Mike999

Speaking of great designers...here's Raymond Loewy's personal '59 Cadillac. The story goes that in 1959, Loewy planned a family vacation in Europe. For comfort and performance, he wanted to tour Europe in a new Caddy. But he absolutely hated the "rocket-ship" styling of the tall-finned '59 Caddys. So he bought a new Coupe de Ville and shipped it to Pichon-Parat, his personal coach-builders in France. They completely restyled the car. Loewy must have liked it, he drove it until 1970. According to one story, Loewy was a frugal sort. He kept the fins and other sheet metal stripped off the Caddy, and re-sold it to offset the cost of the customizing. An internet search will bring up lots of interesting info about this car. In 2008, Jalopnik reported it was on eBay, in rough shape, with a Buy It Now price of $650,000. See the first link below. The second link shows that it apparently sold at Barrett-Jackson in 2010 for $161,700.00, after a full restoration. https://jalopnik.com/393907/raymond-loewy-designed-1959-cadillac-eldorado-for-sale https://azure.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1959-CADILLAC-COUPE-DE-VILLE-RAYMOND-LOEWY-CUSTOM-81377

No, sorry. I've searched every which way and that's the only pic I found of it. And I found that one some time ago, so don't remember where I stole it.

Same thing happened to me on eBay, with the 1/35 scale kit shown below. That Dodge ambulance kit has been re-issued many times by Italeri, Bilek and others. But I like the original Peerless "action" box art from the 1970s. And none of the re-issues have the figures of a stretcher crew and casualty included. The eBay listing said "mint & complete." But when I got it, the chassis and all related parts were missing. I had the same result as you. The seller refunded my money and told me to keep the kit. If I ever glue-bomb the body of an Italeri kit, at least I have spare parts handy.

Many years ago, a toy store in Los Angles had the Revell Midnight Cowboy wrecker on clearance for $5.00. The store only had 3 left and I bought all of them. The truck part of the kit, IMO, is an eyesore and a piece of junk. But the wrecker bed is very well done. You can see it used in many builds over the years in the magazines and contests, mounted on better trucks. I parted out 2 of the kits and still have one in the box.

Received my half today, and right back at you, Pete! Despite the best efforts of the Post Office to crush/mutilate the shipping box, thanks to your careful packing the kit came thru just fine. I'll trade with you any time.

True story, told in many places. Including the authorized 2003 Ford centennial book "Wheels for the World." Since I'm too lazy to go find the actual quote, this is from memory but close: When Ford Motor Co. installed its first robots on the assembly line, it called in UAW founder Walter Reuther for a VIP tour. As the Ford employee escorting Reuther around made clear, they basically wanted to stick a big old thumb in Reuther's eye. "Just look at those machines, Mr. Reuther!" the Ford PR guy enthused. "Not one of them will ever take a sick day off, or go out on strike." "You know what else those machines won't ever do?" Reuther responded. "Buy a Ford car."

After the big 1994 quake, I saw one of those in Santa Monica that didn't quite make it into the Pacific. But close. Parts of the house were scattered down the cliffside and some pieces were lying on Pacific Coast Highway, right beside the ocean. I lived about 2 miles from the epicenter of that quake. Often walked to the Northridge Fashion Center, the big mall where the parking garages collapsed. Across the street from the mall, a Tower Records building split right down the middle and collapsed in on itself like something in a cartoon. Our small townhouse bldg. was only about 3 yrs. old, wood-frame construction and had little damage. The biggest danger was the heavy Spanish terra-cotta tiles sliding off the roof. The quake took out electrical power instantly, so some of us got flashlights and went into everybody's garage to check the gas water heaters that morning. (The quake hit about 4:30 AM.) By law the heaters had to be mounted on a concrete pedestal off the floor, and have earthquake straps. Our contractor cheaped out and installed flimsy straps. A couple of water heaters had fallen over. As soon as possible, I replaced mine with a great big honking steel strap.

Some inspiration found at random on the internet - the Minnesota Orphan. At least it's inspiring me to rip into the AMT kit. This thing is just all kinds of cool - the screaming yellow paint, patches of gray primer and red wheels with chrome trim rings. It says "265 CI" so must be running an early Chevy small-block with what looks like 6 2-barrel carbs.

I'm curious about these too, always being on the lookout for new accessories. All the old Aurora Racing Scenes were 1/16 scale, AFAIK. I thought R2 might have picked up some of the Fujimi, Italeri or Tamiya accessory sets, but those are all 1/24 scale. Interesting. They're mentioned at the Stevens website, but no pix yet.

Thanks. I have that kit and always wondered what it looked like built up. Have always thought of "militarizing" it, since those wide fenders and luggage rack give plenty of space for stowage. It could fit either in a WWI scene, or a 1915 Pancho Villa Punitive Expedition vehicle - on either side. Villa's guys often stole cars, and back then wealthy American military officers often used their own private cars. I always liked those 1/32 PYRO Brass Era kits in general. They did some unusual cars, like the Lozier Briarcliff, Mercer Toy Tonneau and 1915 Model T delivery truck. Aside from militarizing, they looked great in "early days of motoring" dioramas. There are tons of 1/32 and 1/35 figures and accessories that work with them. Years ago those kits sold dirt cheap at kit swap meets. You can still sometimes find them at reasonable prices on eBay.

I think somebody posted this story on this board long ago, but maybe not: Guy was doing one of those jobs where he needed a lot of super-glue. So he poured some on a piece of tinfoil... ...just as his cat wandered into the room. Naturally, Mr. Cat was curious and jumped up onto the workbench... ...where his rear paws landed in the puddle of super-glue. Then he jumped down... ...where his rear paws stuck firmly to the floor. The poor cat freaked out and tried to escape from the Glue Monster. But only his front paws would move. Owner grabbed a bottle of Debonder and tried to squirt it under the cat's back paws. But by now the cat was really mad and frustrated, and lashing out in every direction with his front paws. The Debonder eventually worked and the cat shot out of the room at a high rate of speed. And his owner ran for the bandages.

Yat Ming might step up with a die-cast version someday. They already have a nice 1/24 scale die-cast of the 1952 GAZ-12 (ZIM) and some other Russian cars in the same scale. The Red Flag 770 CA has appeared in a few movies over the years. From IMCDB, here it is in the 1993 Jeremy Irons flick "M. Butterfly." According to the captions this is a 1965 model, but I'm not sure how much those cars changed year-to-year, if any:

Hi Pete - I sent you a PM about this.

I'm racking my brain trying to remember an old magazine article, where a guy drove a heavily customized '40 Ford for a few days. It might even have been El Matador but I'm not sure about that. He said driving the thing was a nightmare. It was so low that he always worried about speed bumps and potholes knocking parts off underneath. The radiator overheated constantly. So did the interior, where he was sitting nearly on the floor, thanks to the chopped top. Wish I could find that article, it was an interesting story of fantasy versus reality.

Public Service Announcement: the movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is playing on Turner Classic Movies tonight, Sun. July 8 at 8 PM EST. Hopefully not too late for anyone interested to fire up the DVR and grab a reference copy.

You will not fool the Carpet Monster by working on a cement floor. The Carpet Monster simply shape-shifts into the Cement Monster. When parts fall, they bounce into another space/time dimension, never to be seen again. The chance of that happening is always directly related to the scarcity of the part.

The fe-mail carrier just dropped off my '40 Ford 4-door sedan, from Steve Kohler at Star Models. I have an old resin '40 4-dr body mastered back in the 1980s or 90s, and started trying to use it. But it's pretty awful, molded in a waxy resin like a bar of soap and missing lots of detail, like the hinges. It also had huge gaps over the rear fenders. Here's the Star Models website, if anyone else is interested. They offer a LOT of kits. Steve has a PayPal account, so ordering from him is easy. https://resinrealm.net/Star/STAR Models/index.html

Sat. 7/7: just went to the Hobby Lobby. Only 2 car kits were still marked down to $7.49: the Revell Mazda RX-7 and the stock '76 Ford Torino. All other kits marked down last week were back up to regular prices, like the PL McEwen Barracuda and Lindberg '38 Ford. A few airbrushes were still marked down. The Iwata Eclipse had a red-sticker price of $149, regular price $249.

This WAS one of my rarest kits. Sold it on eBay last month. Made years ago by "Corvair Models." These were only sold over the Internet and only 1000 were made. If you look in the lower left-hand corner of the boxtop, you'll see "820/1000," so this kit was number 820 of the thousand that were cast. It's a dead-bang copy of the Premier Rampside kit issued in 1961. It has an engine, which looks nothing like a Corvair engine, and is in 1/27 scale or thereabouts. One nice touch: the instruction sheet was a copy of the Premier instructions. You might want to hunt this one down if you collect every Corvair kit ever made or something. But it's not very good as a replica. If you want a much better Rampside, get the bestmodelcars resin body. I bought that body, and hoped to recoup its cost by selling this one. It got 25 bids and sold for $162.50.

Most likely mastered from this 1/24 plastic kit. Made by the French kit company "Record." It apparently built either a hardtop Renault Floride, or a convertible Caravelle. I found these pics on Worthpoint. The plastic kits are Unobtainium, and if we were lucky enough to find one in this mint/unbuilt condition, it would probably cost at least a liver. And maybe a lung.

That's pretty amazing, but I've had similar experiences. I'd guess the hobby shop gets a bulk-shipping deal. When I order from online hobby shops, they usually have several different options and prices, for USPS, FedEx, UPS and combinations of those. The '65 Impala sounds like it was an eBay deal and the seller tacked on some hefty "handling" fees. For those who don't know this and might want to sell on eBay - you can get different-sized boxes free from the US Postal Service. Just go to the USPS website and sign up, which is a pretty quick process. They ship the boxes right to your door.

Don't get me started...TOO LATE! I buy and sell on eBay. As a seller, I used to add a $1 "handling" fee, which buyers can't see since it's rolled into the shipping cost. But I gave up even that extra dollar long ago, when shipping got more expensive than the kit. As a seller I try to keep shipping costs as low as possible, and expect the same as a buyer. e.g., if a seller won't combine shipping on multiple items, I just won't buy from that seller. Ever. BTW, sometimes the difference between the shipping you pay and the actual cost may not be a seller trying to shaft you (or it might be exactly that!). Sellers have to give eBay the size/weight of the package before the auction. That's how shipping cost is calculated. Newer eBay sellers may guess-timate the size/weight. I use a Postal Scale and tape measure and am usually right on the nose for shipping, or very close. If a kit box is oversize/heavy, I put a big SHIPPING WARNING right in the eBay listing: "This box measures (x) and weighs (y) pounds. Shipping will be expensive." Now ON-TOPIC on a happier note...I needed some parts for the old ESCI 1/24 Renault R5 kit, and went looking on eBay. A seller was offering a package deal, TWO of these kits as "Buy It Now/Best Offer." I made a pretty lowball offer, figured the seller would counter-offer or tell me to get lost. But he accepted the offer. They were delivered today. One is mint and complete, the other is missing the chassis but otherwise complete. I knew that from the seller's photos.

I just checked Dave Worrall's book "The Most Famous Car in the World," about the 007 Astons. Things sure were different back in 1963. Aston wouldn't "give" EON Productions anything. Though they responded a little better than Bentley, who just turned the film-makers down flat. When producer Harry Saltzman first approached Aston, he was told that Aston-Martin was not in the business of giving away cars. But they'd be happy to sell him a DB-5 at full price, about US $4,500. Saltzman blew his stack and told them they were giving up uncountable amounts of free publicity, since all the Bond movies had been big hits so far. Aston at the time was (as usual) in financial trouble. Their general manager telegraphed David Brown, who was traveling in the USA, about the movie deal. Aston finally agreed to loan EON Productions their test mule - a prototype DB-5 from the Research & Development Dept. Saltzman & company then spent nearly $25K adding all the Bond modifications. Saltzman wasn't about to risk that expensive modified version for all the movie shooting...especially that chase scene with the Mustang convertible. So Aston loaned them a second DB-5 for use as a "stand-in." It had none of the mods, but did have a dummy housing made up for the front license plate. (It didn't rotate.) One interesting technical note: the modified Bond car had a 4-speed David Brown gearbox, like all DB-5s up to production number 1339. All DB-5s after that, including the second 007 car, had a German ZF 5-speed transmission. That came about because of a Brown trade deal involving the sale of his tractors in Europe. Even more amazing is what Aston-Martin did with the original modified Bond car, that prototype DB-5, registration BMT16A. It was only a loaner, so when all the hoopla died down, it went back to Aston-Martin, along with the stand-in and 2 other silver DB-5s used to promote "Goldfinger." Aston-Martin's workshop removed all the Bond modifications, which apparently involved welding in a whole new roof section to get rid of the ejector-seat roof. In August 1968 Aston re-painted and sold it, just like any other used car.

I have a really old resin body mastered off that Bulletnose promo. At least it looks just like that body. Molded in black resin. Part of a stash I got in a big package deal about 7 years ago. Other stuff in the same big resin pile include a '53 Pontiac, probably mastered off the Banthrico promo, a couple of '51 Chevy 2-door sedans, a '54 Ford 4-door and some others. All appear to date from the early days of resin casting, in the 1980s-90s. Lots of air bubbles and voids. One '51 Chevy has so many zits along the rocker panels, it's probably a good candidate for an abandoned rust-bucket. One of these days I may shoot pix of those bodies and see if anybody can identity them.

At the HL here all the Paasche stuff was marked down, but not the Iwata airbrushes and air-accessories. I'm not really in the market for a new airbrush but can't resist checking out good deals. For general airbrush work I still like the Aztek (though I'm in a minority on that one). When my Aztek died last year after long service, including several disassemblies/repairs, I used a Michael's 50% off coupon to get a new one. For really fine work, several years ago a friend who managed a hobby shop sold me a Sotar 20/20 (Badger) airbrush for about 75% off retail. It still works great. With the right mix of thinner/paint and air, it can crank down to incredibly thin lines and patterns.