MrObsessive

That's about the size of it these days. Sad but true. I keep saying the next frontier is 3D printing. I stand by my notion that one day this will become mainstream, and we won't have to ask if X company will make this or that.

That was one of Bill Mitchell's best designs! I thought I read an interview of him once where he said that one of the purposes in designing that car was to make a complete break from the excesses of the '50's. Obviously no fins, very little chrome, and very neat and tidy lines. I take it that Shatner's 'Vette next to the Riv is a '63 or a '64? Hard to tell, but one clue are those side 'vents'.

I sure hope it's not molded in that nasty yellow plastic like the one I have now! I'm sure it won't be.............that stuff can be brutal to paint over if one's not familiar with how to deal with it.

Straightening out a promo can be some brave work. I see what could be some absolute gems on the 'Bay from time to time I'd love to rescue. The '57-'58 Johan Desoto four door hardtops are a good example. Beautiful cars, but some sadly warped beyond repair.

Love it!! Great save, and I've got one of these too, but the X-EL version issued in the '80's. Good idea about the '58 Chevy chassis. I thought about using the '59 Caddy, but that might be a bit too big/wide considering this model wasn't quite 1/25 IMO. Johan made them a scooch undersized to fit their boxes back in those days.

Mike, I'd agree with you except that George had a number of these on hand. Since Ray's no longer around, it could be that George got the molds from him to cast on his own, or that someone else is doing the casting. I saw George last at our CPMCC meeting a couple months ago, and he had yet more '58 Fords that he was selling. I can also remember anything that Ray cast (for the most part) had his initials (R&R = Ray and Ruth) somewhere inside the body, and interior. I happen to have one of his '58 Oldsmobile station wagons and it has those initials in big bold letters. The Ford doesn't have that anywhere on the body, and not to mention that this is more of a transkit than anything else. It's the body, interior including the dash, and the wheelcovers. I take it that one is to use the old AMT '57 Ford kit for the chassis and all the other bits and pieces. When I see him next time, I'll ask him but I'm about certain that this casting came from him and not Ray. I could be wrong though............

When I let my Saturn go and then bought my Challenger, I thought I'd never want an automatic. However, my knees aren't what they used to be, and at least mine is one of those 'manumatic' trans, so I can shift gears if I want, without the knee aching clutch pedal. I thought I'd never buy another auto car again, but time marches on and my knees are thanking me for sure!

Welcome aboard Tyler! I'm just up the road from you, so it's nice that there's another PA member here! Any questions you have feel free to ask..........lots of very knowledgeable guys here.

Back in 1982, I wanted badly a 1965 Dodge Dart convertible with a 3 speed on the column and the slant six. I had never drove a manual before, and I asked my Dad if he could show me. He said rather bluntly........"Bill, if you want that car bad enough, you'll learn to drive it!" Well, I bought the car, and literally drove it home in first gear as I had no idea how the shift pattern went. The next day, I drove all around the neighborhood (quiet in those days with no traffic), and within a day I had it down pat. I even figured out how to go forward on a hill with very little rollback. Later on, I learned why Dad was so reluctant to show me. 20 years earlier he tried to show my Mom how to drive stick in his '55 Plymouth Savoy, and she wrecked the trans. Needless to say he would never show anyone how to drive a stick again, so I was on my own. Sad how a lot of people today won't take the time to learn. Everything has to be 'easy', and I've wondered if more folks had to learn to drive a manual, would we see a reduction in 'inattentive' driving such as texting and such? Kinda hard to shift gears with a phone in your hand huh??

I think I know who you're talking about as I was at our local club meeting not long ago, and I brought that model along. I'll see him later this month at our meeting, and I'll mention him to you! A real nice guy he is........recently I got a Revell Dodge Viper kit from him at a VERY good price, and late last year, I got a resin '58 Ford which was cast very nicely. Super nice to deal with and his wife is just as nice! Always makes you feel right at home whenever you're looking for something they might have.

Wow! Very nice and clean and a great color scheme!

Whoops! Steve, thanks for the reminder! Those little chrome 'trinkets' I can replicate with some BMF (hopefully all symmetrical). The release knobs I can whittle out of some square stock and pin those in. This pic reinforces a slight change I made to the rear seat. I notice that the seat pattern kinda sits 'on top' of the seatback, and not somewhat 'buried' in the seat. Not a big deal, but I figured I might as well change it while the seatback was not fully attached. We'll see Rex.......like what happened with that '59 Impala, there's always can be something out there lurking that can bring things to a screeching halt.

Mark, how about the ones that CANNOT count your change back without the assistance of the cash register telling them?? Not long ago, I was in a store with a couple items at checkout. IIRC, the total bill came to something like $23.70. I handed the clerk a 20 dollar bill and a five. Right at that moment there was quick power outage for a second (thunderstorm), which wiped out the register in a flash. Now mind you his drawer was open, and yet he could not count back the change until I told him how much was due. ($1.30) I blame a lot of that on the educational system that no longer teaches practical math for things like this, also with the advent of registers that compute the change, the retail industry probably no longer teaches anyone how to count change back from what was given to them. So sad..................

I LITERALLY burst out laughing at this!!

I just learned something new today about the board. When I tried to make my last post, I got the dreaded 404 Error page and was about to break the laptop! I got a hunch that perhaps the couple emoticons were not playing nice with the pics that I have linked from Fotki. I got rid of the emoticons, hit the submit button again, and everything posted. Thank goodness this board now autosaves! So, no more Emoticons for me when it comes to posting multiple pics, or when there's an issue with the 404 or 503 Error codes. I'm not sure that's the sole problem, but it's interesting that the issue did go away once I deleted them. Now on to the rest of the update............ As you Mustang guys know and as I mentioned in my post earlier, the rear seat in the two door hardtop is VERY different than the one in the fastback. The seat bottom of the fastback is lower, and more of a "bucket" type than the bench type that's in the hardtop. I originally was going to raid a kit for just its back seat with some mods, but I figured, it's six of one or half dozen of the other, so why not modify the seat out of the fastback just the same? So that's what you see going on here. Lots of cutting up, and replacing of the seat patterns just as the front seats. This is where I am so far, trying to get the seat back in order, then I'll work on getting the seat bottom widened out, and suited up to fit in the interior floor. Got the seatback pretty much as basically shaped as best I could, and made provisions to insert the new seat patterns. Here's the completed rear seat......I'll have to figure a way to 'anchor' or 'brace' the seat into the body once it's all painted and such. Just mocked up for now to see how it'll go into the chassis floor. Now things can get painted. It was hard to pin down the exact shade of gold that was used in the interior. I went with Tamiya's Titanium Gold for the lighter color, and regular Gold for the darker. Perhaps not the correct shade, but it'll do for what I need. I hit the submit button a couple times prematurely, but this is where I am for the moment. Finishing up the door panels, and then it's on to the dash which the gauge decals came in the mail today. I didn't take a pic of it yet, but I did very slightly change the rear seat pattern as it seemed too 'deep' to me. It probably won't be noticed much since this is a closed car, but it's just for my satisfaction. Thanks for tuning in and I don't know when the next update will be, but slowly and surely it's coming along.

It's been a while since I've posted an update on this! Summertime is a bit tough to get any model time in------what with outside stuff to do, nice weather and of course working full time, modeling time can be at a real premium. Just the same, I've been whacking away at the interior, and I did have some of these pics posted on Fotki for a bit. Some of you that have the link for that may have seen these. For those that haven't I'll post them here, and hope there's no drama with the site's servers where I don't have to do this all in vain. Ok.........the interior proved to be a bit of a challenge, particularly the rear seat as it's very different from the Fastback. As you'll see, I very heavily modified the seat from the Fastback and all but scratchbuilt the seatback. One memory I have of this car (actually a '65 Fastback) as a kid is the Fastback's seat sat VERY low to the floor, where as the coupe sat up 'higher' and of course was not as cramped. Most of what's seen here came from the Revell '68 Mustang. I had bought interior parts off the 'Bay as I thought that this particular kit had the correct seat pattern. Much to my surprise however, that wasn't the case which gave me no choice but to replicate the pattern that's in the Green Hornet. Here's what we got............. To give the seats more of a realistic look and not appear so one piece, I essentially cut them in half and decided to hinge them. As you can see here, I cut not only the seat pattern away, but also the seat itself from the seat bottom and back. It will look more realistic when put back together, and makes it much easier to cut away the pattern. Hmmm.........the seat bottom kinda looks like a toilet seat huh?? The vertical pattern will be replaced using Evergreen's plastic stock with the .020" thickness, and .050 spacing in the grooves. Looks like it's in scale for what i need, so I went with it. OK, after some fussing and redoing things a couple times, this is the end result, I used some .015 piping to go around the patterns, and on the seat backs, I used .010 piping to simulate somewhat the seams as seen on the 1:1. OK.......I couldn't resist! The seats will fold forward and back! Stay tuned for more!

Got this in the mail today................ I had bought a set before with the specific purpose of using them in the Shelby WIP, but I'll be darned if I can't find 'em! Now that I've bought these, a form of Murphy's Law will kick in and they'll turn up at the wackiest time. Nevertheless, very good gauge decals from this fellow, and I highly recommend these for anyone that wants to spruce up the dash detail. He's got LOTS of models covered, and he can be found here on eBay.

OK........I gotta say that I LIKE this! Whacky as it is, there's something about the color, and the cartoon nature of it. MUCH better than that '61 Ford box!

While I don't have a hearse parked outside , I have my entire third floor practically bursting at the seams with unbuilt models. I've also got closets in my house that are also filled to the hilt with models. Many times I'll buy a kit not always with intent of 'gotta build it now'!........but that I simply like that particular car and I know I'll never own a 1:1 of it. Yes, I'll have many models left behind probably when I'm no longer walking the earth, but hey.............might as well enjoy 'em while we can!

I do have this kit, and I have to agree that the box art could have been done better. This is a case where I knew what was in the box, so I don't fret about it. I would like to find the reissue, but each time I see those turn up in the 'Bay, they're rather pricey! Actually, the reason I'd like another one is to maybe turn it into a '58. I I've got the parts to do so, but I'd still like to have the '59 as well.

Beautiful, just beautiful! Very nice and clean work on this Ferrari classic, and Fujimi tooled this one mighty righteous! I built the Spyder version of this car years ago, and now I think I'd like to find this one. All the Enthusiasts Series models I've seen put out by Fujimi were full detail. It's nice that they reissued these in recent years as they were getting quite scarce and terribly difficult to find. Lots of parts, but they sure turn out mighty nice when one takes their time.

As a newbie wanting to build my first model in 1978, I have to say that it was the box art that got my attention. The model was Monogram's '57 Corvette which I think had come out the year before. All I saw was a cleanly built model on the box, and it got me to thinking that yes, I'd like to build one just like that. Now how it actually turned out is another story.................

I probably would have done the same thing! I don't suffer fools gladly when it comes to rudeness!

Various things can strike my fancy. A lot of times, I'll happen to see a particular car at a show, and then when I get home do some digging and get some good shots of the engine, chassis, interior, and of course body shots in case there's some correcting I have to do. Pre internet, magazines were all I had and those were a source of inspiration. Of course, the main thing is once I get that itch to start a model, seeing it through hopefully without a lot of hangups is the trick!

What drives me even crazier is how people drive in parking lots. Instead of going with the lanes in the lot, you'll have drivers that are so impatient/lazy and take a "short cut" and cross all the parking spaces just to get across the lot. Had someone nearly run into me because of their impatience. Needless to say, if there had been a wreck because of that, you might have heard about me on the news! No excuse for such laziness/impatience! It's one of the reasons I hate shopping. Not so much the shopping, it's the idiots in the parking lots that are in such a hurry or whatever. And yes, the ones that don't hold the door open for you says a lot. Those are the ones that weren't taught any manners as kids, and then they wonder how they got the black eye or the flattened nose.