Zoom Zoom

That's all I remember seeing as well; roofline issues. I've been a big fan of the 300's since I found out a friend's Dad had restored a '56, and he knew another guy locally who perfectly restored a '55. I took photos of both, and did the body/interior masters for All American Models '55 and '56 300's, Art did the chassis/engine parts. As gung-ho as I was, I still haven't built any of my resin 300's...too many projects, too little time, too much "modeler's ADD" I will build one of my resin 300's alongside the plastic kit.

They could, but they probably won't. Products, prices, track record are the only way to read their tea leaves. Falcons certainly are better than what many of the critics will acknowledge, but when less-than-accurate models aimed at adult builders are priced double what their true value is compared to the competition, well...the market will ultimately decide their ultimate success or failure. What is clear is that they certainly didn't go through the same steps as Moebius has to ensure their products meet their customer's expectations. The approach that Moebius is taking is a breath of fresh air, quite honestly. Interesting subject matter, attention to detail, listening to their customers and critiques, making sure something is right before they hit the market, and priced with only a nominal premium over commodity-level kits, I really hope they have great success with this formula. While it was interesting to see how things have transpired since those first Hudson photos, I have to wonder if the amount of critical input was such that they purposely did not share the same development of the Chrysler 300's to the general public.

The Complete Future That should give you a pretty good idea of what to do with it.

These are $10 models at Wal Mart...I don't see much market for resin which would cost exponentially more. For $10 a builder can buy it, tear it apart, and redo it exactly as they want. In fact two have already been shown on the MCM forum by Zoli. There's a $200 resin Audi TT offered by an Asian aftermarket firm. He literally took a cheap Welly diecast and recast the whole thing. As in "without any improvements". I don't know about anyone else, but I believe one would be crazy to spend that $$ on resin when you can get the model for $15, and in 15 minutes have it disassembled and ready to refinish to your standards from there.

I do not like brush painting acrylics in general, aside from small detail items. That said, I'll go against the grain of what everyone is saying in regards to recommending Tamiya over Testors acrylics for brush painting, at least in regards to black colors. I find Testors Acryl flat black (regular flat black, interior black, any shade of their flat black), and their semigloss black, to be far better than Tamiya for brush painting. The key is to use a good quality brush and apply it in a fairly heavy coat. It covers so much better than Tamiya black it's not funny It levels out as it dries. Kind of like "shrink to fit", much like Tamiya sprays. No having to wait for it to dry and go over it repeatedly, the pigment is much denser than Tamiya's. As for other brush acrylic colors...I don't use 'em. I airbrush 'em. But I do a lot of small detail painting and touchups w/flat and semigloss black, and I absolutely love Testors Acryl for those tasks.

Very cool! I have tons of projects to get done...and this just makes my modeler's ADD go into overdrive. Thanks.

Very much like my setup; excellent tutorial. I have a translucent light box and a series of drafting lamps with floodlights, and one spotlight. Because the box has sides, I can move the spotlight around and shine it on pieces of white and black illustration board that I clip to one side or the other to get some good contrast via reflected light into the body sides. On my camera there's an aperture priority mode to set the aperture to F8. I have two macro modes; super macro goes to 0.0", and I use it pretty frequently. The zoom on the camera also allows me to step back several feet (I have the setup mounted up high and use a standard tripod) and focus in for a more "natural" perspective.

Finally got a "minor" grail...Tamiya's Honda NSX Type R. First time it was issued, I didn't know about it. Japanese issue only, all sold out. It was spot-reissued once, they sold out in a nanosecond..missed again. This time it's available through Tamiya USA Might be a spot-issue as well, but at least this time it's officially available through US channels (though that's not a deal-killer w/the excellent Japanese websites). Looks to be typical vintage full-detail Tamiya goodness. Photoetch engine cover, front intake screens, side vent screens, radiator face, and tags. Window masks, too. So it is an improvement over the original. Sure wish there were more online photos of unmolested originals...they were very rare, less than 500 made.

Doesn't take much to make an improvement; and this only took a few minutes:

As long as the zombie is awake... I don't mind the wheel style at all, oddly enough it suits the car, but if I had built it I'd have widened the rear fenders, I think it would have been worth the effort and look exponentially better. But maybe that's just me...

Sigh...another thread from years past, brought back to "life" The builder is long gone from this forum. Let's not dredge up why. I still like the model, still think the rear wheels sticking out beyond the fenders is...uh...*fill in the blank*

I think you completely missed his point; nobody questions the racing heritage, it's just that those Porsches on the showroom floor & racetrack are not accessible by the mainstream buying public. An economy car budget won't buy you that. The closest thing to an accessible economy car w/a rear engine is the Smart car, but it might be a rear mid-engine. Regardless, it's driving dynamics are far inferior to any modern FWD VW, regardless of size. As much as I despise the idea of the Cayenne and Panamera, they're making huge amounts of $$ for Porsche and that $$ is going towards making their sports cars better and better. The best driving Porsche isn't their fastest nor most expensive...the Cayman is probably the most "pure" Porsche you can get. And it's the best driving because it's a HT w/a stiff structure and mid-engine, not rear-engine.

A European company called Geronimo Works makes it. I think you should be able to locate it: Strada Sports - lower left of the page

Our club has a group build of the recently reissued MPC '76 Caprice kit. I was looking over a couple of them this weekend, and found damage on both bodies. Looks like the ejector pin on the driver's side of the body mold (underside of cowl) is pushing up too aggressively/too far when the body is popped out of the mold. This causes the cowl and upper fender to be warped, and affects the top of the driver's side front fender and even to the side where the stress causes what looks like a sink mark on one of the fender creases. The other day I looked at one of the previous reissues from when RC2 was in charge (maroon/black box, gray plastic), and I noticed the same issue, but not quite as bad as the current issue. Has anyone else noticed this? I would assume it will make proper hood fit difficult. I have an original that has no problems at all in this area. One would think this kind of issue would have been dealt with in test-shot phase, but ???

The only explanation I ever got was one that I just can't wrap my head around, something about not looking anything like anyone's tires. Okay, they succeeded With an attitude like that, I wouldn't be surprised if someday model car kits come without any tires at all...the builder left on their own to find or make tires. That doesn't explain why other companies, especially companies making cheaper, almost toy-like diecast models, have better generic tires. When prepping parts for paint over the weekend, I was looking at photos of a 2010 GT just like I'm going to build, including an E-bay closeup of a wheel/tire, and it really was disheartening to see how far off the tire is compared to a real one (and crazy enough, they are an improvement over the clompers that were in the '05-'09 kits). The wheel looks fine (assuming a refinish from chrome)...tires, not so much. Oh well, thank goodness for parts boxes and cheap tire sets at shows Hopefully the tires end up my only real complaint w/the kit. The rest of it all looks pretty nice.

It's not really the height that's that bad (I don't have a 1:1 to measure), they could be slightly shorter but the sidewall is too squared off, too much material from bead on up. A cross-section of a real Mustang tire isn't anything like the kit tire..I have diecast models that have far more accurate looking tires. That's what bugs me the most...cheap diecast models w/ much better looking (generic) tires than (more expensive, supposedly-made-for-picky adult builders) kits.

Looks great, I'd like to build one like it w/the latest version of the kit (which is minus the goofy graphics and yellow headlight covers).

Well, we all know how the magazines are over-run with young, inexperienced, loudmouthed/opinionated/whiny kids that know nothing about the subjects they are reviewing. It's quite an epidemic

That could be the basis of an entire thread...models that we don't want Trumpeter to make I'll start with the most obvious. '70 Hemi Cuda (and that fits the subject of this thread )

That is ancient history. Once Bill Ford handed over the reigns to Mulally they started to get smart. All Fords now will be shared globally. We finally got the Fiesta and Focus, and we'll get the hot varieties of them as well. The next Escape will be the replacement of the Kuga. The next Fusion will be the Mondeo, no more Mazda platform.

It's not exactly new, it's been around quite awhile. It takes some good practice, and probably will never provide the crisp graphics that an Alps would provide. That said, it is an alternative. A friend bought the system, we did a test, and it looked promising. That's as far as it went. It's not something that you'll get great results from right out of the gate, it's a bit convoluted and you have to follow the directions to a "T".

Thanks for the update, glad to hear that you're working diligently on getting it right...that's more important than getting it "right now" anytime I'm really looking forward to building both the Hudson and the 300, and likely multiples.

Unfortunately, that is the truth. For whatever reason, they've taken it upon themselves to be #1 in sales worldwide. That's pretty much like saying they want to be the Wal Mart of car producers. Toyota...beyond boring. VW-we want to be even more boring than Toyota! So VW's new Jetta vs. the old one...they strip it down, decontent it, make it as bland as possible, but make it bigger, advertise it as cheaper (with a loss-leader; in reality all other models are more expensive), and they see a huge rise in sales. Make a crappier vehicle and sell more. I'm sure they're so happy with themselves. Proves that idiots will buy anything with a "boutique" label.

I guess I have to disagree on what constitutes "iconic" subjects. Trumpeter kits so far range from esoteric to slightly-above-mainstream...and I also don't think any of them are worthy of being done by other companies. Not that a car needs to be iconic to be made into a model, but I'd say Trumpeter has taken care of those particular subjects regardless of their accuracy or value per $.