fumi

Not exactly synthetic, but biodiesel has been in use for quite a while.

If you must buy within the US, I have been using Model Empire (http://modelempireusa.com) for quite a long time and their price on import kits seems to be reasonable. You can also find good deals on Star Models. I think Steve deals in used kits so sometimes the kits are opened with parts cut out, you might want to ask him about the kit's condition beforehand. http://resinrealm.net/Star/STARModels.html As for paint, if you are just starting out you should probably stick with hobby paint for now. I prefer acrylic because they are easier to clean up.

People can opt not to work, but without legitimate reasons they won't get paid. I think it holds true for most societies. The government has not fixed salary since the 70's, after Mao died. Factories and office jobs will pay more salary than people can make in farming, so the young people rushed to the cities to work in them. Foreign companies who set up office in China will pay a salary several times more than the local companies, so the brightest and smartest people go work for them. It is just that the salary is still lower than in the West, even with all the increments over what the local companies can afford to pay. The one child policy has its consequences, and the people are feeling it now. Without it the consequences would have been much worse, though. It is reforming, albeit in a slow pace. The numerous revolutions in the last century from an empire to a republic to communism showed that abruptly changing the form of governemt did not work well in China. It had actually pushed back progresses. In reality China is moving past the "cheapest production" stage. The salary has raised to the point where industries that require intensive labour and little input has become unprofitable, especially for garment. A lot of those factories have relocated to Bangladesh, Burma and Vietnam in recent years.

Yes, some companies have copied Western designs, and the market has told them to either clean up their act or get lost. Doesn't this answer your original statement of "how China respects copyrights"? China didn't really become industrialized until the 80's, when businesses from Hong Kong started moving their factories across the border. It spent the 80's and 90's making garments and small electronic goods for foreign companies. It wasn't until the late 90's that indigenous brands started to become mainstream in the white goods market. For the automotive market, the indigenous brands are still fringe players and I don't see this to change any time soon. It might have a lot of factories, but as far as industrialization goes it is at around the same level as Japan was in the late 60's to early 70's, though it is catching up rapidly.

Essentially what Japan went through in the 60's, or Taiwan and South Korea in the 80's. Japanese cars in the 60's and the early 70's looked just like scaled down versions of American cars, before they went on and developed their own designs.

And how many of those cars you quoted, all were from the last decade or older, are still in production? Shuanghuan, which made the X5 and the Smart lookalike and the majority of the "clones" you mentioned, is winding down its passenger car business. Lifan, which made the "Mini clone", has revamped their entire car lineup. The rest are either car show specials that never went into production or are long gone from the market. The market has been changing so rapidly in the last couple years that it has largely stamped those clones out. Companies that cannot cope with the changes are forced out of business. As for the Dongfeng Mengshi, AM General could not sell the Humvee to the PLA under sanction so they sold parts for 100 vehicles to Dongfeng, with full understanding that Dongfeng will produce the car indigenously from then on. A civilian version was devised to skirt the sanction, but was never sold to the public.

Other than a resemblance of the headlight and grille area most of them don't look even close. In the case of Tongji Auto Roadster vs Audi R8, I can't see any resemblance at all. And how old are these? At least the Shuanghuan Laibao SRV was from before year 2000. The Geely Merrie 300 Mercedes lookalike was never produced. The current BYD F6 looks nothing like the one in your link at all.

Wrong. China has been part of the Patent Cooperation Treaty since 1993. http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?lang=en&treaty_id=6 You can't obtain patents for pirated copies. Of course, pirates wouldn't bother with patents in first place. Patents also need to be applied in each country where protection is sought. A lot of the troubles stem from cases where foreign companies did not bother to apply the patents in China, and someone else took the design and applied it for themselves. I suggest anyone not familiar with patent laws in China to read up on it instead of making things up. And foreign companies do win patent cases in China, if the patents were applied properly. http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2013/05/07/design-patents-in-china-applications-infringement-and-enforcement/id=40026/

Generally for items that are officially exported there should not be too many difficulties. The problem starts when the products are meant to be for domestic consumption only but "somehow" got leaked to the outside world. Hence the official classic Italian sports car kit made by a respectable model company, which was never supposed to be sold outside of Korea. One side note for Academy. They started their business making clones of Tamiya kits in the 80's, down to the mistakes and wrong scale, and went on to become a respectable company on military subjects, like the ground breaking full detailed Tiger I kit in the 90's. That's why they never released that Israeli Centurion they promised every year in their catalog and modellers asked for every year back then. It was based on the inaccurate motorized Tamiya Cent from the 70's, just when they were ready to release it in the early 90's they have become respectable in the military modelling world, and they were not going to tarnish their reputation with that abomination of a kit. Entirely different cultures do make things difficult a lot of times. In my experience working with Japanese is even harder, when what they tell you may or may not be what they actually have in mind, and you are entirely on your own to decide which way it is. They will say things they think you would want to hear, and they expect you to be able to tell they don't really mean it, just like they do naturally day in and day out. But back to the generic 1/35 boxy pickup trucks and SUVs for military dioramas: these companies consulted with their lawyers and made sure their kits are generic enough to not raise a problem, and no car company in their right mind would make a fuss over some model cars supposed to be used by insurgents and suicide bombers that may or may not resemble their products. When Meng makes the F-350, they obtained a proper license from Ford.

You might want to know that Academy is a Korean company.

The brilliant thing about Gundam is its appeal across so many generations in such longevity. Fathers growing up watching and building Gundams in the 70's and 80's are watching and building Gundams with their kids today, and both the fathers and the kids are enjoying it at the same time. I don't think there is a parallel in the Western world, as far as modelling goes. It is considered geeky to build models. You probably wouldn't want to let it be known that you are an avid modeller during your teenage years, lest the girls think you are weird. But unlike anime, there is no negative connotation for adult who build models (unless you build anime figures with skimpy outfits). One outgrowth of the supposed geeky-ness of the car modelling hobby is "Ita-sha", a genre invented by Aoshima and Fujimi that combined model cars with anime. It became successful enough that it crossed over to the real car world. Some actual race cars in the Super GT and the drift series sported anime graphics in recent years to grow their market in the anime geek segment. There is one more thing that helps car modelling in this part of the world. Real car is generally not a necessity and the upkeep of a car is very expensive, especially for those who live in the city. Unlike their counterparts in the US or Canada, most young people who want a WRX or a Evo or that black and white Hachiroku just like Fujiwara's will have to get it from Aoshima, Fujimi or Tamiya.

There were a few Accords as well, both the Euro and US/Japanese spec. The idea was neat, but there were too few entries (around 10 cars each race), and only the Stratus and the Accord were competitive. Probably not the best idea to tack them on as CART's sideshow either. It would have been much better if it was run by, say, SCCA as a separate series. Which really is a shame because the European and Japanese series provided some very good racing.

I'm sure it comes with a can of goo and a electric pump as standard. I had one of those in my last Fiesta, it actually worked well enough when I had a puncture, and the tire could still be patched afterwards. Although the guys fixing the tire weren't too impressed about it.

The best thing that could have happened is the Habs get swept by the Kings. As the Habs failed to make it to the Finals, the next best thing would have been the Rangers get swept by the Kings. Now that they managed to stay alive, I'd take the Kings winning it all at home.

How about limonene glue? Supposed to be made with citrus extract and non-toxic, but you will need to double check the label. http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/87113limonene_cement/index.htm http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/87134limonene_cement/index.htm I have not tried the ones from Tamiya or Mr. Hobby, but the one from Sirius/Tristar works well enough for me.

It seems to me the 46 grille is specifically made that way to fit the contour of the grille opening molded into the front end. In the kit the front end is formed as a flat vertical plane. The grille opening is sunken into it, with a flat backing. The grille is installed into the opening. It is designed for the 47/48 grille, with the grille bars extending outside the opening. For the 46 grille they just made it the exact squared off shape as the opening, so the grille fits inside it.

The clear and chrome parts were never bagged before they moved production to China. Back then they stuffed every sprue into one single flimsy plastic bag. Clear, chrome and all. Scratch was guaranteed. IIRC they stopped doing that around the early 90's. Clear and chrome sprues were still unbagged, but are packaged outside the big bag of sprues. They also started using stronger bags. When production moved to China the clear and chrome parts started getting bagged as well.

As per Beemax's Facebook page: 1/24 CHEVROLET CRUZE WTCC - JUNE 2014 1/24 1991 ST165 RALLY MONTE CARLO - AUGUST 2014 1/20 McLaren MP4 /2 - DECEMBER 2014

Funny you mention Model Empire, I get a lot of kits from them regularly, which would probably not happen if not for the Internet. Maybe the Internet didn't kill all the hobby shops, afterall.

These ones? http://www.revell.com/model-kits/cars/85-4056.html#.U13C_FdD5dw http://www.revell.com/model-kits/cars/85-2148.html#.U13C21dD5dw

I believe the water pumps on the passenger car and truck engines are different, too. The ones in the 48 Ford would be more correct?

I would avoid the older issues and just get the latest release. With the way they crammed everything in the little box back then and the age of the kit, you can expect some serious warping issues with the old releases.

When someone orders a Venom GT, Hennessey will buy a Lotus, strip it to the bare monocoque and modify it to accept the Chevy V8. Here is an article on the Venom GT by EVO, a British car magazine that doesn't hold a particular bias against American cars (and in my mind way better than the much overhyped, overrated Top Gear): http://www.evo.co.uk/features/features/288841/az_supercars_hennessey_venom_gt.html

It is based on the Lotus Exige.

This has been covered before: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52024 For a 427 Cammer I'd go with Ross Gibson's resin engine. The Blue Oval scripts on the cam cover in mine is very faint, but you can always scribe it out to represent the early version with straight ribs. For kit based Cammer, the AMT one is off. The one from Johan looks nice, but will need work on the spark plug locations.