MrObsessive

Luc, this may sound crazy, but I stand by my thought that there is a HUGE untapped market for '70's cars. As you said, they were by no means powerful-----especially after '71, but IMO there were MANY good looking cars out of the '70's. The one above was one of my favorites during that era, and there are a host of others I'm sure folks can point out that might be good candidates for possible glue kits. One thing I do notice in the 1:1 world when it comes to these cars is that I'm seeing more and more of them showing up at car shows. True there's the ever ubiquitous '55-'57 Chevy, but I'm seeing more and more of GM's '73-'77 Colonnade cars, '77-'79 T-Birds, '71-'73 Boat tail Riv's, and on and on.

Well, while we're at it.................... Since this is a HUGE pipe dream, I do have most of the bits and pieces to actually build this car. I'd like to do this one as this looks almost EXACTLY like the car I drove in Driver's Ed during high school. Chances of this car ever seeing the light of day as a glue kit are Slim and None, and Slim just left town.

I think the youngest one in that group might have been Belinda Carlisle. And she's what-------------59 or so now?? Yeah.......time marches on!

You ain't kiddin'! I'm still looking for a set of narrow band whitewall tires that would suit compacts such as Corvairs. One of my wish list restos I'd like to do is a '61 four door. True that '61's still would have had WWW's, but I'd make mine an end of model year "day two" car.

Thanks Luc!!

I like VW Bugs, but man----------that is one cramped ride for me to drive! I'm just too tall for 'em as there just isn't enough legroom for me. The way the pedals also pivot at the bottom didn't help any. Same goes for Karmann Ghias.........my head always hit the roof in those things. I'm noticing what looks like a curved windshield----is that a Super Beetle? My sister had one and loved it to death till my Brother-in-Law wrecked it one day.

Little late for announcements time wise, but it seems to me the NNL East is the place to go to see all the manufacturers there with all the latest and greatest stuff. For the past three NNL Easts in a row I've been to, I got to see all things new up close and personal, and also what's to be coming later in the year. Not to mention, the company heads are there and you can let them know first hand what you'd like to see. In a nice way of course! Ed Sexton comes to mind as he was more than willing to listen to suggestions, and then there's that "Wish List" that I've seen for the last three years at the Revell stand, and I've posted here.

Mike, while working on those half shafts, I think I see the reason that they might have changed them from the original.............. Looks as though the shaft might have had some interference with the lower control arm------particularly under hard acceleration perhaps? I can see where the shaft may have been scraping against the crossover support that ties the control arms together. By going to this type of setup shown here, the extending section into the rear hub is smaller in diameter, and not as likely to be binding/scraping against that crossover support. Just a guess on my part, but it's made me change the original way I had the half shafts as I've run into the same problem!

Probably!!

WOW!! I love that color Ray!! The blacked out windshield frame is a nice change.............goes very well with that color!

I can actually see all four of those being feasible! As far as the Ranchero, Revell could go three ways with those. The '57, the '70, and the '76 you mentioned.

Craig, that seat can be found in this kit........................ Pic courtesy of eBay....... I know of this because I built one many years ago, and I wanted two seats in mine so I got an extra from someone. It can be found in this kit though. BTW, this Shelby is a '65.........

I waiting with bated breath too Bert! Like it used to be at new car announcement time, I'm looking forward to see what's new in our model world!

Rut Roh! Jack, I hate to be a killjoy, but there's been MANY MANY discussions on this board about D.T. (I daren't mention his name) and it has never been good. I've known this chap for years, and while I've never bought from him, all I can tell you is the MYRIADS of stories that those who have dealt with him, don't have much good to say. I'm sorry you might be the latest victim............keep putting the screws to him to either get your money back, or get your product.

Time for the latest and greatest! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wanted to cut the gas tank free. No particular reason detail wise except that it's MUCH easier to paint the gas tank separately, than to try and mask around it, and the hassle that is. I drilled a couple holes for fuel lines......I've learned that the car had a return line installed during its resto. It was ran off the fuel filler neck and was routed pretty much the same as the main fuel line. Here are some clips I made for the fuel lines. Just some strips of brass that hace brass rivets (.8mm heads) that I'll use to brace these to the floor. While I was at it I made a couple fuel lines-----this won't be the final shape, particularly the upper one for the return. I just wanted an idea to where to drill the clip holes and to pre bend everything to minimize any scratches on the chassis floor after it's all painted up. The upper line is going into the side of the tank-------that was before I found out that the return runs into the fuel neck inside the trunk. I'll change this before long, but I wanted an idea of how this is to be run without going through a lot of changes. OK! We've got U-Joints! I got these from Shapeways as I mentioned them before, and they look quite good! They don't show up well on camera, and this is just the one "half" as the other yoke part of it comes on a separate tree. Here you can see (yes, my hand dwarfs this part!) a couple of the yokes on the nine inch rear. BTW, I was able to snag just the suspension parts from Revell's new Bronco kit on eBay. I really like the shape of the pumpkin and is one of the nicer ones I've seen. Now I'm going into uncharted waters-----since I have no location points to work with since the rear suspension is all but scratchbuilt, I needed the rear axle out of the '67 kit to establish some sort of location of where the pumpkin needs to sit. I want to establish the height first, then as you'll see later on I figured out the distance so that the rear wheels will be pretty much centered in their wheelwells. Notice that I put some sort of stop or post under the regular axle------this is what's determining for me (for the time being) where things should fall. Here's the "brace" or "carrier" I scratchbuilt for the pumpkin. This is one of those areas I have to fudge as I don't have any clear pics of what this looks like. Logic tells me the shape is pretty close because of what I have to do later on as you'll see. These are extensions that will be glued to the carrier to hold the lower control arms. They are "C" channel Evergreen styrene (.080") which I added some .020" plastic to the sides to give them some height. These are the lower control arms with the one end made from drilling a hole (#76 drill bit) and then sliced and glued on. I had bought some RB Motion rod ends but later realized that I didn't buy enough of them. No matter as the rear suspension won't be working------there will be too much here that can break, and I've gotten to the point in building where I want the detail, but not necessarily have a working part. BTW, in order to get the lower arms to "stay" in the shape they were bent, I pre-bent them first, turned on my dehydrator to 165 degrees, and heated them up for about 20 minutes. Once heated, I bent them all to shape quickly and flash cooled them. Now they're permanently shaped and no chance of going back to their "memory" as plastic is wont to do. I initially was going to use brass, but once again since this won't be a working suspension I saw no need to do that. A structure was added to connect the arms...................... And this is how it looks so far positioned in the chassis. I like to use something called "Fun-Tac" to temporarily position things. You can pick this up (or something similar) at most Arts and Craft stores. It sorta will remind you of Silly Putty which is a similar substance. Here's how I'm determining whereabouts the pumpkin should be in relation to the chassis. Once again using the kit's regular axle, I measured about 3" from the near furthermost point of the chassis to roughly the firewall area. I'm using this same measurement for the pumpkin, and of course, I'll tweak things as necessary. Placing the chassis in the body and centering a tire eyeballing everything, the tire sits where it should in the wheelwell as far as I can see. Here are the half shafts for the time being with the other half of the U-Joint yoke on. I'll have to once again measure (probably cut) these down a little so that they reach the rear discs without much trouble. Just test fitting both yokes together.......... Well, that's is for now! I'll be doing much tweaking, changing and test fitting along the way. Still much more to do on the rear suspension.........then after all that, paint the parts, and then I'll feel safe painting the chassis. Thanks for all of you that keep tuning in!

Hmmm............while that four door 'Cuda was an interesting car, I can't help but wonder if things might have looked better if the roof were say 3-4 inches lower. Seems as though the top is almost too big for the car-----maybe ingress/egress was a concern and that's why it's the height that it is? I do agree that one BIG improvement would be that it was a pillarless hardtop as opposed to a sedan. ......................AND no vinyl roof!

Cruz, that is one fine lookin' Bronco! I've got the correct wheelcovers from Chief Joseph at Fireball, and my intentions is to turn into a '70. I've collected lots of pics of one------just a matter of getting more hours in the day to get all these someday projects done!

Doug, out of that list I'd have to say the '57 Olds might have the best shot of seeing the light of day as a standard glue kit. As for the others, like Ellen said I'd take all of them! That '55 Plymouth is of special interest to me as that's the first car I can remember my Dad owning (a two door hardtop Savoy), and it's the car I was brought home from the hospital in. 1957 Liincoln Premiere two door hardtop?? Heck yeah I'd take one!

Scott, that car was here locally in PA at the annual Chryslers at Carlisle. Here's a few pics I got of it. There was some info on hand about how it came to be, but I forgot to pick up copies before I left the pavillion. HTH!

WOW! How'd I miss this one?? Not my favorite year of truck, BUT from what I see VERY well done! I've been saying for while now............THIS is the next wave of the hobby like it or not!

Well, that's a '60 Buick and IIRC, ALL of them are older than the car! That goes back to the early '80's so the car wouldn't have been THAT old then, but it's REALLY old now! My how time flies! My birthday is on Tuesday, and to think that car would have been all nice and shiny back then!

Frank, you're thinking about that other forum! I believe linking to eBay auctions are frowned upon when it's the OP's original thread. There's been problems with that in the past. There is a certain seller that got all fired up when it was pointed out how OUTRAGEOUS his prices were on eBay and he came on here and made a huge stink about it. I'd mention his name, but like another individual who's name daren't be mentioned (initials D.T), it turns into a real firestorm with the thread eventually getting locked. I'll have to see about getting a set of those hubcaps the next time they turn up. He seems to be a regular on eBay, so they'll show up again probably before long.

Yeah, I've seen that too Luc! Just goes to show how much they value the old American iron. This is tough to tell, but can you imagine 50 years from now, someone doing a video (or whatever it's called at that time) in a Ford Fusion for instance?? It's hard to say what will be collectible many years from now. Back in the early '60's, 1955-57 Chevrolets were worth next to nothing. There were so many of them populating the roads that they were "just another car". Now collectors (even guys who are MUCH younger than the car) want them badly. Of course, the auto landscape will be vastly different 50+ years hence from what we see today.........who knows what will trip someone's trigger and what won't??

Word I got was that MFH was discontinuing Ferrari 1/24 kits. I'm not sure of the reason 'cept for poor sales, but they are continuing to make the 1/12 scale ones. My "holy grail" is their 1/12 '62 Ferrari 250 GTO. At $600+ though, it's gonna be awhile! It may be that they've discontinued the others simply because they're not selling. Len mentioned he got the Cobra------that may be one of the few that's still a good seller, but yes, they have been cutting back on other kits lately.

Absolutely incredible! I like what you said @9:05..............."You have to make it look right............If it doesn't look right why bother?" I wholeheartedly agree!!