Ace-Garageguy

Man, i didn't even know those existed.

YES YES YES...I knew there were some more somewhere. I'm looking in my kit now. It's incomplete, but my curiosity is rampant. EDIT: Yup, there they be, but they're a little fat. They DO have closer to the shape at the rearmost-port (that's shown in Greg's post 10) than the ones in the '49 Merc have.

I'd mos' likely carve it from foam and glass it. But that's just me.

You're absolutely right. I'd started using non-ISP -linked email services, but I'd lazily and stupidly not completed moving everything over. Mea culpa, at least in part. And yes, I remember Cox and Adelphia and MindSpring and more...

I've encountered several of the Fiat / Dino drop-tops over here (though I don't recall ever seeing a coupe in the States) but i don't know if they were actually brought in by Fiat.

Sorry the plastic didn't work out, and good luck with the project. Nice to see you reworking a salvaged built-up model too.

Gee. With all those beautiful golden-age-of-motorsports cars, all those lovely engine sounds, and Elga Andersen to look at between car shots, I just totally forgot to notice that there was anything lacking. From a review i particularly agree with: "The film is set during a period in motor sports just prior to its almost total usurpation by corporate culture, in this case 1970, when there was still a tolerable balance between sponsorship and the particular form of nobility that pervaded racing. As a film, LeMans is remarkable for a sense of restraint that is so unwavering that even the incomparable Steve McQueen seems almost normal inside its cool envelope. No movie on the subject has ever equaled its transparency and authenticity. Motor sports have become so sophisticated and big-time that if you cut the average driver with a knife he might bleed only contact cleaner, or Mello Yello. Modern drivers are still courageous and skilled, but something essential has been lost to the hype and the inevitability of high technology. In LeMans, you can almost smell the 100 octane Supershell and the hot Castrol. People look at one another, not at computer displays. They converse directly over the rasp of tightly-wound 12-cylinder engines, not through headsets and mikes. It's a human thing. Overwrought genre siblings like Days of Thunder are ludicrous and crass compared to LeMans' pure, almost ascetic spirit." (full text here) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067334/reviews

Yeah, I love the logic there. You don't have health insurance because you can't afford it, so they fine you. Like, you got no money to buy health insurance, so they take more money out of your pocket with a fine. What kind of MORONS are running the world??

Along with everything else that works so incredibly well these days, I had to spend 2 hours online with Comcast "analysts" recovering my e-mail contact list, which they had dumped...with NO WARNING...as part of the apparent SOP when an account is moved. So they said. I moved less than a mile away. I kept the same name, phone number and other contact info. I've been using the account as usual for 3 weeks. Today it stopped. No reason, just "there's a problem with your access information" message. Two hours and 3 Indian account guys later, and an associated phone problem that prevented the verification call coming in, I'm back up with my email restored. And Comcast is the ONLY high-speed internet provider in my current location. Now to resolve the incredibly fubarred Comcast billing mistakes resulting from the move. I'm SO SO glad that all the high-tech stuff makes my life SO SO much easier and more convenient, and that everything works SO well in the "modern" world.

Indeed. And the opening sequence of McQueen driving his personal Porsche was one of the reasons I fell in love with the 911.

Yes, the AMT '49 Merc optional Mopar engine has similar (but not identical) cast-iron factory headers like the first pic. The Lindberg "Color Me Gone" kit has tube headers similar to the second pic, but the length of the primary pipes between the heads and the first bend is much shorter. I just looked in both kits to be sure.

A Chevette diesel with an automatic gearbox has to top the lame list for me. Automatic Vegas were pretty bad, but at least the Vega wasn't a visually unattractive car. The poor little Chevette though...it had to be the most insipid, testosterone-free car ever built. Marry that to a low-output clattering diesel and a slushbox that quashed any hope of anything remotely resembling acceleration, and you have a true milestone of mediocrity.

I'm probably going to be an active modeler for at least another 10 years, and I'll have thousands of discretionary dollars to spend. Maybe a good business strategy would be to focus on shortening product development cycles in order to most efficiently cash in on my particular demographic ASAP. I know for a fact that lead times can be cut dramatically in any manufacturing industry. It comes down to quick and effective decision making, accurate and timely communication, and hiring people who can get the job done right the first time. Moebius seems to have figured this out; at least that's what it looks like from my own perspective...admittedly NOT a model industry insider.

Thy known...thine own...how many people are going to get that one? Maybe a shrink? http://www.mhanp.org/mclaughlin.php

That's very pretty. Great paint, and I have a severe case of foil-envy going on. I really enjoy seeing old annuals rebuilt to today's standards.

There are several versions of 928 under Revell branding, but none under just Monogram, to the best of my recollection. Are you sure you mean 928 and not 924 or 911? There's also an AMT 928 that has some weird proportions. Airfix, Entex, Italeri, Fujimi and Tamiya also produced 928 kits.

Beautiful old Macks. So glad there are people with the interest and the resources to keep some of these running and/or restored.

Love that truck !

Most days I drive a ratty looking '92 Chevy pickup with 272,000 miles on the clock. It looks like crapp and runs like new. It's happy being a well-maintained (mechanically, anyway) "work truck". At the moment, it has a leaking diff pinion-flange seal. I keep the diff topped up and will fix it as soon as the '89 truck (now out of emissions , so I can hot-rod it) is 100% running again.

I guess we live by different standards. I do my own plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, and of course all my own work on all my vehicles (and do it at least to the standards of "professional craftsmen"). I've been navigating some slightly tricky legal issues myself since last August, after being quoted insane hourly rates by attorneys. I won, and even managed to bring to the court's attention a procedural mistake a judge made that would have cost me the case. I've also navigated successfully the complex and arcane procedure of obtaining patents and trademarks (several, actually). I rarely have to hire someone to do something I can't. The reason I've chosen to learn multiple skills is primarily because, when I paid "professionals" to do the work, it was usually of only mediocre quality, incomplete, or just plain shoddy. When I work as a "professional" engineering consultant or in other paying capacities, I establish an hourly fee up front (usually consistent with my "skill and expertise") and that's how much I get. If something takes me 1/4 of an hour to do, I charge for 1/4 of an hour for my time. I keep stopwatches on my work to keep it all accurate. I don't get paid while I'm in the john, loafing on the internet, or chatting up the receptionist. But that's just me. Because of the way I've chosen to live, most of my medical expenditure comes out of my own pocket, and because I charge scrupulously fairly for the work I do, I don't have all-encompassing medical coverage because I can't afford it. To stick me $200 for something that could have been handled over the phone in 5 minutes (and took two hours, including travel time and the wait, out of my otherwise productive day) is BS.

...and then actually see you for all of 15 or 20 minutes and charge you $200.

Have you seen the fairly recent Dan Webb / Craig Naff hot-rod version?

What Pete said hits it exactly. And a world market has nothing to do with making second or third rate crappy tools that get marked up a dozen times and are finally pawned off on folks who don't know any better. It doesn't matter where a tool is made. It DOES matter HOW it's made, at least to those of us who actually know HOW to use tools.

Yes please. Love those things, and there's bunches of versions possible too. Or at the very least, a pickup version of that body style in the beginning, leading into a stretch cab and frame based on the first gen tooling maybe? I'd just really like to have the option of building the pickup with correct, detailed guts under it.

Yes, thanks.