Mike999

2 more old MONOGRAM classics from eBay arrived today: #7549 Duesenberg Town Car and #2301 1930 Packard Boat-tail Speedster. Both original issue. $30 for the pair (not including shipping). Already have a Packard Boat-tail but I really like that kit. Couple of weeks ago I got #2305 1932 Cadillac V-16 Phaeton and #2308 Packard Speedster Phaeton for about the same price. In both these auctions I was the only bidder. Saw the Duesenberg/Boattail pair just a couple minutes before the auction ended.

Thanks! I plan to do that, Working on it. The body's painted and I was about to start decaling when... I found several online build reviews of the Cosmo racing kit, including one by Chuck Most. All 3 mentioned pretty serious decal problems - ripping, sticking to the paper, etc. Decided to test that with the "extra" decals at the bottom of the sheet - the kit name etc. I applied these to an old kit body. Sure enough, they didn't want to come off the paper, even after a lengthy soak in warm water. And ripped when they finally did come off. Part of the problem may just be age - this decal sheet is dated "6.1994." So before I leap into it any more and ruin anything, I'm going to scan/copy the decals and print them out so I have a back-up sheet.

Another van fan! My people! If you haven't seen the notice under the "Reviews" section, Italeri is re-issuing the Ford Transit van this year. I have 2 of the ESCI version in "Canon" markings but will probably get another one. Or five... When that FUJIMI Astro van came out, it was the first new 1/24 American van kit released in many, many years. I have 2 of the Chevy version and a GMC. My favorite is probably the "Field Liner." It includes roof carriers and a mountain bike with photo-etched metal spokes.

Grail arrived today! An AMT '60 El Camino with a perfectly clean bed. Nothing ever glued into it, which is rare. It also has the front bumper lower pan, often missing from these kits. It is missing one rear chrome taillight, but I have some of those. The paint is thick and goopy but all the emblems are there and untouched. And the emergency light glued on the roof left a mark but it looks fixable. Also arriving today: the Hasegawa '68 Mazda Cosmo Sport in the markings of the Hiroshima Prefectural Police. The HPP used these little Wankel-powered screamers as highway interceptors. I got this one because I'm currently working on the racing version of the Cosmo that ran the 84-hour Marathon de Route at the Nurburgring in 1968. That's right, EIGHTY-FOUR hours! "Achtung, Pierre, I see your wimpy little French race and raise you 60 hours!" Two Cosmos ran. One finished fourth, behind a couple of Porsches and an Alfa, IIRC. The other broke its left rear axle after 82 hours. This was the very first race for the Wankel engine and the Cosmo, so that was quite an achievement. The Cosmo kits are well-engineered and just fall together. They have the usual molding seams running fore-to-aft, but that's easily seen and fixed. They are curbside. Unless you find one of the very rare and expensive versions with the white-metal engine. Then you'll have to cut the hood open. The you-know-where seller offered this one for a starting bid of $10.99, a great deal. Someone tried to snipe me at the last second and raised it to $11.99. Still a great deal.

For your favorite Jo-Han, Precision Miniatures etc. hearse model. "I'm gonna ride to your funeral, daddy, in a black Cadillac..." Joyce Green wrote and recorded this amazing piece of rockabilly in 1958, when she was 19. And never did anything else. According to the internet, she's still alive and living in Arkansas.

Harbor Freight must be expanding aggressively. A new store just recently opened near me, in rural upstate South Carolina. Been in a couple of times and it's always crowded with customers. They sell a pretty neat little airbrush stand. Designed to hold 4 airbrushes. Though none of its holders will fit the blasted Aztek body. Unless you customize the holder with a pair of pliers, which is what I did.

A big X4 for the Transit. Didn't think we would ever see that one again. And very glad the rumor I heard was not true. (The rumor that Ford had ordered the molds destroyed years ago.) I have 2 of the "Canon" version but will probably get another. You can do so many things with that kit.

Another weird one in the Sci-Fi/Military category - 2 of those flying saucers guest-starred on the box art of the TAKOM 1/144 Landkreuzer P1000 "Ratte." The saucers are firing some kind of Nazi Death Ray, I guess. The Ratte kit does NOT include any flying saucers. But it does include 2 100-ton monster "Maus" tanks, to provide scale. Yep, this thing is exactly what it looks like - a naval gun turret (from a heavy cruiser) sitting on a multi-story tall tank chassis. With power maybe provided by two 24-cylinder diesel submarine engines. I guess this idea just shows how delusional Hitler was. Trying to put that 1000-ton tank into production would have strained the industrial capacity of all the Allied nations combined, let alone wartime Germany. It would have probably consumed enough resources to build the vehicles for an entire Panzer Division. And if a Ratte had made it to the battlefield, it would have been swiftly bombed out of existence. Despite its on-board anti-aircraft guns. Bizarre...but fun!

Maybe this one, that the fe-mail carrier delivered yesterday. 1/72 "Haunebu" (proposed) Nazi flying saucer. A snap-kit but a pretty complex one, since it has full interior detail. From a Korean company I'd never heard of, Hand & Head Models. I think they also do a George Adamski flying saucer in 1/48 scale. Ordered this one from Amazon, $45.00 including shipping. It arrived in about a week and a half from South Korea. I'm just glad they didn't name it the "Haune-bu-bu." That would annoy me...

MMK Models does a pretty nice resin 1/35 (one-THIRTY-fifth, armor scale) Tatra 87. It even has an engine. And photo-etch parts, including the two big cooling grills in the engine cover. Which have to be very carefully blended with the resin. Unfortunately the quality is variable. I bought 2 of these kits at the same time, long ago. One was just about perfect. The other had quite a few pinholes and other dings in the resin body. http://umm-usa.com/onlinestore/images/MMK35014.jpg

Re-located from the West Coast to the East last year. When I went house-hunting, I told the realtor I was only interested in seeing houses with a basement or workshop area. Bought a place with a huge mostly-finished basement. Or a "basement and a half." Coming down the stairs, you turn left into the smaller basement, and right into the big basement. I've only been living here since August but I really like it. The big basement has plenty of fluorescent lights and 2 big sliding windows, so lots of light. I made a "window board" for venting the spray booth. The basement also has a door to the outside, which is nice to open up on warm days. The heat/AC ducts are exposed overhead, so it's pretty comfortable all the time. Along with room to work, I now have room to store all the unbuilt kits. And the scale model reference library!

From Lucky Model yesterday, received the EBBRO Citroen DS19 and EBBRO/ASUKA Renault Fourgon Boulangerie (bakery van). I was very happy to see the DS19 roof had no breaking or warping issues. For those who've never dealt with them, everything I've ever ordered from Lucky Model has always been packaged very carefully. Every kit box is individually wrapped in bubble-wrap, and the overall shipping box is heavy cardboard.

Late to the party as usual...but that Teracruzer is a really interesting vehicle. They weren't used very long, since the Mace missile was changed to fixed-site operation. One Teracruzer was still working in the Alaskan gold fields as recently as 2010: http://www.internetmodeler.com/scalemodels/flarmor/Revell-1-32-Renwal-Teracruzer-and-Mace-Missile_printer.php Here's a Teracruzer for sale not long ago: http://www.dieselarmy.com/news/the-original-diesel-monster-truck-is-up-for-sale/

Good quote! At a recent flea market, I ran into a guy with a few old model kits on his table. Told me he had recently bought a stash of over 1,000 kits and die-casts from a new widow. He paid her $1.00 each for them - but they were nearly all NASCAR stuff. Said he was having a really hard time getting rid of those and "nobody wanted them," even with very low starting bids on eBay. And how stash-crazy am I? Too crazy. A wall full of 1/25 kits on shelves. Plus half a shelf of resin 1/25. Then there's the motorcycles, from 1/16 up to 1/8. And the aircraft. And the wall of 1/35 plastic and resin armor. And the figures. And... Oh well. As other people have said, I like to look at them. On these cold winter nights, I'll often drag a kit out of the basement and fondle the sprues, cackling greedily like old Scrooge McDuck....

There are still thousands of Fiat 128s running around in Egypt. At least there were when I lived there, from 2005-09. Heck, at one time, the words "Fiat" and "car" were almost interchangeable in that country. The state-owned Egyptian car company, Nasr, license-built them as the Nasr 128 for several years. Many 128s were still used as taxis when I lived in Egypt. I lived in Alexandria, right on the sea, so the poor old 128s often had Flintstone floorboards and parts literally rusting off. But even the Fiats weren't as much fun as the other popular taxi, the Russian Lada. Those came equipped with giant, cast-iron Russian taxi meters under the dashboard, which cracked your knee if you got into the front seat. And none of those meters had worked since the Brezhnev Era. As for the Yugo, this book is a great read and you can find it cheap. Don't remember who said it, but my favorite comment on the Yugo was: "The UN air forces did humanity a great service when they bombed the Zastava arms factory. Since that factory also produced the Yugo..." "The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History" by Jason Vuic (2011) http://www.amazon.com/The-Yugo-Rise-Worst-History/dp/0809098954

Does anybody else remember that the 1/24 kits were also released as S.W.A.T. versions? Yes, as in "police!" A '72 T-Bird SWAT car was truly a weird and awesome thing to behold. As I remember, these kits were "1/24-ish" and looked bigger when compared to Monogram etc. They were also re-issued by ARII. Here's a 2011 Worthpoint ad with pictures of the OTAKI box contents: http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1972-ford-thunderbird-otaki-24-model-21115208 If anybody saved their Sept. 1997 issue of Car Modeler magazine, Jack Swenson reviewed the OTAKI SWAT T-Bird. Here's a 1998 thread mentioning it, along with Tim Boyd and Larry Greenberg's comments on the kits. I may have that issue somewhere in the basement: http://www.foundcollection.com/18_c8cd0194a0194ddf_1.htm

Subscriber here, but I agree with trying to get MCM into Books-A-Million. BAM carries some pretty "niche" British modeling mags like Military Modeling and Military Model International. Along with That Other Magazine and the rest of the Kalmbach titles. The closest BAM is about 25 miles away and I go there at least once a month for my magazine fix.

In "Ronin" (1998), the retired hit man Jean-Pierre (Michael Lonsdale) is building a big diorama showing the "47 ronin" story. He's shown painting the figures and explaining, "It's my hobby." Great movie for gearheads anyway, with the car-star being a "supercharged, nitrous-injected" Audi S8. There's an awesome chase thru Nice, France with the S8, a big Citroen sedan, and a Mercedes with a sunroof - very useful when you need to fire a rocket launcher at the car you're chasing... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122690/?ref_=nv_sr_2 Here's a short article on the cars of "Ronin." Forgot about that Ferrari California in the garage... http://carsalways.com/2012/09/25/the-awesome-cars-of-ronin/

Los Angeles TIMES article, April 1994: Clashing Symbols : Swastikas on Gates of Valley Buddhist Temple Are Signs of Peace, but to Many They Are a Painful Reminder of the Holocaust http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-27/local/me-50918_1_buddhist-temple

A few weird/foreign wishes: ERTL International-Harvester 1466 farm tractor - they reissued the Deere 4430 and Backhoe. Why not this one? I have a built one missing the door, with a broken front axle. Sure would like a new one. It would really be nice if they reissued the colorful "1976 Bicentennial" version. ESCI Toyota Kenia Safari (yep, that's what the box-top says) "Savannah Master" - Early 80's Toyota BJ-44 Land Cruiser with roof rack, jerry cans, spare tires, etc. I'd also like to see the bonkers "Philippine Taxi" Toyota re-issued, though I have a couple of them. The basic kit was reissued a couple of years ago with a .50 caliber machine gun, but without the hardtop. ESCI Range Rover, British/Dutch Police - included chassis/interior parts for right or left-hand drive, and specific police gear/decals for the two countries. ESCI Ford Transit Van - any version, but the Hertz would be really nice. I've heard a rumor that the Transits were sort of like the AMT 1911 Chevy - commissioned by Ford for one run only, then the molds were destroyed. A search turned up this: From "Ford Transit: Fifty Years" by Peter Lee: "In the early 1980s Ford Europe commissioned ESCI, an Italian firm, to make a plastic kit of a short-wheelbase van in 1:24 scale. It too has become highly collectable and today brings more than (100 pounds) if you are lucky enough to find one. Two thousand were made. The design on the box in which it came showed the new van in red, matching its appearance in the first brochures, although the full-sized van was not finally available in that color. ESCI sent a larger 1:12 scale model to Ford in 1985 to get their approval for the product." https://books.google.com/books?id=CbbzCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT458&lpg=PT458&dq=esci+1/24+ford+transit+-ebay&source=bl&ots=C_eMUGzo-J&sig=YzZZbwA7hmzM2tr_6wDywOlxIhs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIiaH8-JLKAhUDxWMKHT7tAMYQ6AEISDAJ#v=onepage&q=esci%201%2F24%20ford%20transit%20-ebay&f=false MPC Jeepsters with the police, snow-plow and "Safari" parts.

I saw the 2011 version expecting a remake. But it was really a "prequel." Told the story of what happened at the Norwegian research site, before the Americans got involved. The very last scene of the 2011 movie (helicopter chasing dog) ties right into the first scene of the 1982 movie. It might be fun to watch the 2 of them back-to-back. I liked it. But a lot of fans of the 1982 version sure didn't. To try and get back on-topic, I think we need more kits of Sno-Cats: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0905372/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Thanks! I'll watch for them now. Have all the episodes of "LITB" on DVD but haven't watched them yet. Still working my way thru "Highway Patrol" and "Adam-12." They have more great old cars to gawk at. Speaking of that - last night Turner Classic Movies showed a flick that could not be seen for many years, due to legal hassles - the 1951 remake of Fritz Lang's "M." Lots of great old cars - the movie was shot around the Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles. With the conclusion shot inside the famous Bradbury Building on Third Street. Which was also used in "Blade Runner," "Double Indemnity" and many other old movies. I'm sure TCM will be showing it again and it's definitely worth a look.

Dave M said: "I know during WWII, certain segments of the Indian population were supporting the Nazis just hoping to get out from under British rule. Putting Hitler on products probably satisfied the desire to stick it to the Brits. (A sentiment that still exists in many parts of India and even Pakistan)." And Egypt. During WWII, future president Anwar Sadat was arrested for trying to get help from the Nazis. I lived in Alexandria, Egypt from 2005-09, and heard this exchange when some of us, including a Brit, were roaming around downtown Alex with an Egyptian friend: Brit, looking at street sign: "Sofiya Zaghloul Street? So who was Sofiya Zaghloul? Egyptian: "She was the wife of Sa'ad Zaghloul, our leader in the 1919 Revolution." Brit: "Ah! So ol' Sofiya got a street named for her, just because she was somebody's wife? And what else did she do in the Revolution?" Egyptian: "She shot two British officers." I also lived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for 2 years. Every weekend (Thurs & Fri) I prowled toy stores looking for old kits. One store had a dusty, flyblown shelf of old 1/72 Airfix aircraft kits. The store owner had taken a black marker and obliterated the Balkenkreuz on the sides of the German aircraft kits. Because publicly displaying the Christian cross can get you in trouble in that country. So that whole "political correctness" thing very much depends on the culture you're in. It's not just an American thing.

Monogram #2305 '32 Cadillac V-16 Dual Cowl Phaeton and #2308 Packard Speedster Phaeton. On eBay at $21.99 for both, plus $7.36 shipping. So less than $15 each including shipping. SOLD! I had both kits in the past, sold them and regretted it. So I was happy for the second chance. Got them in the mail yesterday, both are untouched and complete, just as the seller said. That was a 7-day auction and I was the only bidder. So I guess those Monogram classic kits are in their "unpopular" phase right now. Subject to change any time, of course. The MAC 1/24 scale Praga AN beer truck also arrived. Discussed in the thread "Weird, Ugly and I Must Have It." No surprises. The body is diecast metal, prepainted in Flat Green. Fenders, hood, chassis and wheels are metal, prepainted in Flat Black. Bed is molded in green plastic with wood texture. Includes 3 BIG beer barrels molded in brown. I'll probably just repaint the body and bed so they match.

Thanks for that! Great discussion. Somewhere, maybe on this board, somebody once said that the PMC Ford station wagon promo in "GGM" was the only unwarped one they had ever seen. Speaking of warped...I must have seen the MST3K version of "GGM" 10 times and it still cracks me up. "And the Lord said DIE, children, DIE..." I'm pretty sure Kim Jong-Un has a copy of "GGM." And uses that song to torture North Korean political prisoners.