fumi

The Opel Kadett/Vauxhall Astra was in the same class as the VW Golf, Peugeot 205 and the European Ford Escort. It was actually a decent car, and the GSi version had a 2.0 DOHC 16V engine with a Cosworth designed head. As an aside, it had always baffled me why GM did not just use the C20XE in the North American market instead off reinventing the wheels with the Quad 4. They were already using the OHC version in the Sunbird at that time, it would probably cost them less to manufacture the new head in NA instead of all the development cost for a brand new engine. And the C20XE was good enough for Caterham to replace the Cosworth BDR with in the Super Seven HPC. Another example: take a rock solid 1986 Acura Legend that everyone raved about, throw some cosmetic tweaks to the body and some wood bits to the interior, and build it in the UK. You got yourself a Sterling 825, a car that literally falls apart after a year.

I just find it interesting that when badged as an Opel the car was European Car of the Year and when badged as a Daewoo/Pontiac it became a POS.

That's a very good price. I haven't seen the clamshell fender version for a long time, and the cycle fender version retailed for that much a few years back when Tamiya seemed to have made a run of reissue.

Speaking of hockey, I think the last thing the NHL really needs is yet another team, especially in the Sun Belt.

They are more like Buick, big expensive sedans for people over 50, just one rung below the President. The commercial version is very different from the consumer version. It uses a posted sedan body style instead of the consumer version's hardtop. At the 1991 model change, the commercial version broke off and remained on the Y31 platform, and is still being produced today. The consumer version progressed to the Y32/33/34 platform until it was replaced by the Fuga in 2004. The Y34 Cedric/Gloria was exported to North America as the Infiniti M.

So Ford ripped off Aston for their front end design and Fiat is ripping off Ford now?

Digital camera was invented by a Kodak employee in 1975, and by 1989 they had developed the first DSLR. Kodak rejected to marketing it, for fear that it would jeopardize their film sale.

Funny you mentioned that, because in the Facebook car modelling groups I am in, kids are turning out great works on Hondas and Toyotas, works that can rival many builds in here. Especially with the Revell Honda kits that people keep saying Revell couldn't give away. They are not just building them straight out of the box but also parting them out to swap the engine and mechanical into other curbside kits. There are definitely young people building models, they are just not hanging out in the typical forums or LHS. Many of them are attracted to Facebook groups where they can share their builds and talk about model cars with people all over the world. No memes, no flames, and no lectures on how lame a particular genre or build style is.

I usually ask Norm for a pdf copy by e-mail. He responds very quickly.

These decal sets from Auto Colour are available as of now: http://www.hobbyeasy.com/cgi-bin/i8_user_page.cgi?a=advance_search_result&page_size=10&page_number=1&keyword=cruze&category_code=AUDEC

The rest of the series are 2 variations of the Fujiwara Trueno, one with the pop-up lights down and the other with them up. http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/search?typ1_c=112&cat=car&sold=0&state=0&sortid=0&target=series&searchkey=Initial+D+(Aoshima) They were first tooled up in the late 90's, when the Initial D manga series started to become popular.

Internet shopping is so prevalent in China that many shops have turned online only. Have you tried TaoBao (www.taobao.com)? There are quite a lot of stores that are selling model kits and paints. I have personally bought from T7 Hobby and I am very happy with their services. Just pick shops that have been in business for a fair bit of time.

The Alphard has LHD model for the China market.

Vallejo paint cannot be thinned with alcohol or solvents. Your best bet is their own thinner. Which line of their paint did you buy?

That was a show entry. Body was scratch build, chassis based on Fujimi R32 GT-R, engine based on Tamiya 240Z.

I think they are listed under "STAR Models" in the resin kit dropdown box now.

Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland also sells the DeSoto grille, as well as the bumpers.

You can also get them from Steve Kohler at Star Models. He posts pics of the real kits on his site. http://resinrealm.net/STAR%20Models/index.html Star Models' home page: http://resinrealm.net/Star/STARModels.html

There are a lot of books and magazines on the history of Japanese scale models if you know the language.

I highly doubt that was the case. At the beginning, way before Tamiya entered the smaller scale car model market, the competing scales were 1/28, 1/24, 1/21 and 1/20 among the Japanese kit makers. 1/28 and 1/21 soon fell out of favour, leaving the market divided between 1/24 and 1/20 (although it did not stop the manufacturers from rebranding their 1/28 kit as 1/24, especially after mergers and buyout of molds from bankrupted kit makers). By the 80's the market has pretty much settled on 1/24, with LS and Bandai as the last holdouts for 1/20. After Bandai stopped making model cars and LS went out of business in the early 90's, 1/20 finally died off as the general car model scale in Japan. Tamiya started out with 1/12 for their detailed car kits, and scaled down to 1/20 in 1977 with the Tyrell P34, and to 1/24 in 1978 with the Porsche 935. By that time the Japanese market had already settled on 1/24 and 1/20, and I don't think there would be any Monogram influence that late in the game.

Model Car Garage seems to have a photo etch set in their pipeline judging from their preview pictures on Facebook, you might want to wait a bit.

You might also want to order some pre-drilled distributor caps for 6 cylinder engines from RMCM along with the side drafts. Fujimi did not include any.

From the blog it says 1/24.

Just saw it on Facebook. Ebbro will be making the Citroen DS19. http://ameblo.jp/ebr1998/entry-11968951605.html

No seat belt material included, but seat belt templates are printed on the instruction. I used Tamiya masking tape for seat belt back then. Now I generally use pre-cut after market materials from Tuner Model Manufactory.