Jim Gibbons

Thought I'd let you folks know that Turner Classic Movies will be showing "Hot Rods from Hell" early Saturday morning at 4am EST. It's a bit of a cult classic. Dana Andrews drives a '61 Plymouth in it. Fun stuff.

Can't say I disagree. It does look cleaner without it. As a former owner of a '60 Sunliner, I have to add that the trim there was nothing but a great rust trap. I really like '60 Fords, but they were perhaps one of the poorest built cars of the era. One thing I'm not fond of is the current trend to convert the instrument panels. Yes, they're more efficient, and give better info, but part of the magic of having an old car is the interior design. Yes, the '59 and '60 Fords had some of the least legible instruments you could find; white lettering on a light grey background. I did not like it. However, I still appreciate the interior design that went into it, and wish more customizers would, too. I'll take a jukebox dash any day!

Wow, Romell; another aspect of your talent that amazes me, too. If I had room, I'd love to build a 1930's vintage N scale layout of where I live in Poughkeepsie, NY using a streamlined Hudson as the theme. The 20th Century Limited would stop here in the day. I'll have to settle for Alan Rose's paper model representation of one!

Sweet! I like where this is going. Man, I just got a 40+ year flashback on building the Monogram '36.

I agree with the other folks here; it's a hard to find this kit (a great deal you got!) and if all the parts are there, a stock version restoration would be the way to go. I remember as a kid that one of my mother's friends had one of these in two tone blue. Love the roof and rear window on these GM 4dr hardtops.

Yes, that was my father's Telefunken Opus Royal. He always had Telefunken equipment. The Royal is a '56-'57 model, and he likely got it used from his friend who owned a Telefunken Radio/TV shop. The turntable was over the radio, record storage on the right side. Old Telefunken radios are one of my other interests; I have three various models of table tops, all in working condition. The "fat" sound you get out of these old tube radios is awesome. My favorite is a '63 model 5384 Concertino that is like listening to music out of a good guitar amp. Eight tubes, four speakers; two woofers in the front panel, one tweeter on each side. Push buttons and dials that tailor the sound; an early version of a graphic equalizer. All of them have a neat "Tuning Eye" where the green neon bands meet in the middle when the station is tuned in optimally. Very cool! Here's the three I have in my Fokti folder: http://public.fotki.com/modelerjimg/telefunken-radios/

Didn't we all work with trains? My dad had given me some of old old Lionel cars and track to play with before I got my first set. He had sold the engine to a friend, so it was just the cars. I had the same Sunoco tanker, plus a couple of freight cars and a caboose. The first electric train set that I got for Christmas, '65. My dad cut out a piece of plywood and painted it green to have a permanent mounting for the track. The tunnel you see was from his old Lionel set. I wasn't into scale fidelity at the time. Over the years, I bought buildings, train and gas stations, etc., and then scratchbuilt stores, etc, with full interior details. (Well, some were crude, as I made everything out of balsa, old model parts, etc.) Clear shirt collar stays from my dad's new shirts made great windows. I'd go through ads in Reader's Digest, etc. for artwork pictures of products (groceries, etc.) that could be used as store posters. The middle part of that layout eventually ended up with a nice little town, roads and sidewalks courtesy of a Matchbox snap together roadway set, all lit up, streetlights and all. I wish I had room for a small layout now, but don't. Thanks for bringing back the train memories!

Remarkable, and very ambitious work! Welcome to the forum, and I will be following this. The Lane Motor Museum recently had an exhibition of Tatra, which unfortunately ended in May. I've seen earlier examples displayed at Lime Rock. I'm looking forward to your progress on this.

I agree with Tony; it'd be pretty cool to do a modern take on an old Good Humor ice cream truck!

Beautiful job! Great color choice, a very appealing model.

An astounding example of craftsmanship. Beautiful job, John!

Scary good.

Yep, and I repeat, dreck! I never thought I would ever dislike a movie that involved car racing, but Driven proved me wrong. I saw on imdb.com that the movie cost $72 mil to make, and as of 2008, had only made about $36 mil in worldwide revenue. That's seven years after the movie was released, and includes cable TV rights, etc.

Just to add a different twist; the dumbest car chase from one of the worst movies (car or otherwise) ever made, the street scene chase in open wheel racers in Chicago? from the movie "Driven." Pure dreck.

Since someone mentioned Dirty Harry, how about when he gets chased by the R/C car in "The Dead Pool?" Certainly not a classic chase scene, but a different take on one.

That is just plain sweet! Wow.

Beautiful job! Thumbs up on this beauty!

Speaking of Thunder Road, it's on Turner Classic Movies today at 6PM EST. I'll be watching!

Agree with all the movies listed; I have to add the chase scene in Ronin. That's often overlooked. I'll also add the original Italian Job, although it's not a chase per se.

The Myth is nice; the only thing I don't like is the headlight treatment. I would have preferred the traditional headlight buckets, maybe downsized a little for modern lighting technology.

Humbrol has a great enamel Gunmetal paint. You apply it, let it dry, and buff it out. Very realistic. Here's a link to Airfix USA where you can order it. The steel is also excellent, and works the same way. http://www.shopatron.com/products/category/Metalcote/359.2.1.1.26924.26926.0.0.0

Weird, I had the same problem. Here's the link as text; copy and paste it into your browser. This way worked for me. http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2010/02/01/hmn_feature9.html Edit: when I pasted this in, the link seems to work without using the "Insert Link" feature here.

Pretty much what Paul said. The past few years, I've taken a different tack. I've preassembled a lot of the main suspension components first on separate chassis models, and then painted them as a unit. Of course, there will be areas that the spray won't reach, so I go back and touch them up with a paint brush. I've had really good luck that way. I have a few partially assembled chassis from a number of kits ready for the semi gloss black. Hopefully, I'll get some decent weather soon to go to town on them.

I still have my first release Mack Hess truck I got for Christmas in 1964. I'd guess it's around 1/32, maybe a bit smaller. I think they scaled them much like old model kits; whatever scale works for a given box size. I remember the Training van; I worked for UHaul at the time, and the Hess station manager across the street needed the trailer that was full of the Hess truck toys moved, and asked me if I could do it. I did, and he gave me a couple of them. I gave one to my neighbor's boy, and one to my brother who collects them. He still has his in the box with all the packaging, etc. That was a nice version.

I'm totally on board with the open grilles. Yes, it's more of a tooling expense, but is it really that much harder? I've built a couple of the Tamiya Mini Coopers, and they managed to tool a very fine open grille on those kits. Wouldn't something like a '55 Chevy grille be a heck of a lot easier? I know it would be impractical to do on a very fine grille mesh, but there are obvious examples out there.