sjordan2

The red one is Pocher's Bugati 50T Superprofilé, which I think is the coolest of the bunch. Both of these are great builds.

Lelouch, of course directed several classic French films of the 60s, notably "A Man and a Woman." It's a love story involving a race driver and a movie script girl, and has lots of good car scenes featuring a GT40, etc. (He also featured a Mustang convertible; this was part of a financing deal with Ford to get the movie made - one of the earliest examples of product placement.) He recycled footage he had shot of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Very good movie.

Reminds me of Woody Allen's "Sleeper," where scientists try to clone a dead dictator using only his nose.

Original or not? You guys should see the posts at the Antique Automobile Club of America (aaca.org) or bugattibuilder.com to see how passionate these guys get about what's valid and what's not. We're talking about millionaires getting nastier than we do.

Why was the body shell shown at SEMA with the hood and front fenders, when they aren't part of the package?

I also agree with Grand Prix, and was fortunate to see it on a giant, curved screen in the Super Panavision 70 process that replaced Cinerama. Saul Bass was a genius and did many of the best titles of the 50s, 60s and 70s, He was no slouch at basic graphic design, either, having designed the Exxon logo and stations, along with much more. Here's the entire opening of Grand Prix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADL_gjDim4

Is this '55 the type you're talking about? Evidently Chrysler gave them a new one each season, '55-'58 (switched to a Buick Invicta in '59). I just saw an episode last week where he was driving a '57.

I think the wagon would make a killer woody.

x2. While Purple Power has worked beautifully for me when stripping chrome, it didn't work well on a painted body after 3 days of soaking. I followed Dave Zinn's suggestion of Dawn Power Dissolver and it worked just fine.

The one thing about the Studebaker is that many different entities own different parts of the Studebaker trademark. There's Studebaker Motor Company, who promised years ago to build a new Studebaker car but so far hasn't found the financing. There's a T-shirt company that has the trademark for that purpose. There's another company that owns the "Lazy S" logo and others who have the red ball logo for different purposes. The next question is, how many of these people who claim to be trademark owners are just licensees? And if they're licensees, who gave them the licensing rights? The fact is, no one knows who owns the basic trademark rights, and one search of the USPTO files lists the trademark as dead, because nobody renewed it. It's very complicated. The only way to get at this is to do a trademark search with the USPTO, strike a deal with someone based on whatever ownership rights they have, and move ahead. This sounds like expensive lawyer stuff.

We know that some of the kit makers look at stuff on this board, with a few of their professional associates participating here, as well as others. May I suggest, Christian, if you're assembling the information, that it would be good to set a deadline, put together a top ten, even a top 20 list, and open it up to a poll. That would supply the kit makers with at least a bit of numerical data for decision-making. I don't know if this site has software to make it possible for voters to submit their top 5, but maybe there's an off-site mechanism for voting that can make that possible. Hey, this is a free focus group of enthusiasts for the kit companies, and I bet we could get Moebius to beat everyone to the punch with a bullet-nose Studebaker.

Regardless of brand, almost all of the metallic paints I see look out of scale unless you're going for a custom metalflake look. Pearls look much better to me.

Try this http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/t/105159.aspx

Calkichi strikes again. Inaccuracies or not, this is a slam dunk. http://www.hobidas.com/blog/j-tipo/desktop/

For some of that variety, like the vintage Mog 3-wheeler, there are a few pretty good older kits in 1/16 (as I'm sure you know). I'd like to see the new 3-wheeler as a kit. I've noticed that Revell of Germany is getting ready to reissue the original Revell 1/16 Rolls PII Continental; I wonder if it will have any differences from the old kit.

I agree. And the big question is how well the research is interpreted, which takes some reasonably sharp people. It's probably a good thing that Revell doesn't totally rely on car models for their income.

I wonder if the model companies are misled by the kind of kits that are being built out there by modelers, and are represented on forums like this. Modelers build the kits that are available, like a '32 ford, Pontiac GTO, Mustangs, Camaros,, General Lees, etc., etc., etc, whether they come from eBay or somewhere else. Ferrari fans get their fixes on new cars, but not so for other kinds of fans. That's all we've got. The companies figure "That's what modelers build, so that's what they want." Why tool something new? Maybe that's why we see the same old stuff being reissued, and modified new versions of all those. Good for Moebius for identifying other ways to go. I would agree with Harry that companies like Revell might do some market research, but these are not giant corporations, and they may not have the funds to do particularly in-depth research. For example, the ad agency I worked for most recently would run focus groups for major regional advertisers that interviewed up to 30 people. In launching one new product, Procter & Gamble will interview hundreds, if not thousands, and produce test advertising costing millions that may never run, for a product that never goes to market.

Wow. Just stunning. Amazing detail and the dashboard is perfection. I can't believe it only took a month to build it.

Boy, there's some great stuff here. My favorite Cadillac model that I've ever seen is John Teresi's 1/16 1933 V-16 Town Car. I won't post images without his permission, but check it out and you'll see it's typical Teresi excellence all the way. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34883&hl=%2B1933+%2Bcadillac&fromsearch=1

Awesome model, superb build diary.

If you have an Ollie's near you, they may be having a special clearance on Lindberg and Testors car kits ($7.99 - $9.99), which I just saw in an insert in this morning's paper. Supposedly resulting from smoke damage in a California warehouse fire. Ollie's locations are in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Doug has a pretty amazing build diary on this at scalemotorcars.com, but it's up to 13 pages. It would be great to have edited updates here. http://www.scalemotorcars.com/forum/large-scale-cars/14237-article-re-pocher-alfa-romeo-monza-build-diary.html

How many categories can a model car contest handle? I don't know, since I don't attend or participate. But it seems to me there has to be limited number of categories, particularly at smaller, local levels. I would think that rat rods and rustbuckets should take their chances in rods & customs. Maybe there needs to be a separate category for "Overall Skill & Creativity."

The Texas company mentioned in the article has been remanufacturing DeLoreans for a while, using original factory stock parts and donor cars. While they maintain that the cars are "new," they use the base car's original VIN.

Just like movie stars, there are many race drivers who feel a call to use their fame to improve the lives of others. There are quite a few drivers who use their notoriety to draw attention to charitable needs. Dan Wheldon used his fame to draw attention to Alzheimer's, which has visited his mother. I was privileged to get a personal tour by Kyle Petty of his"Victory Junction" medical resort for very sick children (originally called "Adam's Place" in honor of his son Adam who died in a NASCAR wreck), and there was the late Ayrton Senna who, during his career, raised millions to help Brazilian street children. This charity continues with the assistance of Alain Prost, once his nemesis. As crazy as the sport may be, let's not overlook the contributions of the participants who use their money and their fame for the betterment of others.