Jairus

I am good to go! Kit ordered and parts set aside. Curbside to get it done in time and will try to find my original 1968 Deora Red Line.... (oops, I guess that was a hint)

Be easier to come to agreement on politics or religion...

Model cars are made with plastic. Plastic is formulated from oil. Oil is the basis for much of what we enjoy! Consider: You cannot make a plastic model kit out of solar. You cannot make a plastic model kit out of wind. You cannot make a plastic model kit out of anything GREEN! (unless it is a soy bean... an then MAYBE.) The wasted part is that you contributed little to this thread, but I love your handle!

Slammer, curbside or full detail? What scale? Mail in or photo? Boxers or briefs? Do we need the original car present? Deadline? *can you tell I like this one....

Ahmmmm... "Unstoppable"? But I don't see William Shatner in that or any movie with Denzel where a Train is involved. At any rate, I did not see Unstoppable so I cannot make any comparisons. But, that said, "The General" was made in 1927. All the stunts are genuine, dangerous and live. No computer animation! The action is good, the comedy well thought out and if one puts it into perspective of today. Totally impossible for Hollywood to produced anything this well done ever again.

The original "Gone in 60 seconds" has to get the nod from me followed very closely by "Bullitt". But some that are not to be forgotten have to include "Diamonds are forever" ('71 Mustang on two wheels?!?!?!), "The Italian Job" (the original), "Smokey and the Bandit", "Gumball Rally" and my personal favorite.... "The General"!!! Yeah you heard me. The General was a silent pictures film staring Buster Keaton and a 4-4-2 Steam locomotive. The picture was filmed in 1927 but takes place during the Civil war. Buster is an engineer who is not allowed to volunteer to fight because of his current employment as a railroad engineer. Each half of the film is predominantly composed of two train chases over the same territory. Each scene in the chase of the first half had a counterpart in the film's second half. In the first chase, Johnnie (Buster) pursues his stolen locomotive taken to the North by the Union forces. In the second half, the Union spies chase Johnnie in his re-possessed General back to the South. The film concludes with a climactic battle at a river gorge, with the dramatic crash of the pursuit train into the Rock River in the film's most spectacular scene. The engine, by the way, laid on that river bed until the 70's when salvage of metal made it worthwhile. I know because many scenes were filmed here in Oregon along closed rail routes. Do not sell it short, it is as well made as Bullitt and even better than Gone in 60 Seconds....

That is only if we use coal fired power plants to produce the electric power. You should be clear! But Hydroelectric power, solar power and nuclear power produce NO co2 at all! No, it is not! To believe that we puny humans can have that much effect on the climates of this huge planet is the height of hubris. Global climate change due to carbon emission is pretty much debunked by science all over the planet. Sure, some still believe... But there are some that still believe in flying saucers. Just saying...

Well said James, I agree with you 100%!

There is only one product of combusion - water. Hydrogen burns in the oxygen in air to form hydrogen oxide or water vapour. No carbon is produced. 2H2 (g) + O2 (g) = 2H20 (g)

Careful Mike. You "quoted" me but changed my words. I realize that you were responding... but someone else might not understand. Would be better to delete the entire quote, since it followed directly, and just type your response. K? Thanks.

Incidentally, taxes in the trucking industry are based on weight. 28,001 lb. truck pays 3.64 cents, all the way up to 105,500 paying 13.24 cents per mile. A milage tax for cars would undoubtedly use the same structure whereby a lighter weight car pays less than a heavy SUV.

Commercial trucks in Oregon have been paying a "weight mile tax" since the 30's. What that means is no fuel tax if that diesel is purchased in-state. No electronic tracking required. The companies who travel through Oregon are required to turn in a monthly report and payment by the 15th of each month. Because of this there is a huge network of offices all over Oregon monitoring, implementing and auditing that tax structure. At 13+ cents per mile the income generated is way far and above the cost to staff the offices needed to make it work. Some companies do try to "beat the system", but the amount of evasion of tax is right around 3%. On the other hand, Washington, California, Idaho... indeed most of the contiguous United States all collect their tax via point of purchase. A fuel tax! This system requires far fewer staff to implement. Auditing and enforcement of course are still required as are those data entry persons who input the tax reports. Reporting is still required, in order to separate and distribute the taxes to each state should a driver only fuel up in one state and drive straight through another. Although computers and digital reporting are fast becoming the norm. So the International Fuel Tax Association (I.F.T.A.) distributes the taxes as fairly as possible based on miles driven. But the evasion regarding fuels tax is much higher... about 10%. Not to mention more economical vehicles tend to pay less per mile. A milage tax today would be a much fairer structure and could be done electronically at point of purchase. Simply drive through a station and gas up... while the pump downloads the number of miles driven from the computer electronically and adds it to the bill. The system can even separate one states miles from another and electronically distribute the taxes accordingly. A better system I feel... IF the fuels tax is completely removed at the same time.

I agree, there is no "conspiracy"! That would take a central leader or thought process with an ultimate goal. This is just normal everyday corruption, greed and self-righteous environmentalism that is the problem. In other words: "chaos" reigns rather than "control" in my opinion.

Just what is a "synthetic source"? The moment industry starts utilizing this source in any large qualities it will be taxed, regulated and the price will be ran through the roof! For the moment I believe the closest thing we have come to a replacement is hydrogen fuel produced by hydroelectric or solar and nuclear power. Hydrogen is nothing more than a storage device. In other words it requires the same amount of electrical energy to produce it as it gives back on the road burning it. But the differences are the range of the automobile being much greater than batteries. Hydrogen is produce with nothing more than electrical current and.... water! Lots of both and plenty of infrastructure already in place to support it. Plus it can be burned in the normal combustion chamber of todays cars with a different delivery system. hydrocarbons are little more than heat and water vapor! 10 years ago they were touting it's praises, but today I hear nothing about hydrogen fuel. Only about electric cars with a short 50 mile range and very expensive batteries. I wonder why? Could it be the battery manufacturers have lobbiests in Washington?

An alternative has to be made of SOMETHING! You cannot make something out of nothing unless you can make a fuel out of a rock or handful of sand. Creating such a simple 5% "additive" using corn based ethanol alcohol turned out a bust because it jacked up the price of corn, caused shortages in the product and returned a REDUCTION in the mpg of the average automobile! Whatever you come up with will eventually run out unless it is as plentiful as OIL! Burning trash can only get you so much fuel. Eventually we will run out of that too. An alternative to oil needs to be just as plentiful and just as powerful as the fuel our creator placed in bowels of this planet! There is nothing wrong with oil! It is not going to run out! It's just that those who have control of it are worse than any thug Hollywood thought up as a foil for James Bond! (Trying to control the world, for those in Reo Linda) They have us over a barrel and those who control the drilling practices in this country are paid off by environmentalists and lock up all the U.S. owned land in the name of "protection of some species nobody really cares about"!! All the while our standard of living drops and our stand on the world stage gets reduced to 3rd world status paying through the nose just to be able to drive to work each day! But at least the snowy plover, Alaska caribou and horned owl have places to live.... or whatever. Sheesh.

If government keeps getting involved, private ownership of automobiles may likely be relegated to only those who work for the government. All else will be required to take public transportation. That is if we last that long....

I am pretty sure that article was about building a "Sprint Car" and not a "Midget". As we all know there are three levels of cars out there with "Speedway" being the largest. (Incidentally running on the bricks... today?) The main differences between the three levels being engine size and wheel base. I tried using the Joe Henning article and only managed to build a hybred of a Sprint Car and Midget. The biggest problem was finding proper wheels and tires.... Edit: Found the link: 1947 Midget

Good to hear Harry because I got a balsa wood sprint car kit I want to do a build up on....

Here is the REAL THING! That's a local guy I know Darin Bay. I won't call him a friend exactly, but I did a lot of work for him this spring helping out on the design for his race car trailer wrap. Also spent a goodly amount of time around the two finished dragsters and the new one that was just sent out to the paint shop as the wrap finished up. The engines are turbines with the prop-shaft drive removed. They are same as what is found on medium sized turboprop aircraft and helicopters. The afterburner is hand made in the shop and effectively double the total thrust of the standard engine. That flame is more than half the length of the entire car by the way.... Top speed easily over 300mph in a quarter mile with-out even trying hard!

The distinction from my point of view is not whether it is a 'model' or not... but did you build it or not! That is the question and because most diecast looks so beautiful right from the manufacturer these days... many people/builders/judges/individuals are hard pressed to know what is and what is not hand made by the person who entered the model or is posting it on the forum. Therefore, some chose to dismiss all 'diecasts' as not worthy. Art's post above explains this to a tee from another point of view: that of the 'scratch-builder'! A model car kit is not scratch-built, but when someone makes a wing and a spoiler for it he is indeed scratch-building bits and pieces of the final product which would not exist in final form with-out the extra effort. I guess it is all in the level of effort and skill that we see distinctions and bias.

Well said Art! Well said. (is this thing still being debated?)

And now they are focused like a laser beam! ... with half the readership of the "good ol days". Just saying....

Slot cars can do most of that... except the "get in it" part. I can even do a burn out!

I disagree Terry. The view of the mag cannot possibly be THAT narrow and still survive.

The original was a 71 Chevrolet. I would checkIMDB for pictures and then simply hit google. Since it was released in the 70's it's not classified as a classic yet and was filmed too soon for DVD digital. Hard to find info... but, maybe you can find a copy of the movie? Good luck. Loved this one in the theater tho....