Ace-Garageguy

That wouldn't be a stupid assumption. Americans are approaching a 45% obesity rate, directly attributable to eating garbage food, too much, and "enjoying" sedentary lifestyles. Overweight Americans constitute over 70% of the population.

Most annoying. The "add to cart" function appears to work, but nothing else...

Assuming the global "chip shortage" and "supply chain" issues go away. Don't hold your breath.

No question that's the most popular among the "white bread" crowd...with flavor-and-texture-free white bread being the most popular as well. But lotsa stores have in-house bakeries where a nice assortment of "real" breads is available baked daily. And there are cheese alternatives for those of us whose food preferences continued to develop after 5 years of age. There are a few semi-mass-producers of cheese in the US that make a more sophisticated product, among them Cabot and Tillammook. And in truth, Kraft does actually make some "real" cheeses that are pretty decent. There are plenty of small mom-and-pop "boutique" cheese makers too. Perhaps interestingly though...the hands-down best Swiss cheese I can get locally comes from Ireland...

How about missing-on-one-cylinder-with-a-bllattt-can-exhaust-system? That's a pretty popular sound around here among the IC-clueless.

The Italian Job (original 1969 release with Michael Caine) is free on YT. Excellent widescreen print. One of the best Euro-car films ever...Miura, DB5 drophead, Jags, Minis, Alfas, Fiats, etc.

Dzięki.

Good stuff. Is the XJ-S a curbside, or does it at least have an engine?

According to several random posts on the interdwerbs, the Ben Hobby kits were indeed reboxings of Tamiya offerings. One fella even went on to say Ben Hobby was a Tamiya subsidiary concocted to sell kits in mainland China. And of course, if it's on the interdwerbs, it has to be true.

I'm pretty sure it was said earlier that you can run any number you want, and in the case of duplicates, no problem. But I've been wrong before. Anyway, I want 66.

Ah, yes. A man after my own heart.

Welcome. I look forward to seeing your work. My own real-world skills have made me a much better modeler than I ever imagined I would be over 50 years ago when I quit. Lots of talented, skilled, and knowledgeable people here, a great place to learn new things and get new ideas.

Love seeing one of these built stock, with appropriate upgrades. I'll always think this series Ford PU was one of the best looking light trucks ever built, and your model does it justice. PS: I missed the build thread. Is the side-mount spare and fender cutout in the kit now, or did you do the mods? Looks great, either way.

I'm probably one of the most technically persnickety builders around, and I couldn't care less. If somebody can see 40 thousandths of an inch discrepancy in the deck height of a 1/25 scale block, and knows enough about real engines to make the call, they definitely have more interest in minutiae than I do. Jell...you wouldn't even notice it on a real engine unless you were looking for it, especially if all the accessories were in place and the thing was in a car.

Even the ancient issues took a fair bit of "extra" work to build really good models, but they still strike me as worth the effort, as there's no other source for this particular chassis design...very popular back in the dark ages...to the best of my knowledge. Liking the old flathead in there too...

AMT '36 Ford most recent issue has some 15 inch beauties. The "new tool" AMT Ala Kart (NOT the original issue double kit...which has some decent if simplified 15 inchers, but is pretty pricey when you can find one) has a nice set of 14 inchers too (though sadly, the engine and gearbox in the "new tool" kit are badly underscale, undermining its value as a parts source).

Oh boy. I want to see those...

Found this Model Factory Hiro Abarth 1300OT, had to spring for it. No telling when or if I'll ever find another one for reasonable money. I was crew chief on a team that raced one back eons ago. We bought the car for around 10 grand from the eccentric but near-legendary Fiat/Abarth wizard Al Cosentino, when he was headquartered in Florida. He'd had a number of DNFs with it, including an ill-fated start at the Daytona 24. Out after 3 laps, down on power and overheating IIRC. The car was based on a Simca 1000 platform, heavily modified, with lots of Fiat 850 bits, slick all fiberglass baby-Ferrari bodywork, built to a 1300cc prototype specification in 1965. For the most part, it was obsolete by the time we got it, but it made a pretty flashy C Sports Racer in SCCA...and 1300 OTs had an impressive competition history in Europe, including (I believe) a class win at LeMans in '66 or '67. Naturally, my mission when we got it home was to find out what was wrong. All the specs and tech notes we had were in Italian, so one of my first jobs was to go down the road to Ga. Tech and find someone who could translate them. Turns out the cams were retarded quite a few degrees. The cams in this particular engine rotate opposite to crankshaft rotation, and apparently whoever set the thing up didn't realize it...though you couldn't help but notice as you turned the engine through. Cam timing is dialed in via a Vernier sprocket / cam interface that will be familiar to any old Alfa or Jag mechanics out there, and this engine was my first exposure to a cast steel block, as opposed to cast iron. Anyway, after getting the cam timing where it was supposed to be, I took her for a long test run through the late-night back streets of downtown Atlanta, and she went like a scalded ape. Running at close to redline on the way back to the shop, one of the sprocket retainer bolts backed out (having apparently been previously partially stripped by some ham-hander along the line). The little Vernier bolt wasn't enough to keep everything in time, and she bent every valve...bad. There were only two valves per cylinder, but they were huge for such a small engine, running in hemispherical chambers. It ran Weber 45 DCO-series carbs, with something like 150 HP at 8800 RPM. At about 1500 pounds, it had a similar power-to-weight ratio as a big-block Corvette, and by any reckoning was a real little screamer. After lots of phone calls and Telexes to Italy, we located the required parts, including a replacement camshaft, as its internal threads were also stripped. We had everything air-freighted in, and after a few long days she was ready to load on the trailer at 03:00 for an initial outing at Savannah the next day. I drove the transporter, and with no sleep, spent the test session jetting the carbs for the hot, muggy conditions. We still had no proper cover for the fuel cell, but tech allowed us to run with a plate duct-taped in place, as the chief tech in the Atlanta SCCA region was a friend of the car's owner. EDIT: though a fuel cell cover plate is an easy part for me to make now, I was not a fabricator at this point...other than being able to make simple gas-welded sheet steel things like throttle return-spring brackets, etc. He took her out...the first time he'd been in the thing...and finished a very respectable third on the intermediate tires that came on it, so hard as to be almost unusable. Little car finished every race she ran with me wrenching, never lower than 3rd. I'm pretty sure she survived, but I lost track of her when the owner and I parted company after he got in a little legal trouble. Old geezers livin' in the past, ya know?

COOL !! Ever hear of Emerson Fittipaldi's twin-engined Beetle? https://jalopnik.com/emerson-fittipaldis-double-engined-volkswagen-beetle-5799726 it traveled in pretty fast company...

Looking great. Your choice for new knockoffs looks good too. Thanks for posting this, as I wasn't actually even aware a kit of this car with a non-blobular chassis had ever been done.

All the "inline" FWD gearboxes I can think of right off hand place the engine ahead of the 'box, in the same relative orientation as would be common in a mid-engine configuration. So something like a reversed VW or 911 gearbox...used in reality...or something sourced from a mid-engine kit, would get the job done. You might consider a sidewinder (transverse) mounting, as there are more FWD gearboxes in that configuration, and it uses space more efficiently.

I just looked up and read through that form. It, of course, shows the entire amount of every transaction. So if you buy something at a garage sale for $10 and sell it for $10 on eBay, the entire $10 is listed as "income" on 1099K. I'm curious at this point as to what form "costs" are reported on for a non-business filer?...as only profit should be considered "income". I'm sure it's there somewhere, but I haven't looked for it yet.

For those who may not know, this is the car:

Real ignition-wire support looms are generally made from 1/16" (.0625") to 1/8" (.125") material. So an average representative thickness would be .09375" For your scale, divide by 16. You get approximately .006". That would be pretty flimsy. But if you make your looms from easily obtainable .010" thick styrene or brass sheet stock, they will look "scale" and still be strong enough to do what they need to do.