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Thanx for the picture. As I sit here with an old Sam Bass poster sign by Dale himself. This will always be hanging in my corner of the house. Most of the Valve Covers of the time were what we called "Tin" which was pretty much standard metal covers and some were raised as well. Notice the breathers are only on the drivers side valve cover. This was so that the oil wouldn't escape from centrifugal forces in a race.

My only experience with body putty has been with The Tamiya brand White putty.. I have always been pleased with how it is to work with. I know there are many others that may be as good or even better, but I wouldn't be afraid to suggest the Tamiya putty.

I've been looking at some of your builds today that are coming out of storage. This is another great looking example. You have the paint colors and finishes all looking good. I like the stance you seem to enjoy and the wheels and tires on this really make this 1 toner standout.

Beautiful looking Ranchero. Looking at all of the work you did on the chassis and engine you did what AMT failed to do when they designed this kit. The one I built would make a good curbside model compared to this. Your efforts to duplicate a realistic looking Ranchero really paid off on this.

Very clean look about this one. The unusual color along with the great finish really makes this stand out .

Another great looking build. I like your clean style on the trim and details.

Great looking convertible. I like the stance and the colors. The interior turned out great as well.

I like the Drag Race flavor of this.

I think this is the second issue using their new format for the magazine. This issue to me seems much better than the first. I do like that the information portion is short but does supply you with a pretty good in depth explanation. I have just let my Car and Drive subscription of many years lapse since the writers I always liked are now gone and they focus more on cars that I don't relate to.

I haven't seen the movie in years but recall the color looking sort of a dark Maroon with a hint of metallic. You might check Testors one coat Lacquer # 1838M Mythical Maroon. Two Tamiya colors that would be close but no metallic would be their primer Oxide Red that is a flat finish but easily covered with clear. The other would be their TS-33 Dull Red again no metallic.

I understand. Some have a hard time understanding reality.

Great looking van, hard to think it only took you 31 hours. Great level of detail for such a short time.

Great looking Box Art build. You got the lift on this alright and the KM2 Tires even look well done. Very nicely detailed interior as well as the engine.

Beautiful looking Custom. You should send a couple of pictures to Billy Gibbons, he may very well want to have a 1:1 made if this. Very creative modernization of the body and paint.

The interior looks great and I like the finish on the paint.

The NUMI plant in Los Angeles and the Corvette plant when it was still in St. Louis, and again the plant in Bowling Green Ky. I would have liked to visit more but they didn't offer a lot of tours to dealership employees. .

I share your issue with an over stocked stash. In the past I sold a big block of models to a reseller just to make a dent in it. I'm hoping that this year we'll have the local show and swap meet and I'll take a couple of tables then. I have also thought of EBay but as you mentioned it can get to be a drag. One possibility if you don't have a local charity to offer some kits to goodwill might not be a bad idea. You will get a to take a small percentage off your taxes anyway and they are supposed to be helping the community with the income from the donations they get.

Not sure upon what you're basing your statement that Gm passenger car frames were not painted. Not to argue a point, but my statement regarding the treatment of GM frames is based upon only my personal experience. Thru much of the 1960's I worked in service stations where we did a lot of general service on new and late model cars and trucks. After a stint with Union Oil Company and then Good Year Tire and Rubber Company as a store manager I then went to work for a Chevrolet dealer in sales. I was in the retail car business for just over 30 years before I retired. In those 30 years I looked at the bottom of far to many new cars and trucks as they came off the carriers from the factory or distribution centers. One of my jobs for several years was ordering of the inventory for the dealership and as part of my job description at that time I was to verify the proper equipment was on the vehicles that I had ordered. While I wasn't looking to see if the chassis or suspension was painted to any degree of paint finish, I couldn't help but notice that most components had some sort of a treatment applied to them. My calling them painted could be a bit of an over statement as this may have been something like some sort rust preventive coating that was black in color. and I thought it was a paint. The point is that these parts were in fact treated with something that would minimize any surface corrosion between the manufacturing plants and the dealerships. Bare unprotected metal exposed to almost any type of humidity even if only for a few hours will start to show signs of corrosion rather quickly.

Great looking build. I like how you did the vinyl roof covering on this. I was surprised you were able to get the green to cover the orange plastic.

If you are unable to find actual VW wheels see if you can find some of the old wide 5 wheels from the AMT '36 Ford kit. I used these for a dune buggy build once and they looked perfect as a stand in..

We used to call them "Cow Catchers". The background on this term goes all the way back to the early steam engine trains in the US. In the 1800's era as the rail system here was extending further west they were laying the rails across open grazing lands with a lot of live stock and Buffalo still running loose. They put these large bumpers that extended several feet beyond the front of the trains that would push aside wondering live stock and if speed was involved they were designed to deflect the often injured or deceased carcass. Thus the term "Cow Catcher" Got to love history.

Great looking build. I like all the extra details with the Life Guard setup.

Another beautiful looking build. This should be the box art for this kit and I'll bet they would sell a lot more of them than they did. I also followed your build and like how you worked out the color scheme. You had mentioned the bumpers extending way out, welcome to the USA required 5 mph bumpers.

Looks great and especially all of the foil work. I enjoyed watching your attention to all of the little interior details during your build up on this.

Rust, Rust and more Rust in all the usual places. This might of even bounced of of a parked car once or twice in the past. As much as I love seeing a shinny Camaro this is a great dose of reality as to how so many ended up. Well built.