Harry P.

Hey Gregg... imagine if you had charged everyone just a buck to join the forum? 8 grand, baby...

People just prefer to drive themselves from place to place. I can't say it's the ideal scenario in every case, but it just seems to be how the vast majority of Americans feel. They equate their personal car to "freedom," the ability to jump in and go anywhere, any time, not on the train's or bus's schedule, but on their own schedule. There's a powerful attraction to that concept. As far as rail transportation... Amtrak (the largest network of passenger rail lines in the country) is heavily subsidized by the government. If rail is such a good idea, why is Amtrak losing money?

It's not so much about "European" styling, it's about lowest possible coefficient of drag, for highest possible fuel economy. When the manufacturers all use wind tunnels as a styling tool, you're bound to get similarity in styling. After all, wind resistance works the same way for everyone, and if everyone is trying to wring that last possible MPG out of their design, it's inevitable that the designs are going to tend to look similar. Back in the '50s nobody cared about fuel economy or wind tunnels, so stylists basically had the green light to do whatever they wanted to do. Today the stylists are being driven by aerodynamic efficiency and MPG standards.

The situation in Europe is a lot different than it is here. First of all, European countries are small compared to the US. France and Germany are about the size of Texas; most other European countries are much smaller. So there is less distance to cover. A small country (I mean square miles) can easily be covered by a network of rail lines. When it's only a couple hundred miles from one end of the country to the other, rail makes sense, especially electric lines. But here in the US, it's a couple of thousand miles from one end to the other. Nobody wants to spend a week on a train going from L.A. to NYC. We rely on air travel to get "from here to there," and airplanes run on jet fuel which is derived from oil. Same with trucks that transport our products across the country. Diesel fuel. Oil. Also, the price of gas is much higher in Europe than it is here, so people tend to drive cars less and rely more on public transportation, bikes and mopeds, etc. Then there's that American love affair with personal freedom and cars. It's ingrained in the American population. You can't really compare Europe and the US, it's an "apples and oranges" thing.

Have you ever tried to ship, oh, say, 12,000 pounds of lettuce from California to the midwest on a bike?

They have enough oil for their own needs, and then some! Countries like Venezuela are net oil exporters, not importers... in other words they have more than they need, and they sell the excess to the rest of us at a greatly inflated price. So the price Venezuelan drivers pay at the gas station is dirt cheap.

If that were the case, we wouldn't be importing all that expensive foreign oil! The "oil sands" deposits in Canada look promising, but right now the cost to extract the oil from the sand doesn't make it economically feasible... if the US and Canada went with those oil sand deposits, the cost of extracting/refining would probably drive the cost of gas up, not down. Until (if?) we invent a better and cheaper method to get at that oil, we're pretty much dependent on OPEC for our oil needs. On the other hand, we supposedly have the world's largest deposits of natural gas here in the US. And cars powered by natural gas are already a reality (I think that cabs in Phoenix run on natural gas, if I remember correctly). So why are we not exploiting that?

That chassis with the molded-in suspensions is practically useless for what you want to do. Looks like you're in for quite a bit of scratchbuilding... In fact I don't think that chassis is usable at all. You're probably better off starting completely from scratch with styrene sheet and various rectangular and square styrene rod. Looks to me like the only possible part of that chassis you could actually salvage is the gas tank... by carefully cutting it away from the rest of the chassis.

Oil prices are not driven by supply and demand, they are manipulated by a combination of the oil companies and OPEC, and speculators who "bet" on the future price of oil and artificially drive the price up. Supply and demand may play a minor role, but there is a lot more going on behind the scenes regarding the price of oil than simple supply and demand. Right now the global supply of oil is greater than the demand; prices theoretically should be down, instead they are near historic highs.

Yep, that's the source of the photo, and it's a real one, not a clone or reproduction.

No kit car.

Final vote: 24 REAL, 29 MODEL. Which means... I win again! HA! It's real. And thanks to Skip for the photo.

Exactly! That's how they play the game. They jack up the price higher and higher... just to the point where the public begins to scream and the politicians begin to make noise, then they take it down a bit and we're all "relieved" that the price has gone down... but in reality the "lower" price is still higher than it was a year ago. That's their game... big jump in price, back it down a little but not as much as the big jump, so we're all happy the price has dropped a few cents... then repeat the process over and over. But always every increase more than the following decrease.

Yes, in the short term. But I'm talking about the long term. Not one week to another, not even one year to another, but big-picture. Gas prices will never go down significantly for any extended length of time. There will always be another "reason" trotted out to us by the oil companies as to why the latest increase is "necessary."

I've always liked the look of WW tires with steel wheels, trim rings and baby moons.

Very nice!

In regards to your airbrush question, if you intend to stay with the hobby I suggest you ditch the cans of air and buy a compressor. Over time the cost of all those cans of air will add up. You're probably better off in the long run buying a compressor. Do a google search, you'll find dozens and dozens of choices out there in all different price ranges. I can't tell you which one would be the "best" one, that's sort of like trying to tell you which color is the "best" one. But I can tell you that there are two basic types: the kind with a tank (they run until the tank is filled with compressed air, then they kick in automatically whenever the pressure in the tank drops below a certain level) and the tankless kind (often called "silent" compressors) that do not store compressed air in a tank, but run continuously while you use them. I have a tankless "silent" compressor (it's not literally silent, but it's pretty quiet). Generally the tank-type compressors are pretty loud, a "silent" tankless model might be a better choice if you live in an apartment building or for some reason don't want the noise that a tank-type compressor makes.

You can't turn milk and vinegar into plastic...

What makes you think gas will get cheaper again? Maybe it'll drop a few cents here and there for a while... but the overall trend over time has been a steep upward path. Now that the oil companies and OPEC have gotten us used to $4/gallon, the next milestone on their agenda is $5/ gallon. It's coming. No doubt.

Yeah, I should visit there some time. Only been to South Bend once... and that was The Tire Rack!

Some interesting background on the Studebaker-Packard merger that you might not have known (from wikipedia): The Studebaker-Packard Corporation was the entity created by the purchase of the Studebaker Corporation of South Bend, Indiana, by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, in 1954. Packard acquired Studebaker in the transaction. While Studebaker was the larger of the two companies, Packard's balance sheet and executive team were stronger than that of the South Bend company.[citation needed] It was hoped that Packard would benefit from Studebaker's larger dealer network. Studebaker hoped to gain through the additional strength that Packard's cash position could provide. Once both companies stabilized their balance sheets and strengthened their product line, the original plan devised by Packard president James J. Nance and Nash-Kelvinator Corporation president George W. Mason was that the combined Studebaker-Packard company would join a combined Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motor Car Company in an all-new four-marque American Motors Corporation. Had the complicated set of combinations gone through as planned, the new company would have immediately surpassed the Chrysler Corporation to become the third of America's "Big Three" automobile manufacturers. However, the sudden death of Mason in 1954 (succeeded by George W. Romney) and disputes over parts-sharing arrangements between the companies doomed any chance of completing the proposed merger. This failure to combine the companies effectively sealed the fates of all four. Packard executives soon discovered that Studebaker had been less than forthcoming in all of its financial and sales records. The situation was considerably more dire than Nance and his team were led to believe; Studebaker's break-even point was an unreachable 282,000 cars at a time when the company had barely sold 82,000 cars in 1954. Furthering the new company's problems was the loss of about 30% of Studebaker's dealer network by 1956.[citation needed] Alas, Studebaker-Packard tried a company reorganization in which Studebaker took the part of the volume and commercial car and truck seller from South Bend while Packard was to re-occupy the luxury market - one of Nance's targets since he took over Packard's presidency in 1952. The gap in between was filled by a new make, the Clipper. Technically, it was a lighter Packard, built in Detroit alongside the senior cars. Next generation of cars would have to be concentrated on one location, and there was a detailed program for sharing as much sheet metal as possible. Although Nance was presumably right, dealer's resistance against the Clipper as a new entry in the intermediate field was big. Following a disastrous sales year in 1956, Nance resigned and Studebaker-Packard entered a management agreement with the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.[1]:p255 Curtiss, led by Roy T. Hurley, insisted on major changes. All of Studebaker-Packard's defense contracts and plants where defense work was carried out were picked up by Curtiss, Packard production in Detroit was stopped and all remaining automotive efforts were shifted to South Bend. The Packards (for 1957 and 1958) were essentially Studebaker Presidents with large amounts of bright work. The vehicles were referred to as Packardbakers by comedians.[citation needed] The final Packard rolled off the assembly line in July 1958. That year, Studebaker instructed company personnel to sell their Packards and use only Studebakers.[1]:p255

http://www.americaspackardmuseum.org/

As far as I can tell, there's no law that says a model has to be made of polystyrene plastic and nothing but polystyrene plastic. Plastic, wood, metal or paper... I say they're all models.

Creative writing class? I think a remedial spelling class might be better for you...

American English, then. Again with the incorrect capitalization! See me after class...