Harry P.

Or a foon.

Nice and clean on the trunk lock and "Nova" script.

No servos or radio? No problem! I'm sure it would make an excellent ceiling fan to keep you cool while you're building!

True, you'll have to copy your images back to your hard drive, but Photobucket has a bulk upload feature. I've never used it, but apparently you can put all your pictures into a folder on your hard drive and upload the whole folderfull of pictures all at once.

That's right. Humans are technically "omnivores". We'll eat anything...

I just checked... I have well over 1,000 images there and it's still free!

This one might be a little "too" restored, but you get the basics:

http://modelcarsmag.com/subscribe.html

Photobucket has two types of accounts, free and "Pro" The free account is exactly that, free. I've had my free Photobucket account for 4-5 years now, and I have hundreds of photos in my albums, all for no charge. The "Pro" account basically throws in a few bells and whistles (FTP access, unlimited bandwith, etc.) None of the "Pro" features are necessary for a typical user as far as I can see. The free account has served me perfectly well all these years.

About $1,000 if you buy from Adobe, but there are cheaper versions out there ("Student" versions) and of course there's always ebay. You can also download a free 30 day trial version from Adobe if you just want to play around a bit.

I just found this... a "stock" model??? I'm confused!

That's cool!

I found this bit of info (bold and italics inserted by me): "The Subaru Sambar is an automobile built by automaker Subaru for the Japanese market. It is available in microvan and pickup truck body styles and adheres to kei car guidelines. Still flourishing in the Japanese automotive industry, the Sambar continues to be produced in Japan, China, Korea, as well as in Finland with a joint venture with Elcat Automotive. With a few modifications the Subaru can be mistaken for the 60's classic VW 'Samba'. All variations & models are available to order through Subaru Sambar..." The way I understand it, the "Sambar" came from Subaru, but they also offered a "custom" version that looks like a VW "Samba". At least that's how I understand it. Why VW's lawyers aren't all over this is the part I don't understand...

From everything I've read, they came from Subaru that way. The VW logos are added after the fact by the owners. They do look a LOT like a VW van. I'm going to check some more and try to find out a little more info.

How do you eat salad? With a straw??

The article you linked to is about custom made little vans. The van I posted isn't a custom or aftermarket van, it's from the Subaru factory. In Japan they have a whole class of these tiny cars, they're called "kei" cars. They got their start after WWII, when people in post-war Japan couldn't afford "real" cars, yet needed transportation. The kei cars were more than a motorcycle, but less than a "real" car, and the Japanese automakers promoted them as a means to grow the Japanese car industry after the war. Regulations limit the size, displacement (less than 660cc) and power of these little cars, but they're still popular in Japan because of small, narrow roads and limited parking space in urban areas.

Uh.... where's the chrome tree?

The problem is, real grilles are three-dimensional. The slats or bars or grillwork or whatever you want to call it are not flat, they have dimension. So if you replace a tubular grill, for instance, with a PE piece, you're solving one problem and creating another. Yeah, now the slots between the bars are open, but the bars themselves, being a PE piece, are flat. Not very realistic, is it? The best (and easiest) way to get that scale grille looking good is with a simple black wash. Sometimes, depending on which make you're talking about, the grille can be opened by carefully removing material from behind until the openings are actually "open", but this technique only works in certain cases, where the backside of the grille is relatively flat and where there's enough material there in the first place to allow for removing a part of it from behind. PE pieces, being flat (2-dimensional) usually look "fake" on a model... unless you're talking about a material that would be flat on the real car, like mesh, for example. But PE replacing 3-dimensional grilles? Not so good...

I'm on a Mac. What's a "virus"???

From the initial post: "This is a truck that was made 1:1 for Fred Burrows by Dave Tucci Jr from Tucci Engineering in Marcy NY and was published in the Dec 1999 issue of Popular HotRodding. The real truck is a 1939 GMC of pure artwork." The model is not an original design, it's a copy of the real truck... which is what I said.

I think you missed the point. He didn't design the truck... his model is a copy of the real truck that was featured in the magazine. Not his design... but still, very impressive modeling work.

Got a lot of you! It's REAL! It's a 1998 Subaru Samba, a tiny VW lookalike that belongs in a Japanese class of tiny cars known as "kei" cars. These Sambas are often disguised to look like baby VW vans by adding a VW logo to the front. A few more examples: Next ROM coming Monday!

I've never seen working steering through an actual geared steering box in 1/24 or 1/25 scale. I suppose it could be done, but the parts would have to be so tiny, and the tolerances so precise, that it seems almost an impossible task at such a small scale. You would have to be some kind of talented modeler to fabricate an operating, in-scale steering box and linkage. You'd need a precision milling machine and lathe, at least, plus a set of tiny bevel gears for the steering box (with the correct number of teeth on them to give you a realistic "lock to lock" steering action. Then you'd have to machine the steering box housing itself, install the gears, fabricate a cover, create all the moveable joints, tie rods, idler arm, etc. Sounds like a HUGE job...