Ace-Garageguy

You have a PM.

"Enough!!" I cried, as the one person I'd trusted for decades kept jabbing me in the eye with a pointed stick, while laughing maniacally.

Expired "best before" dates are on every woman who'd have anything to do with me now, which is only fair because I'm well past mine too.

Being nice is getting harder every day.

IIRC...

There is a beautiful diecast in 1/24...either Danbury or Franklin Mint.

Cool. A long-gone friend of mine (he drove an Alfa Romeo) had been an F-86 pilot in Korea and was a Connie captain as they were being phased out of major airline service. The engines were getting tired, oil pressure was very low on some, and the company just didn't want to put any money into planes that were about to be retired. The "fix" was to put black tape over the oil pressure gauges so as not to worry the pilots (the flight engineers' gauges were left visible) and hope for the best, as a Connie could maintain altitude on 2 engines and the likelihood of losing three at the same time was remote. True story.

But wait...there's more...

I was young-ish, I'd torn the car all the way down to do a resto, the frame had a lot of cracks in it (I wasn't yet a competent welder/fabricator), and somebody made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I always figured I'd find or build another one, but the REALLY stupid part is that mine was factory-built by Lotus as a London Auto Show exhibit, and had what was then known as the full "SCCA" racing option package, including some Cosworth internal engine bits and a pair of Weber 40 DCOE sidedrafts...and the factory build-book. As vintage Loti go, it would be a particularly special car today.

Just remember that there were 3 entirely different Mopar hemi engines in the '50s...the DeSoto Fire Dome, the little Dodge Red Ram, and the big honkin' Chrysler Firepower. In real life few if any parts interchange. Even if the DeSoto is configured with a front mount in the '53 Ford pickup kit, in reality the blocks have mount pads on the sides of the front. It's not that hard to scratch build something that'll work fine for a model

Cover versions of well known songs are rarely as good as the originals.

Envy envy envy... Stupidest thing I ever did, by far, was sell my 7.

Entirely true, but some kits are so bad they'll fight you every step of the way, and require significant rework to even look like what they're supposed to represent. And "basic tools" are undoubtedly sufficient, provided they're good quality tools used correctly. Some of the knockoff "offshore" stuff like fake X-Actos with plastic collets and flexible blades, cheap drills that won't even go through plastic once, and "sprue cutters" with misaligned, soft jaws with blunt cutting edges aren't worth whatever you pay for them, no matter how little. Things like cheap sandpaper and bargain-store blue tape are just more problems waiting to bite you. Garbage tools and materials only lead to frustration and disappointment. AND...some spray paint is entirely unsuited to building styrene models and can actually destroy the surface, so due-diligence by researching here on the forum or asking specific questions is advisable. We're here to help. We've already made every mistake you can make, and we'd like to save you as much grief as possible.

You don't need to "hack it up" with a Dremel. These fit together just fine. Always have. This is why dry test-fitting is always recommended...so you understand how stuff fits before you're committed.

The Lindberg name is also still around, having been picked up by Round2, like AMT, MPC, and Polar Lights. The kits are all re-releases, some originally tooled by other manufacturers. Quality and accuracy vary from kit to kit, but there is some very fine stuff in their catalogue too. Their '53 Fords are among my favorite kits, and can make exquisite models, as below, built by Marcos Cruz: