Harry P.

The biggest difference between military and car modelers, IMO, is in military modeling there is no emphasis on "creativity." The emphasis is on correctness, scale fidelity, accurate detail, etc... in other words, how much does the model look like the real thing? In military modeling, almost always the modeler is not trying to be "creative, " he's trying to build an accurate replica of a specific 1/1 subject, so aftermarket detail parts that add to the detail level of the kit are a very big part of that. The selection of aftermarket stuff available for military kits is amazing. Model car building has a far wider range of "acceptable" styles. While a military modeler isn't going to put huge chrome wheels and a flame paint job on a Jeep, a car modeler might... because for a lot of car modelers, faithfulness to a particular 1/1 subject isn't their goal. Their goal is to be "creative" and build a model that doesn't necessarily look like any real car, or is even feasible in full scale, but is an expression of their own tastes. Sure, there are car modelers that do strive for accuracy and detail, but there are many that don't. Car modeling is seen as a less "serious" form of modeling than military modeling. Military and car modelers are apples and oranges.

Drive for free after dropping 40 grand, that is. Or buy a normal car that gets 30 MPG or better, at half that price. After 10 years you're probably ahead of the game with the normal car.

Rivarossi went bankrupt somewhere in the mid-90s... so that also was a factor in no more new Pocher kits, probably the main factor!

Armor modelers are much more willing to pay extra for aftermarket detail parts, because in armor modeling accuracy is goal #1. And more armor modelers are adults, with adult size wallets. A lot of car modelers are A: kids, B: not too concerned with accuracy, and C: cheap. Aftermarket PE detail sets exist for a lot of model cars, but I think that in general, model car builders as a group just aren't as fanatic about absolute accuracy and detail as armor modelers are, and aren't willing to spend the $$$ on detail parts like armor modelers are. Of course there are exceptions, but I'm talking about your average model car builder. There have been topics posted here on the forum about how much you would ever spend on any one model, and a lot of guys said they would never spend more than $20 or so!!! So obviously, they're not going to be putting out the money for aftermarket detail parts. And the aftermarket knows that, so the availability of detail parts for model cars is more limited than that for armor/military models.

Sorry, no photos except of the finished model.

Yeah, it's a big flameout there...

Nice! You'll love it.

Yes there are. Here's just one to get you started: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=77293

Ok, kids… this time we're going to turn the automotive wayback machine waaaaay back… back to the dawn of the automobile. This is a model of what many people recognize as the first "true" automobile (depending on whether or not you define a "true" automobile as a self-propelled, internal combustion powered, four wheeled passenger vehicle). The car is the 1886 Daimler Motorkutsche (German for "motor coach" or "motor carriage"). Here's a photo of a modern-day reproduction (the original doesn't exist anymore): A short history lesson: Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, who had never met and knew nothing of each other's efforts, pretty much simultaneously invented the first automobile, working only 60 miles apart from each other, Daimler in Stuttgart and Benz in Mannheim, Germany. In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler had built the first-ever motorcycle, powered by a single-cylinder gasoline powered internal combustion engine that he and his friend Wilhelm Maybach had designed. Daimler wanted to use this engine in a variety of applications. In 1886, Karl Benz built his three-wheeled Benz "Patent Motorwagen," which is one of the two "first" automobiles. Meanwhile, just 60 miles away, Daimler installed a revised version of the engine he had used in his 1885 motorcycle onto a horse-drawn wagon, creating his "Motorkutsche," and basically creating the other "first" automobile. This model is that 1886 Daimler Motorkutsche. The kit is 1/16 scale, and has been issued under various brand names over the years. This is the Minicraft edition: While this is technically a "big scale" kit, it's only 6" long. The kit is very basic, highly simplified, and just plain wrong in so many places. If built "box stock" it looks more like a kid's toy than a realistic scale model. Just look at the model on the box cover and you'll see what I mean. And speaking of mistakes, they start on the box cover, which calls this a "Daimler Benz." In reality Karl Benz not only had nothing to do with the development or production of this car, but at the time it came out he had never even met Daimler! I used the kit only as a starting point, adding a ton of scratchbuilt detail that was either wrong or completely missing in the kit. Since apparently no two of the modern-day recreations are exactly alike, I had to fake a few things by sort of "averaging out" the details I saw in the various reference photos I collected. Hey, if the pros couldn't decide on the details, I'm not going to worry too much! Among just a few of the dozens of changes I made to the kit: I removed the molded-in floorboards with a razor saw and built new ones of real wood. Ditto the dashboard. The grab handles on the corners of the dash are made of brass wire. I added the hinged door detail under the driver's seat, the door handle being formed of a piece of thin solder and sprayed "brass." The engine in the kit is only a very crude approximation of the real thing, so most of what you see here is scratchbuilt of styrene stock and brass rod. The entire undercarriage "cradle" that the crankcase is bolted to was not in the kit–the crankcase just hung there, swaying in the breeze and connected to nothing (sort of like a "magic floating alternator!")… so I had to add all that structure using styrene strip and structural stock. The muffler is a long horizontal tube located under the passenger seat. I added the "canvas" curtain that hides the muffler, it is cut from a piece of paper and painted with acrylic craft paint. The car doesn't have a water pump that I could see. I assume the hot coolant rose and flowed to the radiator via the upper tube, trickled down through the individual copper cooling slats, and the cooled water flowed back to the engine via the lower hose, the circulation of the water depending not on a mechanical pump, but on thermal principals. That's just a guess on my part, but since I couldn't see anything that looked like a mechanical pump, I'm going with that! Out back, the kit radiator was useless. It is a solid rectangular hunk of styrene with a vague pattern of ribs engraved on it. The real car's radiator was made of individual copper cooling ribs connected to a horizontal brass tank top and bottom, and you could see right through the spaces between the individual copper slats. I had to scratchbuild the radiator to get it to look like the real thing, using styrene strip and square styrene rod, painted copper and brass. The radiator lines are brass rod, the "rubber" elbows are made of hollow rubber tubing I found in the jewelry making aisle of Hobby Lobby… it just happens to be the exact right diameter to slip over the brass rod, and the hose clamps are thin strips of aluminum duct tape. The car was powered by twin belts that were driven by a horizontal shaft coming off the crankcase. I'm no engineer, but I have to assume that the two belts (which powered two different-size pulleys on the rear drive axle) were a crude two-speed "transmission," and in order to "shift gears" there was some sort of splined sliding mechanism that either engaged or disengaged the drive pulley of one belt or the other from the front driveshaft (which was also missing from the kit and had to be scratchbuilt). Note that the drive belts have a half twist, like a Moebius strip, meaning they reverse the rotation off the engine to the small drive gears in back that engage the large gears mounted to each drive wheel. Since the engine rotates clockwise (looking at it from the right side of the car) and the large drive gears on the back wheel have to also rotate clockwise, or "forward," the small pinion gears that drove the large drive gears had to rotate the opposite way in order to propel the car forward… hence the twist in the drive belts that accomplished that reversal of rotation. I made the belts out of strips of plain old paper. The car has a "steering wheel" comprised of four handles mounted on a vertical steering column. Under the floorboard, at the end of the column is a small pinion gear that engages a large semicircular rack gear attached to the center-pivoting front axle… the first example of "rack and pinion" steering–although the wheels themselves do not pivot like on a modern car… the whole front axle assembly pivots as a unit, like on a horse-drawn wagon, which is what this car actually is… literally a motorized horse-drawn wagon! The steering on the model really works via the gears. I added the missing steering column bracket. For some unknown reason, the upholstery for the seats was on the brass plated parts tree! Not only that, but the engraved pattern was all wrong, so even if I painted the brass plated "upholstery," it would still be wrong… so I scratchbuilt seat cushions in a diamond-tuft pattern (according to my reference photos) using real foam padding, a vinyl "leather" material from the sewing department of Hobby Lobby that I painted flat black, and the buttons made of sewing pins. The thin seatback cushions were carved from strips of basswood and sanded to shape. As usual for model kits of cars from the "brass age," the brass parts have that mirror-like "chrome" brass plating, which looks ok on a show car, but not on a real everyday car. Most of the kit's brass plated parts aren't supposed to be brass anyway (like the seat upholstery, for example!), so I painted all the brass plated parts that aren't supposed to be brass black, and toned down all the brass parts that are supposed to be brass to give then the look of natural, unpolished brass.

It looks fantastic! If it was mine, though, I'd add some sort of company name and graphics (logo, phone #, etc.) on the doors.

And very badly at that.

Sounds like you did the decals the right way. I think that maybe the problem is that the surface of the decals reflect light differently than the surface of the paint. Maybe a few more coats of clear would have evened things out and solved the problem.

My rule of thumb... if it's really ugly, start looking for Japanese cars!

Well, for one thing there's no way for the chute to be opened.

You posted your opinion... others posted their opinion. That's how a forum works. It's unrealistic to think that you should be able to post your opinion and then expect that nobody else has that right to post theirs.

This was moved to the Under Glass section for pickups. This is one of those cases (like Rancheros) where it could be considered a car or a truck, and if I see a "truck" like this posted in the cars section I generally leave it alone... but a mod moved it to the Trucks section (it's a judgement case and the mod decided it fit better into the Truck section). So that's where it is.

When GM spends millions to develop a hybrid Malibu, only to scrap it just before production because it doesn't get any better mileage than the regular Malibu, that has to be a bit embarrassing. Sounds like a few bigwigs were asleep at the switch, or the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing.

Looks like this one was a little too hard... only six of you got it right! The car is a 2004 Mitsuoka Nouera. http://www.tradecarview.com/specifications/mitsuoka/nouera/20st_4wd_at_2.0/26805/ Who got it right: wisdonm Chris R W-409 Badluck 13 MikeMc sjordan2

I think it looks very nice. A sharp little model. You might want to try adding door handles. They could easily be made with small diameter solder or aluminum wire.

I just read that the previously announced 2014 Malibu hybrid has been canceled. The reason? The hybrid version was to have been priced almost $4,000 more than a base model "normal" Malibu, yet the conventionally-powered base model Malibu gets the same mileage as the hybrid, for thousands $$$ less! You can't make this stuff up! Check it out: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1087614_2014-chevrolet-malibu-eco-mild-hybrid-canceled-base-model-equals-it-in-mpg

Easy, man... no politics allowed...

He was a boxer before he became a politician.

Building faster is building better? I have to disagree. Or to be more precise, I don't get it. I understand Al's reason, but for anyone without a physical disability, how is the time spent on a model any indication of anything? Shouldn't the goal be to build the best model you can build, regardless of how much time it takes? I can't imagine trying to build a model as fast as I possibly can for no other reason than to try and "beat the clock" somehow. I mean, it's like buying a new book and then timing yourself to see how fast you can read it. Or going to a nice restaurant and seeing how fast you can scarf down your food. What's the point???

I also don't get the complaints that the hobby is too expensive. A hobby is something you do in your spare time, with money you have to spare after the bills are paid. If you're dipping into the monthly mortgage, or cutting back on food to fund your hobby, you need to rethink your hobby!

Oh, a wise guy!