Bugatti Fan

Perhaps the proposed 'stand alone' contest issue for February next year could be again utilised as a further subscriber copy rather than resources being diverted. If numerous subsequent contest photos are already 'in the can' so to speak, it may help somewhat to catch up with the backlog with little editing involved?

When I used Isopropyl Alcohol it went through a layer of Automotive Acrylic Grey Primer that had been top coated with Alclad Gloss Black with minimum effort just using kitchen roll.

Isopropyl Alcohol is pretty good for stripping paint fast. But make sure that you protect yourself against the fumes.

Never met Harry in person, but had a number of contacts with him before I drifted away from writing articles for Model Cars Magazine and others at about that time. I found him to be most generous in answering any of.my questions. Shortly before he died he sent me a copy of the book he both wrote and published ' The Evolution of the Automobile In Scale', and I was honoured to be able to review it here in the UK.i The loss of his vast knowledge of the hobby and his layout and publishing skills leave a great void for MCM to fill, as it will be extremely difficult it not impossible for the magazine to replace someone with both model making and professional publishing skill sets combined.

Virgil Suarez (aka Dr Cranky) wrote a superb book named Rats, Rods 'n' Rust that had fabulous layouts done by the late Harry Pristovnik. Not heard much about him lately. He prepared a couple of other books I believe to feature other modeller's work. A number of years ago he messaged me on this forum about my scratch built Bugatti Type 59 that featured in MCM. Unfortunately (don't ask why) I failed to check my messages for about a couple of years and did not pick up his invitation, and by then it was too late obviously! I sent him a personal email with profuse apologies for having not replied and since then have sent him another email when his friend and colleague Harry P passed away. Virgil did not reply to either, so I guess that maybe he might still be rightly annoyed at me for my unintentional bad manners. Virgil is certainly a larger than life character judging by his book, and installs a sense of fun into his approach whilst still getting all the right information across in a very readable format. I saw some of Bill Geary (Mr Obsessive's) superb models featured in the book where Virgil devotes sections towards the back of the book to individual modellers and their work. a really good book to het a hold of!

Funny thing that as I was going through my odds and ends box the other day I came across the engine from a Renwal Packard that I built back when they were released. Anyway, the model I most want is the Exner Bugatti. Not a mint kit as too collectable these days, but an old or badly built one even with bits missing, that will probably never get built by the present owner that has been kicking around in their stash for many years. I would like to rebuild/restore this model to give to the Bugatti Trust Museum over here in the UK for permanent display. If anyone can help me in this venture please get in touch via the personal messaging on this forum.

Don't have any pics to put up. but how about Virgil Exner who's 1960's concepts of Bugatti, Duesenberg, Stutz, Packard etc actually became real concept cars as well as Renwall making a small series of kits based on his designs.

Brian, 1/48th sounds about right, as I recollect the Hawk kit that I built being a lot smaller than 1/24th scale as a previous poster thought. There is a Spanish company named OCCRE who makes a SF Cable Car kit in 1/24th scale along with a range of other tram kits.

The guy in West Yorkshire who casts the bodies is Andy Swindlehirst. He normally trades at the annual IPMS Scale Modelworld show at Telford in the UK each November. There is another guy named Ian Knott who with his dad Rod, displays the Model Motor Museum in Miniature around the UK who has recently developed a full resin kerbside kit of the Morris Minor saloon.

Anyone who remembers the cult TV series The Prisoner may remember the opening sequence where Patrick McGoohan pulls up in his Lotus 7 to resign. It would be very easy to model his car from this kit. The Italianate village where the filming took place in the 60's is located at Portmerion in North Wales. The village was conceived and built by Clough Ellis over a number of years. It is open to the public and some of the houses can be let for holidays and there is a hotel on site built in the same style as the village. Clough Ellis' vision was to blend pleasing architecture into the natural landscape. It is a very impressive place to walk around and when I visited there was a small shop in a circular building devoted to selling 'Prisoner' regalia.

I sold on Eldon's Pink Panther Show Rod kit many years ago. Wish I had not! Built their Milk Truck kit. I still have some odd remnants from their Outhouse kit, the cab parts and some of the moonshine still. I will probably mate these bits to some old model A chassis bits to build a unique show rod model of my own. Look forward to seeing the Invader progress on here. I think Eldon did a Bath Tub Buggy as well?

Great to see someone doing a kit bash with inter wars classics from some of the old Monogram kits.

In one of my posts on this thread I mentioned that a San Francisco Cable Car was made by Hawk. I did not say in that thread that it was bad, but merely that I could remember Hawk making this particular kit. In fact I can remember making their little Cable Car way back in the sixties when it first came out and it was a very nice kit but cannot remember the scale. I think that it may have been re released by Testors? I have a feeling that they ran a few of the old Hawk kits as re pops. If only I could get hold of the cable car now and perhaps do it more justice as it is quite an iconic subject.

Good production is a hard act to follow it a business is taken on, especially in this field. On another note we have suffered the sad loss of Paul Fisher's auto and aircraft resins since the devastating fires in Paradise wiped out his home and business a short while ago.

Not built an AMT kit in years. Have they got rid of those truly awful see through decals after all these years? Tho ones I experienced were that bad that you could see the main car body colour through them, especially the white sections.

Boring mpv's like mine and everyone else's!

Duke, I can remember those old Palmer kits. Car kits best forgotten. Did they not do a Gatling Gun and some Artillery? Another company, Hawk comes to mind who made a San Francisco Cable Car kit.

Lee, it isn't the forums that bash one another but the users! Those of us old enough might remember the old Highway Patrol series on TV with Broderick Crawford when he used to say at the end of each episode, ' It's not the car that kills but the driver!'. Forum use is a bit like that really.

Rob, you are right about the Phaeton being a mistake. Did not have the same appeal as BMW, Mercedes or Audi brand names to the company director customer. Unfortunately, good as it was, it was just still seen as a VW.

Rumours, Fake News and Speculation...……………..Been going on for years about our hobby. Things generally sort themselves out in the end. There will always be losses and gains, companies going into liquidation etc. Now when will some one start making all those old Pyro and Gowland Kits? Will Bandai start making car kits again as well as Gundam?

Rob and Richard. Firstly I was not aware that the Bentley shared the same mechanicals as the VW Phaeton so that was interesting to know. The other thing was that when I speculated about VW badge engineering the Phaeton to the Bugatti brand I was not talking about ultra luxury or ultra ultra luxury market. I was talking more about the market for the sort of car that the directors of many companies would buy into that would fall below the multi millionaire market, such as the Toyota Lexus, Nissan Infinity and top end BMW, and Mercedes. Basically the rich but not ultra rich! VW could have made a killing in this particular market using the Bugatti name. Between the VW cars we all know and love and the Bentley customer, there was a gap that they could have exploited with the Bugatti name. Maybe, because they have top of the range Audis they have not considered this. I thought that Galibier saloon car concept was that of the Italian Bugatti outfit before their demise, but stand corrected if I am wrong.

The 53 Studebaker was a really nice looking car, very European in styling compared with other American manufacturers fins n chrome styling.

Often wondered if the Bugatti Veyron ever made any profit, and now if the Chiron will depending the financial clout of VW behind it to afford such an indulgence. Look what happened to the Bugatti factory in Italy in 1993 that could not stand individually with the EB110 competing against Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini. OK we all like supercars, but VW recently withdrew their VW Phaeton saloon due to poor sales. This is pure speculation, but if they had used the Bugatti name and badge engineered the Phaeton aiming at their top of the range competitors like the Lexus, Infinity, BMW and top Mercedes luxury saloons they may well have made a killing in the company executive market instead of aiming at multi millionaires.

It is 1/24th scale. I am hacking it about a bit to try to make it more into a scale model. I wish that Airfix had made it like the Revell and Lindberg snap kits with proper interior detail that are more like a standard kit. The Airfix one is so simplified with lego like click together assembly so that kids can build it in about half an hour and play with it. However the external body shape and wheels look good, but one will need to replace the headlamps and rear lamps that are just stickers in the kit. The dash isn't too bad except that the steering wheel is a blank disc on a stalk to take a sticker depicting the steering wheel. The interior will need a lot of work doing to it as there are no interior door panels and the seats are left with lego like male tabs sticking up, and the floor will need attention for the same reason. Airfix could have done a lot more with this kit. Anyway it is a bit of a challenge. As far as I know it is the only 1/24th scale plastic kit of this car. It will be just my luck that Revell or someone else will release one just when I get this one finished! I know there are expensive kerbside resin kits of the Chiron and the prototype Vision out there in 1/24th scale, but not aware of any other good Veyron kits in resin or plastic kerbside or detailed. There are I believe die casts out there but not sure if any 1/24th scale ones are available.

I approached JH of SA about an article that I had written about a customised Airfix Austin A35 Van to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of IPMS in 2013. He turned it down saying that there was a lot of animosity between car modellers and IPMS. Funny thing is that MCM embraced the article and ran it in its entirety shortly after. So much for the animosity between car modellers and IPMS! I approached JH two or three times more about articles to no avail as I think that he had tunnel vision with regard to the type of model he wanted to feature in SA at the time. I understand that he has now departed and the new editorship has a more liberal view towards subject matter. Incidentally, the custom van model was shipped to the International Model Car Builders Museum in Sandy Utah who were keen to have it for permanent exhibition earlier this year. I do not know whether it has been placed on display or not yet.