Force

Nice going Alan, keep up the good work.

Yes, but to put a body from an X frame car on a perimeter frame you have to cut the complete floor out and do a new one, but on a back halfed X frame chassis you only have to redo the rear end, so it's half the work...on a real car that is. Then we have the issue with the 7 inch difference in wheelbase, the Chevelle has 112" and the 61 Impala has 119". But on the other hand, the chassis on a full out Pro Street car could also be an all fabricated square tube, or Pro Stock type round tube chassis, with full rollcage, in that case you only use the outer body shell from the original car...it all depends on how far you want to take it.

Nice Blue Mule truck...I like the "Iron Lung" modification. I agree with Terry, no one should waste their money on the old ERTL Rubber Duck kit, it's all wrong and almost nothing is usable to do the movie truck if you want to do it right...I bought the ERTL kit back in the day when it was new and started to build it, but it never got finished due to all faults and most of the parts were used elsewhere. The AMT R model is a far better starting point and the AITM resin kit is based on that and it's very nice, the movie truck was a RS700L tho' so it has a longer hood than the AMT kit, it also has an Able Body 60 inch sleeper, an air foil for the roof, 2-hole budds, a bull bar, a duck hood ornament and some other stuff you have to supply from someplace...the resin kit has all parts needed to do a curbside truck...no engine.

Great work.

Well the car after the crash when it burns was just a non running junk car borrowed from a local salvage yard, it was a hard top but with a piece of wood in the middle of the side windows to resemble a 2-door sedan and was returned to the salvage yard after the burning. So the stunt car was just used for the crash scene but not the explosion and burning.

Not exactly true,...yes all three are basically the same kits but the first kit can only be built stock with what's in the box. The Goodguys and Pro Modeler kits on the other hand can be built two ways, stock or street rod so they contains more parts. The recent chopped 48 Ford Coupe are also based on these kits with some different new parts.

Maybe because it's wrong for the car. The 58-64 Impala has a X frame and the Chevelle has a perimeter frame...so if you want to do it correctly the Chevelle chassis woun't work. The Impala got perimeter frame 1965.

You can find two wider ones for the rear in the Monogram Bad Man 55 Chevy and the AMT 63 Impala has a set of more regular width.

Yes I would jump with joy if we had the same prices as you do in the US, I'm doing as you Mike and order most of my models directly from the States, and even tho' I have to pay for shipping, customs fee and sales tax it's still cheaper than to buy them here. For a regular 20-25 Dollar kit you have to at least double the price to get what we have to pay in stores over here. Good five-hole wheels you can get from Ben Wicker http://bwicke9.wix.com/class-a-resin

Ken Harris, the owner of the http://www.tyronemalone.net and http://public.fotki.com/superboss1/ websites has changed email as he lost the password to his hotmail, so he has a new one now, it's shermantank35@gmail.com and I contacted him not that long ago...Ken also has a Facebook site with lots of pictures and information https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tyrone-Malone-and-the-Bandag-diesel-racing-team/189062841121878 He might be able to help you contact the current owner of the Defiance Gary Reis at Stagecoach Diesel Motorsports Museum. Gary also owns the Super Boss, the Papa Truck, the Hideout Truck, the Smokey Bear Corvette, the Old Blue whale truck, and I think he has bought the Boss Truck of America too.

Looks nice Sean.

The "Bad Brahma Bull" White has the engine in front of the drive axle but the Defiance has it right above the drive axle so somekind of transfer box / drop box / V-Drive is needed to transfer the power to the drive axle. The Allison 1710 was available as both right or left hand rotation versions and if you take off the propeller reduction gear not needed for this aplication the crank shaft turns the opposite way the propeller did as the reduction gear only has two gear wheels...a small on the crank shaft and a larger on the propeller shaft.

The picture you link to Andy is when the original owner/builder Jerald McBee had it, Tyrone Malone bought it from him later and had it repainted pink. I'm affraid you have to "wing it" Alan because I haven't found any good information on this truck other than it's 21 feet 6½ inches total length, has the Allison 1710, an Allison 5 speed automatic and a Timkin rear end. Most likely it also has a V-drive or a drop box style gear to change the drive to the rear axle considering the engine placement as the power outtake is towards the cab, and I believe it's only the last axle that drives.

This is a magazine I don't want to miss, I get every issue and just bought the new one Monday this week...I have just flipped through it so far but I'm gonna read it soon.

Most of "the club of four" cabs were COE's and were used by Volvo, DAF, Magirus/Iveco, Saviem/Renault and MACK for their light and medium trucks.

Yes...more power equals more heat so they need more cooling, that's the reason they abandoned the narrow nose trucks in the late 60's and did a wider hood so they could fit a wider radiator for better cooling. High horsepower engines from all suppliers often needed more room, for instance the Detroit 12V-71, Cat 1693 and Cummins KTA 600 as they are quite long and some are also taller than the less powerful engines.

Those cabs looks European as you say, but they are not Scania. they look more like a Volvo F4-F6 COE cab with a nose attached, that cab was also used by Magirus, DAF and Renault...and I have seen small MACK COE's with this cab. One thing tho', they have mounted the doors the other way around on these, the cutout in front are for the wheel wells on the COE's. Volvo owns MACK since some years back so that might be the reason.

I know the "standard engine" in many of the Peterbilt 281/351, 282/352 trucks from that era was Cummins NHC 250 but there were other options as well, the NTA 370 might be one, Detroit Diesel 6-71, 8V-71 and 12V-71, possibly some Cat 1160 V8, 1673 I6, 1693 I6 and 1676 V8 found their way into some Pete's. I'm speculating a bit here but this question are for Tim Ahlborn, he would know for sure.

There were no steelies in any of the Monogram or Revell NASCAR kits as far as I know and the rim looks like it could come from an 80's issue of the old tool AMT 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air or something like that based on the brownish color of the plastic. The tire looks like it comes from an AMT NASCAR kit, they have rised Good Year and size markings on one side only, the yellow Good Year marking in the first picture looks to be a decal. The early Monogram tires on the other hand has raised Good Year Eagle markings and nothing else, and the later Revell/Monogram tires has D5574 markings on one side, otherwise they are smooth as tire decals are supposed to be used. You don't have anything else do you?

I've read that Round2 still want's to do it but "due to time and budget constraints" it's set aside and might come at a later point in time.

Don Holthaus at The Modelhaus has this 383/413 Cross Ram intake set up...Don also has Max Wedge exhaust manifolds. The Mopar Cross Ram. http://www.modelhaus.com/index.php?c=0&p=69214 And the exhaust Manifolds. 1963 http://www.modelhaus.com/index.php?c=0&p=68356 1964 http://www.modelhaus.com/index.php?c=0&p=68357 I believe the 1963 manifolds are the early low production rare Tri-Y manifolds.

Yes it's not pretty...but very cool!

Richard Ruth who built the TLB cars got 3 brand new crate engines from GM for the movie cars, two 454's and one 427 and it wasn't just any 427...it was a L88...that's why it was faster. The 427 L88 together with the 427 ZL1 was the most powerful engines Chevrolet had at the time and they were in fact pure race engines, the compression ratio was 12.5:1 for the L88 and 12.0:1 for the ZL1 and they needed 103 octane RON racing fuel to perform as they should...both were rated 430 hp but were in fact over 500 hp in factory stock configuration. As I have understood it there were two main cars in the TLB movie. One for outside scenes and according to my references that car had the 427 L88 with Weiand tunnel ram, dual Holley's, 4-speed and Olds/Pontiac rear end with 4.88:1 gearing...and that car later got converted to the AG car. And one for all interior scenes also called the "camera car" as it had lots of camera mounts all over the car, it was built exactly the same way as the first car but had one of the 454's, it also had a Weiand tunnel ram but was changed to a low regular intake manifold with one Holley to be more reliable and a "dummy" Holley carb mounted high up visible in the hood scoop from the inside. both cars were painted blue but was changed to grey primer for the movie. Here is a pic of the dummy carb and engine in the camera car. Ruth also built one stunt car with the other of the 454's, it had an automatic and individual brakes for the rear end...it was never used in the TLB movie but was used as the camera car in the AG movie and was crashed at the Paradise Road race, The "Camera Car" is still alive and has been restored to the TLB movie specs, and you can see it here together with lots and lots of useful information for both the TLB and AG 55's and facts for the TLB movie. http://twolaneblacktop.yuku.com/directory#.U4AwGfl_tps

Isn't the Revell Austin Powers "Shaguar" reissued not that long ago the old Aurora kit...the wheels and tires surely looks like the old Aurora stuff...not that good I also have seen a Revell Germany issue of the XKE Roadster from the late 80's wich is the same as the "Shaguar".

Nice. The original car is at Danchuk in Santa Ana, California and I have seen it there a couple of times, last time was in November 2012. I also met the man himself at that same trip ...Tom McEwen that is...but not at Danchuk but at the NHRA Museum in Pomona California a couple of days earler.