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Interesting. The story we always heard was that the former Soviet block countries were so starved for new cars that they would almost take anything they got, not to mention the wait to get one. From what I understand there are a whole lot of Trabants here in the USA. Lots of Mini's too. Funny thing when I drive my RHD Mini, I almost always have some brilliant soul comment on they didn't think it was leagal to frive a RHD car where everyone else drives LHD cars. My stock answer is in the form of a question. We'll have you told your mail carrier that their mail truck/van is illegal to drive? (Most U.S. Mail carriers drive a RHD, makes it easier for them to place mail in the mailboxes). When they figure out that they've sorta made a wrong assumption they almost always get a little red around the edges!

You're just knocken' those Trabants out of the park, another beautiful job. Your flocking looks just like the indoor outdoor carpet in the kit I got for the boot of my Mini! (Major compliment!!) Where are you finding all your reference material? The three Trabants that I've seen up close have more of a semi-gloss paint; love your glossy paint on them.

I ended up buying a Paasche spray booth for the exact same reason, I've been very pleased with that decision. The booth that you've shown looks like it should work well for you.

The Dawn dish soap worked well, it didn't remove it all but did a good enough job that the parts were allowed in my hobby room. Since some of the items were plastic, resin and plated plastic I washed a few pieces in the vinegar solution, there was also a marked reduction in odor, but then there was a slight vinegar smell that washed right off with the Dawn dish soap. Also tried sprinkling a good amount of baking soda on the parts first, the baking soda reeked after just a day, then Dawn dish soap; to my sensitive snoot I believe that this worked the best of all methods that I tried. Recommendation, Dawn dish soap for a one shot treatment. Baking Soda, soak in plain old Baking Soda for a minimum of 24 hours inside a closed container; I used ziplock bags. Next place the parts in another ziplock bag, place about a teaspoon of Dawn dish soap in the Baggie, finally add just enough warm water to cover the parts. Gently agitate the parts around to allow the dish soap to dilute into solution. Shortest time that I found worked for a single soak was 2 hours. For a two time wash I found that the odor was mitigated in two 15 minute soak, rinse, soak and rinse sessions. Once again, Thank You all for the great suggestions, this is just one of the things that makes our community great!

I'll admit to having one too! It was on the basis of the recommendations in both Model Car Science and Car Model magazines that I sent in a money order for a dollar forty nine cents comes to mind, this was probably around '64, so a $1.49 was pretty big money. I remember waiting and waiting, then waiting some more, AutoWorld was never the quickest shipper I think they must have shared the shipping department with J.C. Whitney and Johnson, Smith Novelties, because six weeks was like average. When you finally got it, it was like Christmas and your birthday all in one, because as a kid it took so long to get that sometimes you forgot that you even ordered something! The first "Project" I attempted with the AutoWorld Auto Cutter, was opening the doors on a '59 or '60 Corvette Promo (which I wish I still had in its pristine, pre melted state), given to me by my Uncle. Soon the door shortening turned into a vertical sectioning project, I blamed the issues on the Promo's extra thick plastic. For the Auto Cutter's second attempt I began work on a Monogram 1/32 scale Fiat Altered, which the Auto Cutter Altered too much to salvage. I did manage to do some of the fancy "stitch welding" which was demonstrated in like two pictures in Model Car Science, I remember being majorly stoked about that! Alas the Auto Cutter was relegated to a tool of destruction, for which it was suited quite well!! What I remember the Auto Cutter doing best was burning skin either by itself or by molten styrene! I still have a rather noticeable scar on my right hand between ring and little finger, right in the web. Molten plastic is nearly impossible to remove from burning skin, it just burns deeper until cooling to the point where it finally cools and no longer burns deeper (or melts completely through)!!! Once cooled to that point it is literally welded to the skin and whatever else it has burned through. Now there is one slight benefit to burning yourself with molten plastic. The molten plastic is so hot it cauterizes as it burns, so there is no bleeding to make one more squeamish than they already are from the excruciating pain and combined smell of vaporized skin and melted plastic! Remember this was before companies felt the need to place warnings or even age recommendations on packaging. Otherwise no 8 or 9 year old kid would be burning themselves with scars still visible today! I often wonder when I hear or read about people getting themselves branded with a red hot chunk of metal, did they get that idea from the AutoWorld Auto Cutter?

This of year many stores draw down their stock for inventory and tax purposes, could likely be what you are noticing.

May not have been supercharged, but very sweet example of a really nice mid-50's Hot Rod! Like I remember seeing in the early 60's, not too shines not at all rusty.

I see my tongue in cheek wasn't cheekish enough!! Vinegar and baking soda make a cool frothy fizzy mess, yes I did know that. Could be why the Dawn dishwashing detergent was going to get tossed in too,,, then again if you drank the deodorizing vodka, who cares what it smells like and the mess you just made!!!

Will try that one for sure, safe on resin I hope! Lots of vinegar left over from making pickled peppers last fall. Probably try some dish soap along with the vinegar, maybe even a dusting of baking soda, for alcohol, (would vodka work instead, you know drink the vodka until you no longer care about the smell! I don't drink so it wouldn't take much!!) Didn't they try vodka on sneakers on Mythbusters? wouldn't be that bad but it is just that wicked, rancid, stale cigarette smoke smell, I could smell it on my hands even after washing them!

that was one idea I had been thinking of too.

The rusty look started with the rat rods right around mid-nineties to 2000-ish, many point to the Choppers Car Club, Southern California in their Anti-Billet, Anti-Boyd look rolling statements. There were rat rods before them though because the Choppers argued that their Hot Rods were "Traditional" not rat rods. rat rods pretty much came about when builders would take a cowl from one car cobble it together with cast-off parts of many different sources, toss it together as something "fun to drive". Unfortunately many rat rods are built with scary construction practices which like some of the first crude Hot Rods gave Hot Rodding a bad name and image. Later, it has become "fashionable" to emulate the rat rod look with sound construction practices, still rat rods. The patina has been around for some time, it originally is/was part of the Preservation Classes in Classic Car circles. It was "Barn Find" before there was a term for it. Preservation Class as I understand it allows only for non-original items which allow the vehicle to continue to be operational. Pretty much a wash it up and run and show what you brung class. The major argument for class of cars is that they "are original only once". Later the "patina look" became an acceptable look to some within car culture, custom culture which has in turn lead to the faux-tina look done with new paint to look old again, even over fiberglass panels. as for me, unless it is a true "Preservation Class Automible" I'm not a fan of either rat rod or heavy patina look, rust should be dealt with! I love the Traditional Hot Rods as most of them aren't piles of rusty metal waiting to cause an accident. Which many rat rodders point to as part of the "thrill" of owning one, most of the rat rod owners must not own enough to be sued for or something!!

I need some help and suggestions on how to remove stale cigarette smoke odor from styrene and resin model car parts? I received 3 separate eBay orders or should I say odors today and they are all so bad that they are in the garage!! Pretty sure I'm not the only person who is interested in how to get rid of the smokey smell off of model parts. Ive used dryer sheets to mitigate smoke and musty magazine odors with great success before. I'm hesitant to use dryer sheets with plastic and resin because most contain silicones in them for that anti static cling. Which is why I really am not too thrilled about using the dryer sheets with model parts, especially stuff I will be painting, one of the stinkers is a resin body! I get severe migraine headaches from being around stuff like this, so it's not just a nuisance odor. For some of us it can trigger life threatening Issues, asthma, severe migraines can and have triggered strokes, even if it's just a slight headache or burning nose and sinuses the whole thing can be a literal pain. So when you hear one of us "whining" about receiving stinky stuff we really do have an issue with it, we really aren't just complaining about something really trivial.

In a Hot Rod sense it really depends if you are talking East or West Coast Hot Rods. For the most part the ultimate West Coast Hot Rod is the Three Window. East Coast Rodders seemed to prefer the Five Window in a heavily channeled version. In more recent times an original Three Window prices have reached unobtanium for the average Rodder, the Five Window has been the somewhat more affordable version on both coasts. With reproduction bodies of both Deuce Coupes being produced again it evens it back out to taste again. my answer would be; Depends on the look you're aiming at for a Hot Rod, for Restoration pretty much the same depends on what version you find more appealing. For me personally I prefer the Three Window by a lot, Five Window looks too much like a Model A to be a Deuce, (even though it is).

Bill, you are correct on the seasoned blocks. I remember reading an article about another guy named Bill. Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins, back when he was running his Pro-Stock Vega's, he would search out high mileage NYC Taxi Cab motors. When the time the article was written it said he would swap in a rebuilt small block Chevy for a good rebuildable "core". As in all he wanted was the block. His reasoning was exactly the same, that a high mileage engine had taken a "set" and would remain the same even after the extensive machine work he did to them. I've also heard the same type of statement attributed to Smokey Yunick. Who are we mere mortals to argue with genius!!!

1965 Pontiac GTO, Hardtop and Post lots of period Drag parts, proper set of tube headers. Split, Oval window, post '58 VW Type 1 - Bugs 1/25 Scale Modern tooting not oversimplified with correct engine/transaxle late 50's early 60's Dragsters

They were likely Mcculloch chain saw motors.

I think I paid $10 or 12 for the 6" metal digital calipers on sale a while back, I have a box full of Starret and Brown & Sharp. I like the Harbor Freight calipers, they have decent feel to them and I'm not afraid to leave them on the bench or accidentally drop them! ultrasonic cleaners aren't bad if you can get them on sale paid $30 for the small one, good for cleaning up the airbrush parts. The DeLuxe Airbrush isn't too bad as long as you take the time to tune it in, I've got a couple I use as backups to higher dollar airbrushes. Don't know that I'd use one as my number one airbrush, if someone asks to borrow one they get the Harbor Freight brush, not the Iwata or any of the others!!! If you look around you will find stuff that is useable on your bench, small drill bits (they're sharp enough to use on plastic, when they wear toss me), files, cutters. Just keep your eyes and mind open. Most all of their stuff is A knock off made in China, they work but don't expect years of use out of them.

Nice work, those of us who've built that kit from when it came out as "The Bad Man" to the Street Machine... It just didn't get any better, it fit like that from the get go! For a kid it was a "glue bomb" in a box! With a little patience and a lot of fitting it can be built into a rather nice "Period Correct" Blown Gasser. It sits right for the gassers of the late '60's and early '70's time period right out of the box. From the looks of things you've got this one under control its gonna look really sweet when you get it finished. Would be neat to find the Bad Man decals from the original kit. Your model brings back a few great memories, thanks for sharing it. Never understood why Monogram took Tom Daniels artwork and then designed some of the oversimplified kits they did, they could have done some really cool stuff with them rather than shoot for Skill Level 1 with a great deal of fitting!! I remember paying a whopping .99 cents for the first Bad Man kit along with a couple of .99 cent Pie Wagons to build as a "rumble seat" coupe (Model Car Science article) at a K-mart "Grand Opening"!! (A few years ago I went to the same store's "going belly up" sale.).

Quell as much as I liked the "Fuel Spider" even though it technically wasn't correct it was plausible, that's what I really look for; is it plausible? Yeah it was, it showed some good imaginative skills to go from concept to producing a thing that might actually work. what if you took the "Fuel Spider" and trimmed it back enough to attach flexible fuel line to the hard line from the spider then to the correct fuel inlet on the carburetors, if you can pull it off you'd have a winner especially on a Custom. I'm watching this one with interest, I have one in the build line to build for myself once I finish up with about five more "other people's" builds! I've been collecting ideas from the recent round of '36's being built lately, yours has some really nice ideas. I'm looking at something similar to the '36 Roadster that Rod & Custom did back in the early '70's (just before they went out of print the first time). I think it was one of Spence Murrey's projects, they used an AMC crate motor, probably use either a flathead or small block Chevy instead, R & C used a LaSalle grill and fabricated surround, which I've already collected parts for. Incidentally they also used chrome reverse wheels and white walls just like yours, classic look!

Great job on turning that kit supplied blob into a convincing VW engine! Probably the best Revell VW engine I've ever seen built.

Turner Classic Movies is great for old car spotting, from old beaters to brand new (then) cars of all kinds!

Well something must have got lost in quotation! Luis - I distinctly remember adding that I really like what you have done with this kit. You've massaged a ton of little stuff out of the model, your hard work shows. I'm highly impressed with te panel fit and finish from top to bottom, it's first rate modern Street Rod quality. Bill didn't mention another popular '50's / '60's treatment to the top inserts. Many Hot Rodders / Customizers upholstered the insert with the same pattern as the interior, seats and door panels. I've seen rollsand pleats, diamond tuck to name a few. Most later Street Rods had the top filled. Whatever way you go I'm sure it's going to look good!

Just a minute,,, there's one too many rivets on the.... This is the absolute best job I've ever seen done on this kit!! That's a whole lot of hard work, it really shows!! Did I mention I really like it! (Friend of the family had a '66 same color.)