David G.

They just don't know how to powerslide. I can take my '71 Delta 88 town sedan through some fairly sharp curves without losing too much momentum. You just have to have the stones to break the rear wheels loose as you sling into the curve and use the vehicle's centripetal force to more or less sling-shot you through the remainder of the turn. You know you're doing it right if you're cornering to the left and you have the front wheels pointed a bit to the right. It's rather difficult to do and takes practice. It's also extremely hard on the car. You're trying to push the car sideways while it wants to go straight and that loads the suspension and frame in ways that the designers never intended. One of the advantages of this cornering method is that, if done properly, at the end of the curve your car is pointed straight down the road and you're already accelerating. That and it can be rather intimidating to be near a car, espesially a 5,000 lb sedan, when it breaks into one of these slides. Think of "Drifting" at 80mph in a tank. They're only "Straight-Line-Only Junk" if you don't know how to make them dance.

The detail items really add to the overall effect of the models. Excellent work!

Back when NASCARs used to be cars and not purpose-built race vehicles with car stylized car bodies grafted on. Excellent work.

That looks mega cool. I picked one of those up in glue-bomb form at the last swap meet and was wondering what I was going to do with it. Now I have some ideas! Thanks! Tail Fins Rock!

Lately I've been using the inner wire from the twist-ties that come with the boxes of kitchen garbage bags. I just heat the plastic coating with a butane lighter to soften it up a bit then strip it off with my thumbnail. The wire inside is steel, so it has the right color for fuel and brake lines and seems to me, to be about the right size. It's also esy to work with and best of all it's free!

Great job! Excellent paint work and color choice.

Very sharp! The color combo, and the overall look are spot-on. I'm old enough that I can remember seeing those when they were still new and driving around everywhere.

Hey, you must be that inner demon he was talkin' about! Ditto. Also, my wife is also an artist and therefore, understands when I get locked into a build project, she knows the power of The Zone. Seriously, I try to avoid impulse buys like that. When I'm out shopping or browsing and I see something that I feel the need to purchase, I spend some "quality time" with it there in the store. I kind of look it over, thinking about it, reading the package, feeling the weight of it in my hands, etc. Then, I walk away and seek out the item that I went there for, or go look at some other things for a while. After I find what I was there for, or feel that I've had enough time away from the "object of my desire", a few minutes is usually enough, I go back and reconsider the practical aspects of the purchase, budget, usefulness, etc. If desire and practical matters align, I usually buy it, if they don't and I still feel that I can't live without it, I write down what it is that I want to buy along with the price, and where I saw it on the back of one of my business cards and carry it around in my pocket for a few days. Every time I encounter the card over the next couple of days, I think about whether or not I'm still interested in the item. Sometimes I go back and buy it, but most times, I don't. That's kind of the long and extreme version of what goes on. I've been doing it this way for so long, that most times, I cycle through the process in a few seconds or minutes.

That's a neat thought experiment, and very well done. Many of us older guys may chuckle at the thought of hot rodding a Chevette, but if GM still made them today, the young guys would be tuning them (a hot rodder's car was always in tune, btw). How many of you older chaps out there remember the first time you saw a hyped-up Honda Civic or a hot rod Rabbit? Do you remember chuckling? Pointing and laughing? Shaking your head in confused wonder? Why would somebody spend so much time and money on what is essentially a "throw away" car? Drive it until it's used up, then throw it away, that's what ther're for. The answer is that young guys are going to build cars. For the most part, these are the only cars they have to work with. In my opinion, we were lucky to be (sometimes literally) given Detroit's old supercars to play with. When VW released the Rabbit in the 70's and GM quickly answered with the Chevette, there were still plenty of Detroit supercars around. The Rabbits and Chevettes were new, our grandparents were buying them. Now, thirty years later, though the first couple generations of those little cars have faded into history, in the minds of codgers like us, they're still fairly new, recent. We still remember, and in some cases, still play with, our fire-breathing iron monsters. Our supercars have also faded into history. There just aren't many of these cars left and with each passing year, they're becoming more difficult and expensive to obtain and maintain. These young fellows- fellow car guys, were born into a world vastly different than the one we grew up in. For the most part, the only thing they've known is these little "throw away" cars. To many of them, "Detroit Iron" is just one step past the horse and buggy- their great-grandfather's Oldsmobile. Young guys are going to build cars and they'll build what they have. If GM still made Chevettes, you can pretty much bet, that somebody would've done a custom paint job and slapped a six cylinder Acura engine into one by now. If only just to mess with people's heads! I think this Chevette is an excellent example of what could've been! Thanks for putting up with my rant, David G.

I was kind of thinking of the aircraft modelers who build the airframe without the skin. They put so much detail into the airframe, that to cover it would be silly. I envisioned the same for a car chassis, a model in its own right. I've thought of doing that, but I lack the fabrication tools skills at this point.

A very cool model, I enjoy seeing unusual subjects like this modeled, and yours came out nicely. Daaang! I was gonna make that joke. The "Retro Metro" I figured I had the right because the vanity plate on my 1:1 '71 Olds is RETRO 1 How appropriate to have a bread truck shaped like a loaf of bread?

A most impressive ammount of work! Have you thought about fabricating a complete metal frame? That would be a model in it's own right. A complete and detailed "rolling chassis"

Excellent paint work on your Merc. Is the image one of Boris Vallejo's?

Excellent work, you're really developing a good eye for detail. In my opinion, a big part of building is learning how to "see" in the artistic sense. Seeing things more for what they are, than what we expect them to be. Seeing the planes, angles curves and colors as well as the subject as a whole. Some people excell at this naturally, but most can learn it through practice. Catching the two-tone paint on the van, while others missed it, is a good example of seeing something more for what it is than what's expected. Keep up the good work! David G.

From where I'm sitting, it looks great! Well worth the effort.

Looks great! I love those old "land yachts"

Oh, I got it. It took me a couple seconds ti visualize it in my mind. The hole is drilled in the center and the nail head acts as the wire keeper on the top of the dist. Pretty clever, I'll have to keep that one in mind. Thanks, David G.

Christino ! !

Thanks for the info, Art. I thought the front bumper might be a reflection, but it's unusual that it came up like that in every shot. I've got to get some of that Alclad to work with. I wish you luck finding one of these gems for your son. I've been a VW fan for about thirty years, and my wife and I looked for one of these twenty years ago. They were very hard to find, and the ones that we did find weren't cheap. We finally settled on a '71 Bus for her. She enjoyed it, but it was S..L..O..W. It had a 0-to-60 time of 4.6 days. That's if you could get to 60 in the first place. In NE Ohio (not the world's hilliest place) we frequently found ourselves using the slow vehicle lane on the few freeways that had grades that steep. But my wife loved it, it was all a part of the charm, she would say. Thanks again for the feedback, David G.

my condolences

What was the name of that Eddie Murphy character, Mr. Robinson?

Most impressive! Your paint came out great. Your chrome seems to have the proper sheen, not too bright and kind of satiny, like VW chrome should be. Did you use "metalizer" paint or foil? I'm also curious about the front bumper. It seems to be "two-tone" with chrome on top and white paint on the bottom. I don't recall seeing a bumper painted like that before. I'm envious of all those who have been able to paint the window gaskets black, as they should be. After three attempts, and one roof repaint, I was unable to accomplish this task on my Bus. I also couldn't get the decal for the slots around the radio in the dash to come away from the paper in one piece; it pretty much disintegrated. Yours turned out great in spite of the difficulties!

Talk about "taking one for the team" eh?

When photos of an unusual or unique vehicle are featured on this forum, there's almost always an immediately expressed desire to model it. But not with this one? I have to admit, I find the thought of modeling this engineer's nightmare-mixture of domestic and automotive tech-knowledge-y rather intimidating. At the same time, that thought is more than a little intriguing. Is this Caddy just a little "too out there" even for our group? It's not a challenge, just an observation. I wouldn't challenge anybody to do something I didn't think I, myself could do.

Congratulations! I hope you enjoy building it, and be sure to post lots of pictures for the rest of us!