Tom Geiger

If it wasn't a Saturday I'd say that high school had just let out!

I'm very interested in the 1970 Barracuda kit since this was my daily driver back in the day. I'd like to combine the new kit with the proper body parts from the old '73 kit to create my old ride. One of the issues with the old kit was that the door handle was huge, and if I tracked the factory rub strip from the top of the side lights, it smacked into the door handle.. that should not be there!

The Chinese LOVE American cars... I conference call with our plant in China on a regular basis. Two of my colleagues from that site are coming to our conference in Puerto Rico in October. Ji was upset that we are going to transport everyone between venues by bus to save on all the rental cars (and folks from all kinds of places driving in San Juan!) because he was hoping that he could rent a Ford Mustang. He wants one badly but they are very expensive in China!

I always got a kick out of the back ground cars that appeared over and over. In one Steven Sagel movie there was a blue 1960 Buick that got passed in traffic several times in chase scenes. Later on he threw some bad guy out a window and it landed right on the roof of that very same Buick! Or any of those old Quinn Martin shows where all the good guys drove brand new Fords... so when you saw bad guys driving an older off brand, you knew that car was going over the cliff.

what irking me today? Friggin web pages with more garbage ads and moving animation than content... and having to wait for every bit of that clutter to load in before they let you see the actual content!

That's what's happening now in my neighborhood. We had a bad hail storm this spring. Contractors came around, and everyone is getting a free roof... except me. My insurance company approved a big check for dings to my gutters, skylights, attic fan covers and siding but told me my roof was fine.. same insurance company approved 4 others on my block, some of which are under tree canopies. I did sense friction between the contractors rep and the insurance adjuster, so I called another company that sent me a letter. This one showed up yesterday and said that my roof has as much damage as the others they got approved, so they'll go to bat with the insurance company. The houses here are 20 years old, and with every house around me having a brand new roof, I can see issues trying to sell the house as we hope in the next few years. So if they're giving out free roofs, I'll take one.

A funny thing... I've had a bunch of 1960s and 1970s Valiants and Barracudas. All but two of the cars I owned, two Valiants didn't have factory undercoat on them. The rest of the cars did, including my '73 Barracuda. That is a thick wrinkle finish, a dirt brown color that I believe was done after the cars were painted. Or at least of all the cars I owned, they were old enough that I had no factory body paint on the chassis!

Be careful with side stripes. If I remember correctly, this body has door handles that are too large and interfere with stripes and bumper rub strips. I had a 1:1 '73 that had the rub strip the length of the car... the handles were in the way of it so I never did build a model.

Cool! We had one of those for many years... both my daughters learned to drive on it, then it kicked around for years after they moved on to other cars just because it always started even when left sitting. It was our spare vehicle, and I would take it to work once a week or so just to keep it going. I'm sorry we got rid of it when we moved to PA! I have several of that Geo Storm promo. Whenever I see one going for cheap at a show I grab it. I have all the years and colors. I guess you already found out how much trouble it is to blow one of those apart! They are literally welded together. Eager to see what you do with it!

Ha! My wife. she was upset at me about something. Just kept making faces so I asked. She was upset that she wanted to go out on Saturday Sept 20th, but she said she just noticed I put "something selfish" on the calendar for that day. Puzzled I go look at the calendar.... Yea, I put "Stick Day" on the calendar... that's the day the town will take branches! I told her I'd be very happy to give up stick day for something more fun!

Looks cool Blair! Hope to see it in person on Sunday!

Broad Street, Keyport NJ probably eary 1940s Same spot, the last time the Google car drove through... Mansion House in Keyport circa 1910s, note the car... Same corner.. trivia- If you ever saw the movie "Big Night", this building was the bigger Italian restaurant..

same view in recent times... 11th Avenue New York City then.. Same corner recently..

Great progress... you are motivating me to go work on my Trabbie!

Don't worry Niko. she'll probably fall off on the first turn!

Many years ago... note that the kid in the story is now 30... my daughter wanted to build a model. So I got her the Ghost Buster ambulance for Christmas. We set up on my work bench and I drew a line down the middle. My side and her side. My bench is covered with brown paper so we drew boxes on her side with color names. She took all the parts from the trees and put them into the spots with the colors she needed to paint. I never pushed her. If she asked if we could work on models that evening, we did. If she walked away, so be it. Well, we worked earnestly and she got her car done in time for the show we were targeting. She was very proud of the effort. So off we went to the show, the old Staten Island Model Car show, which was held at a college in conjunction with an AACA car show. A perfect event to take a kid to, since there was a lot of activity, food and even some of those old truck mounted kids rides. This was back before I had won any awards at shows, so on the way there we talked about how we were going to the show to participate and show our models to other people. Our goal was to have a good day. We agreed that we weren't concerned about awards and prizes, and wouldn't let not winning ruin our day! She seemed fine with that, so off we went.... with no expectations. Hoping she learned a nice lesson.... and this is what happened.... So much for the life lesson!

Wow! Haven't heard that one in a long while. I got some of my first resin from him back in the late 1980s. I got a '59 Buick that I've got in my unfinished project hoard and I believe a 1952 Ford. Resin was sooo prehistoric then!

Wow, nobody even tried. That's the first line in Panama by Van Halen!

Agreed! If I was you, I'd find a fresh kit and build it with your current level of skill and add all the wires and things you mention. Then display them side by side to demonstrate how far you've come as a builder. Any model that's survived that long, deserves to be kept intact.

We must've too! Rained like crazy for much of the evening to break that crazy heat and humidity!

Many years ago I was on the phone with Jimmy about NNL East and he asked my opinion if there was a market for cheap resin bodies... the idea was just the body for people to build off of, quality that would take a bit of work, but a price point below any other resin caster. At that time it was between $10-15. He went forward with the idea and its been pretty successful. We do get an occasional whiner who thinks they should be Modelhaus quality, but most of us get the idea and are happy to get the product!

Guilty! My father was a perfectionist and pretty much built the car while I watched. He even engineered it with movable / removable weights by drilling holes across the bottom on his drill press, and cutting down large nails to fit in those as weights. Way beyond my 8 year old skill level. Or it's the car my wife's brother built for his kid!

I won't be attempting that one! It's on vehicle number two, I'm actually modeling vehicle number one. Two had a lot of details that were different, like hubcaps, some chrome trim and the roof rack with some kind of barricades. Oh, and the graphics are on the door on two while on the van side panels on one. I have pictures of a few more and the logos and vehicle ID number were different sizes, etc. so there wasn't much consistancy in the overall fleet.

I have a Crosley pickup resin done by R&R. I believe they did another version or two... not the greatest resin and geared towards drag cars rather than stock. R&R is defunct since Ray died. I don't see a kit here guys.

Exactly what I did! I painted mine dove grey and sold it. I used to call that color "Off Silver" because it came off! I think that was a period of change when the auto manufacturers were trying to follow government mandates of more enviromentally friendly paints, but no doubt without enough lead time to get it right!