2002p51

It's one of the reason I always try to supply some supporting photos with any of my models in a contest whether it's required or not. It helps the judges who invariably don't know what they are looking at!

I've seen that done in model car contest. They had a "Replica" class. It didn't matter if the car was a street rod, race car, or your father's Oldsmobile, the entry required a photo or photos and the model was critically judged on how well it replicated the prototype. I would like to see that a requirement for all factory stock and race car classes in any contest.

So many points to hit here. . . . I agree with Harry on a couple of them. To me a model car should represent a 1:1 subject as accurately and correctly as possible. That includes the level of finish. I've been a race photographer covering the NASCAR Sprint Cup series for 30 years now I've never seen a 1:1 Cup car with a finish on it like the typical model. NEVER! And now wraps are so popular and save the teams so much money, there's hardly a car in the garage any more than has any paint on it at all! It's all vinyl. And no, they're not clear coated because that defeats one of the main reasons for using a wrap; it comes off as easily as it went on. Now that sponsors are changed and rotated around from race to race, that's important. I also agree with Harry on there being no need to "protect" decals if they are properly applied. There's a certain segment of this screwy hobby of ours that believes you are "supposed" to coat decals but that's a false paradigm. Like Harry, I too have models that are 30 plus years old with the decals showing no ill effects at all. I think I have a bottle of clear gloss around here somewhere, but I'm not sure because I have no use for it! And many people post " . .to each his own. . ." which just drives me nuts. That's just a cop out to excuse shoddy research, no research, or a lack of caring about my first point above. If you really believe that building model cars to accurately represent a full scale subject is what this hobby is all about, then you can't simply do what you want and you must get the details right and "to each his own" doesn't enter into it. Otherwise, you're just playing with little plastic cars. Contests? OMG, all bets are off in contests. I've entered them, I've worked them, I've judged them. Many times I've been the "victim" of a judge who had no knowledge of what the real thing should look like and no clue what I was trying to represent with my model. I've been beaten by completely inaccurate models with incorrect features but the builders were "known" by the judge. There's nothing you can do about some of that stuff. So you try not to let it get to you and move on. What else? Ummm, please remember that all of the above is my somewhat learned opinion after more than 50 years of participation in this hobby. Believe it or not, I have been threatened with physical harm for expressing these opinions on forums in the past. In fact there is one forum that I no longer participate in because of the "community thought" so prevalent there that does not accept any differing ideas or opinions. This really is a crazy hobby, I love it dearly, but sometimes I think we are all nuts!

If the fiance gets upset about you buying a project car and would relegate you to the sofa, don't marry her, she's the wrong girl.

Thanks for the plug. I built mine back in 2006 when we moved into the new house and I did an article on it for that "other" magazine. Mine was a combination paint rack and tool holder. But frankly, I like Anne's much better.

Rob has it exactly right. As somebody who loves and owns several old cars and is very active in the old car hobby, I can tell you that not only are they a statistically miniscule part of the overall picture but also, as Rob said, driven very few miles per year. In addition, because they are "hobby cars", they are generally kept in absolute peak running condition at all times. I've seen tests that show a well maintained collector can many times run cleaner than your typical late model daily driver that seldom gets any maintenance at all. As for the programs that target some counties and not others it depends on conditions. I live in the mountains of east Tennessee and we simply don't have a smog problem. Like most of the rest of the country, the vast majority of cars on the road around here are less than ten years old and are very clean to begin with. Certainly much cleaner than the cars of the '70s and '80s. The counties of Tennessee that contain the major cities, Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis are much more heavily populated, have more cars and more traffic, and so they do have smog inspections. But it's still a scam!

I suppose there should be some difference in the C pillars too, but I haven't studied 1:1 photos enough to tell.

That's pretty cool. Daytona with the option of running the oval or the road course. Neat idea.

Well, it's really a Charger Daytona. I filled in the hood and side coves, so it's close enough for me.

Completed a couple of wing cars today:

Here's a great site that carries lots of parts for all sorts of HO cars: http://www.hoslotcarracing.com/

Seems to be mostly 1/25 scale drag cars on here so I thought I'd shake things up a little. I recently dug out all my old Aurora A/FX stuff from 25 - 30 years ago and I have been amazed what's out on the market these days. Most of the cars I did back then were hand painted because that's all we had. I have now found a lot of decals available on eBay have begun repainting some. Buddy Baker Charger: Petty Roadrunner: Cale Yarborough Chevelle: The rest of these were all done 25 years or more ago. And these are all hand painted. Benny Parsons Chevelle. Bobby Allison Matador: I made this modified from something else. (Been so long I can't remember what it started out as!) This Camaro has obviously seen some hard racing! I do remember that the fender flares and nose are made from card stock. All told I have about 30 cars and, amazingly, with a little clean up they all still run and run fast! So, how about it? Can we get a little love for HO slot cars? Got any? Post 'em up!

I'll see your one engine and raise you one.

Because smog testing cars has nothing whatsoever to do with clean air. It's a tax, plain and simple.

I use pieces of sprue to stir paint but beyond that, nothing. Like the title says, styrene is cheap and I like using Evergreen.

It all depends on the kit subject and how versatile it might be. For example, I've only built one Garlits' Swamp Rat XXX because that's pretty much all you can do with that kit. But I've done several of the Tommy Ivo Top Fuel cars and every one is different. Same thing with the Revell Willys coupe, their early funny cars, etc. And I'd build lots of Monogram Big Deuce and Big T kits if I had unlimited space to display them!

You'd have to see the firewall to be sure but I suspect it's the latter. The dash is '55/'56.

The '59 Chevys were very strange looking in '59 too, trust me. As for Ford they took a really good looking car in '57 and just messed up enough of it for '58 to make it ugly. However, I do remember that, in '59, I thought the '59 Fords were among the most beautiful they had ever done. (Obviously I hadn't seen the '61 or '63 yet, but that decade is a topic for another thread!) It has always amazed me that, given the cost of completely remaking a car over from one year to the next, that Chevy did what they did in '57, '58, and '59. We've already talked about how the '55-'57 shared so many parts, but the '58 was a completely different car in every way. Except for the drive train, the wheels, and a few minor interior pieces like the door handles, nothing from the '57 was carried over to the '58. No sheet metal, no glass, nothing. Then they did it all over again in '59! When you consider that the design cost to go from the '55 to the relatively minor change for '56 was over one million dollars you can only imagine what it must have cost GM to start with a nearly clean sheet of paper two years in a row!

Earlier in this thread we were talking about the interchangeability of '55 - '57 Chevy parts. Here's a perfect example!

Well, one or two of them have kinda grown on me in the years since. I remember the first time I saw the new '58 Chevy! I was shocked that they could mess up so bad after the '57. They don't look all that bad to me today. But that's really about the only '58 car I can say that about. For awhile in high school I had a '58 Olds that my dad passed down to me after he bought a '59 Buick. That Olds was one huge, ugly son of a _______! I never could quite understand how they got there from the '57.

Well, taste and style are very subjective and personal. What GM was trying to do was make the Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles look more expensive than Chevy because they were. In the fifties the new car market was much more segmented than it is today. Ford and Chevy were considered to be in the low price field. As you moved up in your life you "upgraded" to Pontiac or Olds. As things got better you would move up to Buick and finally, when your ship came in, you bought a Cadillac. At least that's what the GM marketing department wanted you to think. Doctors and lawyers drove Cadillacs, business executives drove Buicks, etc. Personally I don't mind the styling of the early to mid fifties GM cars. It wasn't until 1958 that the stylists all went nutso and lost their way!

There are other differences too. On the 55 - 57 Chevys, the roof line of the hardtops, convertibles, and Nomad was 1-1/2 inches lower than the sedans. So even though that's not very noticeable, the windshield, rear window, and vent windows don't swap. As far as the other GM cars, the only parts that Chevy shared with any of them was with Pontiac. The roof stamping, all the glass, the doors and the deck lid where the same. Model for model, of course.

Well, that's absolutely true. The promoter of a short track that I worked at many years ago told me how often he was sued. When I asked what about the release that everybody in the pits signs he told me sure, but I still have to pay my attorney to carry that release into court and show it to the judge to get the case thrown out.

Actually, I wouldn't worry about anybody being "on the hook". Oh sure, somebody may try to sue but there's fine print on the back of every ticket that essentially says; "Hey, this is a dangerous sport and sometimes this stuff gets out of hand and you just might get whacked upside the head with something sharp and/or hot. The fact that you willingly bought this ticket means that you knew you could get clocked and you made the choice to be here anyway. So suck it up Sparky!" Okay, I'm not a lawyer and I never played one on TV and I'm being just a tiny bit flippant but, although the fine print on the back of the ticket is written in a lot more legally binding way than what I just wrote, it's there and it's been challenged in court before and it has always stood the test.

Nice job.