explanation to him for that.

If you don't think overloading on sugary caffeinated drinks can do strange things to your thinking process, try chugging down three or four big cans of Red Bull, or Monster Energy Drink. :-)

I don't think that it's going to be much harder to move the firewall back a bit and round the edges off than it is to remove the mold lines from most kits, and we're assuming that the firewall is a stock one, and not one that was built by a street rodder to resemble a stock firewall, but had the angled stiffening beads changed so they wouldn't be cut off by the recess required to clear the distributor on the small block. And the roof recess will be filled and smoothed on most kits anyway, after all it's a street rod, not a restomod, or a stocker. Oh I forgot to add that the engine in the original Beatnik Bandit is an early Olds, a 303 if I remember correctly, and another bit of useless facts is that motor didn't, and couldn't run, it was truly a "show" engine.

Kinda reminds me of a mini Chrysler Airflow, am in the only one, is this a small car, or like some of the other Japanese early cars fairly large?

You can get some really nice wood molding pieces in Basswood in the miniature doll house wood in a well stocked hobby shop, they're already cut just like some of the wood in real woodies, and are real wood you can stain, and use Krylon Crystal Clear for a nice glossy finish. Use the extra thick Glaze clear for your finish, it has a high solids content and is super shiny on some absorbent surfaces since it builds quickly.