Aaronw

Hey, Jeff any chance of dragging old Mike K "the mad doctor" over here? I miss his wild builds and the tales that go with them. I used to be able to pop over to SAE and check out his stuff but the new forum is really terrible to navigate.

I'm wondering if there may be some records issues regarding scale at Lindberg. Some of their aircraft kits have been mislabled as well. Is it possible Lindberg thought the Gremlin was 1/24 when they ran the molds?

I have had one in my stash for quite sometime but have never built it because of the odd scale (1/32). I have seen quite a few that came out very nice but don't know if it was a chore to get it that way. Lindberg's American LaFrance would complement the Mack nicely if you wanted something of similar scale to sit next to it.

I kind of figured the Who version was a cover, how many British kids are going to find a Model T in Tennessee? Funny how many of the classic British bands did covers from other bands in the beginning before the labels would let them cover their own material. Remebered another one Blue Chevrolet - The Beat Farmers

Most of the I was going to list have been listed but there are a few I didn't see Cars - Gary Newman Down Payment Blues - AC/DC Roll me away - Bob Segar Fire lake - Bob Segar Heard it on the X - ZZ Top (ok so its a song about radio but cars and radio just go together in my mind) I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide - ZZ Top Trashed - Black Sabbath Jerry was a racecar driver - Primus Bucket T - The Who And if you can find some of those cool SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY clips they would be neat to slip in here and there between the music, I've looked all over the internet and can't find any.

The badge engineering is just another example of boring, thoughtless behind the times American car manufacturing. The US auto manufacturers have never really caught up with the fuel economy thing, from the 70's onward it has been a shell of what it once was. When fuel economy was becoming an issue what did the US manufacturers offer? The Pinto, the Vega, the Gremlin and I can't even think of a Chrysler attempt. Ok, that was take one, I can see a little stumble, so what was take two, the Pinto, the Chevette, the Pacer and the Omni (Chrysler didn't even try they just bought a Mitsubishi, based on the other offerings probably a good move). What did we get outside the US. The VW Beetle (a 30 year old design by the 70's and still a better car), the Mini (maybe not a great car but it has some style), and then the Japanese cars, Corolla, B210, Civic real cars with good economy, good reliability and much higher standards than the comparable US cars. By the 80's most of the big 3 had given up and were just rebadging Japanese cars in the economy segment while they continued to spend the bulk of their effort on big traditional American cars. Ok, Ford gave it a shot with the Escort, perhaps an improvment over the Pinto but not even close to the quality of comparably priced Toyotas, Nissans or Hondas. By the 90's the Big 3 were finally starting to offer cars that at least gave the Japanese cars a decent run, in my opinion still not up to the standard of the Japanese cars, but when given a nudge for being "American made" were competitive. Then the SUV craze hit and the Big 3 dumped the progress they had made and once again dropped the economy car as anything more than a cheap car. They also dumped the one thing that really made them different from everything else, being American made. Now you run into the odd situation of an "American" car built outside the US while some "Foriegn" cars are being built in the US. The US auto industry is cheap and lazy, if they want to survive they need to become innovative, creative and proactive. Instead of treating the consumer as idiots what if they actually made the lines different, even if only skin deep. There have been many love it or hate it car designs, so why not offer the Ford in a futuristic design and offer the Mercury version in much more traditional sheet metal or offer one in a performance version and another in a luxury economy version etc. Offering the same car with a minor change is just a duplication with no real gain. People should be buying the car for something more than the name. In the 70's Ford had the Mustang, a high performance "Pony car", Mercury offered the Capri a very different sporty car, in the 80's the Capri was just a Mustang with a different grill. On another website someone mentioned the complete lack of support for the Chevy Colorado, while they push the full size Silvarado. In the Colorado Chevy has finally managed build a truck to compete on a fairly equal basis with Toyota for the compact truck market. I say this as someone who believes Toyota makes the best small truck in the world and has for a long time, what does Chevy do with it? Nothing, they try and push their full size truck which (again my opinion) is the weakest truck among the big 3 as an actual work truck (and what the full size truck is supposed to be) while the Japanese are beginning to eat there way into full size truck sales, an area traditionally well in the hands of the Big 3. If the US auto industry does not change its ways and lose its sense of entitlement (to sales by US consumers) we wont have a US auto industry for much longer. The days where someone would plunk down their hard earned money for an inferior product because it is "American" made are quickly vanishing, when was the last time you saw a Zenith TV? Harry your Cougar is great, Mercury should fire its designers and hire you.

I will give that site credit for helping get me back into the hobby, I "met" a lot of other modelers through that site who had similar interests in modeling, and some that were just plain really darn helpful even though they built totally different stuff. Most of those people ended up drifting off to other sites due largely to some of the misdeeds of other members and the moderators.

The 1/24 Italeri Opel blitz fire truck would work, combined with the cab of the '41, '50, '55/57, '60 Chevy or '50, '53, '56 Ford it makes a nice older Chevy or Ford tank truck. Lindberg is supposed to be re-issuing their milk tanker which I have been told can be built as a trailer or as a truck mounted tank. That would make a great water truck mounted on a Ford Louisville or Ford C cabover although that would probably be a bit late for the usual vintage at your track. There are a few nice looking diecast fuel and water tanker banks out there in 1/24-1/34 pretty cheap, real common on ebay. Strip it, Pull the tank, wheels etc, hide the bank beginings of the tank and mount it on a vintage Ford or Chevy chassis.

I was actually hoping this was a post saying someone was doing a kit of the GT California Spider in your pic.

I thought if it didn't have a V12 it wasn't really a Ferrari? I remember reading something about how the company had some sort of internal policy about that, the V8 cars were technically not Ferrari's. Good looking car though.

You have a lot of tanks, where do you find room for the models? I like fish too, we got started with some Neon & Black Tetras in a 10 gallon tank when my son was about 3. There was a fish store up the street and when we walked by he would be glued to the glass looking at them, so we finally decided to get him a tank. Now we have a 100 gallon tank and a 29 gallon tank. Still have a pleco we got with that first tank, he(?) is about 14" long now. Bunch of Neon Tetras, still have a few of the original Black Tetras, have some Cory catfish, ghost catfish and a clown loach. Not the cheapest hobby but it is a peaceful one. Still works to keep the kid occupied too, he is almost 8 but he'll be tearing around the house with a friend or two then it will get quiet and we'll find them all just looking at the fish. Way better way to occupy kids than a TV.

The price is a bit steap, but it is very nice. I bought one a couple years back, it is nicely detailed, includes PE emblems to make a 2wd or a power wagon, also Dodge or a Canadian Fargo version. It was a very clean casting in white resin. You can save a little money if you want a stepside, just order it without a bed. I've been told the bed used on the 70's LRE kit was the same bed used back to the 50's. It shouldn't be hard to come up with the bed from the LRE since that kit was so common. It might have been a goof but mine came with both the sweptside and the stepside beds. There was a resin '66 Dodge a while back but I've had no luck contacting the caster in the past 6-8 months.

Wow, this is almost like watching someone building a 1-1 in their garage. Neat subject, back when race cars didn't all have the same fiberglass shell.

Great job, I really like mobile repair trucks and you really caught that functional look with your build. One very minor nitpick for you, the AMT kit builds a 1968-83 truck, a '65 would have used a different style trim on the doors without the reflector. Like I said really minor, I only mention it in case you want 100% perfection.

What's the deal with an ad filling up 1/2 the screen? Between the side bar and the ads not much room is left for the actual posts.

I bought Corel Draw for making decals (it is vector based so changing the size doesn't change the image), I fiddled with it and then dropped it. I know how to use MS paint so I found it frustrating to use because it isn't like paint. Then one day I pulled it out again and ran through the tutorials it took me most of a weekend to really get up to speed but I use it all the time now, its actually pretty easy, but like Erik says you have to use it to get comfortable. I don't know if it is at all appropriate for doing stuff like Harry posted but I like it. I bought the teacher / student edition and I believe it was around $85 vs the $300+ for the regular version. You don't have to be a fulltime student to qualify for the discounted version, I get sent to a lot of training for work that is run through a college, even though I'm only in class for 2-3 days I still qualify. I have a son in 2nd grade so I'd still qualify but for those without children I thought it was handy to know there is no minimum number of units to qualify as a student, sign up for a class even for 1 unit and you are good.

$4.41 for 87 octane (the "cheap" stuff), luckily I don't drive much so I'm not sure what the prices are like outside the park. Probably $0.50-0.75 a gallon cheaper, one of the reasons I always try to fill up in town.

$20 for the complete set isn't bad, Thanks. Now I just need to find some time to play with it.

Adult help??? I could have used some help, the M sticker on both the Mach 5 & 6 was a major pain. What rocket scientist thinks stickers are easier than water slide decals anyway? Other than that and a couple spots where more finger strength was needed to get a part to snap in place my son was able to put it all together himself. Except for some questionable language during the hood sticker application a great time was had by both of us.

That would be great, the one I got looks to be in good shape but these things have to be at least 40 years old, so I'm sure fresh parts would improve the performance. It was also just the machine so its possible I'm missing something.

Illinois Nazi's, I hate Illinois Nazi's. This kit should have been an orange Pinto wagon. No coffee this morning in case its not obvious.

I picked one of those up last summer on ebay. Haven't had a chance to try it out yet though so if you have any tips to share I'm all ears.

Finland used a blue reversed swastika as their national symbol on aircraft prior to and through WW2. They changed it after the war, since they had fought on the side of the Germans against the USSR (the USSR had attacked Finland in 1940), so they probably felt it wasn't worth the bad feeling of keeping their symbol being on shakey ground already.

Randy thanks for your reviews on this and the Mach 5, I wouldn't have known to look for these and they look like great kits to build with my son. I picked up both last night.

Have a look around here, Hendrix and R&R might have something that will work for you. http://www.resinrealm.net/Star/STARModels.html