Aaronw

Anyone familiar with an early 80s Cadillac police package? All I know is in the early 80s Oakland, CA got a batch of Cadillac police cars. They turned out to be a nightmare for the department, the media attacked them as a waste of money (luxury police cars) and they had terrible performance making them poor pursuit cars. They didn't last long and caused the department to completely redo their procurement methods. I can't find a single piece of information about them except for my memory of the newspaper articles trashing them.

An early 70s 911 is one of the few exotic sports cars I would actually like to have. These are nice but I think I would prefer an original.

How about the mid 70s Chevy Novas.

The 1996 Tahoe too, a better detailed suspension over the metal rod axles would have been nice. I'd like full detail kits, but I'll take a simplified kit over no kit and I think the average police car modeler spends less time under the hood than more performance oriented builders. Snap kits don't have to be the simple curbsides that most think of. Revell's snap KW and Pete semi truck kits have a nice level of detail while keeping the price down ($20 for a semi kit is a steal). It is just a matter of the model companies recognizing a place for adult oriented snap kits (and keep your mind out of the gutter ).

I know that one is high, but watching these kits for awhile I won't be surprised to see that $13.84 kit end up at $40-$50 by the end, I've seen them sell for $75.

Megahobby stocks Heller. They don't list any automotive kits at the moment, but have a good selection of the military kits, so assume it is just a matter of time before these turn up. I'll likely pick up one of the Paris buses to go with the Revell London double decker. I'm really hoping for the Citroen C4 pumper to get re-issued to go along with the Delahaye ladder. http://www.ebay.com/itm/CITROEN-C4-POMPIER-1-24-MODEL-KIT-HELLER-FRANCE-/370681810977?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item564e5b9021 They made a neat hotel taxi too http://www.ebay.com/itm/Heller-1-24-Scale-Citroen-C4-Hotel-Taxi-/380615448389?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item589e72d745

That would be nice. I got my drivers license in an orange 1976 VW Rabbit, and always liked the Scirocco, my wife had a Subaru Brat for a bit when we first starting dating. It was a piece of junk (used car with tons of issues) but still kind of a neat little truck so I would jump on re-issues of any of these.

This right here http://www.ebay.com/itm/GMC-4X4-Pickup-Truck-Lifted-Suspension-Shortbed-Fleetside-AMT-1-25-Model-OPENED-/350759751659?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item51aae90feb I picked up 5 or 6 of these GMC 4x4 kits when Walmart had them for $7.99 so I'm good until there is another re-issue and prices come back to reality. I could go through my stash and find example after example of the same thing. It gets even worse when you start dealing with resin kits and the here today, gone tommorrow nature of the resin industry. I'm also lucky enough to have a spouse with her own hobbies, so she understands.

Quality snap kits seem like a good compromise, quick assembly for the current diecast crank em out modeler and easier to modify / detail, and less diecast stigma for the plastic modeler. The Lindberg Crown Vic and Revell Impala seem to have done pretty well using that method. I'd really like to see an 80s Chevy Caprice, late 70s - 90 or so Ford LTD / Crown Vic and Dodge Diplomat.

I actually like the VW Rolls kits, but mostly because it reminds me of the 70s when I was a kid, not because they are great looking cars.

It is about population density Harry. Looking at a population density map of Illinois, most of the state has less than 250 people per square mile, probably half the state has less than 25. There are a few areas with 5000+ per square mile (the cities). So all the Farmer Jones' in Podunk County can run their smoke belching pickups that create 50x the polution of your car, but still put less than 25% the polution into the air as those 5000+ areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Illinois_population_map.png California does the same thing, the low population counties don't do smog other than initial purchase. I remember what Los Angeles looked like when I was a kid, and it has improved considerably despite population growth, so emmissions laws do make a difference. Unfortunately like all laws there is a lot of stupid stuff that gets in with the good.

Many plastic model makers (Jo-Han, Williams Brothers, Pyro) were side businesses of industrial injection plastic companies, no reason to believe 3d printing will be any different. Right now the material costs are high for a top end machine like this, but those costs will drop. Imagine you are a professional model maker creating display pieces for business, showing off new widgets. Those people won't think twice about paying $1500-2000 for a 3d model of their new pesticide sprayer, starter motor, new building design for their chain of tire stores, new tractor etc. The time you save printing out these display models vs scratchbuilding them more than offsets the cost of the equipment (more time to take additional business, or more free time for yourself). Lets say you also happen to be a serious plastic model maker as a hobby. You buy the machine for your job, and turn out very limited run kits on the side as part of your hobby. That is where many of the plastic model companies started and is where this technology will likely move into our hobby. As it finds more use in business, the prices will drop. We've already seen the consumer level machines like Makerbot drop from many thousands of dollars to many hundreds of dollars easily putting them into the hands of the more hardcore model builders. If the quality is there, $300 for a kit is not out of line for a top end resin kit of an exotic subject.

Pile of old model companies wasn't meant as a negative thing, perhaps model companies with a long history would be prefered. Polar Lights was a pretty up to date model company as well. What I was getting at is they have invested heavily in buying existing tooling, so it makes a lot of sense that they are putting most of their money into "new and improved" re-issues instead of new tooling. If they were going to put a lot of effort into new tools they could have skipped over the whole acquiring a large bank of existing kit tools, and gone straight to new stuff. I'd like to have more new kits available too, but I'm pretty happy to see the older AMT/Ertl big rigs getting re-issued at $30 instead of having to hunt them down on ebay for 2-3x that price.

If you think about it, it shouldn't be surprising Round 2 has been mostly about re-issues. They have bought a pile of old model companies MPC, AMT, Ertl, Polar Lights and now Lindberg (Pyro, Palmer, Hawk, IMC others?) It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to go to the trouble of acquiring all those old tools just to turn around and sink a bunch of money into new tools. They are improving the old molds, cleaning them up, adding new parts, restoring old parts etc, so its not like they are just dragging tired old molds out and dusting them off. They have turned out a number of totally new kits over the few years they have been in existance, so it is not like they are completely living in the past.

Is that really odd that two Chevy truck kits of similar vintage would be very similar? I'm a bit confused as to the issue. Now I know that there are cases where two manufacturers kits are nearly identical in parts layout on the sprues and have similar mistakes that suggest duplication (Lee kits for example) but that doesn't seem to be what you are saying.

I'm guessing not. Magirus was a subsidiary of Duetz who produced the engines for Magirus - Iveco. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magirus

I would guess you are right on the date, it looks like an 1980s-90s truck cab to me. I've also seen a nearly identical kit sold as a Volvo fire truck, so there may be a Volvo connection as well (cab is very similar but has Volvo across the front). The engine may be a Duetz, an aircooled diesel V6 which was also used in the Ford Cargo. Duetz was a German engine maker that specialized in aircooled diesels. I've worked on some brush trucks that had a small Duetz diesel for the pump. Those were painted a medium-dark grey color but don't know if that would be the case for a larger truck motor.

No, but I'd pay $40 for a kit of it. I think it is kind of neat and looks like it should be in the next Batman movie.

Hey, I've seen that truck before. Did you have any specific questions or just looking for the truck?

When I think school bus I think Crown, but they had a huge corner on the market in California. There were a lot of school buses built on transit style buses too, Gilligs, GMs etc and those would certainly have a wide audience. The cutaway chassis style school bus could easily be the basis for a lot of other projects, prison bus, church bus, minor league sports team transporter, band bus, river rafter hauler, converted mobile home etc. If they did an IH I'd buy at least one to do as an Expeditors bus, they are a contract company that hauls fire crews all over the west every year.

My mistake

Everytime this comes up I shake my head. Nobody cares what you do in PMs or email except for illegal behavior like threatening another member. Have a car model to trade, and somebody PMs you that he doesn't have any of the kits you want but does have a nice, crisp U.S. Grant ($50 bill) that he would trade for it. Do you really think Harry or Casey are going to come crashing through the window like Batman if you accept that "trade"? If you "trade" cash for a model or part and get took, so sorry but that is a risk of buying selling anywhere but in person (and sometimes even then). If there is no selling on the site, and you buy or sell something through PMs then you really have no business bringing it up on the site. The trade section is bad enough with people openly negotiating back and forth. Beyond here is what I have, and here are some ideas of what I want for it, the only other posts should be PM sent or requests for more info which doing openinly makes sense because anybody interested might want to see the reply. That is the real point of the no buying and selling rule, the mods do not have the time or the ability to play Judge Judy when there is a dispute and really they shouldn't have to. If they are getting as many PMs over bad trades as they say they get, I'm surprised that section has remained open.

I built my own from 1/2" plywood for just a hair over $200, the fan accounted for about 75% of the cost. To answer Skip's question. Why did I build my own when Pace makes perfectly fine paint booths for $200? Because mine compares to Pace's large $495 booth, is designed to my preferences and has a more powerful fan (485 cfm vs the Peacekeepers 265cfm). If you want to buy a booth, Pace has a lot of happy customers, I almost bought one myself. This is a good article on building a booth, I found it quite helpful. http://modelpaint.tripod.com/booth2.htm My booth, 1/2" plywood, standard $5 16x20" filter, and a Dayton 1TDR7 485 cfm shaded pole blower (I recommend Grainger for the blower, they have a large selection, decent prices and great service). Behind the filter I built a plenum which is supposed to help distribute the suction across the whole filter instead of getting a "hot spot" of suction right at the point of the fan. I don't know if it is neccessary but the instructions I followed recommended it so I did it. These photos were taken when I had it temporarily set up in my garage. In its current location it vents outside through about 3 feet of 6" duct. I didn't want to cut a hole in the house, so the vent is a piece of 1x12" pine set into a slightly open sliding window. I cut a hole in the board for the vent, and ran some soft weather strip along the edges of the board so I don't get drafts from outside. Make sure you get ducting appropriate to your fan. If I had gone the cheap and easy route of using 4" plastic flex duct for a clothes dryer instead of 6" metal duct I would have reduced my fans efficiency to about 300 cfm (or lost more than 1/3 of the fan I paid for).

I've seen these before and would love to have their modern D7, but $2500 is a bit more than I'm willing to pay for a model no matter how accurate. Drop a zero and I might consider it.

I have 270,000 miles on my Tacoma, and as far as I know it is the original clutch (bought it used with around 60,000 miles on it). Oh, and I use the engine to slow down, a habit from mountain driving where it is something of a neccessity if you don't want to end up at the bottom of a canyon. I'm not sure why that is considered bad, it is encouraged in trucks and they even make exhaust brakes so diesel engines can do it.