Modelmartin

But Fred still fills orders that arrive at his P.O. box. From the horse's mouth.

I will race you when you are done! Seriously though, I love your work.

Ho!Ho!Ho!

Oh I don't know! I knew a guy who built a very realistic looking 1/35 armored personnel carrier and brought it to our all-subjects IPMS club meeting. It was very well built and weathered but when you opened the hatch for the engine there was a chromed supercharged small block Chevy! We all cracked up! I think Terry, Mark, and Harry all have it right about the differences between the types of builders and quality of kits at different price points. When Superior Models in Japan produced their 1/43rd Ferrari 250 LM with 400 parts, an electro-formed body and pre-soldered tube frame, it blew everyone out of the water and rightly so for the $900. price.

I would be excited but I already have 2 originals on the shelf! doh!

In the past I have owned a SAAB 95 (the wagon version) and a 99 EMS. They were two of the most enjoyable and fun cars I have owned. There are the only cars I have owned that I would love to get another one of if I could. SAAB is an acronym for Swedish Airplane Corporation. Some of the engineers who designed the first SAAB car back in 47-48 didn't even have driver's licenses. They were aircraft designers. That was the basic DNA of the company. They typically engineered the details differently than everyone else and it worked out great. SAABs have gobs of personality. They borrowed engines from others. The V4 was a German Ford engine, basically half of a 221 Fairlane engine or 2/3rds of the German Ford V6 which was used in some of the European Capris. The 99s engine was designed by Triumph for SAAB and was similar to the TR7 engine but built by SAAB. It was powerful and reliable with its Bosch fuel injection. I didn't mind GM using Opel engines in the cars but using the Opel platforms went too far. They then used the same platform for those Ugly GM Malibus. If this is in fact the end of SAAB it will be very sad to see such an interesting and unique brand gone. By the way, I think the true SAABs are beautiful cars, ESPECIALLY the older ones!! I would kill for a 92 or 93 with the two-stroke engine and suicide doors.

That is too bad. I always liked SAABs and owned several. Another reason to hate GM!

That looks like a disaster waiting to happen!

Monteverdi produced a mid-engine GT coupe with a 426 hemi in it. It was called the Hai.

Best thing to do is build them!

George!! The Revell is an EMPI Imp. It isn't generic at all. The Imp was quite cool.

Big wheels are great if you get it closer to the ground. I would use smaller diameter to get it closer to the ground if you can't fit the big ones in the wheelhouses. Just me, but I like close to the ground. It looks better. Should be a cool model.

This is an easy CBP for me since 70% of what I build are imports anyway and I am on a tear right now. Here are a few pics of in process builds. I may finish one or all for this build. It just depends on when it closes! This is the Testors/Italeri Mercedes 540K Cabriolet B. I just got the multi-piece body together and smoothed the seam and redid the side trim. This will be out of the box in a 2 tone blue with black top and tan leather interior. This is the worst engineered kit of all time but also one of the cooler cars of all time - Heller Mercedes 540K Special Roadster. The body comes in two halves and the doors and hood sides are chromed. It was stupid! I am molding the doors shut and redoing the trim. It will be Silver and a copy of the car that was in Harrah's collection for many years. I already have built about 10 Minis from Tamiya and Fujimi and I am not stopping for a while! here is the next one. It is a Scalekraft pickup. It will be built stock. I haven't decided on markings but it will be a commercial vehicle.

Oh Gawd! Not another of these wish list threads! Build what you already have!!!!!! :)

August in Florida. I don't think my Minnesota body could hack that!!!

In George Lucas' first movie "THX 1138" which is a sci-fi farce, the bomb which they lower and raise back into the bombbay several times is clearly an AMT 1/25 Fruehauf trailer!!! It has all kinds of weird stuff glued on it and no wheels to make it look more "spacey". The "Alien" in the movie is a beachball with swim flippers and long rubber gloves attached to it. It is a hilarious movie and worth finding. Lucas recycled the name and put a THX 138 license plate on Milner's Coupe in American Graffitti. There is an episode of Home Improvement where Tim Allen demonstrates for his son how to take care of things and starts cleaning and polishing his 1/14th scale CMA Ferrari Barchetta Lemans winner. I did the patterns and casting for CMA. Marshall Buck, the proprietor of CMA, confirmed that he sold one to Tim Allen. It was fun to see my work on primetime!

How about time? Is a model 1/25th as old as the real car? That would sort of be like dog years.

Bingo! The easy way to do it is to calculate the cube root of the weight.

I may not paint what I can't see bit I certainly can't see what I AM painting!!! :lol:

4-cam Hemi head V8 with a blower. Most Pegasos ( they built about 80 of them) had multiple carbs. Pegaso was and still is a truck and bus manufacturer. The sports cars were built by the apprentices! It would be like Kenworth deciding to put out an exotic sports car. They are awesome cars.

My mother always told me that a sloppy workshop put out sloppy work and I have always believed that. It is a struggle but I always try to keep some order on the workbench. It ocassionally gets a little untidy but I can whip it back into shape in about 5 minutes because I do have a place for everything. It just has to all go back there!

Looking good! I always loved this car. I had this same kit at one time. Never built it. I think the box was printed in England. Danhausen had Western produce a lot of their kits in addition to AMR. That box looks just like a Western or Brooklin box. I see the Andre M Ruf signature on the baseplate. That's an AMR kit. I guess you could say it's a Franco-German-British production of an American modified German car.

Here's a short longroof!

Someone must have taken the guys lugs off or maybe when he put the autocross tires on it someone screwed up. How can all 4 wheels pop off nearly simultaneously?? Perhaps they left one lug on each wheel. Even with mismatched lugs and wheels I can't see that happening. I suspect foul play!

I just sold an original issue Airfix black box 1/32 Renault Dauphine and Austin Mini for $80.00 each. The original price tag was still on one box. Drum roll.....................Thirty seven cents!!!! The guy dug them and gave me great feedback.