Darin Bastedo

Thank you. My inspiration was my love for the original daytona coupes. I also wish I had vacuformed the roof as I did a lot of filling and sanding too. I can't really take credit for the lines ans I simply took the design of the original and scaled it to the series one. I like the design of yours too. it's a much more modern interpretation, much like the viper coupe was inspired by the daytona coupes but weren't a copy of them. yours is definately a more original design.

thanks, I have a little more work to do on it, and I have to do an interior for it but as soon as I finish it will be cast.

That's really cool...I've been working on one too...

Ditto there are several on that list that need to be on my shelf...please tell us how to get them!

Beyond a shadow of a doubt I say Real!

Wow you nailed it! It looks just how I remember seeing it back in the day. Great Job.!

I'm not sure how many remember me, but I've posted here regularly until about a year ago. I left my home on eastern TN to move my Fiancee' and her daughter to TN from their home in Upstate NY, but while I was up there she was diagnosed with Colon Cancer. There have been ups and downs, some more serious than others, but we are now only three weeks away from the end of her treatments. So soon we will be able to turn our thought toward happier endevours as the prognoses for her is looking very good. I'm looking foward to returning to the modeling bench and finishing up a few projects, getting back to sharing the progress with you guys. Many of you have kept in touch with me and that helped me through many a tough time. Another huge help has been the American Cancer Sociaty. The nearest medical center capable of treateing my sweetie, is in Burlington VT, and the ACS helped with travel expenses, and even no cost housing in Burlington at their "Hope Lodge" With out the help of the ACS we wouldn't have made it financially, and it would not have been possible to get her the care she needed. The Hope lodge we are staying at right now has a "Relay for Life " team that is raising money to help the ACS carry on their good work. If any of you have just a few dollars to spare, and would like to support a good cause, click here and you will go to our team's site. I can't wait to get back to my modeling, and back to the beautiful hills of eastern TN.

I haven’t been posting much in the past few months as model building has taken a back seat to what’s been happening in my life lately. For those interested I’m posting an update on how things are going. Last many of you have heard from me I was traveling to Northern NY to move my Fiancée and her daughter to Tennessee with me but shortly upon getting there tragedy struck, and she was diagnosed with colon cancer. With that news we decided that it would be best if she were to stay in NY where her support system, and family was, so I quit my job and moved there to take care of her. In august she underwent surgery in Burlington VT to remove the cancer and that went well, as they were able to remove all visible cancer and she recovered well. The trouble started when the chemo started. The Oncologist we started with here in Potsdam NY screwed up badly and overdosed her on the drug and it caused a neutropenic infection which nearly killed her, and left her hospitalized for nearly two months, and was bedridden until about two weeks ago. We have switched oncologists and this one is one of the best in the region. On Jan. 16 she will resume treatments and we have every assurance that it will go smoothly. She should be through with chemo by April and we can hopefully get back to a normal life. Through all of this we have been helped greatly by our friends, neighbors and the American Cancer Society. The ACS has been especially helpful as we often have to make many 190 mile trips to Burlington VT for appointments and her treatments. They have allowed us to stay at the ACS Hope Lodge, (free housing for cancer patients) and have re-reimbursed our travel expenses. When we get back on our feet the American Cancer Society will be our #1 charity. We would like to encourage those who are financially able, to donate to this cause also. Many of you have written to show support and to offer good will, and we have appreciated your kind words. We have been blessed to have many close friends. I hope you and yours a Merry Christmas. After April I hope to become involved in our hobby again, and correspond to all of you about happier subjects. Thank You all, and God Bless you, Darin Bastedo & Family

The Kit also comes with a fully detailed engine... The Decals are supplied by Vintage Racing Miniatures and Printed by Cartografâ„¢... The wheels and tires are crisply cast and far superior to those found in the Gunze Kit. Anther rare and impressive feature of this kit, is the cast glass parts. Most Resin kits come with fiddley vacu-formed glass, but the crisp and nearly distortion-free glass in this kit will be welcomed by those used to traditional kit glass. Over all I'd have to say this is the best resin kit I've ever bought. There is no need to to buy a donor kit, or anything but glue and paint to complete this kit. For More Pictures click here to to view my Fotki folder.

Historic Racing Miniatures Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe Full Detail Resin & Photoetched Mulimedia Kit MSRP $185.00 Sample Bought From Strada Sports I recently traded in my Gunze Sangyo Shelby Cobra Daytona kit, and took the $185 plunge to get the Historic Racing Miniatures Resin Cobra Daytona Coupe. Generally the Guze Kit sells for $75-$125 on Ebay, when you can get one. The difference between it and the HRM kit, leaves no doubt that the extra money spent is a bargain. Being a Shelby Cobra Fan, The Gunze Kit has been a grail of mine, for years. A few years ago I bought one, and at first was thrilled but eventually the thrill wore off as I realized that the Gunze kit has some major problems; 1. It's frame consists of tubing and intructions of how to cut it. basicly they expect you to scratch build the Chassis. 2. the Chassis detail that is there is cast in white metal that requires a lot of clean-up. 3. It's a curbside, which in and of itself is not bad, but for a curbside it is a very complicated build. Given these problems the Gunze kit reamianed un-built on my shelf, as I dreamt of building it into a full detail contest winner. In the mean time I was browsing through Strada Sport's website and stumbled across The HRM Cobra Daytona. It looked good and came highly recommended, but the $185.00 Price tag made me shiver. I wrestled with the discision for months wieghing the plusses and minuses, and finally last week I bought it. I have to say I was pleasently surprised, not only was the kit in stock, but Kevin Rodgers of Strada Sports got the kit to me in just a couple of days. I opened the box and was in shock. I've never seen a better resin kit at any price. I haven't Counted but there must be more than 200 pieces, but not one of them had so much as a pinhole or even the smallest flaw. All the photo you will see are the kit pieces exactly as I pulled them out of the box with no clean up. The Body is well proportions, thinly cast and smooth inside and out... The Hood Is cast separately but mates up to the body flsh and straight. The panel at the back of the hood is lightly glued in to protect the hood durind shipping, and the delicate innerfenders are taped in place to protect them too. Even the hood hinges are cast inplace to ensure proper fit... The Chassis is cast in one piece and sits level... The suspension pieces are simplified but finely detailed. Clever Detail painting will really make these come alive. The Photoetched parts are well done, and look to be the work of the Model Car Garage... To be continued...

Great looking start. I'm a huge cobra fan. One thing you might change is CSX3015 had an automatic transmission... Here is a link to my Cobra reference photos... My Cobra Ref. Pictures Darin Bastedo

Here's another shot of it... it was at last friday's Kingsport TN Cruise in.

This update covers more work done on the frame and the improved rear suspension, brakes, and half shafts, as well as more progress on the interior, and steering gear. Here is the 1:1 Rear Suspension: Here is the scale version with scratch built aluminium half-shafts, Arrowhead Aluminium Resin & machined aliminium Cobra brakes. Here are a few more frame pieces I've scratch built to replace their plastic counterparts. Here is how the various componants are starting to fit together; I modified the kit steering rack by drilling out the boots and gearbox, so that when I do the posable steering the tie rod will pass through the tube, allowing the model to have working steering and an accurate appearance; Here is the new dashboard. it aslo is formed from aluminium sheet and drilled for guages and switches. The Gauge bezels for the speedo & tach will have bezels made out of sliced aluminium tubing, and the accessory guages will have photo etched bezels from an old Performance Detail Products detail set. The glove box will be hinged and filled with stuff from the Detail Master Interior Junk set. The deeper I get into this build the more I'm amazed at the elgant simplicity of the Cobra's design. It had almost nothing that wan't there for performance. Thanks for looking, let me know what you think.

If you consider a pedal car a model, I say model. check out the size of the steering wheel.

In this update I'm showing the upgraded front suspension. I'm using scratch built aluminum brackets to mount modified R&D Unique Coil over shocks. These are some of my favourite aftermarket Items as the only cost a few dollars for a set of four, but make a huge difference in the realism of the kit... Before After the rear will be getting a similar treatment too.

Ask and you shall recieve...

I'm learning a lot about the construction of the Shelby Cobra's doing this build. I've built many of these Monogram Cobras but i wanted this to be a super detailed replica. In this installment I'll show you the trunk panel, the tailpipes and the new door panels. Yeah for Monogram for actually making the interior the correct shape to allow room for the under car exhaust... I used aluminum rod for the pipes and bent it using a K&S tubing bender. To the trunklid I added the round tube detail, and incorporated it into the hinge assembly. I wasn't happy with the thickness of the doors and their fit in the openings, so I made new door skins out of aluminium sheet. I was trying to figure out how I was going to replicate the leather door pockets. but i had a brainstorm on the way home. cheap adress books (about $1.99) are covered in paper thin leather textured vinyl, so i will cut them out of this. I'm really enjoying this build as it's really making me push my envelope.

I've always said that the proper tools make things easier. The picture below shows the tools I use to cut and shape the aluminium. I have a number of different shaped jeweler's files which works well for the final shaping but the rough work is done with a pair of small curved scissors (these work very much like miniature tin snips), and the folding is done with a pair of flat edge pliers (make sure that the ones you buy have a smooth non-textured mating surface). even with these tools you will get a little bit of curling but it can be easily flattened with the pliers.

Thanks for the compliments. The mock up chassis comes in very handy. Thanks, I mastered those.

I've started on the underbody tin. I've decided to make it out of .008 Alminium sheet from K&S. Since the most complex piece was the radiator cowling I made that first. I'm working on the inner fenders, firewall, trunk panels etc. next. Comments welcome.

In this Update I will show the modifications I've made to the rear of the Street Cobra. Below is a cut away drawing with the frame sections to be added highlighted in red; Here is a photo of the 1:1 frame; Here it is in scale; I also filled the hole for the sunken 427S/C gas cap so I can install a street car gas cap; Thanks for looking.

Tonight i'm working on the fender vents. I figured I'd do thoese before I got too far on the body work just in case I screw them up. With out realizing it I'm learning a lot from Harry's "Real Or Model" Posts. In trying to figure out whether a picture is of a model or not, has given me insight into what makes a Model look like a model.. Many times it's little thing like textures, and very small details. That's why I decided to open up the fender vents while it really is an small detail, but it's one that adds depth to the build. Here is my last Cobra build, A 1967 AC 289 Sports; If this were in a "Real or Model" the fender vents would be a dead give away that this is a model. Here is the opened vents on my 427 Street Cobra; They still need a little bit of clean up but I think they go a long way to making the car look more real.

Thank's Cal, All good advice. This will be the 23rd Monogram 427 Cobra I've built. I've learned that with this kit it is very important to dry fit everything. One thing that helps a lot is I have a full time test mule to trial fit all of my modified parts on. Here it is test fitted with my work in progress front inner fenders; I learned to do this from a friend who used to build nothing but winston cup cars. He had mock up chassis from every type of car he built which allowed him to fabricate pieces to fit in the space allowed even though he hadn't gotten that far into the build. in this case it will allow me to design the inner fenders and Street style under-car exhaust to clear all of the kit's pieces, with out having to fuss with an almost finished build while doing it. I usually take a little different tack when doing the radiator shroud/expansion tank/radiator assembly; I Usually paint & detail the shroud and the expansion tank and then attach both of these to the body. This allows me to attach the inner fenders to the body, and makes it easier to drop the body onto the chassis. It also allows me to install proper front brake ducting that the kit also lacks. As you can see here there is a lot of detail up front that the Monogram kit only hints at; Attaching all if this to the body makes it easier to keep it all together during final assembly. Using the mule chassis also allows me to have a visual reference for the correct location & angle of the radiator and other chassis componants. Sort of like a 3D instruction sheet.

I've started work on the body. One of the tings that bothers me the most about this kit, if that the hood and the surounding bodywork don't sit flush. This is where that whole obsessive compulsive thing gets in the way. the difference is only .25mm but it is enough to show up in photos especially when the paint is really glossy. So I'm in the process sanding the body flush with the hood being very carefull to maintain the contours of the body. you can see in the photo the areas that are still shiney in th areas I've been sanding. Those are the ow spots. as soon as those are gone the hood and the body will be flush... Other body modifications I will be performing will be opening up the doors and the boot, filling in the sidepipe holes, and opening up the fender air vents.

This is true, I have several of those kits, but I wanted one in 1/25. I do have a MPC 1/16 Cobra that I'm working on that I'm correcting the body. That kit has no oil cooler scoop, which would be correct for a handful of later 427 Street Cobras, (somewhere in the 3300 serial numbers) so I'm working on adding the scoop.