Zoom Zoom

For raw styrene to styrene bonds (kit plastic or Evergreen) you can't go wrong w/Ambroid, Tenax, Tamiya Extra Thin, Testors liquid cement. Tube glue is too slow for my taste, and older builds have sink marks in the body over areas I used the tube glue; it took years for the glue to do it's damage and who knows if it ever really cures? For resin or painted parts in general medium or thick superglue with accelerator (quick bond, accelerator negates fogging). For glass & emblems, Formula 560 canopy glue, Microscale Micro Krystal Kleer, Testors clear parts cement...or even strong double-sided tape (there's a brand at the craft stores that is absolutely ideal for this; cut/apply thin strips to the hidden areas of glass...it's very, very strong & no glue problems at all). I use the canopy glue on a lot of exterior emblems/parts because any excess wipes up with water before it sets completely. And the canopy glue is very strong, but if you need to de-bond it, you can apply a drop of water to the joint & wait for it to soak in, and the glue will soften. Quite handy, actually. For high-strength bonds use epoxies. 5 minute is usually sufficient.

I'm loving all the comments on the various blogs/forums since it's apparently gone viral in the last few days! Maybe someone will build it in 1:1 scale and take it to SEMA

Wow, and it's on Cardomain & Carscoop as well...I guess it will hit Autoblog before long. It's a hoot reading all the comments

Your stocking will be full of coal & switches, AA batteries & Mabuchi motors

1:18 Diecast. 'nuff said

No kidding. Heller was supposed to do one, but it never materialized....and I think Heller is Tango Uniform.

The photo from the hobby show of the Prius is the '10 bodystyle.

The difference between Santa Claus & Tiger Woods? Santa stops at three ho's.

A fairly reliable source indicates that Tamiya's next 1/24 scale car kit will be the Lexus LFA supercar. See information here I guess we'll know for sure in the spring, but he generally has been spot-on with his information. The styling is a bit odd, but I sure like this a lot better than another old Falcon

Real. One of the most beautiful cars of all time.

They're on the Stevens site, so I guess they must be somewhat rooted in reality. Prices not listed. I wish them well. That's all I'm going to say for now

Nice job on the model; the color/wheels really stand out. I'm not a fan of the California, but your model manages to look better than the real car. I'd prefer building the HT version. When I built my Superamerica I whittled down the front axle stubs a bit so the wheels would fit "loosely", allowing me to glue them a bit higher up in the wheel openings. Fujimi has remained mum about doing a California. With Revell offering both variants (and Revell Ferraris, aside from the 360's, have all been quite good models), if I were Fujimi I'd be a lot more interested in beating Revell to market with the new 458 Italia & having it on sale this coming spring. That car completely exonerates Ferrari from my dislike of the California

If you build white models they'll be fine, otherwise you'll find the toner is quite translucent. Since there is no laser-printed white toner, you are at the mercy of applying the decals over white, or printing onto white decal film & very carefully trimming them out.

Glad to see that AMX back in resin The Big Bad Blue w/shadow mask boxart model is the one I built from it's previous incarnation when available from Motor City Resin. The Missing Link version is even nicer; you don't have to deal with plating the bumpers. Have fun with it!

Funny, that's (one reason) why I voted "real"

I saw it at Pep Boys. You can now get very inexpensive (~$7) catalyzed/2 part Bondo glazing & spot putty in a small tube, packaged just like their "vintage" glazing/spot putty, same look to the tube. No reason now to spend $20-$30 for large containers of Evercoat or Dynatron or similar, no reason to use the "vintage" air-cure stuff anymore unless you want your bodywork to show up again under your finished paint & enjoy waiting & watching grass grow & paint dry, no reason to use regular Bondo as it's harder to sand & the sanded surface will still need some sort of skim coat of glazing putty or a real thick primer to fill in the gaps from it's much coarser fill. I heartily disagree w/anyone who claims regular Bondo is just as good as any good catalyzed glazing/spot putty. I've used both, on models & 1:1. Using old-school Bondo is like using an anvil in a knife fight. Glazing/spot putty is far more appropriate for model filling work than old Bondo. Using a catalyzed product means you can begin sanding (usually) in under 30 minutes, not overnight, you don't have to worry about applying in thin coats, and it won't shrink like the vintage air-dry glazing/spot putties that are more appropriate for filling coarse sanding marks than gaps or for bodywork. If you're serious about your filling & your models, you will buy a catalyzed glazing/spot putty, and now that you can get it for well under $10, I can't imagine any reason in the world to avoid using it. When my current overpriced Evercoat dries up (I've thrown away 3/4 of what I've bought in the past 20 years or so), I'll switch to the small tube of catalyzed Bondo glazing/spot putty. Seems like the perfect solution...and please, don't use Testors or Squadron putty. That stuff is about 40 years behind current putty tech. Use regular Bondo instead, but it gets you only about halfway to the right stuff. 50% of the time for just small fill jobs, like a pinhole in resin or a small sink mark on styrene, a repair perhaps no bigger than a grain of rice or an uncooked lentil, I apply a drop of gap-filling superglue w/a toothpick, hold it up to a light to make sure it's "full", hit it with a couple drops of accelerator, and immediately sand the area smooth. It's a very time-friendly & economical way to fill w/o having to mix any putty. It's ready to sand right now, and you must sand it right now, right after you "kick" it. Wait too long & it crystalizes to a hardness beyond the plastic/resin. Sanding it immediately after it's set and it's just right. It polishes out like plastic & doesn't shrink.

I was wondering; as I had seen it yesterday on Ebay. Great model, someone will be able to enjoy it in person.

While I prefer decanting Tamiya spray colors, I prefer shooting their white primer straight from the can. What I have found is if there's a plastic color that's being b*tchy about being covered, for example one of the infernal Revell AG kits where they mold different body in different colors of styrene, to shoot it w/their gray primer first...it covers better allowing a uniform shade to apply the white primer. Since Tamiya primer goes on relatively thin & smooth, it works quite well. To me it's worth the extra expense vs. automotive primers...and my favorite, Plastikote, has become nearly unobtanium around here. I do not like Duplicolor primer...it's a bit too strong for styrene, and stinks terribly. I use Plastikote liberally on resin & in mist coats on styrene bodies that are getting a lot of bodywork.

Nice model; was it built for you or built to sell?

I could have told you that 40 years ago Our Mustang-driving neighbors, as well as my aunt, all complained about how little traction they had. On the other hand, invest in a good set of winter tires; four wheels & four quality snow tires...you'll be amazed. A RWD car in snow country shouldn't leave home w/o them.

One must remember what Scale Motorsport excels in; photoetch, decals, & DVD's. If you look at a vintage GT40, there's not a lot there that requires a bunch of photoetch sheets & carbon fiber decals, the bread & butter of Scale Motorsport. What the kit needs help with most are the 3 dimensional parts; better seats, perhaps better suspension, better engine detail, better tires/tread. We shall see if anything happens.

Unfortunately they're underscale; they were made smaller to fit the boxes. If you do careful paint/detail they will look good, but a Revell/Monogram '59 Eldorado next to them will look bigger because they are properly scaled. Johan made the Cadillacs small; they made smaller cars like Studebakers & AMC's in 1/24 scale...again more like a box-scale than sticking to 1/25 scale.

They'd sell a boatload more of them if they revised the 1/8 turd-brown Turbo Trans Am kit to an SD or even a '70.5 T/A. I don't let all the peculiarities throw me...there's plenty of evidence that screams "real" for me.

Do a narrow whitewall w/the Gelly Roll pen, when it is dry go over it with a red fine tip Sharpie. You may want to seal the redline under a thin coat of dullcoat/clear flat acrylic.

I'm pretty sure it was a Renwal Revival Mercer. I was too young to appreciate the fact it was styled by Virgil Exner; I thought it was a pretty odd looking car (model was a birthday present). I already had champagne taste; there's a picture of me somewhere playing w/a '63 T-Bird sports roadster promo...a family friend was a Ford parts guy.