Chuck Most

Okay.... a '58 Thunderbird with all the trim and scripts shaved, shaved door handles, spot lights, Lake pipes, wheel covers that obviously aren't stock, lowered several inches and obviously wearing a custom paint job is not a custom? Sorry bud, that ain't a stock T-Bird with a paint job.

One more for today... dug up some Winston Cup 'truck arms' to use as front axle radius arms-

Today's efforts- might hook up a couple turbos feeding into the dual Potvin superchargers just to keep the 'Insane Meter' pegged in the red, but might just make up some elbows and run straight pipes.

Well "Villager Mercury" if read left-to-right. But yes, that's a Mercury Villager banner in the background.

Not if that puppy is laid out on the rockers. You know, because its unseen airbag suspension setup is 'aired out'.

Those louvers wouldn't happen to be scale railroad stairs, would they?

Here we go! The influx of Gremmies is upon us.

Yes, absolutely. BUT- a Raider's Coach could be entered into a Rod/Custom category, or a 'Show Car' category if applicable. Even if built box stock, it could win its class even being totally OOB, simply because... well, when was the last time you saw a Raiders Coach built in any style entered in a contest?

Exactly. The one with the wild paint job might get noticed first, but the main thing is, will it deliver upon closer inspection?

Oh, I have no intention of doing an exact replica of the concept... just putting my own spin on the design.

Normally not fond of Maroon, but man, does it look sweet on your Merc.

I've been to a few shows with a Hot Rods/Street Rods category, and you see quite a few of Revell's '32 Fords entered in that class. Sure, many have been modified by kitbashing or modifcations, but more than a handful are built straight from the box as Revell intended. No one disputes they are hot rod models. But that brings in what Bob Turner mentioned a few posts ago... all else being equal, do the strictly-OOB models stand any chance against the modified models? Well, picking a winner is far from a scientific process from what I've observed. I've seen it go both ways- sometimes a box-stocker will bring home the award, other times the highly modified kit will be the winner. At the contest level, pretty much all the models are 'nice', but sometimes it's purely a matter of personal taste (and yes, perhaps even personal issues with a judge on the panel and the builder) which determines who takes home the trophy. That highly reworked Deuce 3-window with hundreds of machined parts and thousands of hours invested in the build might be a fine model, but perhaps the builder built it in an unusual style, or maybe just painted it in a somewhat strange color. The resulting model just might not 'click' as far as aesthetics go, and in that case, the upper hand would go to a box-stock model of the same car, done to a more 'acceptable' style.

YES! EVERY Y-block kit has gotten that wrong. The distributor is angled a few degrees to the passenger's side.

I'll award ten bonus points to the person who finds the redundant reduntant sentence in the Hudson article.

You could try the '56 AMT chassis, but the engine in the '56 is just short of junk. Proportions are iffy, and it has a kind of 'unfinished' look.

Somebody on another board saw this build thread, and they threw together this sketch... http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/044/7/2/revolution_rod_by_spex84-d4pm2nr.jpg But I'm gonna let HIM build THAT one.

The model may be box stock, but the subject is pretty far from a stock '49 Merc, so it subject matter would be custom. I've seen these kits entered in both categories at shows.

Just the very existence of a Slant Six rail is pretty cool- the detailing and craftsmanship are fantastic to boot.

Not a Ford- not even the French Matford Tudors had suicide doors on the front. Can't be a Hudson/Terraplane- rear fender openings are all wrong, and the car appears to be smaller than a '30's Hudson. I was thinking it might be a Studebaker, but the body lines don't look right.

Spacers, my good sir! Some very thick washers between the caps and the flange on the pipe... then you have a straight pipe with the look of a capped pipe, and in some jurisdictions they couldn't cite you for having no muffler, because technically it is a baffle. (They'd just ticket you for something else, though...)

Hmmmm.... mine contained only the tanker. This was my original intent for the kit- might still end up building this,though. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sherlock77/1121278427/

There's a little molded 'rib' inside the tire- trim that off and any AMT/MPC standard wheel should fit. you might also want to bevel the bead a little.

That's where the '26 Mack wheel/tire assemblies came from.

Other than radius rods of some sort, front and rear suspensions are done-

Progress report for today- might actually have a bit more done by this evening-