Matt Bacon

I think it's pretty much in the eye of he beholder... For example, I certainly wouldn't regard that limited number of years as the "pinnacle", at all. I suspect what you're talking about is a particular style of American car, maybe... But for me, there are beautiful cars in the 30s, from the Jaguar SS100 to the Saoutchik and Figoni & Falaschi Art Deco masterpieces and the Bugatti Atlantique. There ARE plenty of beautiful cars from the 40s to mid-Sixties, including the XK120, 250SWB Califonia, Aston Martin DB4 Zagato, E-Type and Alfa 33 Stradale. Equally, I'd make a case that the Lambo Miura is the most beautiful car ever built, and that's the late 60s. Then you get the Countach and Esprit, epitomising the "Origami" style -- whether you personally like it or not, they have style, personality, creativity and flair. Coming up to more or less the present day, the Alfa 8C is achingly beautiful, the Huayra is a technological marvel that's also a steampunk symphony of style inside, and the BMW i8 is bleeding edge... Average daily drivers are more influenced by aerodynamics and safety than they are by "art", but I think there's still plenty of extremely expressive auto design going on. And I don't think for the vast majority of the people on the roads tha cars have EVER been more than a way of getting from A to B. Between the late 40s and the mid-60s, the auto marketing guys were selling you the DREAM that a car was a statement, and Exner and his ilk were piling on chrome and fins as part of the con that made you want to buy a new car every two years, but for most people across most of the world it WAS just a dream. There have always been humdrum, dull workaday cars and ground-breaking style statements that cross the border into art, and I reckon there always will be... bestest, M.

Ad this is one of the great reversions... http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2kxrya_nirvana-mtv-unplugged-1993_music bestest, M.

One of my faves -- John Fogerty and Foo Fighters version of "Fortunate Son": bestest, M.

Looks great! How is it I've been trying to buy "Big Block Snake" for months, and it's still "Coming Soon"? ;-P bestest, M.

Very nicely done indeed. I really must get on with building my GT86, which has been painted for months! bestest, M.

He certainly does. Worth checking out the Stevie Wonder+Prince+Sheila E "Superstition" at Paris Bercy video that pops up in the related vids as well. Totally different playing style, but equally world-class. There's nothing that guy couldn't make a guitar do... I shall be getting out my "Sign O The Times" movie Blu-ray tonight -- one of the best concert movies ever filmed... bestest, M.

Want to know how this was done? Take a look here: Amazing work... bestest, M.

Great job, Ray... it's a fantastic looking build of a fantastic looking car! I think it's one of the best looking race cars of the sixties, and you've done it justice... bestest, M.

Oh, yes... the west country (Somerset, Devon and Cornwall) has a very distinctive accent, for example. An interesting academic study of it here (don't let the "Comedy Gala" put you off...it's very enlightening): ;-P M

I once heard an interesting radio programme about the evolution of "British" (ie all parts of the British Isles) accents. They differences are founded in the variations of languages spoken by waves of settlers, and the sounds they made. But the last thousand plus years or so, they grew distinctive in clusters around where people took their animals, produce etc to market. Which is why you can see very clear, sharp boundaries between distinctive accents, not always for obvious geographical reasons. The people from one side of a hill might speak differently from those on the other side because they headed North instead of Suth to the nearest market town. That's how we get to pack quite so many accents into such a small island! Of course, mobility into cities in the last 200 years or so has blurred the picture. I guess the US and Canada, being younger, and much much larger, are more shaped by where waves of immigrants originally arrived from than where they took their cows to market... bestest, M.

Thanks, all... I used 99% IPA, which softened everything nicely. You have to scrub it in the IPA, though... I discovered that the softened varnish sets back to a hard white "scum" if you try cleaning it with water! Bear in mind that the badges and titles are painted on as well, and the Revell decals don't provide replacements -- I had to paint the crossed flags Corvette logo. I don't know if there are any aftermarket sheets, like there are for Ferrari or Porsche... bestest, M.

Thanks, David... If you want to alter the ride height (I think it's pretty accurate, personally...), you'll have to do some clever stuff at the front. The back end will just need the brakes moving upwards on the solid face they mount to, but the front is made up of upper wishbones with wheel carriers on the chassis and a single piece lower suspension. There are no shocks to shorten or easily re-angled wishbones... bestest, M.

The Revell Germany release of the US-originated kit, hence the scale. The kit came prepainted in red, but I stripped that in favour of this colour scheme, borrowed from the 2017 Grand Sport. Even allowing for the fact that it's 1/25 rather than my usual 1/24, I'm surprised by how small the Corvette is... Thanks for looking! bestest, M.

Thanks, gentlemen. This one is a speedy build: And the body gets some shiny... Not long now... bestest, M.

Great to see another one under way! If I may offer one piece of advice, while you still have plenty of "wiggle room"and easy access, trial fit the radiator and shave the hose and front X frame until the hose goes through it. There is no way in the world it fits as is, and the sequence they'd have you attach it in won't work even after the trimming! bestest, M.

I wanted something quick and simple that I could get a good result on swiftly to blow away the cobwebs and a mild case of modeller's block... and there in the stash was a recently acquired Revell Germany release of the kit that's a snapfit, I believe, in the US. The body was pre-painted, of which more later... Despite being a "simplified" kit, the detail on the parts was pretty good, so a bit of careful painting was all that was needed to bring a bit more realism. The colour scheme is a real one, albeit intended for the 2017 "Grand Sport" model. As soon as I saw it, though, I knew that it was the one for me. The same applies to the chassis and transmission -- not many parts, but nicely detailed and moulded, and responds well to painting. If there's one thing that really looks toylike on the kit, it's the chromed headlight area. Needless to say, the real thing isn't all chrome, and looks rather more like this. I pretty much stripped the entire chromed sprue... The wheels, too, are chromed. But when stripped, this rather nice varnished black look emerged, so I've left them like that. And finally, that colour scheme: I know there's more to a Grand Sport than a paint job, but I'm keeping this simple! It is soooo cool, though, that there really was no alternative... The clear coat's not on yet -- this is Zero Paints Mercedes "Palladium Silver" and "Jaguar French Racing Blue" base coats. bestest, M.

I found some rather obscure blog (in English.. maybe a design blog) which had some images of pages from a Korean language brochure or catalog, which had a picture of the very thing and a very few scattered words of English in the text which helped... bestest, M.

Those wing mirrors said "Japan", but it's the wrong-hand drive, so I started Googling "Korean cars 70s" and then Kia and Daewoo Cars 70s... Though I had a brief digression at first when I thought it was a foreign clone of a Hillman Hunter, which is what it looked like to me at first glance! bestest, M.

I've gotta say, given what they do to the cars in that movie, that I'm not at all convinced that many of them are the real thing. According to the Wikipedia article, the Sesto Elemento, Veyron, Koenigseggs and P1 certainly aren't. The production designers might have decided that the Sesto Elemento didn't look carbon _enough_ in real life! bestest, M.

Excellent... mine's on the way! Don't get carried away with the carbon fibre. I've got a recent big coffee table book called "Lamborghini Supercars", with large, high quality studio photography, and the "weave" is barely visible. I think I'll paint mine in Zero Graphite grey, and then overspray through a very fine mesh with black before clear coating it. The overwhelming impression in the photos is slightly metallic grey, with just a hint of regular texture/pattern to it. No CF decal I've ever seen is subtle enough... bestest, M.

Thanks very much, guys... @Dann Tier the wheels are the white metal parts as cast, with a light overspray of Tamiya Smoke to pop the detail and stop them oxidising to white. The "weather strip" is just a pointed black marker pen run around the angle of the flange... Betty-Lou's sister Samantha has apparently just boarded her plane for a visit... ;-P bestest, M.

Great job. I think it's a lovely kit, of a fantastic car. The wheels are probably the best around in injection plastic -- I have a set waiting for my E-type build. The engine detail is pretty good, as I remember -- any chance of some photos? It's certainly a distinctive car to add to your scale garage... well done. bestest, M.

indeed it does. Fascinating. Makes you wonder what the "original" source of info was for each one. They can't all be right, since they are rather different! "we carried ten tons of iron in five wagons, and seventy men riding on them the whole of the journey... the engine, while working, went nearly five miles an hour; there was no water put into the boiler from the time we started until our journey's end... the coal consumed was two hundredweight". So clearly, the fire was stokeable as they ran on. Equally clearly, there's at least an image or two from which the kit tooling guys worked, which is reasonably detailed in the fine detail, but not so clear in the "big picture!". bestest, M.

That's a great model, Harry -- I built the Airfix one as a sort of "Steampunk" display model in lots of different metallics a couple of years ago. Interestingly, I think both Airfix and Minicraft have got this a bit wrong. As people have pointed out, you couldn't safely drive or stoke the thing the way the kits are configured. The replica on Youtube is clearly driven from the other end And there's a replica in the Swansea Museum that also makes much more sense: You could probably swap the endplates of the boiler on the Airfix kit easily enough, but switching the piston, conrod and frame assembly might be harder... bestest, M.

Blimey... if it messes with Zero basecoats, it must be powerful stuff indeed. Makes you wonder what it's intended to be used over! bestest, M.