Dave Van

It's a long story........Final word is Atomic City owns the JoHan name, logo and trade dress.

I like the Monogram kit. There us a issue with using the Warner Bros Road Runner image. EZ fix for aftermarket.

A nice clean build of one of my favorite Cup cars. I had a 'IN' in NASCAR during that era and Penske/Bobby was a Fav! So much so I bought a real 74 Matador coupe later on. The kit is a little simple. I have used the 90's era AMT Thunderbird chassis under mine and it works well with mods. Well done.... My 1/1 Mat....next project!

That looks like a real car!!! I have that kit.....if I ever get to it. I did build two of the 1/24 versions.....cool car...well done!

ONE of my other hobbies, Model railroading in O3r, has gone way out of hand. Back in the 1990's I could get a new loco $300. Now they are crossing the $2500 range. Yes...more stuff in them, more sounds etc......but I have given up buing anything new. Thx One of my custom painted 'cheap' locos. Painting model cars pays off!!

I am building a 23 T right now. Mine will NOT have a vertical steering. For comfort and drivability I am going with a C Cab. Because my prosthetic leg I need room. Those buckets with the guys folded up look horrible to drive. I am finding they are cooler looking than really fun!!!! We'll find out...

VERY COOL SPIN!

I don't have access to FSM but I can pretty much guess what it talks about. I built more of these kits than I care to count. AM sent two of them to McLaren in the UK as part of the license agreement. They were not EASY kits but if you left off the fuel lines (I do so on all the kits I built) that was half the battle. A little fiddley but after one it got easier. From what I know the deal with BcLaren did not end well and it was said the kit would never be run again by anyone. One we sent to UK

Last known they were in Korea.....but who knows if they survive or not. They were well done but never sold big volumes as they hoped. I always thought if the set had a big and little set up they sold better.

I can't say 100% who had those. Someone in the Concord NC area came in and bought everything left in the AM II warehouse at the very end. It included a bunch of XS Tuning wheels which were a off shot of AM II. They sold off the inventory on ebay out of kannapolis IIRC. But that stuff is running together in my mind now. Thx

1/24th

I was freelancing for both AM back in the day. The Vette went through a few tooling updates. I do not recall if headers were part of that.....but in the many builds they do not come to mind. If you get a AM II kit (look for Concord NC addy) it will be the most up to date version. thx

Saw online that a company called GTM Models is releasing a Grand Sport Vette kit. Injection molded, full detail with photo etch parts. This MUST be the old AM kit. Due after Sept and also has a resin driver figure )Penske?). MSRP around $36 My AM build

My daughter graduated from Marshall U with a early education degree. There was a model train show on campus the first year she was there. Figured a good way to get in a train show and see my daughter. She said she'd attend the show with me if it was OK to being a child she was doing day care for. He was autistic and wheelchair bound. When we got to the show he was captivated by the large train displays. To cut the story short.......in the end the boy's parents got him train set which became his favorite thing and became a teaching aid. My daughter wrote an essay on the benefits of model trains and learning disabled kids. It got to where there were a few kids with learning issues that would display at the train show. So hobbies are more than keeping our older minds working. Thanks

I agree that model cars, model trains etc do help keep the mind sharp. Thus they are vital not useless. I design each project in my mind many times before I sit and work on it for real. My wife designs kids clothes and sew and or knits them. Same benefit.......does seem to diminish her hearing.......hearing me anyways!! Project....useless?

Well done!! One of my favs from the FnF series. That car shows up at the end of Tokyo Drift, right?? I built one but never happy with the wheels I used!!

No dubt you are right.....my GM knolwdge is zero. I do know from working on and driving both a 74 Pinto and Vega equiped almost the same, the vega was a very hard to drive car compared to Pinto. When I worked on then the Pinto R&P worked better and was light. The Vega old tech 'Ball' steering looked huge and was very heavy feeling. Thx Pretty sure that 140 box is on my 23 T hot rod.....still a big heavy box!! My 46 has a FORD R&P set up.....so EZ to compare!

When we got married my wife drove a 74 Vega. I had worked on it a number of times as 'boyfriend' so when we got married we sold it for a house down payment.....a GREAT deal in hindsight!! Vega's issues were to many off the shelf GM parts in a really small car. The steering box was standard full size GM box.......heavy and vague for a sub-compact. And some of the design work in order to make the car work in the 'Vert-a-pack' rail car made it hard to work on. My exact memory fails me (50 years ago) but in order to replace the fuel pump, @ 30K miles, I had to take apart the dash.....why I can't recall. As soon as we sold it I forgot everything I had learned. To be fair I had a Pinto wagon hand me down from Dad. 2.3 4 speed with radio. That was a much better driving car. Rust did it in.

I am planning on building about 6 of these 'Auto Loader' cars for my 50's era O3r layou. Lionel did one but it was shortened and held 4 cars.......

COOL project!!! Wish I had just a bit of your 3D talent!!

Somehow I lost track of this thread and have not read it in a while. You guys have been posting some cool stuff!!! I bought all of those MDC kitbash kits when they came out. They are great boxes of parts!!! I also have both of the Krauss-Maffei AHM did, the SP and D&RGW paints. I like the new PECO versions but I am in O3r now and while I kept all my HO stuff...hard to pay the $$$$ for these new locos. There are times I think about how much HO layout I could fit in my 34 x24 layout room. Just enough for a decent O3r but huge for a HO......and the tons of HO stuff I still have?!?!?!?! Don't tempt me HO siren....... My O3r...Some of this is temp or testing for 'look'.........Thx

Nice work!! You do not see these built often. I've done more utsangs and my own Merkurs than Camaros.....thx

I like Hobbylinc........never any issues. Good deals

I do not have a account on Facebook. Yet if you do an internet search for 'Atomic City ohio' a FB page comes up, accessible by anyone account or not, with ALL contact info. A phone call or email will get you answers to your questions. VERY EZ if you are on the net. Thx

I love movie cars, seen Brazil a few times......I need to watch again. Very clean job, cool idea!