DustyMojave

FYI...Aluminum heads on a Ford flathead V8 are aftermarket heads, not factory, Deluxe or otherwise. I have seen aluminum heads that were not finned and looked rather like stock iron heads. But those are rare. Spark plug wires had no boots then. Just the bare metal clip on the end of the always black plug wire that fit onto the tip of the spark plug. So if you're building a stock 34 Ford, the heads should be painted the same color as the rest of the engine. That's a pretty good looking build with the Mullins trailer. Accurate too. Those trailers were made in the 30s.

They were cool little cars that were pretty damned quick. I saw an ad for a Fiat 500 model kit in 1/24 scale the other day and thought it was a shame it wasn't an 850 Abarth, or at least a 500 kit and another kit to modify it into an Abarth.

For this build I like the hard top cab. And the paint effect is interesting. Too bad it didn't happen to some black paint. But still it looks like thick layers of paint laid on over the years and peeling off.

This is really cool. I'm liking it a lot.

I am well known on the world's largest VW enthusiast web site. I''ve been involved with Bugs my whole 62 years (well since I was 2 years old anyway) and my dad worked for one of the partners in importing VW Bugs to the US in 1952-53, then again in the late 60s he was an Engineer for VW US. I have a '58 Bug that I met the day it was bought new when I had turned 2 years old 2 weeks before. I still remember that meeting. Then later it was my 1st car to drive when I got my license. I rolled it 2 weeks after getting my license, but it only cost me $55 to fix it well enough to drive. Had to remove the body to fix it though and learned a lot about the construction of Bugs. It now has well over 800,000 miles on it. Even though the odometer doesn't go past 100K, I know it has 800K because until the last 25,000 miles it didn't have a gas gauge and we all had to write down the miles when we bought gas. So there's a stack of those logs in a box. I converted it to a Baja Bug for my dad in the mid 70s. Its been a Baja for about 450,000 miles now. Anyway, the model has some good aspects to it. But there are some real disappointments in how it's built. In many ways, the inner structure of the original 1968 Revell US kit is far more true to the structure of the VW Bug. As I spent 11 years working in the Plastics industry including manufacturing engineering and have designed and myself made molds for various plastic items, I feel it would be easier and less expensive to structure the model in much the same way the full scale car is structured. For instance, not including incorrect inner fender wells all around would be less expensive than including them. Parts not included cost no money and can't be wrong...to paraphrase Mr Kettering of GM. Using a rear firewall as the back wall of the interior would eliminate the need to make a cover panel for the rear luggage space as well as having another wall in the engine compartment. The same is true of the front inner structure. The panel under the dash is far too steep. Much of the front wall is missing and visible that it is. Unfortunately the gearbox, like most VW Bug model gearboxes, is really rather poorly shaped. Doesn't look much like a VW Bug gearbox. The front axle is quite wrong. And would it be so difficult for SOMEBODY to make a model kit of an IRS VW Bug. I know the swingaxle is simpler and was sold in most of the world right up to the last VW Bug built in 2003. But they're ALL swingaxle. EVERY Bug kit, EVERY VW buggy kit. The outside of the body shell is quite good. The engine in spite of some mild issues can make a good looking stock engine, but the way it's made renders it difficult to modify. And in full scale, VW Bugs are the most modified car in the history of cars. The vast majority of those some 20 million or more of them have been modified from stock. If any model kit is good to make ready to modify, it's a VW Bug. Putting the new body on the old chassis would make a better model. AMT, Revell, MPC, Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo have ALL done far better. Why go to the effort and expense of creating a new model kit, that is so wrong in so many ways? I bought one and found the above issues. I'm not likely to buy more, unlike the Revell US original kit that' I've bought several of over the decades.

An old friend of mine and multi contest winner, Armando Flores, builder of gorgeous low rider models, uses sewing thread to make cuts like opening doors, trunks, etc. Hold it like flossing teeth. Extremely narrow kerf and clean cut. Goes right around corners. Gets to places a metal saw can't imagine going. When the thread breaks, you just pull a little more off the spool.

An old friend of mine and multi contest winner uses sewing thread to make cuts like that. Extremely narrow kerf and clean cut. When the thread breaks, you just pull a little more off the spool. I should probably post that in the tips section, huh?

This is quite a nice build. There are aspects of the Revell 29 Roadster kit that I'm not too fond of. Such as the back of the frame being far from stock and no option to install a period correct rear suspension and axle. I would like to have brake backing plates such as found in the old Monogram 32 Ford roadster and Coupe kits. You're right about the exhaust needing 4 pipes. The Riley 2-port heads represented by those parts are an 'F' head, with 2 intake ports on the right side of the head, and still using the in-block exhaust valves and ports. The A/B 4 banger engine having 4 exhaust ports in the right side of the block, just below the head. Someone must have thought that "2-port" meant that it had 2 exhaust ports. That photo in your summary photo collage of the full size Model B ('32-'34 - it has a fuel pump on the lower right side of the block so it's not an A) hot rod engine appears to have a Donovan full OHV head with the exhaust ports in the head, not the block. Different head than what you're using in the model. But that's OK. You got the model right! Good job!

Guys...If we can't enjoy a little lite banter once in a while, we all become very dull boys. El Caballo made a joke Mark. And it's not your job to reprimand other forum members for their sense of humor. You think he's being insensitive. Most humor IS insensitive. You are being even more insensitive jumping on his case. This forum is about model cars. NOT political correctness. Lets all get over it! The best Polish jokes I ever heard were told by a Pole. Chill.

When these Ferraris were new, I used to see drag racer Don Prudhomme on the street (he lived near me) in his red Dino (license plates "Snake1") and his wife in a Yellow one (license plates "Snake2"). Myself...I have one...or at least one of the Weber carburetors for one...in my off road race buggy you see in my avatar. It won a championship for me to prove it was fast. You're doing nice work here Bruce.

Looks good so far. I'm hoping to see race car style wheels and tires on it rather than dubs. I built a 68 GT500 kinda like it back in the late 60s. Big fender flares, wide tires and wheels, lowered stance, etc.

Maybe El Caballo generalizes the build quality and style to the point of caricature simply because that is what the entire modern rat rod scene IS ALL ABOUT...Caricature! Rat rods were a real thing back in the 30,40s 50s and 60s. But not joke cars. They were simply what most young men who were into fast cars could afford. The term Rat Rod used to mean simply a hot rod that was not nice and shiny. Hot rods were all about going fast with little money to spend on fancy. So a great many hot rods were not real pretty overly smoothed out and polished enclosed trailer show cars. Many hot rods were built out of wrecking yard parts. That's why Model T, Model A, etc. were the popular bodies and chassis. They weren't the Lamborghinis of their day. Primer or original no-longer glossy paint was the norm among real hot rodders in the day. Occasional minor body rust was common. Minor scratches and dusty and otherwise dirty were also common. Mexican blankets on seats were common in places like LA, San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso Texas, etc. because they were a cheap way to cover your worn out upholstery for a guy making a buck an hour who still wanted the go-fast stuff. Guys who could afford shiny, bright paint jobs and could afford to build really sharp hot rods were around, but not the common thing. Look at the old pics from El Mirage at how grubby the cars were in the 40s. Show cars and Kustom Kemps and even low-riders were a different matter that spun off from the hot rod movement. In the 80s and 90s, all the rage among the "Hot Rod" set then was the way too smooth high dollar creations of Boyd Coddington, et al. I publicly bemoaned the loss of the entire concept of hot rods. They were making cars that were BEAUTIFUL, but NOT hot rods. Apparently a LOT of people agreed with me. Then started the backlash to Rat Rods. And that very quickly devolved into exactly what El Caballo described above. Caricature. Again...Really very little relation to real hot rods. The term Rat Rod has come in recent years to connote just the things El Caballo cited above. Open headers pointed in stupid directions, intake systems that make no sense, chopped roofs and channeled bodies to stupid extents, fake rust, and all sorts of things that have absolutely NOTHING to do with making the car fast. But I see a great many who are still devoted to the real thing (and I don't mean Coca Cola). I see many magazines like Hot Rod Deluxe and web sites like H.A.M.B. that demonstrate a huge following for real hot rods. El Caballo got it right. This '29 Ford pickup build by JohnT is looking more like a REAL rat rod than the modern caricature of a rat rod. Keep on John!

Sweet build! I like the style of the build. I agree that you did a great job putting it together. That's a tough body shell to get right.

Is the back of the cab from the newer release Ala Kart kit?

OK. I tried to be helpful. But since this forum only allows "Rah-Rah-Siss-Boom-Bah" comments, I will stop here.

That rear deck over the engine in this tunnel back version of the 2D was external bodywork. It should be painted white like the rest of the body. I'm not sure if the inside of the rear sail panels were white or bare fiberglass.

Nerf bars would be easy with straight 4mm x .5mm (.156" x .020") flat stock styrene and and 1mm (.040") rod. Cut the end of the flat bar at an angle to match the bodywork and glue the rod on. Then glue the back end of the flat stock to the side of the end of the frame rail so the nerf sticks out through the stock bumper notch in the body.

" Technically, a 5-window should have a trunk, while the 3-window should have a rumble seat. " Ya know...ever since I wrote that, it's been bugging me that there WERE 36 5-window coupes with a rumble seat. So I googled it and found that there WERE. So I'm retracting that.

Looks purty good to me Jeff! I have one on the side right now. An early 60s that came to me with only the chopped 3 window roof glued on and little else done. That's the roof I want and it needs far less work than yours at the seam. I'm making the X braces in the frame from strip and cut out the floor boards and exhaust. Technically, a 5-window should have a trunk, while the 3-window should have a rumble seat. So the kit deck lid handle should get moved to the bottom side and the hinges should be at the top. But that's picking nits and from where I live in the desert, we don't have troubles with nits.. I say anybody who wants it "corrected" should build their own.

They're actually a ways down the build list. Quite a few ahead of them. So it will be a while. I have like 1,200 unbuilt kits in boxes to work on. And not much space allowed by the wife for the finished ones.

Cool! And nicely executed. Ford was the 1st Auto manufacturer to offer a pickup truck, in 1925. Before that all pickups were coach builder or home modified from passenger cars. This being a Ford truck with a long cab, it would be a "Super Cab". Another Ford 1st. With the cab and bed in one piece body, it would be a "Ranchero". Yet another concept that was a Ford 1st. Chevy came along later and copied Ford and called theirs "Extended Cab" and "El Camino", even going so far in copying Ford as to use a Spanish name like Ford did. Another Ford term for a pickup truck with the cab and bed in one body is "Integral Cab", like my '61 F100.

Thee's a lot to like about this model, and about Nick's friend's 1:1. I like the shallow T pickup bed on the 1:1 better than the deeper bed on the model. Lots of similarities though!

Nice Torino. I refer to that former favorite picture sharing/storage site as "PhotoToilet" since they kicked us all to the curb without notification. Free to $400/year is preposterous. Somebody in that corporation was looking only at the little picture of finances. They failed to consider the mass exodus of their former customers in what the change would do to their bottom line. If they could provide their services for free for a decade and a half, it doesn't take a financial genius or wizard to see that changing to $400/year would fail and may very well bring about an end to the company. You could probably count the suckers who bought into their new scheme on the fingers of an amputee.

Dirt track racers like to get it sideways. You've done pretty much what I plan for my 1970 Chevelle build. I have 2, an AMT and a Monogram. Not sure yet which I will build this way. The other will be a pavement racer.

I agree with that statement!