CorvairJim

The big block '67 Corvette coupe is, in my opinion, the best looking car to ever wear the hallowed Corvette name, and you've done it justice, but good! You did a great job on the doors, and I never would have thought of your technique for applying the tire decals. I'll have to try that trick out sometime!

Great job, Greg! Your buddy has a good friend in you.

Rob, that Pro Touring Coupe DeVille is really kinda cool... I like it!

I don't know from Ford engines! (Hey, I'm a Chevy guy - cut me a little slack here!) I got this one as a glue bomb and actually made it look better than it did when I got it... NOT! It had the hood glued shut and a Hemi rattling around loose inside. I raided an AMT '66 Mustang for various bits and pieces to finish it, including the engine. (I apologize for the lousy photos. They were shot with an ancient, first-generation digital camera, then uploaded to and downloaded from my account on Motortopia.com since I lost the originals when my old computer had a terminal meltdown a few years ago.)

THIS is modeling! You started with a plastic kit and made a model that appears to be real aluminum out of it, replicating a car that actually IS aluminum mthat was patterned after a plastic replica of a steel car! (Phew... ) And you flat-out NAILED the sucker! You, sir are a true artist!

I'm sure you'll find a way to see a show with her sometime soon. Be sure to remind her that it isn't her fault. Accidents happen when pets are concerned (Perhaps it's time THIS pet met with an "Accident" of it's own... Just kidding!). Is there some way you can get word through to the performers through their agents about her mishap and maybe get her an autograph or something? Whatever the case, you're all in our prayers.

The Avanti has long been a favorite of mine, and my wife wants one some day. I'm afraid that a model of one is the best I'll be able to do for her any time soon. Your salty dog might help me get in gear to start yet ANOTHER project!

I have to disagree. The Bricklin IS an ugly car, no doubt about it, but there are plenty of worse ones out there. The Nissan Cube, for instance, and the Juke is even worse. Honda Element. Citroen Ami 6. Ford Focus. The original Taurus and Sable, especially the wagons. But the all-time worst HAS TO BE the Pontiac Aztek! I even saw one a few years ago wearing the PA vanity plate "BUT UGLY", so the owner clearly knew what he had!

I sometimes also refer to myself as a "Heinz"... You know, "57 Varieties"! So, Corey, have you built any models with a connection to your native Kansas?

I might look into it if it were FREE, but as soon as I saw the "Buy Now" tab at the top, I clicked off of the website.

I'm pure "Born In The U.S.A." and proud of it, but my heritage is English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, French, German, and 1/16 Native American (Cherokee). Yep, I'm a MUTT! It takes all kinds to be a worldwide group like we have here, and I'd like to think I'd fit in just about anywhere in it... at least in Europe or North America. Here's one, a Yenko Stinger, that got it's start right here in Pennsylvania, where I've lived my whole life:

Casey: DON'T DO IT! Turbine engines are known to be very powerful for their size. Anyone who knows them would notice right off the bat that the helicopter engine was W-A-Y too big for the car! Your Howmet powerplant is more than enough for a way-modified Avanti. Here's a thought for you - Maybe you could mount the engine further back in the chassis to make room for a provisional 2nd seat, to make the car eligible for international endurance racing? BTW: I like the concept of a turbine in a Stude, given Andy Granatelli's association with both Studebaker and his turbine-powered Indianapolis racing efforts. A great tie-in.)

1) Let me get this straght: You're sorry my friend owns three show-winning Vegas and has anothyer stone-reliable, 200K-mile Vega as a daily driver? (I forgot to mention that he has a newspaper delivery side-job to help him pay for his toys. He runs his 30-mile daily stop-and-go route out of the 200,000-mile Kammback!) Oh, you mean the ones that the Contour and the Torino nearly fried... 2) Dead is dead. I'd happily put any 2012/13 Corvette up against any 2012/13 Ford GT! Hell, I'd happily put my 2006 Cobalt SS up against any 2012/13 Ford GT (That's "Ford GT", NOT "Mustang GT"!) One thing I'd like to look into: The TOTAL number of Ford GTs sold vs, the number of Corvettes sold in any given month while the GT was in production! 3) Performance isn't all about 1/4 mile times. According to Motor Trend, NOT manufacturer's numbers: "The Shelby may be 3-seconds-a-lap quicker than it's predecessor, but around the Streets of Willow (Road Course), it also happens to be 3.1 seconds SLOWER than the Z06". That's all around, Super Car PERFORMANCE, not just straight-line acceleration. 4) BTW: Trash talk is meant to be fun, and that's the way I took it. Just thought I'd give you the facts about the al-time best compact car, that's all. (In the interest of full disclosure, I once had a '72 Vega Panel Express as a company car ind it was a rollong P.O.S.! It got totalled and was replaced by a 2 year old '80 Pinto wagon that, hard as it is for this Chevy guy to admit, was a better car. Maybe being 8 years and 120,000 mles newer had something to do with that, though. The Vega had been worked hard from Day 1.)

1) Vegas held up quite well if their owners just bothered to take proper care of them. I have a friend on Long Island with four Vegas: One, a 1973 "Millionth Vega", hhas been written up in "Motor Trend Classic", winning a comparison test between it, a Pinto, and a Gremlin; a 1976 Cosworth Vega; an unrestored, show-quality '72 Panel Express, and his daily driver, a '74 Vega Kammback wagon with nearly 200,000 miles on the original engine (actually, it shares daily driver duties with a '74 Corvette). 2) "The Corvair is nothin' special"... Them is fightin' words, bucko! I've owned 14 of them over the years and only ever had one breakdown. I overrevved it "a little bit" when the 150,000 mile old shift linkage (it's nearly 5 feet long from the shifter back to the transaxle) with worn-out bushings gave me 2nd gear instead of 4th at it's 6,000 rpm redline at 60+mph in 3rd. The tires caught, and the transaxle held together just fine. In fact I reused it in another car later on. Name me even ONE 150,000 mile Ford compact that can withstand overrevving to over 10,000 grand! My latest Corvair handles cloverleafs at over TWICE the "recommended" speeds. It is 14-0 against 5.0 Mustangs in stoplight drags. I guess 5.0 Mustangs are the cars that really ARE "NOTHING SPECIAL"! Yenko Stinger Corvairs are still competitive in SCCA racing, nearly 50 years after they were built. Show me a production-based, SCCA-eligible Falcon that can claim THAT! (Oh yeah, that's right. Falcons were never successful in ANY type of road racing!) 3,4) Does Chevy have a super car? !YES!... Does Ford have one? !NO!: Do the numbers Z-06 and ZR-1 ring a bell? LT-7? All the performance and more of the OUT-OF-PRODUCTION Ford GT at half the price. (BTW: When was the last time you actually saw a GT on the road? I've only ever seen ONE of them, several years ago, owned by 76ers star Andre Igoudala. It was given to him by Ford as part of an advertising deal. He pulled into a gas station with it to fill up while I was there.) I mentioned the Contour because two good friends of mine nearly burned to death when the Contour they were riding in burst into flames for no apparent reason a few years ago. The driver smelled something burning and pulled over. The engine bay erupted in flames from under the car as they were getting out. Another friend was nearly fricasseed by a '73 Grand Torino. How many Fairmonts do you see on the road compared to 1978-87 Malibus? Late 70's-late 80's T-birds as opposed to the same era Monte Carlos? NEW Taurures compared to new Impalas? I like how Ford fudges the pickup production numbers, because if you combine the production of the IDENTICAL Chevy and GMC pickup lines, The F-Series has NEVER outsold them! One other thing: Since it's debut a couple of years ago, the Camaro has outsold the Mustang. Rightly so, since it's less expensive with better performance. It is NOT "a cheap copy of the Mustang", simply a better car at a better price.

Nice work, Dan! Those late Virgil Exner Mopars sure had some, er, "unique" styling to them. While I'm not a huge fan for the most part, I do like cars that dare to be different, and these cars, by their very styling, certainly did that! I'd love to come by a restorable built-up of one of these to to redo and add to my early compact collection.

Really nice set, Dan! I just looked at the Dart in the "Under Glass" section and will be going back to check out the Vakliant. I remember seeing the 300's there recently. Just wondering: Would an up-top for the Fury would make it even closet to the way these cars arrived at the dealership? I'm planning the same thing with the Revell trailer for a couple of Chevy sets: 1966 and 1969. I'll need to find the appropriate Chevy or GMC tractors for ther builds, but I already have one of the trailers and a line on the other. I have all of the car kits I'll need either already built or on the shelf waiting their turn on my worktable.

Thanks. I'll go there and check it out!

Your '62 Dart looks great! Where can I find more about your car carrier and it's load of 1962 Dodges? I'm planning the same thing with 1966 Chevys, and possibly another with 1969's too. I enjoy rebuilding Corvair annual "Glue Bombs", and I almost always leave the license plates with the molded-in year to point up the fact that they are indeed annuals and not reissues. I just finish them like a normal license plate, with a background color that compliments the model and the numbers and the raised outline in a contrasting color (since I live in Pennsylvania, I sometimes use the colors that PA used on that year's plates). I have put regular license plates on a few of my restorations that were built as replicas of Corvairs I used to own - Those models get computer-generated replicas of the plates the 1:1 cars carried.

I love a good trash talk session, Dylan! It's all in fun. I've come to realize over the years that every brand has it's good cars and it's duds. For "Duds", Chevy had the Chevette and... and... well, maybe the 1915 "Copper-Cooled" lineup. while Ford had the Pinto and Crown Victoria firebombs, the Mustang II, the Fiesta, the Contour, all those pickups and vans that seem to rust out in the first 5 years or so (It's true - look at the bottom of the tailgate of the next 5-10 year old F-Series you're following and see if I'm lying about this one!)... On the good side of the ledger, Chevy has the Corvette, the Camaro, the sweet-handling Corvairs that I love so much, LS6 Chevelles, and Ford has... Ford has... Ford has the cars that Shelby, Saleen, and Rousch modify to make fast cars out of 'em! (BTW: I like the oversize Chevy "Cowl Induction"-style scoop you're putting on your 'Stang!)

Well, my all-time best screamin' eBay deal has to have been the 1:1 1966 Corvair Monza coupe with a solid and straight body and a heavily tweaked engine and suspension, with only 47,500 original miles for $4,300. That car could easily show it's taillights to any 5.0 Mostang driver stupid enough to try anything at a traffic light... and did on several occasions! I also outran a BMW Z-3 with it on a twisty 10-mile stretch of Pocono mountain back road at one point. That car became my daily driver for several years until I decided that I didn't want to subject it to yet another winter of Pennsylvania's notorious road salt. I owned that car for about 7 years and about 20,000 miles. I had to sell it because of the economy going down the tubes over the past few years. We have only 2 drivers in our household and had three cars and no off-street parking. If we had a garage we could have gotten collector's insurance on the car at less than $100/year but as it was we had to pay full boat on it. I had a standing offer on it from a good friend so I sold it to him about 3 years ago for $3,800. By that time the car was really beginning to show the effects of being parked outside. The infusion of cash along with the lower car insurance bill every 3 months kept our heads above water and kept our house out of foreclosure (PHEW!). The guy I sold it to has since done a full cosmetic restoration on it inside and out. It didn't need anything mechanically. I'd say seven years of incredibly enjoyable driving that wound up costing me about $500 was money well spent... and I have right of first refusal should he ever decide to sell the car!

You're right about those Ford bumpers... I had to swerve pretty hard to avoid the bumper that FELL OFF the Ford I was passing on my way to work yesterday afternoon!

Part of Malcolm Bricklin's ideal "Safety Vehicle" (that's the "SV" in the car's SV-1 model name) was to paint them in very visible colors - the brighter the better. That car IS an exremely bright yellow, isn't it? It's also extremely REAL!!! (BTW: Although this isn't it, I did find a reference to a diecast Bricklin SV-1 in 1:43 by Automodello if anyone's interested. It's on the pricey side, starting at 89 Euros and going up from there.)

Why not? That's what just about every Ford street rod out there has under the hood! Besides, you've heard the famous saying "Built Ford Tough WITH CHEVY STUFF"! Notice that you never, but NEVER see a Chevrolet-bodied car with Ford power! (BTW: The trash talking started in the "Gumball" thread about 2 months ago when someone with a Hemi Dodge Daytona got it in his head that his car actually had a chance against my 400++ h.p., mid-engine Corvette ZR-1 powered '66 Corvair! THAT'S not gonna happen! )

What a beauty... And the model came out great too! Seriously, I hope you stick with the hobby, Kate. You clearly have a talent for it. The actual car that your Bentley model was based on was a very successful racing car back when it was running. As I recall, an identical car won the 24 Hours Of LeMans in 1928 and finished second in 1929.

I didn't mean to imply that he reworked the images in these games - Just that he cleaned them up to take away any hard and fast clues like emblems, badges, and license plates, maybe eliminating the wording on a sign in the background to eliminate using the language as a hint for the country of origin. I find these games to be one of the highlights of the forums. Hat's off to Harry for doing such a great job with them!