Ace-Garageguy

This is the image to take to the bank (blue car). Note that the stance in the factory literature closely matches the stance I showed in the first photo (white car, though its nose is just a tick down). When photographed square from the side, the top curve of the front tire is tangent with the curve of the wheel opening on the fender. Many things can affect how a car's static stance appears. A car photographed going uphill (as the red car above); a full tank of fuel; rear springs weakened and sagging over time (common on these cars, even "unrestored stock"'); steering angle of the front wheels (which can raise the nose slightly); cars photographed under acceleration, as are several of the examples above (and the source of much of the misunderstanding of "gasser" stance); cars photographed from any angle other than square from the side (unless one is VERY familiar with the subject, it's almost impossible to get useful data from a 3/4 shot as far as exact stance goes); front springs replaced with higher-rate units, and ride height not correctly dialed in to compensate (which, on these cars, can require trimming partial coils from the springs, which requires spring removal, sometimes several times to get it right...and is often neglected as being too much like actual work); misinterpreting a rising body line (as mentioned by AFX)...and it should be remembered that the line of the rocker panel relative to the pavement is what determines nose-high or otherwise. A point about "pro touring": Cars worthy of the name are built on entirely upgraded suspension systems, often with engine setbacks to improve weight distribution, and often lowered to further improve handling as well. Stock stance has nothing to do with it, and no professional car builder who understands vehicle dynamics 101 will ever let a nose-high car leave the shop.

This is as-delivered new.

While the builder / owner has every right to tart his car up any way he pleases, I also have the right to my opinion, and the right to voice said opinion, that it has the artistic merit of smearing excrement on a wall, or mounting two dozen illuminated plastic flamingos to a Ferrari 275GTB, with deck screws and paste. While there are many in the world today who insist that there is no such thing as objective beauty, that everything is relative, so everything...no matter how inept, tasteless, or downright ugly...is of equal value and merit, I am not among them. This piece of "art" just recently sold for $120,000. Is it "of any less value/ambition than that of our desire to build scale models of (fill in the blank)"? To my way of thinking, a resounding YES.

I'm a lucky man, as my local provisioner stocks both. Eating Oscar Meyer dogs makes me think of salted snot, boiled in a balloon.

Yup. "Oooooo...I want to take my kinda cool old car and make it into a rolling billboard for carbonated sugar-water". It's so inspiring that people still have meaningful ambitions.

The chocolate porter is a bigger story...

As always, you hit the period feel dead on. Colorful, interesting cars, no two alike back then. Very nice.

Palmer. A real beauty, eh?

Most of the work will be the roof and tunneled decklid, obviously. I'd try a Jag XK-E or a Lindberg GT-6 roof for starters. Neither kit is much good for anything but a parts donor.

No Coke. Petsi...

Thank you. I'm looking into that possibility as we speak...

That looks a lot better than I would have expected from that horrible kit.

One of the easiest to adapt to other cars is in the Phantom Vickie kit. The front suspension mounts to a crossmember that's molded as a separate part, and it can be made poseable, or lowered, quite easily. Page one of the thread below shows what it looks like being installed.

You are correct. Ford began making electric start available on its cars in 1920. This is the switch pictured above, listed as fitting 1928-1931 model A Fords. The pushrod, under it, is what goes through the firewall, and you step on it.

I agree with you completely, sir. The Ford exercise looks better than just about any restyle I've ever seen. The lines of the original are nice, but Mike's condensation of what's already good makes a striking improvement. Kinda like cooking a sauce down to intensify the flavor. His restyle shrinks a wallowing boat down to a nicely tossable package, but retains a distinctly American feel. I can envision that body built in composite materials, over Corvette C5 chassis and running gear to give it handling and performance to match its looks...but maybe with vintage Ford 5.0 pushrod or even Coyote power.

Be cognizant of the fact that if the C-pillar on the very well proportioned restyling exercise presented here was as wide horizontally as those referenced, the visual center of mass would be where the leading edge of it is in the exercise...precisely where you want it to be. Also be cognizant of the fact that the intersection of the lower rear line of the sail panel and the horizontal element of the quarter panel on all your examples of "correct" is directly over the rear edge of the tire...precisely where it is on the exercise. Further, be cognizant of the fact that the proportions of the Saab and the exercise bear no resemblance to each other whatsoever.

Very sorry for your loss, sir.

Hmmmmm...I've seen a lot of cars, either in the flesh or in photos, but I've never seen one of those. Interesting little guy.

Pedros flew air rescue and support through '75 in Southeast Asia, though the Hueys were more universally known.

Yup, that's how we set up a lot of cars. And I'm a Luddite too. Far as real heads-up displays go, in current fighter aircraft there's a huge information load, including targeting, so HUD makes perfect sense. In a car, it's just a Walter Mitty toy. About as actually useful as "rolling coal". Anyone who should be driving should also have the ability to wait for a clear road and glance down at the instruments occasionally. Of course, anyone who "should be driving" eliminates about 50% of those who are driving.

Great photos. Was your father flying those?

Your model looks great. Far as the kit itself goes, that's exactly what's in the original issue kit, though it's not labeled as a snapper. Frankly, I bought my hardtop intending to pull molds from the front clip and build a pickup. But with the scale discrepancy, it's getting doubtful that I'll even bother. Time seems to be slipping away, and it's becoming increasingly necessary to pick my battles with more care. Doing masters for a scale-correct hardtop and pickup had some appeal, but there are other things I'd really rather do at this point.

Agreed. Best of both worlds, if you just HAVE to be all whiz-bang techie, might be to have each instrument programmed to illuminate if a predetermined upper (like temp) or lower (like oil pressure) threshold is exceeded. For normal driving, a line-of-sight HUD representation of speed might be nice...at least so you could argue more convincingly with the cop when you get pulled over.

...That is precisely what most of this thread is about. Allow me to recap. 1) The original question was "Chassis upgrade for Johan '62 Lark: any ideas for THIS one???? " 2) Joe responded that the AMT Avanti chassis should work, as in reality, both cars shared the same wheelbase. 3) Mark responded that the scale of the Johan Lark is larger than the indicated 1/25, and therefore the Avanti chassis won't be a drop-in, but will need heavy mods. 4) I responded that because of the scale discrepancy, the chassis from the AMT '53 Stude was an easier swap for a "better, more detailed" donor, as it has the same wheelbase as the Johan Lark, but that the '53 Chassis would still require addition of the X-member from the Avanti, and a revised firewall crossmember to appear more correct. 5) Dan wondered if a course of action to obtain a scale-correct stock Lark body might be to start with a different Studebaker shell. 6) I stated that I had been considering shortening, narrowing, chopping, and sectioning the Johan (larger-than-1/25) Lark body to get a 1/25 scale-correct stock Lark body 7) The next few remarks discussed the commonality of basic body shells between the older sedan and the Lark, and considered the differences. 7) The referenced snap kit came with stock wheels and tires, as it was released WAY before the big wheel trend. EDIT: In conclusion (new material), I believe the best way to get "a better more detailed chassis" would be to shorten the AMT '53 unit just ahead of the firewall, as the Lark chassis was constructed in reality. Add the X-member from the Avanti, and modify the firewall crossmember to the Lark configuration. This would also require the Lark body shell to be shrunk down to a reasonably accurate 1/25 scale representation of the real car also. Lots of work, but the scale discrepancy drives me nuts.