MrObsessive

Thanks Helmut! ☺️

That's one of the reasons I wanted to do Sterling Moss's car.....to make it a not often seen RHD car. The one I did is here with a number of pics. I have no construction pics of it as far as the dash conversion as this was done loooong before I had a digicam and internet. ?

Yes, I agree! I built the Italeri one years ago as a Sterling Moss car and while it was not a bad kit at all, it could have stood to have a bit more detail as far as the engine for example. I have another one and yes........they are VERY hard to find on eBay these days. I ended up getting mine on a Japanese auction (Buyee) and the price wasn't bad at all.....somewhere around $60 IIRC. You have the 1/24th MFH kits out there, but good luck finding one of those for less than $300 and the kit is discontinued on top of that. Good job on the Esci kit! I had that one too, but could never get past the wonky body shape and other issues. I've not seen the Burago one before.......that looks pretty good coming from them and it's 1/24th scale no less. ?

I got mine for around $72 US with shipping (DHL) bringing the total to around $110. A bit steep, but I've bought from Hobby Search before with no issues (headlight lenses) so the couple bucks difference I didn't fret over. I could've settled for cheaper shipping, but the tracking and insurance that DHL provides is an absolute must for anything coming from overseas these days IMO.

James, you just lightened my wallet! I had NO idea there was a full detail kit of this out there. I was watching this on eBay, but there's no way I'd pay what this chap wanted for this and it's a STARTED KIT at that! The auction has ended with no takers and at that price it's going to sit there a loooooong time if he lists it again.

Here's a feel good eBay story............ Several years ago, I spotted a Danbury Mint 1956 Buick Roadmaster four door hardtop. VERY nice and the only thing wrong with it was that it was missing one of the front fender ornaments. I was able to snag it for around $120 IIRC and I waited excitedly for the model. I wanted this particular car as it reminded me of my Great Grandmother's car as she was a big fan of Buicks and had a 1:1 something like this model. A few days passed and I got the model in the mail.............or so I thought. I opened up the box and much to my surprise was The Danbury Mint's 1955 Olds 88 convertible. Whoops! I remember he had this listed also and somehow it got sent instead of the Buick. I contacted the seller and he apologized profusely. I told him I could send it back to him if he gave me credit for the shipping. He wrote back and said if I could pay him $25 for the Olds, I could keep it and of course he'd send the Buick. He didn't want to risk the model getting damaged being sent back and he said for whatever reason, the model never got any bids. TERRIFIC! I sent him the money via PayPal and I ended up with a VERY pristine model with box and all for VERY cheap AND I got the Buick in a few days. So there are some very good sellers on eBay along with the bad apples. Just like in any business, you'll have your scammers out there and you'll have those that really want to do right by their buyers.

I wasn't in the DC area until the mid and later '70's during high school. I knew folks that talked about Bozo the Clown.......seen pics of him but never knew that was Willard. Willard was the weatherman on WRC at the time I was there. I remember because we had a NASTY snowstorm come through that he totally missed (Winter of '77) and he took some heat for getting the forecast very wrong. I heard he was a very nice guy in person as well as on air.

Wow! I never knew that! I lived in the DC area (went to high school there) and I never put the two together! They say "you learn something new everyday".......ain't that the truth?? ☺️

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All I'll say is I'm very familiar with this car as I was carted around in one as a kid. That's ALL I can say!

Steve, that is looking FANTASTIC! I take it those are The Chief's carbs? I sure wish I had those when I built my Daytona 20 years ago.....would have saved me a LOT of work! ?

Chopper's gone??? Wow...........now THAT is a stunner! Here's a pic of Chopper on the left from the Toledo NNL back in 2008. Standing next to a MUCH less grayer me is Albert Wallace. Another one that passed away just a few years ago.

OK.............I'll admit it. I have ALL 52 episodes of Speed Racer on my hard disc! That was my FAVORITE cartoon as a kid and when it first aired here in Central PA back in the fall of '68, ALL the kids were talking about it! Even the girls. Interesting enough, I remember reading an interview years ago done by Car and Driver as they were talking to Corinne Orr who was the voice of Trixie (and all the female voices) and she said that one of the reasons you hear so many "oohs" and "aahs" in the cartoon, was because that was something that couldn't be translated from Japanese into English. So, to fill that "space" they just let out an exclamation. She also said that because of the translation, it's the reason you'd hear them speak in long drawn out sentences. That's just how the translation would go depending on the conversation. Now here's a long lost show (might have been mentioned) that I've not seen in a long time and was another favorite of mine. Remember "Space Giants"? For those of you here in the Central PA area, do you remember a TV host by the name of Wee Willie Weber? He had the Peanut Gallery in his audience (all kids) and he broadcasted out of WPHL Channel 17 in Philadelphia. They would run a block of cartoons during the afternoons that would include Speed Racer........also Marine Boy, Astro Boy, Spider Man (original), Gigantor and Ultra Man. This would have been during the 1967-'70 time frame.

I have to admit......for what some might think are "cheap diecasts", many of their models are downright NICE! I have the ROG kit of this car, but if I come across this, I'd certainly like to grab one. ? Now if we can get them to do a 1965 Volvo P1800.............

That '64 Ford drag set has my attention! I've never had a kit of that year Ford.........and I already have a very restorable '64 Falcon I could put on the trailer. I do believe the Galaxie is a snap fit? Looks like it could be an excellent candidate for kit-bashing with their '60 Starliner. ?

That depends on how tired I am during the course of the week. I work third shift, so Sundays through Thursdays I may only get an hour or so of time to work on anything. There are mornings I come home so zapped, it can take me a couple hours to get motivated to do anything. Throw in this is grass cutting/yard work season now and that time can be very limited. Weekends (Fridays and especially Saturday) I can put in a good number of hours. Maybe five or six total. I'm not one to count hours on a WIP however. There might be a long length of time that goes by that I don't touch a thing and I'd quickly lose track of what time went into what.

At the time I was learning to drive (1976-'77), there were two cars I got to learn to drive in. At the time, my Mom had a '69 Javelin SST with the 390 auto. She was wary (understandably so) about me driving it as it could be a handful if one wasn't careful. My then Stepdad had a '69 Lincoln Continental Mark III (LOVED that car!), which I got to practice driving (him with me) quite a bit. We had our Driver's Ed cars in school when I was able to take it..............1976-'77 Olds Cutlass Supreme, same year Pontiac Grand Prix and a HUGE Caprice. I ended up taking my test in that one eventually down the road. Interesting that of all the cars I mentioned, only ONE of them I have as a model and that would be the Javelin. The Olds Cutlass I hope to start making a reality in the not too distant future.

This one will be done............soon. Then these two will be on my table simultaneously....... Shelby Green Hornet.... And the 1/8th Agora Shelby Cobra when the last of the parts will come in October. My ultimate project I want to get started on before the year is out?? This car... I've got everything I need now to get started including the hood I FINALLY found on eBay from a junker Salvinos Olds body. I'll be using a '75 Johan Olds as a start with the rear roof section from a junk Monte Carlo body (modified slightly). I might throw a oddball model in between all of this. I've got a certain Dune Buggy that's been on my mind for the longest time. It'll be one of those models I've not done before so it'll be something new as far as building. Ambitious list for sure with working every day and all, but certainly enough to keep busy for the long foreseeable future. The Olds is especially important for me as it's the car I'd like to take to GSL if I can get there in '23 with no hangups I hope.

Absolutely fantastic Bruce! Despite the kit's difficulties, I still may grab one of these down the road. MFH kits once they quit making them, can be hard as heck to get. It'll never get any cheaper either!

Absolutely PERFECT conversion! That's one that would get lots of attention on a show table. I think that's the first I've seen one of those converted into a Brougham. ?

One good tool to have (and they're cheap) is to use some sort of "scale ruler". In the case of the Chrysler, you would need to cut roughly 4 scale inches out of the chassis and floor pan to suit the Dodge. In this case, you'd need to subtract about 5/32 of an inch to get very close if not exact to what you want. Yup! They're the ones that pretty much forced GM (and later Ford) to do the same thing across their divisions. The '59 models from GM were forced on them after they saw what Chrysler did to their '57's. Those were game changers which pretty much had GM caught with their pants down.

EXCELLENT conversion! I like this a lot! Just goes to show that if you can't wait for the model companies to make what you want, there's always you're own doing to make it come to life. Results follow desire!

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Good work so far! Never knew this conversion existed out there from HartsParts. Looks like another project coming my way in the future.

Bruce, yours is lookin' soooo good! On the rollbar, I do believe yours sits right where it should be. On the 1:1, the rollbar had to sit a bit higher than the windscreen due to heaven forbid it should rollover. You'd want it to hit that first and not the other way around. That's the first I've seen Leno's car! VERY sharp! I see one of my '50's favorites in the background..............a 1958 Chrysler Imperial which I'm sure is his also.