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While that sounds funny at first, I'm afraid it is an all to common event at least in this area. For some strange reason there are some drivers around here who will drive straight into a car parked on the side of the road and if it has flashing red lights it just seems that much more of an attraction to them. We have lost far to many fine officers to this problem in the last few years and I understand it has happened in other parts of the country also. " Move over , it's the law. "

The "paint buy the numbers kits" I remember were hard to tell what they were supposed to be. These two look great.

This really turned out great. I got to watch your build and see how you massaged everything to come out looking like this.

Great looking pick up. Very nice paint finish. The white grill and bumpers really work on this and would have been more common than at that time than chrome. For a parts box engine it turned out very nice looking and I like the Corvette style air cleaner.

Beautiful looking finish on this build. I wouldn't have thought of the Magenta colored stripes but they sure look good here. The extra effort on the interior also adds a great deal to the appearance. The contrasting colors on the seats and dash is something GM should have offered.

You certainly did a great Watson type paint job. The colors go perfectly together. Many of these early paint jobs were done on new or very late model vehicles and would use the original base color and add a contrasting color to complete the paint work. Just as you have done here this was a way of complimenting the vehicles original design.

I can see you're into Buicks in a big way right now. This is a great looking color and really helps show the body lines. See my comment on your other Buick as to the paint. This is just my experience and your results my vary.

Great looking paint finish and color. You're mentioning more clear coats. The few models I have painted using a Pearl paint or Pearl Clear I have found just didn't have the same deep glossy appearance of a straight color or metallic finish. They were perfectly smooth but they just reflect the light differently. Just a thought.

I have been watching your progress on this build. You have put a lot of effort into it to be as accurate as possible and it has turned out great looking and the shade of green you picked, while not real common. it appears much better than the other shades of green used at the time. As for the stripe, should you even go ahead with it I think would look best in black. This would tie into the black lower body color and the interior. The white, while stock, could start to add contrast that may not look as good as the black color. You solution for the mirrors is perfect and I'll be trying that on my next build with those mirrors. In the past I have mounted the mirror head to the stalk before mounting them on the body. The mirror angle is hard to get correct and their mounting points are less than desirable.

I like the paint treatment.

I'm surprised that someone with such a treasure would be out and about with it in this kind of weather. But then they were built to drive I guess.

I have the extra parts stored in several old kit boxes with written info as to the contains on the end of the box. I also use few large plastic drawer type cabinets but nothing as organized as some of the pictures I've seen here that others are using. I do save the empty boxes in the event of a move in residents. I can usually store two builds in one box with Kleenex and paper wrapping for protection. I haven't moved in almost 20 years but the wife is pushing for a new smaller home so that may very well be in the near future for me anyway.

Haven't had to find a counter person here locally. I mailed some Christmas stuff too one of my brother in laws yesterday and had to wait in line if only maybe 10 minutes since there were a couple of people ahead of me. The delivery problems come from bits of conversations with the postal employees them selves. The $20 billion mentioned in the Forbes article is not exactly small change. I have experienced what you mentioned about your personal experience in Brooklyn, but like you this was at one of the main offices in the metro area. Out here in the sticks they just under staff the O.P.

As a child my family thought of me as an odd child because of my fixation with the automobile. At first just an observer of the cars around me and somehow developed the ability to identify different makes and model lines and even the year model. I read every automotive centered magazine I could get my hands on even in grade school. While I had the "book learning" it was an Automotive Class in High School and being of an age that I could own a car that really got me into it. I got part time jobs at gas stations back when they still did automotive repairs as well as service. This was a time when a guy could actually make a living as a mechanic. I got involved with building a couple of race cars for both Drag Racing and NASCAR's Winston West division. I to work for Good Year in their retail stores in Southern California but had moved into the sales end as it paid a little better. I got transferred to Central California as a store manager. I was buying a new C-10 pickup from the local Chevrolet dealer and he hired me as a salesmen. I worked for him for several years and became his Finance Manager. All this time I was working on and modifying my own cars and help many friends with their projects as well. Kept the tool box pretty busy. I went on to do many other things in the management of dealerships for the next 30 years. The point is I had a very good working knowledge of what was stock, lightly modified, and what type of finishes and colors were used on the mechanical part, and with the first hand knowledge of what the new vehicles were like since I also ordered new car and truck inventories thru the years. I build very few showroom stock models, but when I due I have a lot of memories to draw from. A word of caution to those that rely heavily on the internet for images, many of the restored vehicles shown are not necessarily correct as to both paint and interior finishes as well as the mechanical aspects. Usually the very small touches as to the two tone paint treatments and the placement of trim parts. I usually build a model as if it was my 1:1 car with some modifications. I have built models of many of personal cars and trucks I have owned. My Avatar is model of a '67 El Camino I owned years ago. The advise I would offer is to build what you like and the way you want it to look. Should you want to build a model of a showroom stock car or truck try finding any original sales literature that you can find. This will offer far better advice in that area.

The mention of Drones makes me laugh. There have been tests to do that here but I think it will ultimately fail badly. I just know there'll be many instances of crashing them and what about delivery to the wrong place ? A little bit of humor at the expense of a locale person getting an Amazon delivery yesterday. Seems an Amazon driver delivering a small flat package that looked to be about the size of a magazine was seen on a security camera throwing the package on this persons front porch and then instead of backing out of the guys driveway the way he came in the driver backs up a couple of feet and then drives across his front lawn, leaving deep tire tracks, thru a ditch and then back out onto the road. Maybe Drones are the answer.

I think the USPS is experiencing problems because a big cut in funding and more cuts on the horizon for them. I live in a small rural area just outside of the Kansas City Ks. Metro. Until a couple of years ago you could set your watch by the Postal Delivery Driver, plus he was a really nice guy. He retired and the local Post Office never replaced him. Now the drivers are pulling double shifts trying to do the work of two people. Some days the mail gets here around noon and that used to be the exact time the original driver would roll thru. Most of the time it's now between 3 P.M. and O dark 30 before we get mail. I'm not fooling, we haven't seen our mail the last time I checked was around 5:30 P.M. I feel sorry for the guys that are still working for the P.O. There has been at least 1 or 2 days a week when we get nothing. We always get junk mail without fail so you know when they didn't deliver. They will sometimes have a part timer driving his own car. You can tell by the scrapping sound from his brakes, you can hear it inside the house it's so loud. In the bigger scheme of things my problems are nothing really. But the point is they system as a whole is crumbling and I don't think defunding the service any further is the answer.

Congratulations on the well deserved medals. I'd like to see a little about the green car.

I think the reason for the shorter wires on the original Lotus was to eliminate any excess weight, something Mr. Chapmen was known for.

This looks like a fun build. I was kind of liking the Crew Cab look.

I can't say I've ever seen any. I'll use very narrow strips of Bare Metal Foil for a hose clamp. The tightening mechanism is the only problem but I will usually use a tiny chip of plastic glued in place and foiled. This looks ok in scale.

Two colors that may be close: #1 Testors #1251 Copper Metallic and Plasti-kote Odds and Ends #143S Antique Gold. Both are Enamel based paints and I have had good results from both in the past. The Odds and Ends can be found just about anywhere they sell spray paints. Hardware stores, Wal Mart, Ace Hardware, Home Depot and Lowe's. The Testors Paint can be found at any Hobby Lobby or Model Shops.

In reading Horespowers post he makes a very good point. about the circumstances of the two mentioned deaths attributed to the Pinto. This type of collision has little to do with the Pinto and everything to do with the driver error by the person rear ended the Pinto. Just a few years later the California Highway Patrol was trying to sue Ford because some idiot driver ran into the rear of a stopped CHP car doing a traffic stop. The force of the impact was such that the rear of the patrol car collapsed the body and frame of the patrol car and the gas tank was mounted between the trunk floor and the rear differential. Somehow the CHP felt that this type of impact shouldn't allow the gas tank to be pushed into and be punctured by the differential. This is all basic physics of a vehicle being struck at a high rate of speed, somethings are just inevitably going to happen. Were the gas tank locations the most ideal ? Maybe not, but I don't think in these cases it wouldn't have made any difference in the outcome. The impact alone would be enough to cause great bodily harm if not death even if the car didn't have a gas tank.

I have to agree on the shade of Copper.

There was a young lady who started posting her builds here in the last year. I remember watching her building skills improve dramatically in a very short time. Now I don't remember the last time I saw anything from her.

The fun part is if you have to stop or turn. These seem to show up at or near intersections. The part that I find strange id at low speed hitting one of these plate, and most don't have any kind of an approach ramp, is that it seams to upset the suspension as much or more than hitting most pot holes.