Harry P.

Yeah, I get that for sure. But for me... I'm ready to drop out of the rat race. Been in it too long. I was hot and heavy involved in the whole "dot com bubble" of the 90s. A change of pace (a slower pace) would be very welcome. All I know is big city life. The wide open spaces of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, etc. look very appealing to me.

Ah, but see, to me that's the appeal. Been here in Chicago waaaaaay too long. The wide open spaces look mighty good to me...

With all the scrutiny this kit has gotten up til now, I'd be amazed if they got the wheel/tire sizes wrong. Anybody got a ruler?

Bravo! They are all beee-yoo-tiful, but man oh man... that black one. Way to go, Len!

Yeah, baby!

Geez, Cranky! What's with all this shiny paint lately? Have you been kidnapped by Crazy Jim???

Ditto to all of the above. That's a neat looking little car!

It's more of a dream than reality. I've been here in Illinois all my life, so picking up and moving out would be a huge change for me. But if I ever do go (and I might, one day)... my target states are Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah or New Mexico, for various reasons for each state.

I hope you're ready to be taxed up the wazoo. California is broke, and they are taxing residents like there's no tomorrow! In fact, it's such a mess in California that there are hundreds of thousands of people moving out. But hey... good luck with that! PS: One of the states on my "move there someday" wish list is Wyoming, for several reasons, including the state's tax structure.

So what exactly was the point of this thread?

Is there a perfectly blue, cloudless sky every day out there where you are?

You can only bend styrene so far before it cracks. And you can only bend a plated part so far before the plating either wrinkles or cracks. And depending on what sort of part you're talking about (what shape, how much bend needed, where on the part does the bend go, etc.)... the amount of bend it'll accept varies. You could try dipping the area of the part to be bent in really hot water to heat it up enough so that it'll bend how you want it to bend. Or use a hair dryer to heat it up, but the trick is to heat up just the area that you want to bend without distorting the whole part.

I have a ton of great reference photos (all found online)... plus Curt Raitz sent me a PDF of an old magazine article on building a scale model of the car, showing basic dimensions, exterior details, etc. I have good shots of the interior, front and rear axles, all sorts of detail shots... I even found an online build log of an exact full-scale working clone being made from the ground up, with tons of good photos showing the process from start to finish. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?showall=1&t=596726 Now I need a shot of the underside of the car showing what the bottom looks like. I can't find a photo of that anywhere.

If the reasom for the damage is how Gregg explained (the way the PO routes certain mail), then there's nothing the publisher can do. They can't make the USPS change their system, and apparently it's their system that's causing the damage. I know it's a hassle, but at least GBP offers to mail a replacement copy if yours is damaged... even though GBP didn't cause the problem. It's frustrating to get a magazine all chewed up, but aside from bagging each magazine (an expensive thing to do)... there's not much we can do. Bagging the magazine would mean extra costs for GBP. I'm guessing they would pass whatever cost on to the subscriber. Not sure how a higher subscription rate (if it included bagged delivery) would fly with people.

??? I've subscribed to Hemmings Muscle Machines since day 1, and I don't remember it ever coming in a plastic bag. And it has never arrived damaged, not even once.

I remember it being pretty fast... I still remember that tubo "kick," but not engineered very well. First gen bugs and all. Turbo blew out early, clutch cable snapped one day, etc. A fun car, but they hadn't really worked the bugs out. But I'm glad I bought it... it was way cool back in '84!

Bought one exactly like this in 1984: Turbo blew out pretty quickly...

Very nice write-up! What a great addition to the forum!

Beautiful! First class building!

Maybe they should rethink the whole closing up shop idea...

Sure they are! Not all models come as unassembled kits. In fact, there is a much wider variety of models available in pre-built form as there will ever be in unassembled kit form.

I missed this one too. Holy you-know-what! That is one bee-yoo-tiful model. Cool color, cool interior, fantastic BMF. Just about as good as is gets in every way.

Beautifully stated, Bob. That says it exactly.

A dirty tip. If there's paint buildup on the nozzle, sometimes you'll get spitting or "blobbing" of the paint.

Do you get some sort of special discount?