Modelmartin

Love the photoshop specials, The Citroen hauler is great!!! It is configured like the Mercedes high speed transporters. I would build a model of that!!! If I had time.

I agree with you! The 58 and 61 Impalas are the best looking Chevies in my book. I love 59s too. The best looking of the 55-57 are the 55s. It's a more pure design. The 56 and 57 are not bad, of course.

American cars were, by and large, the best built cars and most advanced up to about late 60s or so. The foreign manufacturers starting stepping up their game and the American car companies started their descent in the early 70s through horrible mismanagement. There were always exceptions to that, of course like Mercedes, pre WWII Renaults, etc. I don't think anything rusted faster than late 50s Chryslers and GM cars, though! There were a lot of headlight buckets falling off here in Minnesota.

Beautiful, clean build. I like it.

That is the funny thing about Heller kits. Your Gullwing built well and I did the Bugatti T50 and it was an easy build. Then you have the Delahaye and the Mercedes 540K - they are nightmares!

Love that car! You did a great job on the model. It looks great. Did you use the Revell frame? I have a half-started one in my pile of stalled projects. I used an MPC frame because I think it looked closer to the actual frame.

Let's hear it for the brave souls who build Heller kits! Yay! Great job.

Bugatti, Duesenbergs, and Millers!!! Since I will never, ever, be able to afford any of those I have to say Porsche , VW and real MINIs - you know the English built little ones, not those oversize BMW produced ones they sell now( I like them, too!) I like and drive Japanese cars but wish they had a bit nore personality and soul. They are getting better in that category but they don't stir my love for cars like others do. What will I never want to own or will never like? Mid 70s and newer GM and Chryslers! Mostly just awful stuff there with a few rare exceptions.

I agree with you, Dave. This is the ONLY forum I am on. I have about 35 books on Bugatti and one three-ring binder of photos and 2 three ring binders of clipped articles. It has beeen my number one interest for most of my life, ever since I got a Matchbox Yesteryears T35 when I was a kid. I still have it! Now I just need to get my act together and build more Bugatti models!!

You are kidding, right? German style is different but there are so many German cars that look great I could not even list them all! 356s are great but how about most 911s, 928, 914 , 944, etc, BMW 2002, 3.0C, 320, etc, -many Audis, VW Beetle and 1st gen bus, Scirocco, Golf, Jetta, Mercedes of many eras, Horch, Maybach. They had their ugly cars, too - VW 412 gives me the willies...ugh! Porsche Cayenne, those M-B from the 90s with the front ends that looked like late 70s Camaros, BMW Isetta. Every major auto-producing country made some great cars and some real dogs!

Very cool! I always liked the oddball funny cars.

A few quick points - Ettore Bugatti was Italian! He was born and raised in Milan. He was an interesting body designer - he copied horse carriages mainly, refer to The Royale Berline De Voyage that Italieri/ Testors put out. You know, the black and yellow one. It was his son Jean ( Short for Gianoberto ) who styled all of the really swoopy Bugattis like the Atlantic coupe and the T50 as Heller kitted. The only reason they are French is because the region they lived in - Alsace- changed hands from Germany to France at the end of WWI. They are an anomaly. Having said all of that I love the quirkiness and funcionality of French cars. Citreons are so cool. Louis Renault was the French equivalent of Henry Ford. He was the biggest and best of the mass-producers and was very stubborn and independent. Voisins are very avant-garde. We produced many ugly cars - slab-sided Kaisers, 60 Lincolns, Aztecs!!! Everyone makes a few ugly ones!! The French even produced a small sports car powered by a Harley engine back in the the 20s and 30s - the Rally! Lest we not forget thet the French were our allies in the Revolutionary, 1812 and Civil wars. The English fought us in all three of those wars - they were allied with the Confederacy!! Vive le France! and French cars!

That car is one of my absolute all-time favorite cars. In the 50s it was modified by its owner and "updated". Fortunately the modifivations were not major and the last previous owner had it restored to the way it looked when new and as it appears in the video. There is a guy in Germany who is building new Atlantic coupes. He started out with Jag XK engines and fiberglass bodies. He did such a good job that people started paying for aluminum bodies and actual Bugatti T57 engines. The British Bugatti Owmers club has newly cast blocks available. They are so nice Jay Leno bought one! You can see that one on his web site. Thanks for the link.

Those crazy French! That was very cool.

And a truck version was made, too!

29 again?

There aren't many Volvo kits around to donate from!! Opel GT? Datsun 510? I dunno.

If it were me I would use one regulator screwed in. It only takes a few seconds to change pressure. You wouldn't have to have 3 regulators sitting around. You wouldn't want to grab the 60 psi by accident when shooting the Alclad or Spazstix!

Totally agree. Accepted.

That should be a very cool project but...can you use any parts from the Revell chopper in it?? Aside from the wheels and maybe a headlight!

Wow! This guy can't read very well or write very well, either! Nobody is being judgmental here except a very, very few lesser builders with a chip on their shoulder who resent the better builders. I am sick of that. I have worked very hard for many, many years to become a better builder. Why? Because I wanted to. The majority of builders out there at all levels are cool with where they are at and where others are at whatever their level of proficiency. Think about this. Why do hundreds of thousands of people go to major NASCAR, NHRA, F1, etc races and maybe only a few hundred at the local bullring when the hobby stockers run? It's because the big boys are better and more interesting and exciting to watch. The same goes with our little world of model cars. I will look any day at builds of John Teresi, Bill Geary, Saubinater, Mark Jones, Bob Downey, even Art Anderson!!! ( Hi, Art! ) I don't bother with people who are routinely putting out mediocre models because I don't have time to look at them all and I have no interest in looking at them. I am not putting them down. I am glad they are building and hope they enjoy it. Not many people look at or comment on my stuff because my subjects aren't very popular here but I can handle that. PS to the Topic Starter - don't distress about his thread. You brought up an interesting point and started a good conversation which one or two jerks decided to poop on! Don't worry - be happy! NOT your fault.

A man has got to stretch beyond his limitations.

I stand corrected on the Campus Friends set which did only include the Vespa. Tamiya also released a set of 4 scooters which included the Vespa, a Yamaha Beluga, Honda Tact, and Suzuki Gemma. They were all typical 80s style step-through scooters. Tamiya more recently issued a Yamaha T-Max in 1/24 which is a pretty cool modern scooter. Someone did a P/E set for it, too!! In addition to the Heller GP bikes, Hasegawa released several different GP bikes in the mid 90s. To get really obscure, Protar did a 1/24th Honda NSR500 in the early 80s in 2 different markings. They were white metal and P/E and plastic. They looked accurate but tough to build. I never attempted them. I have long since sold mine off. There are hundreds of different diecast built-up motorcycles and scooters in 1/24th. I won't even begin because this thread was about kits in 1/24-5. There are some lunatics producing 1/43rd vintage GP bike kits in France or Italy. Cheeses!!!

That looks like fun building an out-of-box model. I see you got the "sit" just right. Very cool.

If memory serves me well,they are a good outfit. 90% of all white metal kits in England came out of either SMTS or Western Models and both did very competent work. I think you will like the kit.