Lunajammer

Roadhouse Riviera

I respect your choice to not chrome the ridges in front of the rear wheels. Doesn't need it.

First off, thanks for posting this. I've really wanted a first-hand report on what's in the box and how it goes together. This model is like a kit bashers dream. It's already so nutty that any additional customizing can't make it worse, which is liberating for customizers who want to try risky choices. Kudos for what you're doing. Otherwise everyone has already spoken my other thoughts.

Nice Dennis, some great choices on the Club. Looking less like a concept car and more like a sports car.

I owned a 68 Cougar for about seven years and I totally relate to his comments like "love, hate relationship." It was an XR7 with a 302 and was clearly a cut above standard 289 Cougars in opulence and accessories. But vacuum power ran everything you could think of; brakes, carburetion, wipers, turn signals, headlights, pumps, gauges, etc. and when those hoses and diaphragms get old, cracked and pin-holed, the whole car becomes a gremlin village.

I dunno, doesn't seem like a deal breaker to me. Probably just a case of needing to step away for a while. When you come back later these boulders of set backs and grief will seem like pebbles and you'll have a better view of how close you are to buttoning it up. It ain't over till the kinky six sings.

I agree that it looks okay on some vehicles. I've been looking at the Hyundai Kona but I fear that nothing dates a car's look more than black plastic. Partly, as mentioned, it ages poorly, but also it usually means that later generations will have that part body color, which really makes the black plastic look even more dated.

This 1/48 figure from the Monogram Cessna 180 is the only one I can think of.

Sometimes. Just last night I helped a friend box up her mother-in-laws condo to be taken straight to the charity stores. She came from half way across the country for one week to do this task. It's winter. There's no rummage sale. I usually can't convince my friends to orchestrate rummage sales, they just want the stuff gone and let the charities decide what's trash or treasure.

Yup. My nephew's wife, while in the USAF was a co-captain of one of these while he flew F-15s.

Wow, really, really believable.

Imitation is greatest form of flattery is it not? Pretty cool.

And here I always thought it was one of those era specific tricks of the trade to exaggerate the excitement of speed. Very interesting.

I was going to call you out on this one Erik because the cars are clearly not the same size and that the size difference was exaggerated, but guess what? They are indeed all the same size. My head's starting to hurt.

I love these answers because they are conclusive and confirm my findings as well but my brain keeps thinking I'm missing something. I did perspective lines too but I did not extend them to the vanishing point so they simply looked parallel. But that still confirms that they are at least not branching outward to the horizon. Excellent thought. In my Photoshop schooling we also did such an exercise and without perspective everything looks wonky.

In summary I believe you're saying motion is contributing to the effect. I think so too. I just wonder how the illusion of distortion can happen without any apparent motion blur, which I'd think you can't have one without the other. (Bottoms up ?).

I'm certain the zoom contributes to the effect, but bank of the track should just show you more of the 3/4 top angle and not alter perspective much. But at least I think you see what I see (more obvious is some pics than others).

There is an optical illusion in racing stills that's perplexed me for years... decades, where there appears to be a false perspective. The car's far side appears wider than the near side, where you'd expect the opposite to be true. Like you can almost see the grill and the tail lights at the same time, as if the perspective is curving outward. I did some perspective measuring in Photoshop which told me that I'm wrong on some pics and inconclusive on others. Any thoughts from photographers, psychologists or nobel laureates?

I dunno man, I think the bed looks almost perfectly weathered. Maybe you could make a silk purse out of a sows ear and keep going with the distressed look somehow. Not sure what that next step would be though.

Okay, that interior requires some extra looksie. Very sophisticated. My barristers are debating the cat roof, but anything different is good, right? Still, everything lives up to the usual Thibodeau jaw drop. You need to start charging admission.

Ya know, I could totally see the shorty becoming a cab forward car hauler in the vein of some of the custom car haulers.