deja-view

I see some contests that have a "box plus" category...like the GSL. That does allow for some modification from only using the box stuff I guess. Actually, I find that most models have some incorrect parts or dimensions that are too hard to ignore. That makes "box stock" even harder. I'm not sure I can remember the last kit I made that was "box stock"...if ever. Although....given the fact that I can't seem to finish kits anymore because I get bogged down in detailing, maybe I should take that hint and try one. Hmmmmm..

These are fun. In over 50 years of modeling I have never seen this subject....let alone done this well. Now....why is my print so CLOWN small???

LOL. Yeah....it's like some progressive disease we have. Why is my print so tiny?

I hate teeny text talk....but OMG!

That is seriously cool, Rob. Seriously cool!

Yup. Called the day after I saw the notice, ordered some special stuff, got it a few days later.

Very interesting, Tom. I had headed overseas by the time the '71s had come out so I didn't see any of them for years. Before I left I was stationed at March AFB and working part time at a Texaco station near the Riverside Raceway. We serviced all the Avis rental cars out that way, many of which were used by the incoming drivers for the races. The plain-Jane Satellites mostly had the 318's in '68 and '69, and must have been really light because we could burn the tires all the way from the back curb to the front with no trouble. Lots of guys would come in with the musclecars of the time, and our workers had a few nice ones (427 Impala and Nova(?) SS ball busters and some good big block Ford stuff. I had traded my Dodge by then for a fun little Cortina GT with the Lotus engine so my American Muscle was put on hold. I was always surprised, however, at those Satellites and how quick they were.

Technically, the GTX ws a Belvedere while the RR was a Satellite. To add some more confusion to the 1:1 replication, Plymouth also made a Sport Satellite that looked very much like the GTX (buckets and trim), but it had the 318 and 383 engine choices. Guys used to buy them and swap the GTX trim...kinda like the C4 Vette posers who put ZR-1 badging on the LT-1 and LT-4 Vettes. I almost bought a '69 Sport Sat convertible disguised as a GTX but found a Satellite moniker on the car. I probably still should have bought it anyway.

Hmmmm. I grew up a good part of my youth (or, "yute" as Joe Pesci would say it) in Japanese-American community and I'm pretty sure it would be Tam-ee-yah. But, not Tam-e-YAH. BTW: I do not live in Nev-AH-dah!

A bit of sticker shock, here: for the past week I have been going through my stacks of old Motor Trend and other mags from the 1950's/'60's/'70's. In perusing the ads in the back for cars for sale I see Ferrari 250's and 275GTB's; Mercedes Gullwing coupes, Shelby Cobras, and other of today's $Million cars for sale --- for an average of $4500-5500. Not junkers, but well-kept cars with recent maintenance and new tires, etc. JUST DAYUM! I don't think people at that time had ANY idea how valuable or important these cars would become.

You are correct. I hadn't really thought about it at the time, I guess because all these guys were just a part of the history here. The car was purchased through the Flamingo if I remember correctly, and apparently the woman had stayed at the Casino after Meyer Lansky took over. Maybe he took her over, too, and was responsible for the purchase. Sometimes it's hard to tell when these because these guys used the businesses to cover their personal activities. Lansky was around for quite a few years. I remember a lot of the old thugs and guys like Lefty Rosenthal...especially when they tried to blow him up in front of the ribs place on Sahara Ave. One of my longtime friends bought Moe Dalitz's Cadillac and drove it for years before a divorce took it away. The creepiest guy I ever met was Tony Spilotro, though. He and a bunch of his goons set up a meeting place by taking over a small fast food building about a block from where I lived at the time. They would roll up the the almost-always-empty restaurant in their black Caddys and sit inside and plan their latest crime ventures like the "Hole in the Wall Gang" break-ins. The guy was scary, for sure. He let word out occasionally that they were looking for "partners" or people to do a little "side work" for them, and a couple of us who were teaching at UNLV (and not making much money) were tempted........for about 3 seconds. They had a nasty habit of killing their enemies and friends in the same horrific ways. Now, they all wear better suits, have better accountants and better lawyers, and hide amongst corporate identities to do the same thing they have always done. I'll have to admit, though, we didn't have any gang-banging kids hanging around or trying to rip off the casinos.

Over the years I have found that people who collect and store cars are a strange breed. There's those like Leno who restore the cars and love to drive and show them so others can enjoy the art. But there's the other kind who hoard them and never intend for them to surface again. In the mid-1980's I was a partner with a well-known body/paint/restoration man (the one who died right after he finished my Mustang), and of course we were always looking for interesting cars to buy and restore to sell. I came in contact with a man who had been in the casino/entertainment business here in Vegas since the 1950's and knew all the "old guys". This man had acquired the 1957 Thinderbird that Bugsy Siegal had bought (new) for his girlfriend. It was a fully documented E or F series Bird (I seem to remember the 2-4's setup rather than the blower) with the original Kelsy-Hayes wires, a/c, T&C (?) radio, etc., etc. It only had about 30,000 miles on it, and every belt, hose, and piece was still original. The only alteration was that it was originally a metallic copper color and she wanted white so Bugsy had it repainted for her. The guy had it sitting in a cheap storage unit almost since he bought it from her in the 1960's. Even needing a repaint to original color it would have been an expensive restoration of every rubber/fabric part on the car. We all sat down and looked at the current market values (around $50K in 1988) and made him a good offer. He dawdled and put us off for months, during which time this man and I were working togetther on some political projects. He just wouldn't sell it. Or, restore it. I asked someone about the car approx. 10 years later when I heard that he had either died or was very ill. It was still sitting, and to this day I think it probably deteriorated further until it would be too expensive to restore. He was not married and had no family that I knew of so I guess the State of Nevada got a plum or the storage owner got paid twice...once for decades of storage fees, and again for selling or keeping the car. I have no idea wherer it is today. What a waste.

Aren't we talking about the diffeence between "weathering" and "driven"?

If you ever get to Vegas you should go to the Imperial Palace Auto Museum and take a gander at the 500K roadster they've had for years. It is stunning. Not even all the Deusenbergs in the other room are as impressive as that Mercedes.

Crocodile Dundee

Great tip, Bart. I've been winding wire around pins for years to get those springs....or pulling the filaments out of light bulbs. Doh! And, you're right. I should just plink away and enjoy it.

Oh, man....Gretsch. Our lead player had a Gretsch Country Gentleman that was smooth as silk and had such a rich sound it would make us drool on his leads. I rarely see anyone using those amazing guitars anymore. But speaking of rare guitars, my sister-in-law is a professinal perfomer in the Reno area and she has tucked away in her "vault" a Mosrite 1976 Anniversary model (signed and with paperwork) that was the last one out before the factory burned. She has contemplated selling it a few times, but never followed through. Mosrites were such great pieces back then.....if one had the skills to play them.

Funny, but my grandson had a school assignment to research and make an instrument (5th grade). Since he chose guitar I got out my granddaughter's Ibanez that she quit playing shortly after i bought it for her. I tried playing it a bit but my hands/fingers just wouldn't make the positions and those strings felt like knives. I sighed and remembered the beautiful Martin D18 dreadnaught I had gotten by trading in my big Gibson bass amp back in 1966. I was heading off to college and staying with the moderately successful band we had formed just wasn't in the picture at all. Great fun, made some good money for high school kids, but college was a "must" back then. I always wondered if it was the right decision since Uncle Sam had plans for me anyway. But that Martin was the best guitar I ever laid hands on. I lowered the bridge a bit and got the action so smooth even my klutzy fingers made some nice sound when I practiced enough. I wasn't the greatest bass player before that so even a great 6 string was a bit of a challenge. But I loved Bob Dylan and the rest of the folk performers of the day (I still have the 1964 Bob Dylan song book with guitar applications that I got from his promoter at a concert back then) so I kept at it. The Martin made me want to play but I have to confess I just didn't have near the talent at my fingers that my ears could hear. I sold the Martin a few years later for money to go to a life-changing Christian summer retreat. It was well worth it, but I always thought I'd get another and try again. Funny how time just blows by us when we grow up and have responsibilities and families. At replacement cost of well over $3000 I just have too many more important things to spend money on than another one.....but it sure was a nice time and a nice memory. I can at least feel grateful that my daughter (philharmonic violist) and one son (college graduate in performance trombone/low brass) kept working with their talent and made the best of it. Oh, yeah...for those who wonder if sticking with it is worth it, two of my son's friends who he played with in bands all through school are members of the "Killers" and "Panic at the Disco". It sure paid off for them.

Ummmmmmmmm....it wasn't just Karl Rove who thought the ad was a plug for Obama. The fact that two of the creators are former Obama admen/promo guys might have a teensy bit of influence, too. I still think Clint's perspective was that of the "Morning in America" speech that I mentioned at the first. As far as Chrysler....and GM....when they pay back ALL the money they got from the taxpayers, including interest and the repayment to all bondholders, then they can brag on themselves and talk about "bright futures". Until then, they are owned by the lenders.

That's gonna be sweeeet!

As a former marketing exec and professor I am always watching the comercials out of more than casual interest, and as decent as many of them were I must confess that the Fiat Abarth ad had me shoving my reading glasses up, moving my head forward, and completely engrossed from the very beginning to the very end. I noticed that on some replays of the ad on news channels they have left out the beginning. Maybe they just couldn't control themselves. The Fiat is certainly a curiosity right now, but I'd rather fantazise that she turned into a Ferrari, or Maserati. BUT, speaking of commercials, are any of you men offended by the torrent of ads showing the "man of the house" to be an unshaven, slovenly, brain-dead doofus who can't figure out where his butt is...much less solve a problem before his wife or girlfriend takes charge and fixes it? I, for one, am sick of the "just crawled out from under the bridge" look, and the whole "men are incapable clods/women can do everything perfectly" movement. It's more than advertising...it's a statement, and a sickening one at that.

John; On which car are you using these parts?

Thanks, JB. I wish I could make a few of these great shows but health keeps me from doing much travelling. That's not far from my home as a kid (born in Auburn, but lived in Lafayette and Antioch for lots of years as my dad worked in San Fransicso and my mom taught at the high school in Antioch). I'm still tempted to just pack up the Suburban or other and head up there, but to be honest I haven't finished a model in years and I always feel a little guilty when I bring stuff that was done 10 or more years ago. But it's sooooo tempting.

Even though my daughter was captain of her college rugby team and a regional all star soccer player the two years before, I just can't watch more than a few minutes of uncontrolled chaos and men in tight shorts grabbing each other's crotch so they can throw a flat "football" in some direction to someone else in tight shorts who may or may not kick it downfield. The glory of American football is that each play is thought out, planned, and then executed with both teams having the same opportunity to make it work or make it fail. As to the uniforms, there is no comparison of either to the Lingerie League. Now, THAT is football with all the best attributes.