sjordan2

Well, another mind-boggling masterpiece, Jurgen. The wire wheels are a work of art by themselves. Bravo, bravo, bravo.

I give up. another useless piece of cookie-cutter styling from who knows where. Could be a coupe from every single Asian company in the world.

Absolutely. And here's the Talbot-Lago build journal that Bill was referring to: http://www.arcair.com/Gal1/501-600/gal558-Talbot-Dalton/00.shtm If you want to see an astonishing scratch-built 1/8 version of the car go here (you'll find good links to a multitude of reference pictures of a 1/1 version): http://www.scalemotorcars.com/forum/large-scale-cars/18730-article-motm-29-winner-tie-1-8-talbot-lago-t26c.html

I think Casey is touching on the nub of the title of the original post. Are we talking about the fastest "Street car," "streetable" car, or the fastest street LEGAL car? I doubt that the Camaro in question would pass legal standards in a slew of states. I remember when I lived in DC that the Superbird was banned in Maryland.

I think the Consul part was dropped when the V4 and 2000E designation came about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Corsair EDIT: It appears that's the deal. The website www.fordconsulcorsair.co.uk/ states the following: Welcome to my Ford Consul Corsair website! This is a website dedicated to the inline, 1498cc models known as the 'Consul Corsair' which were produced from the summer of 1963 until October 1965. It does not cover the V4 models which were introduced from October 1965 and badged simply as the "Ford Corsair."

This site can probably find the answer... http://priceofhistoys.com/

All of your work rivals the master of the game in box-stock kits –– Juha Airio.

Very nicely done. I remember these cars had their own racing class at the British Grand Prix in 1968, and it was a hoot to watch them avoid turning over in the esses (which their street counterparts could not have done, based on their extreme body lean).

When I opened the original post, I got this banner ad with it.

1/12 AMT 1937 Cord Sportsman 2-seater 1/24 Monogram 1937 Cord Phaeton 5-seater -- my reference for turning the 1/12 into a phaeton. The wheelbase is the same so it shouldn't be a huge problem.

Beautiful work. Clearly, you haven't lost your touch.

I know others will tell you about smaller scales, but Minicraft has a pretty nice 1/16 kit. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=1%2F16&_sop=10&_osacat=2580&_from=R10&_pcats=1188%2C220&_armrs=1&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.X1%2F16+MODEL+A+PICKUP&_nkw=1%2F16+MODEL+A+PICKUP&_sacat=2580

I think we should ALL have beers together. And see who's left alive. I'm up for Chicago, my favorite beer joint town on earth, with lots of pizza on the table.

I keep forgetting that plastic car model kits represent the number one hobby in the world and that manipulating prices is the path to vast fortune.

As I mentioned above, the occasional guys who part out a kit on eBay at silly prices have to be tremendously powerful to drive hobby prices up nationally.

A. No. B. How does a guy parting out a kit on eBay drive the overall cost of the entire hobby higher, except for the price to the individual who buys those parts? Are there measurable figures on this? Man, that's a powerful guy.

I think that's quite an assumption. Consider that 1:1 auto replica makers have been hunted down by the original manufacturer and made to stop or to destroy their copies (Tom McBurnie's Ferraris were stopped by Ferrari, and last year Mercedes made a replica Gullwing maker destroy the bodies -- interesting YouTube video). The boat industry is notorious for upstart companies "splashing" hulls (making duplicate molds) from other manufacturers, creating a low price of entry into the industry and unfair competition.

That's part of the advantage of a franchise, depending on the company -- a lot of that is handled by the franchisor. Single store accounting and management, of course, is up to the owner. But that's what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Essentially, as a franchisee, you're renting a national brand and don't have to do it yourself.

Not cheap, but not overly expensive for an investor to open a HobbyTown USA store. This is from Entrepreneur. Startup Costs, Ongoing Fees and Financing Total Investment: $137,000 - $332,000 Franchise Fee: $20,000 - $25,000 Ongoing Royalty Fee: 3% Term of Franchise Agreement: 10 years, renewable FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS NET WORTH: $100,000 - $250,000 LIQUID CASH AVAILABLE: $75,000 - $125,000 OPERATIONS 5% of all franchisees own more than one unit. Number of employees needed to run franchised unit: 4. Absentee ownership of franchise is allowed. (95% of current franchisees are owner/operators). How This Franchise Supports Franchisees Training: Available at headquarters: 1 week. At franchisee's location: 3 weeks. Ongoing Support: Newsletter, Meetings, Toll-free phone line, Grand opening, Internet, Security/safety procedures, Field operations/evaluations, Purchasing cooperatives, Lease Negotiation Marketing Support: Co-op advertising, Ad slicks, National media,

Another world-class piece of work, Peter. Just beautiful.

HobbyTown may have more lenient franchise requirements (or enforcement). And, unlike corporations such as McDonald's, whose franchisees are heavy with well-heeled investment and family groups, with multiple locations and a larger stake in maintaining store uniformity and McD assistance, a survey of franchising companies shows that only 5% of HobbyTown store owners have more than one location. What you might call a Mom & Pop franchise situation. Look at the differences in size and inventory of Ace Hardware stores -- around here, they range from hole-in-the-wall strip centers to big box stores. As far as corporate chains go, I spent many years doing advertising for several supermarket chains, which individually had different sizes of inventory, different sales, different prices -- we had to do weekly price/item advertising in multiple versions for different markets based on prices and inventory, and each store manager's decisions. But McDonald's may be a better comparison than assumed. For example, they offer lobster rolls in Massachusetts, but not here in Tennessee, and more Hispanic items where appropriate. Their menus vary around the country and around the world to reflect local and national tastes.

I talked with a guy at my local HobbyTown a while back, and it appears that most of the stores are individual franchises with different owners, so that might account for the differences between stores in the same community.

This is a very neat piece of work. I noticed in the magazine article on page 2 of this thread that the roof top was brushed stainless steel, much like the old Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. The article also mentions that the car did have a drivetrain and a real gas tank with fuel filler neck, but they doubt that anything really worked on the car. A custom frame is shown, and they say it had a 225 hp Super Turbo-Fire V8 with a Powerglide transmission.

Same here, I lived in Houston during that time. I know that Johnny Carson parodied him continually. He kind of set the standard for crazy car dealer commercials.

1. NAPA showed a lot of class by divorcing themselves from this ugly situation. 2. I have shot TV commercials with Michael Waltrip and he is one of the nicest celebrities I've ever met -- and I've worked with a lot of them (there are a couple of former NASCAR stars that were ridiculous egomaniacs, but I won't name them). Darrell is also a terrific guy. I have confidence in Michael being a straight-up professional.