Harry P.

It's not the face, it's the license plate that they want a shot of. The ticket is sent to the registered owner of the car, not whoever was driving it. If your friend is driving your car and runs a red light, the ticket gets issued in your name and you're on the hook to pay it (unless you can convince the friend to pay it!) The laws says that every "photo-enforced" intersection has to be clearly marked by signs, which they are. So I guess the red light cameras are more fair than the old trick of the cop hiding behind the bushes pointing his radar gun at oncoming traffic...

This doesn't relate exactly to illegal car mods, but since we're talking rules and regulations... Here in the Chicago area the red light camera thing is all the rage. They're popping up like weeds. Chicago has several hundred already in place, more to come. Soon just about every major intersection in the city will have "big brother" watching you. And the suburbs love them, too. They're being installed by a lot of suburbs. They are generating tons of money for these towns... cameras at some intersections are generating hundreds of thousands of $$$ for the town each year. Most of the "violations" aren't people running red lights, though... they're people making a right turn on red without coming to a complete stop. Not exactly a major "crime," but technically illegal, and a great way for these suburban towns to generate cash. But one suburb has actually taken their red light cameras down! The Village of Schaumburg recently took down their cameras. At one intersection near Woodfield Mall (kind of a big tourist destination), they were getting tons of complaints from people, and the stores in and around Woodfield Mall were starting to worry that all the tickets being issued were going to be a turn-off to people who shop there. They were afraid of losing business. Schaumburg agreed and actually took down the cameras!

Here in Illinois you're supposed to have a front plate, but for some reason the cops all give Corvettes a pass. I swear, 95%+ of the Corvettes I see have no front plate.

As you describe, in order to produce a one-piece body shell the molds have to have sliding cores. But what's the problem with multi-piece bodies? Real cars are built that way-panel by panel, as the panels each have to be able to be taken out of the stamping dies. If real cars are built that way, I see no problem with a model car being molded the same way, as long as the kit is designed and engineered well and the panels fit. If multi-piece bodies equate to huge tooling cost savings, I say go for it, kit manufacturers! I'd much rather see a kit of a new subject done with a multi-piece body than no kit at all... or worse, another rehash of an old kit we've seen before.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that a car without a fan isn't going to run too long without a major problem! Maybe it's a "Monogram thing" because the Monogram 1/8 Jaguar doesn't have one either! I had to scratchbuild one out of sheet aluminum.

I did.

This thread, and several others regarding "why don't they make a model of a (fill in the blank)?" clearly show that there are plenty of opinions to go around. Which brings me back to the idea I proposed in a previous thread: Wouldn't it make sense for every kit manufacturer to have a "Suggestion Box" on their website? Not a generic "Contact Us," but a specific area where we all could express our opinion as to what we would like to see. One way to work it would be to build a suggestion box with dropdown menus. You would pick the year, make and model of the kit(s) you'd most like to see. Either that, or use the message-window type response, but limit the character count to 25 characters to avoid people sending long, drawn-out responses. Make the suggestion boxes only available to registered users, that way you can limit people to one vote per user and keep the results accurate (no stuffing the ballot box). These suggestion boxes would serve several purposes. They would allow any of us to voice our opinion directly where the manufacturer will see it. Consumer wants would be collected in one single spot (the manufacturer's website) instead of being scattered all over various threads on dozens of model forums all over the internet. These suggestion boxes would also keep a "real time" running tally of suggestions and/or wants. The manufacturers would have centralized, accurate data as far as what their customers would most like to see produced. No need to gather "petitions" or try to attract the manufacturer's attention, because the information would be entered directly on their web site. Another benefit to the manufacturer is that it's an easy way to gather email addresses of interested people (and potential customers). Maybe the people who respond to the suggestion box receive an email newsletter as a "thank you" for adding their suggestion. And finally, the cost to add a feature like this to a website would be minimal. All the manufacturers already have websites... adding a suggestion box is easy to do. Add a small 3x5 card to every model kit produced, with information about the suggestion box and instructions on how to sign up and log in. That would also drive interest, and produce some consumer feedback in regards to what the customer would like to see. It seems like a smart and easy way for the manufacturers to directly track consumer's desires.

Final vote: 35-16 Real. You got it! Well, at least most of you got it... Next ROM coming MONDAY!

You've made a very common mistake here. Your ignition wires sprout from the distributor and travel to each spark plug in giant, towering arcs. Look under the hood of any car and see what you find. Your plug wires defy gravity! No car's ignition wires look like that, they usually are held down tight to the engine via wire looms... or if no looms, the wires still droop and sag, because in the real world we have a thing called gravity. Take another look at Bill's photos and look at how the wires are routed. No giant arcs, they follow the engine closely. That's how the real deal looks. Keep the wires shorter, and closer to the engine for a much more realistic look. If you use beading wire you can shape each wire much more realistically, and the bead wire will hold its shape.

Hmmmm.... maybe we need a Spam recipe forum...

The website is amateurish, there are no actual facts and figures mentioned, only vague generalities about how "the taxpayers" own Pontiac and GM, there is no mention as to how these "executive types" intend to gain control of Pontiac (both the brand and the actual stamping dies, etc.) and the "white paper" is incredibly poorly written. If that's your attempt to get people to send you money, all I can say is good luck with that!

And how, exactly, do you and the other "executive types" in your group intend to resolve that issue?

A little truth in advertising wouldn't hurt...

But Gregg's from Hawaii, where they think Spam is a delicacy!

I already sent Gregg an email, he's the one who can delete a member. In the meantime... how do you feel about robotic microsurgery?

Which guy?

There's some really nice photography there!

I agree! I'm one of the biggest supporters of the idea of releasing new kits of new subjects never before done. But what we get instead is perpetual rehashes of '32 Fords, '57 Chevies and of course everyone's "favorite" , the incredibly overdone Mercury. All three nice cars to be sure, and no offense to their fans, but they've all been done and redone and redone again many, many times. If only they would have taken the money spent on reworking and retooling all the versions of these same three kits and put it towards creating a new kit of a previously never done subject... It looks like circumstances (the economy, the actual number of model kit buyers) have caused the kitmakers to rely more on the "sure things" in their stable instead of giving us more new kits. I can't really blame them for playing it safe, but it sure would be nice if more all-new kits of never before done subjects would see release instead of rehashing the same old subjects yet again.

In case Revell is still watching this thread... I'm still waiting for my 1/8 Daytona or Superbird. (I know, I know... it'll never happen...)

Why don't I see the pix?

I don't see any option in the poll setup that would let me hide the ongoing vote.

I'm not sure that I can set up the voting so its hidden until the end. I'll check and see.

You bring up an interesting point... a lot of modelers will buy several kits of the same model, they'll buy a big bucks aftermarket prewired distributor, a REALLY big bucks aftermarket engine, PE sets, etc... they'll pay $$$$$$ for resin parts, but they balk at paying a few bucks more for a nice kit with added extras. Apparently a lot of people are perfectly willing to spend a ton of cash just to gather up some aftermarket bits and pieces to build one kit, and don't give the high prices of the aftermarket stuff much thought, but they expect the actual kit itself to be dirt cheap.

Someone mentioned the "Pro Modeler" series of kits. Those were terrific kits, I have a few of them. They had everything a car modeler could want: accuracy, detail, even a few extra goodies thrown in. All in all, about as perfect a model kit as you could expect, yet I guess they must have sold pretty poorly because there haven't been any more. I'm wondering why they didn't do better while they were available? I know they cost a bit more than the typical kit, but after all, they were marketed as "Pro Modeler"... seems to be they should have been a huge sales success.

Ok... remember... if you know where the photo is from and you know the answer for sure, don't tell! Real or model? The answer: REAL!