Harry P.

Grand Funk, I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home... already posted before.

You'll have to add your full name. Forum rule... BTW... a member since 2009 and just now your first post? It's about time! Model looks very good!

He's been a forum member since 2009. Remember... he says this is his first post, not that he's a new forum member. He's been a member for five years. Just a very quiet member...

Never heard of him... but that joke sounds like it came directly out of Stephen Wright's act. I can even hear it in my head being told in his droning monotone voice... Could also pass for one of Jack Handey's "Deep Thoughts"...

Sounds like a Stephen Wright joke...

The kit hood has the two center panels molded as one panel, with no center hinge detail. And the two small scoops are right in the middle, which is impossible because the hood should be hinged down the middle. First step is to remove the scoops (and save them to be relocated later): Then I filled in the holes with styrene and marked the center line, where the panel will need to be cut apart:

With the cowl and that "brass" strip I removed earlier installed, and a few scratchbuilt details added. The kit hood is incorrect and the way it's supported by the cowl is incorrect, so I had to add a new flange that the hood will rest against, using styrene strip:

Here I've added most of the details. There are no decals for the gauge faces so I just detailed them with paint:

I want to change up the firewall/dash. Step one is to use the back side of my blade to scribe away the "brass" trim strip from the rest of the kit dash and saw away the nolded-on detail. I'll save that sawed-off piece and reinstall it later: A new dash was made of basswood strips and stained:

THat will be a major project. Probably won't start that until next year.

Not specifically Mercedes, no. Unless something pops up on ebay that I like!

I play a pretty mean radio...

Whatever it is, what it doesn't look like is a Toronado! And there's the problem.

Wasn't the wheel on these cars white? Given all the horror stories I've heard regarding these kits, I should try one... just to see...

Yeah, I'm going full speed ahead these days. Maybe making up for all the time during the summer when I didn't build a thing! The Lincoln is still in the works. While stuff from that one dries, I work on the Itala and vice versa. And oh yeah... also working on a new Model T kit. Three at once! Sort of like juggling...

Depends on which city's uptown yer talkin' about. Uptown Manhattan is pretty posh. Uptown Chicago is, well... not so posh!

Almost exactly. I wonder of Itala and Fiat worked together developing cars. I do know that when Itala went kaput, Fiat got the remains. I'm self-employed. so I can make my own schedule. No 9 to 5 grind for me, my time is flexible.

That's pretty wild! Nice imagination. Not a whole lot of rear suspension travel, though...

Wheels... This is the orange wheel as it comes in the kit. First step is to paint them "ocher" using acrylic craft paint. Then a dip into the can of stain... Then paint the rims red... And finally paint the rim bolts and install the tires...

ok... let's get started. In no particular order and for no particular reason, let's deal with the steering box. This is how it comes... Obviously it's operational, but it looks nothing like the real thing. Because I want to build this kit "as intended," I'll live with it... but I'll disguise this assembly using various bits and pieces of styrene tube, "bolts" sliced from hex-shaped styrene rod, and 5-minute epoxy to create the curved surfaces. It's still not particularly correct, but at least it looks passable...

Aside from making your own spoked wheels, not much you can do with them. There's no way to thin down the plastic spokes... if you want absolute scale fidelity the only choice is to scratchbuild your own... and that is a huge job that most of us wouldn't (or couldn't) do.

And all the plastic parts, molded in a rainbow of colors for no apparent reason... some body parts in red, some in orange... some chassis parts in black, some in gray... seats and steering wheel in dark blue ... and the plated "brass" parts in a color that looks nothing like brass, but exactly like copper...

Here are the rear axle parts... And this is the "transmission" mounted within the plastic outer box:

For some weird reason Japanese kitmakers had this insane urge to motorize their models. I have no idea why, but this is one of them. The motorization is pretty elaborate... electric motor goes inside the engine block, it drives an operational transmission. Well, sort of operational... you can shift between power to the rear wheels or "neutral" with the shifter! The trans spins the driveshaft, and the rear axle has a real gear set in there to turn the rear wheels. PLUS... the fan turns, and there are little metal rocker arms and a cam in the engine, so you can see the valve pushrods move up and down! Because of the concessions that had to be made for motorizing, the kit isn't very accurate. The engine block is shaped so that the electric motor fits inside, the transmission is a big square block that looks nothing like the real car's trans, and there is a huge battery compartment under the seats that sticks out on the underside of the chassis. But since they went to such trouble to engineer this kit to actually run, I'm going to build it according to the directions and try to make it actually work as intended, just to see if I can. Will it work? I doubt it... there are just too many moving parts, too many "iffy" connections, too much slop in the gears, etc. I'd be amazed if this thing actually works as intended, but I'll give it a shot. Here is how the kit is packaged... a pretty impressive presentation: And here are all the various components related to the motorization feature... the motor itself, the transmission gear box, various other gears and shafts and battery box contacts, etc., etc.... There are even three tubes of what I assume is gear oil or lube... not sure, because the entire kit and instructions are written in Japanese only, no English. I wonder if there's anything actually still in these tubes after 40+ years?