Matt Bacon

I'd love the Auburn Boattail and the Chrysler Atlantic, but I rather sadly, my nearest Ollies is 3208 miles away, in Massena, NY... ;-( The box art on that Lindberg Stutz Racer is nice, too... very reminiscent of the Airfix 1/32 series of cars from the 60s... bestest, M.

Craft store or dressmakers shop. It's called tulle, and is used for veils in wedding dresses and underskirts if you want that 50s look. It's basically nylon or rayon mesh, and comes in a variety of levels of fineness of mesh weave. My local department store with a big craft section carries 5 different grades, so you should be able to find the one you need. I use black and Zero Paints "Graphite Grey", but any darkish metallic will do. You can mix things up a bit by swapping which one you use for the base colour, and which one you overspray with. bestest, M.

1/24 488 GTO, AMG GT and new Audi R8 from Revell Germany 1/24 Acura/Honda NSX and Jaguar E-Type Coupe from Tamiya (OK, the latter is more of a wish based on the 300SL, but...) 1/25 2016 Ford GT from Revell (and then Revell Germany) (Ford is so all over marketing that car that I suspect we'll actually get at least two - a snap kit for "juniors" and a full detail model) 1/24 Lambo Huracan from Fujimi (and also possibly Aoshima) 1/24 McLaren P1 from Aoshima 1/24 Citroen DS "decapotable" from Ebbro 1/24 Escort RS1800 from Belkits 1/32 Aston Martin DB10 from Airfix bestest, M.

...unless it's made by Wingnut Wings. I don't believe I've seen a single criticism of an inaccuracy in any of their kits. And if there are two versions of the rear gun mounting, or three types of oil cooler, they'll give you all of them... bestest. M.

OK... I printed the above out to 1/24 scale. The good news is that profile wise, the Heller coupe is pretty much spot on to the plans. I think the roof and windscreen look taller than they should partly because without the screen in place, it's hard to see the angle, and partly because the top line of the window is slightly too high at the front: instead of rising all the way to the windscreen, the line should peak more or less at the "CC" arrow on the plan and then curve gently down a bit before reaching the "corner". I think a very small fillet of plastic card will deal with that painlessly. The windscreen depth, "V" should be 3/4" in scale, and it is exactly that... The rear window is too small, and that makes a difference to the look. I think it shouldn't be too difficult to open out, though, and use clear plastic sheet for a replacement... it's not a very compound curve. It's a Series 1 -- 3.8L engine, covered headlamps, toggle switches inside, bucket seats, and Heller has even remembered to mould the legroom-increasing recesses in the floor pan. bestest, M.

This has got me intrigued, too. This should help those comparisons: bestest, M.

Looking at the Gunze kit very closely, there's a bit of work to be done on the wheel arches at the rear -- they need to be pretty much symmetrical, not kicked up at the rear with that almost vertical drop at the back, and there's not such a pronounced "kink" at the seam line. Also, on my copy at least, the profile of the rear "haunches" behind the cabin is slightly different between the two sides -- the right hand side has a slight concave kink behind the door, whereas the left sweeps up in a continuous convex curve. Nothing a little bit of sanding won't sort out, but odd... bestest, M.

For comparison, here are the Gunze (1/24, white), Revell (1/25, built) and Heller (1/24, red) bodies. Since I took these, the Heller has been re-released, so it's a much more realistic option than before. bestest, M.

I'm not sure I'd call it "fudging". After all, we all want a replica on our shelves that looks like the real thing, right? Case in point... I measured up the Revell SLS kit every which way, and it is a _perfect_ 1/24 scale reproduction of the real dimensions. Yet, in the cabinet, it looks nothing like wide and flat enough compared to what I see when I see one in real life... which does happen from time to time. Unlike, say, the Tamiya DBS, which looks just as good on the shelf as the real thing does in my driveway. I say full marks to Tamiya for trying to create model kits that when built look and photograph like the real thing, rather than simply reducing all the dimensions by 24... bestest, M.

Seconded... the Revell 1/25 kit is pretty good, with a reasonable amount of detail out of the box, and well-shaped. In 1/24, the Heller kits are equally well detailed, also with pretty good shapes. And they've all recently been re-released, so they should be easier to find as well... http://www.heller.fr/fr/recherche?controller=search&orderby=position&orderway=desc&search_query=jaguar+type+E+1%2F24&submit_search=Rechercher bestest, M.

Pretty much any of the more recent Tamiya kits: LFA, GT86, DBS, LaFerrari. In fact pretty much any Tamiya kit (the XJ220, NSX, and Alpine A110 are also ace, even though they are a couple of decades old.). The Fujimi EM Dino is pretty good, as far as I can see looking in the box... ...and I was just marvelling at the body shell of the Ebbro DS19 that's recently landed on my desk. The early 80s Heller kits, like the Delahaye I just finished and the Bugatti T50 and 11CV TA that are in the stash look bang on the money as well. bestest, M.

Yeah, but he was mostly doing it so he could talk up what a fantastic job Eagle do in "modernising" these cars. You can't step into a vanilla, period, E-type and expect it to behave like a modern supercar. When it appeared, it drove better than Aston Martins and Ferraris of the time that were nearly twice as expensive, and looked better than anything at the time and any time since. These days, an average hot hatch can monster any of the class-leading supercars of the 60s, 70s and 80s in terms of raw performance... but does anything you can buy today look better than an E-type? It's not a Countach, 288GTO, 488 Spider or Veyron, but I could go out tomorrow and buy one, let Eagle do their thing and make it a painless continent-spanning GT, and still have change from £180K... all the while making sure that concierge parkers all over the world will leave it outside the entrance to their hotel/casino/restaurant... Anyone want to suggest a car that looks better than this? bestest, M.

Lovely job, Jurgen. You chose the perfect colour, obviously... ;-P Since I have one to tackle someday, I'd be interested to hear whether the construction sequence I used on the Revell kit is viable here: I assembled the body and eliminated the seams, then painted it, and finally "posted" the interior into position through the space where the firewall fits. Last thing, I adding the seats and dash once it was in place. If you did that, or something different, I'd love to know... I think for the external parts, I'll just primer the white metal and spray them chrome. I may have some spares in a Heller kit. I have a "donor" part built kit as well as fresh one, the donor kit being built as a racer, without a lot of the trim. Anyway, another beautiful model to add to your cabinet -- and of course it should be in the front row, because after all it is the most beautiful car ever made (or at the very least, the most beautiful car ever made by mass production and affordable to a wide clientele...) bestest, M.

$95... $65 for the interior parts, and $30 for the engine, both of which you can find here: http://www.stradasportsstore.com/page8.html bestest, M.

I think I've got it now, Casey, thanks. In Safari, on a Mac, you have to use "Paste and Match Style", not "Paste" or cmd-V to paste the copied URL link, otherwise the board software automatically turns the pasted URL into a clickable link, not an image link. This may not be true in other browsers on other platforms, but it is the case here. And without a doubt, it IS the fault of the Forum software that the "Insert other media V Insert image from URL" dropdown menu "replacement" for the old "insert image" button that popped up a window to paste your URL into simply doesn't work at all. Anyway, for now I'm sorted, so thanks all... bestest, M.

Because the embeddable forum links only come in three sizes: the bottom picture above is the largest one. I prefer to optimise my build and in progress pictures to 1000 pixels wide and 120K JPEGs in Photoshop as the best compromise between showing detail and keeping the page loading times reasonable. That's the upper image in my post above. There's no way to use the Smugmug embedded link to post a 1000 pixel wide picture, hence using the "Direct" links... bestest, M.

Sooo.... It seems extremely temperamental about what copied URLs work. The upper picture is me grabbing the "original" from the "Direct Photo Links" on Smugmug, and typing the (IMG) tags around it. Which works for Smugmug, it seems. It does not work consistently for all other copy/pasted URLs (or even most of them). The lower picture is me doing what Casey suggested and using a pruned BBCode "Embedded - Forums" link from Smugmug on the large size. So, it looks like there's a workable solution for my own hosted photos at least: use the Smugmug "Direct - Original" link, and type the (IMG) tags around it. Still seems to be a lottery on pictures found around the web, though... especially since PhotoBucket doesn't seem to let you copy a link or download a picture without logging in to your own ID (which I don't have since I use SmugMug. As for using Imgur... well, I don't see why I should need to switch photo hosting services just to be able to post a picture on a specific forum.... ;-P Thanks so much for all the help, everyone! bestest, M.

Copy/paste of BBCode Forum link from SmugMug hosting site: Great, but no control over sizes, just small, medium or large thumbnails., So no more 1000 pixel wide crisp pictures... bestest, M.

I've been trying typing those BBCode tags and not been able to get it to work reliably. Tags typed in around URL from "Copy Image Address" and "Paste" does this: 18_main_f.jpg Tags typed in around "Copy" and then "Paste and match style" OK... it looks like just "Paste" doesn't work, but "Paste and Match Style" stops it automatically becoming a link... How stupid is that...? bestest, M.

...would that I could... I can post a clickable URL for the photo, but I've yet to find a way of getting the photo to appear in my response on this forum. You'd think that "insert image from URL" would do the job, but it just doesn't work. bestest, M.

Nope, that doesn't work either... ;-( bestest, M.

Yeah, but I don't really want to be cluttering up my desktop with loads of downloaded images, and more importantly, doing that means that all the images are being stored and served on the modelcarsmag forum server, using up storage and increasing the bandwidth needed (and the cost). Given that we all use some kind of image hosting service for our own pics, and the others are already on a server somewhere else where we have found them, it's an incredibly inefficient way of doing it. Me, I'd have put fixing "Insert image from URL" the absolute #1 priority; and I wouldn't have released an "upgrade" with it broken, either... bestest, M.

1-25830.JPG Nope... the above is what happens if I type the BBCode IMG tag, paste the URL, and type the close IMG tag... That's what I mean... bestest, M.

Could someone possibly post a simple guide to posting pictures in a thread in the new forum software? All I want is to be able to insert a picture hosted on the web, with a URL, embedded into a thread. Shouldn't be too hard, should it? After all, it was a breeze in the previous version of the Powerboard software. I can't copy and paste pictures, drag files or even hand type the BBcode tags around a cut and pasted URL. Nothing I try works. Invision should be ashamed of themselves. After all, it's not like some minor, barely relevant feature. There'll be no more WIPs or Under Glass from me until I can find a way to do it... bestest, M.

I think the closest you'll get is a colour called "California Sage". It's not currrently in the Aston martin palette, but it was until 2010. Code should be Aston Martin 1338. http://outrageousvehicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2009-Aston-Martin-DB9-Volante_1.jpg bestest, M. I'm officially giving up on trying to post pictures. Nothing I try works. This "upgrade" has been DREADFUL.