Harry P.

A 1/8 Airflow would be awesome! Like Christian, I have an Airflow, but it's a 1/18 diecast. Very nice model, but I'd like to be able to build one...

If we're talking Mopars, I'd much rather see a late '50s DeSoto, or even an Airflow! Is this cool or what?

You can get the exact idea by looking at the real thing, not at what others have done (possibly incorrectly!)

Not sure what kind of help you're looking for... I'd start with a google image search to see what the real thing looks like, and just recreate what you see. Start here: http://www.google.co...777l0.10.5l15l0

http://www.ehobbies....ampaign=froogle http://www.revell.de/index.php?id=203&KGKANR=0&KGKOGP=10&KGSCHL=1&L=1&page=2&sort=0&nc=1&searchactive=&q=london+bus&SWO=&ARMAS4=&PHPSESSID=77a4c3466ecab8b84ecc0d53928ecc05&KZSLPG=&offset=15&cmd=show&ARARTN=07093&sp=1

One time I dropped a small part and spent a long time crawling around on the floor looking for it. I searched almost the whole room in case the part maybe bounced and wound up somewhere away from where it fell (it's a ceramic tile floor). I looked inside open boxes that were on the floor in case the part fell in there. I checked every square inch of the floor several times over. Finally I gave up and figured I'd have to scratchbuild a replacement. That's when I saw the part laying on my work surface. It had never made it to the floor after all...

Well, there's a new one on me. I didn't know that the BMF people even made decal paper!

After the great apocalypse, the Earth will lie in ruins. Smoldering piles of rubble will mark where great cities once stood, and packs of feral dogs will pick at the carcasses of the dead. The air will be thick and heavy, making it hard to breathe for the few remaining living animals. A cold wind will sweep across the land, and the sun will no longer be able to penetrate the dense blanket of noxious smoke that covers the globe, causing a perpetual darkness to settle over the Earth, gradually choking off all forms of life in a slow and torturous death spiral. And yet, there... off in the distance... a small, flickering light! We get closer. Now we can make out what it is through the dark, dense, smoke-filled air. It's a computer monitor! And on that monitor? Some sort of frantic signal for help from far away? Civilization's last gasp of existence? No. It's another General Lee thread! Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.............

They're like cockroaches... they're eternal...

In case you're wondering what that would look like...

Ah, but the chassis was probably still good!

So are they!

I know that if Moebius can sell 5,000 Hudsons, they'd consider that a job well done. And Chuck... 70s and 80s sort of blend together as far as the "Age of Junk"...

American cars of the '70s are widely considered junk, mechanically at least, because they were junk! But a lot of that "junk" reputation is because of the government mandates of the time. Suddenly the manufacturers had to meet all sorts of new emissions, fuel economy and safety requirements. So we got half-baked emission-control systems that were not fully developed, those hideous 5 mph bumpers that were tacked on to cars just to meet the new crash standards, the infamous V8-6-4 system from Cadillac, etc. It took a while before carmakers figured it all out. Now we have very effective and efficient emission-control systems, and the 5 MPH bumpers are hidden away so skillfully that we don't even realize they're there. But back in the '70s when all of these government standards went into effect things were a lot less sophisitcated... or to put it another way, cars were junk. Not total junk, just junky enough for them to have that reputation.

How about this one? Real or model? The answer: REAL!

The management of American model kit companies looks to the bottom line... same as the management of any company does.

Amazon works fine, the problem is on your end. And it wouldn't shock me if IE was the problem.

Art points out a very interesting fact: these cars had outboard frame rails; in other words, the rear wheels were within (or "behind," depending on how you want to say it) the frame rails. So a "gasser" like the one posted earlier here is pretty much an impossibility... you've just cut off the whole rear part of the frame!

Seems to me that you guys are seeing (and "fixing") problems that don't actually exist...

I used the chrome side trim as my guide... adjusted the relative sizes of the photos until the side trim was the same length. As you can see, the wheelbase of the model looks to me to be pretty much right on. You be the judge:

That's exactly right. When it comes to re-issuing ex-Johan kits, there's not a whole lot to choose from. You have a choice of just a handful of possibilities. I'd guess the Olds is being reissued not necessarily because it meets some sort of incredibly pent-up demand... but more like, hey, this is one we happen to have that we actually can reissue.

Isn't that NASCAR'S business model???

Yep... they'll be taking care of us real soon now...

There will always be a kit that someone wants that's never been kitted. As long as they keep making cars, there will be cars that someone somewhere wants a kit of, and obviously they can't all be kitted. So this "Why don't they made a kit of xxxxx" type of argument will go on forever and will never be solved. But if you look at the overall "big picture"- new kits that are available, old kits either being re-issued or available from more places than ever before (internet), the explosion of the aftermarket, etc., I don't think model car builders really have a whole lot to complain about. Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong (thank you, Dennis Miller)...

Yeah, of course US modelers would rather have a LHD version of a Lexus kit (or whatever)... but the Japanese kit makers probably don't care much about that. So what if they can sell a relative handful of kits to US buyers if they include US-specific parts? It's probably not worth the extra expense to them to do it. They have a strong customer base in their own home country, the model car hobby is booming over there. My guess is that catering to a relative handful of American modelers is not high on their priority list. They probably see catering to our modelers tastes about as important as our manufacturers see catering to their tastes!