Rodent

Art, It is interesting that you cite humidity as one of the reasons that promos warped. Around the time I was in my late 20s, I decided to buy a promo from the year of my birth. I settled on a reasonably cheap Comet, and imprisoned it in a (Jo-Han?) case right away. I just pried it out and took these pictures. I don't know where it lived before I bought it, but I live in relatively dry Northern California. [url=http://s161.photobucket.com/user/sja522/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20150317_175110.jpg.html] [url=http://s161.photobucket.com/user/sja522/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20150317_175053.jpg.html] [url=http://s161.photobucket.com/user/sja522/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20150317_175038.jpg.html]

Ugh. Seems like that would have been a lot of work for the likes of Ertl.

Thanks guys. I was very confused last night when I dove into the stash looking for the two Cougars that I thought I had. If I was to build one,it would be an XR-7 as a tribute car to the one a family friend had when I was a wee rodent. I haven't seen the later releases, but I suspect that they all still have the XR-7 interior.

What was the last version of the kit that had XR-7 badges? The countdown? I thought I had 2 versions in my stash, but I can't find them. I may have sold them off a few years ago. IIRC, I had a countdown and the first Eliminator version at one time.

Our forum member futurattraction supplies the upper shock mounts in resin, hidden among his Futura prostock parts. http://www.futurattraction.com The Comet is a pretty nice kit overall. The biggest problem that I have with it is that it should have a vacuum booster and dual master cylinder. AMT just carried over the '66 manual single master cylinder. I don't remember seeing a '67 390 GT with the '66-style open element air cleaner, but it could have happened. '67s typically had an oddball unit with two mesh inlets instead of a snorkel. I really like the Firestone Wide Oval tires that came in the Comet and Fairlane kits.

Nope. 2009-ish Focus RS MKII. 300 hp 2.5 5-cylnder. Not sure how a Euro hot hatch with Mexican plates wound up at a hobby store in the Kapital of Kalifornia, but it was cool.

At the LHS. No, it's not a riced out Civic. It was sporting Mexican license plates.

I had issues with that too in IE. It works correctly in Chrome.

Could you please post the link to find them on Shapeways? I guess that is legal :-) http://www.shapeways.com/product/RD5VYS8S2/1-24-scale-4wd-hub Matt has some other cool stuff too.

I got the hubs today from Shapeways. They are very nice! Too bad that my first 3D printed parts are going on such a crude model (AMT F-350) LOL.

He had end stage COPD. I had no idea he was sick.

Yeah. It's the reissued Firestone truck with the Model King Open Road Camper on Modelhaus dually wheels. I spent a bunch of time on the internet looking at period photos of the 4x4 trucks to figure out if they had manual locking hubs in '79 or were still using the old 203 full-time transfer case. AMT didn't include a transfer case lever in the kit, so I am going to have to fabricate something there too.

A member that has some on Shapeways PMed me and I ordered some from him. I will review them when I receive them. I have one of the old MPC Dodge trucks and could have copied its hubs in resin or epoxy, but I was looking for a DIFM solution this time. I am doing enough scratch building and "Imagineering" on this build anyway. Thanks for the responses. I will probably pick up one of the Blazers eventually. I have never had one.

As far as the cap color goes, the "white" is a bright refrigerator white, and the racing white is warmer looking. I haven't actually sprayed any out yet, but I expect it to be more like Ford Wimbledon White.

Search for "AMT 64 Ford" on eBay. Among the Mustangs and Thunderbirds, there is a built convertible, an incomplete but unbuilt convertible, and several of the curbside hardtops. If your friend's car is a 500, the interior is quite different from the kit's 500XL interior. The wheelcovers are somewhat different too. The XL has three "wings". Missing Link casts a sedan trans kit. I have seen that they offer the 500 wheelcover (not on their site). Maybe they would sell you just the sedan interior? It would still need to be modified and the rear seat narrowed, but it would be a better starting point for a bench seat interior than the one that comes with the hardtop.

I have seen them on "The Bay" for over $100, but sometimes less. If a curbside is OK, you could get one of the re-popped hardtops and cut the roof off. Modelhaus makes the top boot and you could scratchbuild sunvisors.

Yeah, there was an annual kit made by AMT. It was a 500XL and had working headlights. It would take a little scratchbuilding to "downgrade" it to a 500.

Does anyone make just the Warn-style locking hub that can be added to the wheel of my choice? I could swear that I have seen them somewhere. I checked "the usual suspects" and looked on the Bay, but no joy. TIA

Chris, I would like to see the Marti report too. My last Mustang was also one of a very few cars because not many dealers ordered Diamond Blue 68 coupes with 302-4v,4-speed Manuals, disc brakes, AM-FM stereo, light group, and visibility group.

Very nice Pat!

I will keep looking. I built two of these "back in the day", so the stock wheels should be in the parts box(es) somewhere. At least I found an air cleaner right where I thought it would be. Probably have 3-4 more of those too.

Jesse, IIRC, the 71 and 72 promos had the cap and trim ring wheels that you are looking for. Modelhaus has them for $8.50.

Scott, I *should* have eight of the wheels in my parts box. I just found one of them, plus the air cleaner from a '72. If I can find at least 3 more, they are yours.

I am not familiar with the '66 W-30 cars, but it is possible that power brakes weren't even available. If a cam has a lot of overlap, the engine doesn't produce enough vacuum for power brakes to work like they are supposed to. IIRC, the 1970 W-30 4-speed cars had manual brakes for that very reason.

You guys can bang the drums and wave the 'murican flag all you want, but the 2014 Focus we just bought was assembled in Wayne Michigan by UAW peeps. It has only 45% US parts. The Kentucky Toyota and Indiana Subaru have a much higher US content. Question for the economists out there: Which car supported more US jobs? What really constitutes an American car?