Ace-Garageguy

I did, more than one. Funny, I seem to remember seeing an article in some old model car mag that showed somebody actually getting decent results from the thing. I thought I must be an idiot because all I could get was wavy, melted, huge gaps. Yup. WAY before I started chopping tops, etc. I tried it for opening doors and decklids many times before I finally came to the conclusion that it really was a case of using the wrong tool, not a case of operator idiocy.

Maybe it's just my perspective, but I seem to think there are more low-number posters showing their work here in the past few months, like maybe the forum is growing a little quicker. I could be wrong. It's good to remember that it's not unusual for ANY group to take a while before new members are fully assimilated and accepted, and it's seemed to me, again, that the work that gets the fewest responses is the work that's just the least interesting, or not very well done. New members who show really pretty work get a lot of attention immediately. A lot of the older members here do try to be encouraging and helpful towards less-skilled folks, and to praise at least the parts of a model that ARE well done, even if the whole thing isn't show-quality. The occasional arguments and ruffled feathers are mild compared to what you see on some sites, too, and everyone seems to at least try to act like adults, for the most part. The BEST way to get accepted is to post your work, show an interest in growing in the hobby, and an interest in other peoples work.

I forget sometimes how good '36 Fords look in red. Perfect color for this one.

Exactly. Far as the smallblock Chebby and the Ford 9" rear end go, you really have to remember that the VAST MAJORITY of rods built today have just that combination. Revell already had a 9" setup, and I would imagine the little Chebby shares at least some tooling with the engine in the Rat Roaster. You can't please everybody, so build a kit that reflects what the majority of real-world cars are running, try to bring it in at a reasonable price, and let model rodders do the rest. God knows, the two Revell hot-rod kits are the best new rod-fodder we've seen in a long time...and for as many guys who were clamoring for a '29 roadster and a '30 coupe a few years back, you'd think there would be a lot of excited jumping up and down now that they've arrived. Revell has already made available a nice Olds Rocket in the '50 kits, and a decent Buick nailhead in the '29 roadster. There's an old-school Chrysler Hemi in one of the '32 kits, a smallblock Ford is represented, and Revell kits have several versions of the venerable flathead Ford...not to mention the Ardun OHV conversion. That's got what you're going to see in a real rod pretty well sewed up. Engine swapping is relatively easy, if you just think it through. And if you just GOTTA have a buggy-spring rear and a quick-change, Replicas and Miniatures has you covered...and the parts are absolutely exquisite. It's just not that hard to do a leaf-spring / quick-change swap in these new Revell chassis, anyway. Look at the end of this thread (click the link below) and you'll see how to make a crossmember, and as I complete the build over the next few weeks, all will be revealed.

Really cool pix. Nothing beats being there. Winning is nice, but just being able to show up and race is heaven.

Only thing is, you have to trust your OWN judgement over the kit designers.

Exactly. Getting rid of the locating bumps and pins on the old Revell parts-pack engines, in particular, makes "fiddly" little kits into beautiful little models that fit together well. "Machining" the mating surfaces of heads, blocks, oil-pan rails, bellhousings, and front covers also vastly improves the outcome, insures against not-real-looking gaps, etc. Been doin' it for years...but it takes some care and practice. I've "machined" more than a few parts into wonky, non-parallel garbage. These days, rather than trying to take a file or sanding stick to the part, I'll put a sheet of self-adhesive sandpaper on a flat part of the bench, and "machine" the part against that. Typically 80 grit for the rough cut, 180-400 to finish it.

This one is really bizarre, obscure, mostly unknown. Good subject.

Here's a general overview. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Cobra

Very interesting. I'm not personally wild about the Cevennes / Speedster II. I prefer the proportions of the original...probably because I've been looking at them for a long time. The Hemera doesn't do it for me at all. I think it's kinda cute, in a "girls car" kinda way (I know, minus 10 points for non-PC wording)...though if it had 500HP, massive fender flares and racing rubber, I could probably like it a lot. I know absolutely nothing about any alleged legal issues between Porsche and PGO, but it's worth looking in to. Porsche doesn't typically get all whiny when somebody copies one of their very old designs, so i'd like to know what the real deal is. Porsche didn't give ol' Beck any grief when he did the original Spyder clones back in the 1980s, and far as I know, hasn't tried to mess with his 904 replicas either. EDIT: I did a little internet digging and I get a couple of different versions of the Porsche vs PGO thing. Some say Porsche won, and now gets royalties from PGO. Some say PGO won. Obviously, Porsche didn't get a "cease and desist" making the things like Ferrari got against some F-car clone-makers, and all the Speedster / Spyder replicas of any merit (and some that are trash) are still in production, so whatever the PGO/Porsche outcome, it would seem to have been reasonable. Anybody wants to dig deeper, I'd be interested in knowing, but I'm probably done digging myself.

Thank you sir. Sounds like an all-around winner.

Bear in mind that this photo shows an engine with blue-painted cast-iron heads and water pump... While this one has aluminum cylinder heads... Production-line engines originally fitted to Cobras would have had painted iron heads, the same color as the block, and not the aluminum-color heads as shown on the (somewhat inaccurate) CAD model I posted above.

Well...and taking into consideration what Matt has said too...I thought you were looking for clear photos showing engine details. My mistake. According to some knowledgeable Ford guys I know, the 427 engines were black through about the early middle of 1965, and then switched over to the familiar corporate Ford engine blue. So...apparently it's simply going to depend on when your model is supposed to have been built that will determine correct engine color.

Wow. Fascinating.

Pretty funny. Far as reissues go, R2 has done a nice job so far bringing back early versions of kits with restored bits in them that I'd thought we'd never see again. I sincerely hope it's a profitable strategy in fact and in projections, and that the trend continues.

I'm sure you think your flawed logic is very clever. Enjoy your delusions. Oh...and...ummm...WHO initiated the personal attack here? Looks like it was you.

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." -Plato

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." -Plato

Gotta be careful with over-generalizing. I was born in the early 1950s and also experienced "life before the internet and through its development into what it is today". I watched the development of computers with avid interest, participated (in an electronics-as-hobby sense) and I've embraced the internet from the beginning, learned to use it to its fullest advantage, and see it as a fantastic tool that augments all my other skills. I know a number of old fossils who are at least as adept as tweens or twenty-somethings traveling the information highway, and manipulating "smart" devices. I also know a number of "tech savvy" younger people who have had instant access to all this fantastic tech their whole lives, were raised with it, and STILL remain willfully ignorant of damm near everything. A tool, ANY tool, is only as good as the amount of effort its user puts into it. My point is: "What's in the box" information about the majority of models is available to anyone who really wants it in about 30 seconds. On another note, I don't think it's too much to expect a newly-tooled kit to fit together pretty well. Revell made the windshield in their 2009 Challenger model (which installs from the outside) fit perfectly. Moebius didn't seem to be able to get it on their new Pontiac. We should also be able to expect accurate scaling on newly-tooled models. Revell has two versions of the SAME engine that are two different sizes. That means one is simply scaled wrong. We PAY for correct work, but any time anyone mentions that it's really not all that hard to use measuring tools and arithmetic accurately, they're immediately attacked for "saying things that will make the model companies stop making models" or for "not understanding the economics of business". Fine. I've about had it with ALL the camps... the defenders of mediocrity, the "real modelers", and the completely "unreasonable" people (like me) who think we deserve scale accuracy and good engineering every time. Models are going to be flawed because humans get lazy, get in a hurry, make poor decisions, etc. Proportions on SOME old kits are very good indeed, but fit and low parts count may be issues. Newly-tooled kits may have a lot of parts, but they may also have serious flaws. It's just the way it is. Deal with it.

Yeah, a pretty weird concept, I know...and probably not what this guy had in mind, but I just think this may be the coolest old suicide-door Continental ever. What the Men In Black should have driven...

Yes, and I have many of them. The link, in case it's not clear, is to an online magazine.

i didn't mention it specifically earlier, but one mod I felt to be necessary was cutting the rear fender loose, spacing it outward a bit, raising it relative to the body a little, and rotating the rear upwards considerably. Also extended the lower edge down. Pix tell the story. The effect is to lighten the tail and make the lower fender lines echo those of the front better.

Some of these were actually molded in a "lovely salmon color". It was popular, believe it or not, on cars of the period. Lots of possibilities for a stocker, mildly-rodded version, gasser or full-blown custom.

OK, guess it's time to end it. The car is a PGO Cevennes / Speedster II, obviously inspired by the Porsche 356 Speedster, and available in several versions over the last few years. Though there are some Porsche Speedster replicas around, mostly built on VW Bug pans, this isn't one of them. It's a real production car, made in France, with mid-engine power. http://www.pgo.fr/en/cevennes/ Correct answers from: Matt Bacon DRIPTROIT 71 carsntrucks4you 68shortfleet dw1603 Badluck 13 sjordan2 matthijsgrit GTJUNIOR chris02719