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Wouldn't doubt that Mr. Norm (Veber) is already thinking about a stock height greenhouse for this kit! I'd be willing to trade a few of those smallblock Ford motors from the Deuce kits for some smallblock Chevy motors, (that is if the quality of the SBC is anywhere as good as the little Ford motors)! Then again a whole lot of the early SBC engines from the '55 and up kits are really nice too, they beat the old AMT SBC any day of the week! Needless to say, I'm excited about this kit, I can see all sorts of possibilities from '60's Hot Rods, Dry Lakes and Saltflats Racers, Early Drag Cars, Y2K and later Hot Rods, Rusty rats... Hopefully they do get around to getting a Quick Change rear end going for this, there is always another possibility of kit bashing the new frame under the '29 Ford Pickup and the '29 P/U frame under the new coupe for the classic Ford suspension, same frame setup under a few of the Revell Model A based kits, even the possibility of a banger engine!

In real Mini circles the MINI is either called a BINI as in BMW-MINI or a BEON, (the first handful of MINIs used the same engine as the Neon because BMW couldn't meet production on the New MINI engines. We refer to our Minis as "Actual Size", RHD Minis often have an arrow pointing to "Driver Over Here". We have had handfuls of MINI owners try to crash the party with their German built Not-So-MINIs only to be pointed to a couple of Bimer MINI Clubs. Incidentally the New MINI is spelled with all capital letters, BMW bought the Mini Concept and only owns rights to the name MINI not the original Mini which only has one capital letter. The New MINI was actually of British design and intended to be built by Brits as a continuation of the Mini's legacy, when BMW bought the rights to that concept is where the milk curdled! I actually drove one of the first three 2001 MINIs, (not for sale Demos) in Western Washington, which was a Cooper S. When it plowed through a tight corner like a new Honda was when I sort of lost interest; it was tight, it was new but it just wasn't special because it didn't have a heritage of its own! I let the owner of the Tacoma MINI franchise drive my Mini; he was going through the tiny slalom course they had set up on their empty lot, so precise and gingerly that he almost freaked out when I shoved his knee down harder onto the gas as he was entering a tight corner! He thought he was going to spin or worse, he would have in his MINI! 1973 Mk III Mini up-rated to Cooper S Spec versus straight out of the box MINI Cooper S; it was a total hoot! Reminded me of when I heard once on a BBC soccer match one of the first times I visited the U.K. The announcer was talking about the crowd, "the crowd is absolutely going potty!". As a couple of U.S. high school kids in 1973, we thought that was the funniest things we ever heard on TV I know why the air cooled VW crowd holds the "New Beetle" with such distain, many of the NB owners thought they were going to fit into the Air Cooled VW clubs as well. (I own one, but never thought of horsing in on someone else's thing with my newer version.) Same goes with the PT Cruisers who tried to horn in on the Street Rod Events, only they were really met with rudeness!

Very nice Mk I Mini, I've seen that color or colour combination on a Mk I Mini at British car shows. Most of the Mk I mainline Mini's I've seen are either the light blue and Old English White top or light green and O.E. White top, the other red ones I've seen were the darker red single color paint scheme. Nice job on the dash looks like the Mk I center binical Mini's I've seen a time or two even has the correct speedometer only, Cooper and Cooper S had the three gauge binical plus the twin carbs which you addressed on yours. Looks like you either did your research or had a nice example of the real thing to refer to. Nice job!

- Ranchero Steve -There is a special fan for hot weather climates which moves more air than the standard (U.K.) fan. I had one on my Mini for a while here in Washington state, it ended up cooling things down too much in the early spring and late fall months, so they work. An interesting fact about the early Mini's shipped to some countries were that they were sent to Austrailia, New Zealand and South Africa in crates where they would be assembled into a Mini once they arrived into the foreign country from England. One of the guys in the Mini Club I belong to has a South African, "Crate Mini Mk. I". He has all the original paperwork from its existence in South Africa, plus the information from the Mini registery indicating that it was a crate mini. I think I read somewhere that the Crate Mini's were a way around some of the taxes. The Mini's that arrived here in the U.S. Until 1967 were fully built cars with very little fit up required by the U.S. Dealer. 1967 was the last year that the Mini and Mini Cooper were imported into the U.S. because of "safety" regulations. More likely whining from GM and Ford competing against the Corvair and Falcon; even though both were giant in comparison.

Nice work so far! Plausible modifications that you'd see on the real thing. Oh, yeah I like it too!!

I haven't entered any of my models in contest/shows in years, but I do enter a couple (2 - 4) car shows a year. My '73 Mini Cooper has won awards at each, including one at a West Coast all Mini event. At this point I really don't care if I win another piece of hardware. They're gathering dust on the wall of the den they'll go with the car when eventually sold. They belong to the car not me, I was never in it to win anyway. Winning is just a bonus for a nice car. One thing I've noticed though, the shows that I let the "little kid who was overheard to tell his Dad or Mom they could drive that car, it's my size!" then I ask the child if they'd like to sit in the driver's seat for a picture? Then allow a happy Mom and Dad to click away, that brings a bigger smile than any win ever did! The times I let kids do that, when they left sticky little handprints on the near perfect paint and crystal clear glass, were the times I won something!! Last year at one show, I heard my class winner announced, we were tired from the long day and left! Only to get home, get car in the garage and hear the phone ring. My "show buddy" on the other end, hey you too good to pick up a trophy? Our Mini won "Most Unique" award, I did hop back in and pick it up. It was a local Church "fun show" where the awards are random at times and shared amoung previous winners who deserve to win, usually to car old or new to the show that deserves to win its class. They told me I won because I loved sharing my car with the kiddos and their parents, that's my most treasured trophy to date!

If it's in the "On the Workbench" section, invited, then it's probably OK. I would ask permission first. If it's in the "Under Glass" section, unless it is invited, then it is in poor form, image or large signature image. The signature in discussion, in my opinion is in poor form due to the image's sheer size. It is so large that it competes with the original poster's pictures. If I remember correctly the builder had an under glass feature, if we wanted to see large pictures of the buildup then we could refer to them. I would have zero issue if it were reduced in size to say that of a normal avatar. It is on the minor irritant level for me, as are a few other posters constant negative "humor"; since I have no control over either I choose to ignore the posters bad taste or form.

Still Screams Badman! Hard to hide those roots. Nice job!

Excellent job, like the paint too! Nice flathead! '39 & '40 are two of my favorite years, you almost can't go wrong with them!!! incidentally, on those chassis colors, it was common in forties and fifties to paint suspension components with either a favorite color or usually just plain whatever you had laying around, sometimes that included plain old house paint. Painting frames and suspension under a full bodied car was a sign that the owner had worked on, modified the parts or just cleaned it up and painted it, then kept it clean afterwards.

I emailed, thanking Carol and Don for opening up the site for orders again. Carol said they got totally slammed right off the bat! Sounded like they figured they'd get a huge amount of orders, but were surprised at how huge.

Bittersweet moment, got the final of my final Modelhaus order in this morning. I couldn't figure out why my iPad wouldn't bring up the website, I had to clear out the history and it came right up! I've been haunting eBay for a reasonably priced '60 Ford Short Box Pickup for a long time, like the body style of the '57 - '60 Short Wide Bed Ford Pickups. While I was ordering tires, wheels, grills, bumpers I went ahead and picked up the '57 Short Bed. Figure it this way, if I had found a '60 on eBay it would have required cleanup, maybe shortening a long bed. Easily would have been a hundred bucks in spite of doing the work to make it what I wanted. I didn't make any larger order than I normally do from Modelhause, usually do the same with Replicas & Miniatures. I usually list out the stuff I'd like to get for future projects ahead of time. Once it's long enough I'll sit down with the vendors catalog and place an order. This time there was no sitting on the fence, 20 weeks out or not, if it was getting ordered it had to have been then!

That's interesting news. Kind of sux big time! Isn't Jeep all that's left of the AMC line? Not like Chrysler is going to resurrect the Rambler name one day. They have troubles of their own, just keeping themselves in business. One of my Dad's work beaters was a '59 Rambler Cross Country. One day he stopped at the bank, ran in to cash his paycheck. When he came out there was a guy staring at the side of his then brand new Ford pickup which had been slit down the side of the bed a couple feet, right at Rambler fin height! The only thing hurt on the Rambler was the fin was a few degrees off kilter, probably hurt the high speed aerodynamics. He never did fix the fin, it was kind of a badge of pride for wounding a brand new Ford pickup! Incidentally, the "R" fell off the grill, so he rearranged the remaining letters to "mable", my grandma's middle name. Which she hated, so she hated the Rambler so much she wouldn't ride in it after that. i was hoping to replicate it for my brother who learned to drive in mable, good thing I didn't tell him I'd hate to get his hopes up then have to tell him the bad news!

Nice bod there Ed, makes me wish I had a '34 5W project in the works. I've never had a bad body from Ed, highly reccomended!

their chrome is as good if not better than vacuum chromed styrene parts, in fact I would say far better. I've never had a chromed Modelhaus part I was even tempted to strip the chrome to get a crisper part, their parts are as crisp as they come. Modelhaus is the benchmark.

Ace, you hit on pretty much what I was trying to get across at 04:00 Hrs. The problem being most of the garage assembled / built setups lack any engineering to make them function correctly. There are always trade offs when you modify a stock based suspension like the dropped forged Henry Ford and Super Bell front axle shown. They were originally designed with the axle on one plane then it gets dropped to another. Posies, Bell, and a host of others have put the math and engineering into their products and it shows in the way they function. It really goes back to just because something looks cool doesn't mean it works, or works safely. You nailed it on the Semi and Quarter elliptical, which I nearly always get confused in the first place which is which, I was referring to Quarter Elipticalls in my comment, didn't Chevrolet use Quarter Elliptical suspended front axles, I know there were a few others who did. Point is when they are well thought out they work as they were engineered to do in the first place. Probably should have waited until the coffee kicked in to make a statement on anything requiring thinking. As an Engineer, my point is you just don't go and weld things up to look cool and expect them to perform like something that was engineered on proven principals to work a specific way. The front suspension set up which got me on the rant is the split wishbone with the "spring eye" welded to the wishbone, can't imagine how that one handles. I don't want to see either. Ford and others built their suspension systems on hard gained, tested and proven knowledge which they changed things a little bit at a time, not making huge jumps in theory and practice. That set up just reminds me of some of the stuff seen under rat rods, probably why I have issue with it in the first place. That set up could work, it's built stout enough, just the more distance between axle and spring tends to act as a lever to introduce torsional twist into the spring as well as up and down. There are so any ways to get a buggy sprung front axle in the weeds which use sound time proven methods and parts to get the job done without trying to reinvent the wheel too!

http://www.honestcharley.com/hot-rod-parts/28-31-model-a-ford/complete-front-ends/full-frt-end-w-tube-axle-28-31-4-5bc.html Something like this is infinitely more streetable versus the welded spring eye onto the radius rods. The drop, proper geometry, ride are all a part of this suspension system. Ask yourself this question, nothing has changed since Henry Ford's Engineers designed their suspension system why didn't they go with a variation of the one shown? Likely because there are geometry issues with it, I've seen this setup but never ridden or driven a car with it. My question however is while this is likely as strong as the original design placing the axle that far ahead of the spring with a set of disc brakes will make the axle want to roll under during normal braking. I know this front suspension has been around and in magazines for a while, I'm just a tad bit leery of it, one concern with the frame horns above the axle it could bottom the axle on the frame horn and not have bump but bang steer! Second, I hope there is more airspace between that axle and the brake line /fitting or it might get snapped off when the radius rod hits it. The issue associated with semi-elliptical suspension systems is when you put efficient modern brakes on the axle which may or may not have the spring rate calculated. On a soft spring the brakes will cause the front axle to ocellate which is why you see it on a lot of light roadsters without front brakes. Semi-elliptical front suspensions were production suspension systems with brakes and without a pan hard bar. Obviously someone felt they were a stable front end, not to mention a whole lot of board track and early oval track roadsters. I have ridden and driven a properly setup semi-elliptical suspended roadster, with brakes I didn't feel any of the skittishness mentioned, it's all in the spring rate. With the dropped original Ford designed suspension, the lowering is done first by the reversed spring eye, softer spring and or the additional load of the larger engine. Second the dropped axle itself will bring the front end down accordingly.

Hopefully they will open up for at least one or two more runs, I wouldn't blame them if they didn't though. Don't think they anticipated all the frenzy created by all the uninformed speculation on every modeling board on the 'net. It's almost been akin to someone yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater!! Even so, I'd like to get at least one more order in, got one just after Don and Carol announced their intention to retire. I do hope someone can swing purchasing the business as the Modelhaus has been a gianormous asset to the model car hobby. The person(s) who do buy Modelhaus (if anyone does) may have to realize that they may be slow at first due to a whole lot of people going overboard with orders for a year or more prior to a buyer taking over. However, that might be a good situation especially if no "training" is going to be a part of the sale of the business; things are always negotiable when it comes to selling or buying businesses. It will certainly be interesting to see what the outcome is.

Some pretty amazing examples of "Glue Bombing" even more amazing are some of the restorations you guys have done with them. Thanks for sharing them.

I use the flip open jewelry parts storage boxes at Hobby Lobby they're about 18 X 12 X 2" with 2 X 2" compartments for the parts. It's usually the small stuff that gets lost anyway. I usually store larger stuff in the stacking plastic drawer modules purchased at most big box stores. Most of my tools are either stored in a small three drawer toolbox or hanging off magnetic tool holder strips. After market parts resin, photo etch are kept in their original package until used and are stored file box fashion in plastic Stero Shoeboxes. I use the same shoeboxes to keep in work kits, parts and needed items together during the build process. Pays to be organized, I've done it both ways where all the extra parts got thrown in a common container mixed about so anytime a part was needed it got dug for which ruins chrome quickly. I like the organized system much better, I store all like parts together when I need an axle, I open the bin they're in and choose the one that works. Same thing for any other parts. Beats digging!

I think what he is asking for is the descriptive actions of each. Sanding refers to color sanding which levels out the high and low areas of the color coat and or clear coat using ultra fine Wet sanding paper/ pads/ films from 2,000 - 12,000 grits and finer. polishing refers to a series of liquid based polish compounds, which the grit is suspended in the compound. Think rubbing compound. A favorite polish system of a few people oon here is the Novus three part plastic polish system which is used on the topcoat and works well, needs no waxing. Next step for both would be to wax the topcoat whether that be color or clear coat

I don't have a problem with the way (Rotorbolt73) Matt's doing business on eBay, it's honest, (and as demonstrated by the next reply to his post) doing someone else a favor making the remainder of the kit available to someone else who knows upfront what they're getting. I know there are others on here who,are doing parts and pieces sales as well as partial kit sales, I've bought from some of you got what I wanted at a reasonable price, Thanks. Your doing the same as casual sellers used to do. I buy stuff from these sellers all the time. My issue is the same as others have mentioned before and is a two fold issue in my book. 1. Seller marks up the headers (or ?????) from any kit for like half to a third of the sales price of the whole kit. 2. Seller cherry picks the best parts out of the kit (new or rare doesn't matter) then prices them at half or more than the kit sells for, because they're doing you a service!! I've heard others mention this and have experienced it myself; you make a reasonable offer for said parts. Next thing you know you have a two page email explaining first what an idiot you are, then explaination of how much overhead that they have in this business. You know, you don't expect them to "offer this service" for free do you? There's gas, overhead, their time, their inventory, their this and that, postage, handling, gas to and from the post office, time in line eBay fees.... they feel no shame in itemizing very little thing they think it's costing to offer this valuable service! It'll be a cold day in July when I buy anything from one of these preditory sellers!

Yep, I started that one with the intention of getting some intelegent dialog going on the subject; what I got was the same as the asker here has, smart a$ked answers from the same people who did so on both threads. Kinda sad at times when a civil discussion can't be held without someone's comments tossing the discussion into the ditch! Yeah, I've probably been guilty of doing so a few times and am sorry for it. It just gets to me when the same individuals repeatedly drive a discussion sideways with either inappropriate humor or comments that have little or nothing to do with the subject! Rant Over... Return to previously scheduled discussion if you can...

I think I've told this story before but bears repeating. I once followed a Trabant and a two stroker SAAB 96 to a car show in my Mini which was spotless before I left the house. When I got to the show, following two two stroke cars it was covered with little spots of two stroke oil! At least the 96 was running Castrol R two stroke oil whichever actually smells kind of good. Definitely a better use for castor oil than drinking it a spoon at a time!! For a couple years after there would be little bits of oil which would come out of the windshield gasket when the weather got hot! Needless to say both guys helped me degrease the Mini after we got to the show, I also never followed those two again!