Ace-Garageguy

Screaming, door-slamming, constant posturing and idiot behavior in general? Not in any shop I've ever worked in. I wonder why. Think I'll pass.

This is one of my favorite kits of all time. I worked on 1:1 M8s when they were new in '69 -'70, later on in the mid-late'70s when the collectors were starting to buy them up, and then later still in the early-mid '90s as vintage racers. I certainly think that besides being one of the most beautiful and most 'right' looking, the M8 McLarens are some of the most important race cars in history, ranking with the Ford GT40 and Porsche 917. The cars, as originally run by McLaren and Hulme in 1969, carried their rear wings considerably higher than as portrayed in this particular kit. The McLaren works cars ran aluminum blocks, as did most of the privateers, and to the best of my recollection weren't painted. The fuel-injection line-to-bodywork interference problem so many seem to complain about on these kits is best solved by using soft wire of around .013" diameter instead of the kit-supplied vinyl or aftermarket braid. In reality, the lines to the injector bodies would appear to be about the diameter of the plug wires, and soft wire to represent these may be formed with tighter bends to clear the bodywork. Very nice work so far.

And you might want to have a look at this one. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=79627

Thanks a lot, Bernard. I got drool all over my keyboard looking at all those other pretty R&M parts.

Tasty and Refreshing !!

Liking what you've got so far, and I'll be watching as it develops.

I've been told that Norm at R&M has a nice '32 Vicky already converted to fit the Revell fenders. I've found pix of a King Resins (out of production) version I don't especially like, but nothing on the R&M version. I'm sure if it's R&M it's nice, so I'd really like to see one. Anybody ?? Since I'm doing this conversion myself on an AMT body, also chopped, I'd like to see what's already available. Thanks.

Very nice work and photography. Were the deep Campagnolo wheels in the kit, or did you have to make them up yourself? They look really good.

I agree, absolutely positively...and reminiscent of my personal all-time-favorite rod, the Eddie Dye roadster. And the thing is (sorry...off topic for this thread) the car is simple enough, but still right enough, that a low-buck version inspired by it can realistically be built by a guy in his garage, and driven.

Man...that "Little T" kit is pretty. If that was available now, with all the interest in retro and period, it'd sell a bunch. Damm, that's a nicely proportioned thing. And Mr.Teresi's 1/8 car is always a treat for the eyes. One of the most real-looking models I've ever seen. Man, that's fine, fine work. Inspiration abounds.

Oh man...I :wub: your little Fiat/Abarth 500, Henry. Beautiful, beautiful piece of work. I was with a company that raced a 1300OT, a double-bubble 750 Zagato, an Allemano spider, and a tiny tube-frame 750cc DOHC sports-racer back in the early '70s, and developed a fondness for anything Abarth. Yours looks absolutely perfect.

Post #31 and post #34.

Entirely true, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect cars built and driven by enthusiasts, car-guys, gearheads, hot-rodders, etc. to be SAFER, mechanically, than poorly-maintained vehicles driven by the car-ignorant masses.

Steve...that '62 is a knockout. Please tell us how you got that realistic looking wiring harness on the firewall and inner fenders. It really adds immensely to the engine bay.

Now there's a well thought out adult response. I'm impressed.

All fine and dandy. And IF IT'S BEING DRIVEN, IT NEEDS TO BE STRUCTURALLY SOUND AND FUNCTIONALLY SAFE. Not wimpy mommy-van airbag-safe, but with reasonable and correct function of steering, suspension, brakes and lighting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History repeats itself...especially if you don't bother to know any of it. One of the MAIN reasons the NHRA was founded back in the early post-war hot-rod boom days was to try to foster safe construction and operation of hot-rods, which had a pretty bad name in the press and among the general public. The term "suicide" front end derives from the fact that more than a few of the poorly-welded, poorly-engineered, overhung, transverse straight front-axle spring perches (that got the car down really low for the 'look') broke off, with predictable disastrous, sometimes fatal consequences. It was also popular among the tail-dagger set, the ones who didn't know any better, to use very long shackles to lower the rear of a transverse-sprung car (like a '40-'48 Ford, etc.). It looks cool sitting still, but entirely destroys any hope of maintaining directional stability during cornering. Again, a lot of promising young people met un-necessary deaths because of a trend, fad, getting the 'look'. Knowing how things work and what's safe, when your life, and others, depends on them, is simply part of being a responsible human being. It needs to be an integral part of "self expression" when that expression involves machinery.

I LIKE IT !!!

Harry...the state I currently live in has very strict laws concerning the PROCEDURE that you have to go through to register a car that's made up from bits, including production-vehicles rebuilt from totals. But the actual inspection, which costs $250, is a farce, done by folks who wouldn't know a weld from toothpaste. Just because there's a "legally"...oh well. Why do I even bother.

If they show up on trailers and are exhibited as static "art", they can be anything the builder wants. STATIC ART doesn't have to be safe or function, and some of them DO look pretty cool. BUT...I HAVE FOLLOWED SOME down the road that were being used as MACHINES , and I've seen others driven to and from shows, THAT WERE ENTIRELY UN-ROADWORTHY, and stupidly, un-nesessarily dangerous. There is a very simple distinction here, and it's not hard to grasp.

That's really wild. I think I'd have to save it, free it from its tarmac prison and let it return to joyful hammering. I'm weird.

In many cases, the remaining family or estate can grant permission to reproduce the original work of someone who is deceased or impaired. One very important aviation sourcebook I know of was out of print for many years, but some ethical people got together and obtained the legal rights...to re-print the book... from the author's estate. Though a model-car body based on an existing vehicle in full-scale may be an infringement of the copyright or design patent of the full-scale item, the model body itself is also protected under copyright law (even if a copyright was never officially issued for it) and doesn't pass into the public domain until many years after the originator's death. If you think the work is worth saving and returning to production, the only ethical thing to do is to obtain permission from someone who can legally grant it.

I'm not going to get into the 'having the last word' BS, but from your responses it's pretty apparent that: 1) Either you're reading-impaired OR you just refuse to understand that I'm not condemning the "rat" look...only unsafe and pig-stupid workmanship...little areas like welding, which is a real-world, real-deal thing...and I don't give a rat's ass how many "big shops" choose to do it wrong. 2) IF you have no respect for correct welding procedures and what a safe weld looks like, you probably haven't ever built anything that was fast, or had to stop and handle well. That makes your opinion worthless as far as I'm concerned, because that's a large part of what I've done my entire life...build fast and functional stuff that was out-of-the-box, never done before, including aircraft applications. And the very FIRST thing I learned was how to do the important things right. Spout off about how cool and hip your snot welding is all you want. It's still ######.

Ebay is actually FIGHTING the proposed federal government taxes on online transactions. And while it's true the fees have escalated over the years, it still works very well, and you're protected nicely, as a buyer anyway. Could the fees be less and ebay still make plenty of money? Yes, but it's the typical "how high can we go and people will still pay" scenario that is inherent in the free-market.

In the case of the Red Baron at least, the full-scale car was built after and based on the model. While the model incorporated a significantly underscale representation of an early Mercedes aircraft engine, the real car used a Pontiac OHC 6-cylinder to get the approximate look of the kit version. There's also a V8 version somewhere, and a semi-rat semi-copy with a straight-8.