Ace-Garageguy

When you get there, look at something like these. Thinning One-Shot striping enamel to work correctly in them might take a fair bit of experimentation, but I'm 90% sure it's possible. NOTE: The color coding denotes tip size, not ink color. http://www.usartsupply.com/ItemDetail.aspx?ItemNo=ALV+3165SP7A&gclid=CP_2s_Lujb0CFS9p7AodLHYAYA

If you're looking for a simulated metal finish, I'd suggest Rub-N-Buff. You apply it with your finger and buff it to a very convincing metalized look. it comes in little tubes and is available at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc. Hears a link to multiple projects. https://www.google.com/search?q=rub+n+buff+pewter&client=firefox-a&hs=NQr&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NsMgU8-4G5CvkAeX8YBY&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg&biw=1600&bih=746#imgdii=_ Teators Buffing Metalizer spray-lacquer in either magnesium or titanium would also make a "pewter" like finish.

There's usually a lot of NASCAR kits cheap on ebay, if you shop intelligently. Some have been so cheap, I've bought multiples just to get the engines, gearboxes and rear-ends.

As far as the torque versus horsepower argument goes, it's always good to remember that there are well-defined mathematical relationships between the two, but that different forms of motorsports, with different rules, exploit these relationships differently. Here's a good tech article in Hot Rod, for anybody who actually wants to know how it all works. Warning: numbers are involved. http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/hrdp_0401_torque_horsepower_guide/

Probably not all that boring to a generation that grows up watching quiet cars. I personally think a lot of forms of sport are boring (to watch), and though I've enjoyed playing a couple of video games...for a few minutes...I got bored pretty quickly and retired to do something in real-life. Perspective is everything.. Then there's the feminist component that sees anything involving male aggression / competition as being bad and not PC, an ever larger and more vocal group of NIMBYs, and the radical greenies who think racing is sinfully wasteful of resources, so the way things are going, any form of racing may simply just disappear. Until it does, actually PARTICIPATING in any kind of racing, from slot-cars to SCCA, is a sure fire way to avoid boredom.

The kit he's referring to is this one, in 1/24 scale, and it is a derivative of the old old old '34 Ford kit mentioned in post #1. It has come in several box-art versions. Like he said, it's chopped. It also has only hot-rod parts and cannot be built stock.

Very good to know. Do you happen to have the kit # for the one that has all the bits, or some other identifying points? I was pretty disappointed when I opened some of the red-car boxes and found no stock parts.

Half the weight of the 'Rari and 8 times the power of the Bug. YES !!!

Oh man, cool work. Man oh man, I wish I'd thought of that style!!!

It's ME !!! Okay, now what do I win for guessing right?

I guess it'll be me.

So how much SHUOLD it be? What was the development and licensing cost? What was the tooling cost? What are all the other associated costs, like packaging, shipping, paying for box-art and marketing, cost of capital to do the project, etc.?? What are the projected sales figures? What SHOULD be considered a fair return on investment, over how many years?

With the huge popularity of pickups in the real world, I'm truly surprised there's perceived to be insufficient demand for a model or 3. I mean, wasn't it not too long ago that one American pickup was the best selling VEHICLE in the states ?? I haven't checked in a while, so I don't know what today's numbers are. As usual, I'd be interested in the market-study methodology that determined "insufficient demand".

ANY kind of racing pushes the tech envelope beyond what corporate bean-counters and marketing departments will approve, and what (some) talent-limited engineers (who would be just as content designing blenders as cars) will come up with in a mass-market, corporate backside-covering environment. It wouldn't hurt at all to have some really highly-motivated car guys working on issues like energy-density and recharge-speed of battery packs. Racing sometimes is ahead of the technical curve, and hastens the development of great things that trickle down to mortals, and sometimes it lags a little behind. But overall, ideas we all take for granted now on bread-and-butter cars...variable valve timing and more than 2 valves per chamber, just to name a couple...were once only found on the most exotic of racing cars. Humans always race ANYTHING that moves, in case you haven't noticed, and electric vehicles will be no exception. I don't think you'll have to worry about quiet EVs replacing screaming combustion engines any time soon, but there's room for competition classes no matter what the power source. EVs are coming, in large numbers, and will have significant influences on motorsports. Ohio State's (battery powered) Buckeye Bullet 1 already has run 321MPH at Bonneville. http://www.buckeyebullet.com/

This is the "pretty good" AMT 5-window coupe kit. It really is pretty good. This is the street-rod version of the same kit. The body and frame rails are the same as above, but the suspension is independent all around, and it can NOT be built stock.

An educated citizenry is the only safe repository for democratic values. — Thomas Jefferson

It's still going to be some time before any $400 hand-held scanner will have the resolution and processing power to do that, but it will happen in the foreseeable future. What a lot of folks still seem to fail to realize is that there's a HUGE amount of data to capture and manipulate in getting a high-resolution scan. Add the complication of a "hand held" unit where the subject isn't stabilized relative to the scanner, and the problem is compounded many times over. Also, when you "sand the print smooth" you lose resolution and change the surface contours...unless the print is specifically made a fraction oversize to accommodate the loss of material during sanding...and then you have no absolute guarantee that you'll sand EXACTLY the same amount off of every single point on the printed part. In the real world, this is called tolerance-creep, or tolerance-stackup. It's kinda important. You also lose resolution when you go up in scale from an original scan. Just think of blowing up a photo on the computer until it gets pixelated, and you have the idea. The hot setup is going to be to wait until a high-res scan can produce a print with resolution fine enough to appear almost as slick as a styrene injection-molded part. It's coming, but it's not here yet. I have held in my own hands parts printed by high-res commercial machines that only take a coat of primer to fill the very minor surface texture, but getting these results from a desktop or even high-end consumer-priced unit right now? Nah.

Yes sir. I've been in awe of the work of the best of the military modelers for quite some time, and this is right up there. Just beautiful, and believable.

This is one you DON'T want (the chassis is nice for a model T, and the body is way small for a '34 Ford). It's been issued in other packaging and art over the years. The kit on the left is the AMT 3-window that's horrible...the nose and several other major faults ruin it. The body shell will make a good chopped lakes-style model, but the rest of it is trash. Really a shame too, 'cause the box art is cool.

The nose-proportion problem on the Revell snap kit is pretty obvious when you look at it next to a real one. Again, I've MEASURED real ones, and I'm not just repeating 'opinions' that have been endlessly repeated without empirical backup.

Yes, that's a rare one. I mentioned it in post 3 above. The kit is pretty cool, one of my particular 'grail' kits, and came with a complete cycle-fendered OHV V8 powered hot rod, plus a complete stocker in the box. I was disappointed by the scale inaccuracies and the kinda odd proportions of the hot-rod version.

The AMT 5-window is mostly pretty good. How about just tooling an ACCURATE 3-window body shell and keeping the rest of the parts in a new kit? That should be pretty cost-effective, and I'll even supply ACCURATE dimensioned drawings, made from a real car, for far far less money than an in-house team would do it for. I'll get it right, too...first time, no extra charge. Any takers?? And while you're at it, throw in the trees from the street-rod and make it a 2-in-1so that the model can be built either as stock or modern rod (but ditch the street-rod wheels; surely there's a wheel-tree from something, maybe 5-spoke Americans or even the steelies from the '40 Ford, that would be better).

I'd buy a mess of 'em, as this is another car where WAY too much time has to be put into getting a decent starting point before doing something creative. Still, there are a lot of good looking models out there that have been built from the truly second-rate kits available. Let the rivet-counter and old-fogey-who-cares-about-these-fossils-let's-have-new-cars wars begin. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT: My next long-term 1:1 project scheduled is a full rebuild on an original '34 3-window, for Josh Mills shop. The car will be available for measuring if anyone from the industry should want to get it right.

The '34 5-window and the '33-'34 two-door sedan share NO tooling with the older 3-window. The 5-windiw and the sedan were all NEW tools. The older 3-window is a pig. Even the frame and engine in the 3-window are horrible. Note: The 1/25 5-window street-rod version doesn't have stock suspension, but has pretty nice 4-wheel independent. And the AMT '33 two-door sedan is on the same chassis as the '34 5-window, but the body shell is different. I can do that (have all the kits in stock), but not for at least a week or so. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are 2 more I recall, not so far mentioned...Revell has a 1/32 scale snapper too. Though I have one, it's sealed and I have no idea about how accurate it is. Pyro / Lindberg ( I think there's a Life-Like branded version too) had a 1/32 glue kit. I never have seen a real one.

I think they were holding Loti together. Every Lotus I've ever owned or driven has had a strange penchant for shedding parts for no particular reason. Perhaps they all just wanted to be lighter.