Ace-Garageguy

I kinda doubt consumer goods will be much affected by an enforced reduction in packaging and other "disposable" plastic stuff. They're not going to be making car interiors and phones out of walnut shells anytime soon, and probably not scale models either.

You mean like Paris and San Francisco now?

An absolute knockout. 100% table grade (contest table, that is). Everything crisp, clean, and in the right place to do what it's supposed to do. Always inspiring to see work like this. When they look this real, they're at the top of the pile.

Opinions vary. There are factory pix from 1970 showing a twin-plug head, and the '73 catalog shows them with a Mopar Performance part number. Intended as a race head, though people have run them on the street.

Yup, should work fine if it really IS high-impact polystyrene. It MIGHT be a little more solvent-resistant than what you're used to in current kits, but it can still be assembled using solvent-type plastic glues, epoxy, and CA. The specific plastic formulation (and there are MANY that come under the "HIPS" moniker) will determine the exact degree of solvent resistance. Some early Johan kits, for example, though molded from "high-impact polystyrene" are difficult to glue, and require the hottest of the solvents (or epoxy) to get a lasting bond. HIPS filament-printed parts are one kind of output from some 3D printers, and they also can be assembled with the familiar solvent-type glues.

Yeah, sorry. I forgot for a minute which planet I was on. This one is ruled by the lazy, the stupid, and the willfully ignorant. Everything has to be geared to the lowest-common-denominator. My bad.

When a non-retooled repop is released, why not just tell the truth on the box, something like "This is a nostalgia kit, made in 60-year-old (or whatever) tooling, and is identical in most respects to the original. Do NOT expect the level of fit, accuracy, or complexity of a kit tooled in the 21st century". That should go a long way towards dispelling disappointment upon opening the box. Still, in some respects, the 60-year-old stuff can be more accurate than much more recent offerings. I wonder why that is.

All there is at the connection is a brass fitting after the line from the filter makes a 450 turn to line up with the supply manifold. And yes, the filter is factory.

Exactly, and I've been pushing for stand-alone and hardened mission-critical systems (the ones necessary to control speed, steer and stop any vehicle SAFELY) since 2005, when I first realized just HOW vulnerable today's tech-dependent cars really were. But another scary thing ignored by everyone in perpetual lala land is that non-nuclear EMP weapons development has been ongoing globally for years, and is within the technological reach of determined bad guys today. An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) can instantly disable ALL non-hardened electronic systems within its range. One short pulse from an interstate overpass could produce a result like this:

Any luck, Bob Downie (zoomzoom) will chime in here. He's the guy who's had the most experience spraying the stuff that I know of.

As Mr. Drysdale says, Paxtons have been put on just about everything somewhere along the line. Descended from similar units called McCulloch, they are the granddaddies of the Paxton, Vortech and ProCharger centrifugal belt-driven units still in production today. Real-world kits are out there now for refits on FE engines https://www.thesuperchargerstore.com/ford and you can be certain they've been done for a long time. I'm 99.785223% sure Hot Rod magazine featured a '57 T-bird with a 406 FE, blown with a Paxton, back in the early '60s. This image is from the Supercharger Store's big-block Street Stalker I kit page...https://www.thesuperchargerstore.com/ford-bb-ss1

Man...I have at least 20 punch lines to go with that, but I'm pretty sure any of 'em would get me suspended again. Suffice it to say "no class, no clue".

Well, somebody's having a good time. Sounds like a KPV 14.5 about a half klick away. EDIT...Ah, now the sirens. Happy New Year, y'all.

But the American way of life is changing rapidly. Where a car once meant instant mobility to get groceries, a burger, or to go hang out with friends, now the instant-gratification of shopping online, having eats and everything else imaginable delivered to your door, and social interaction becoming more and more virtual than personal...that all means the perceived NEED for a car is declining.

Which is something I do not and probably will not ever understand. ANYONE who's ever been involved with computers or any kind of complex electrical or mechanical systems knows that complex systems do not ALWAYS function as foreseen, and that unexpected failures in modes not predicted are common. Today's onboard electronic systems are easy to hack into remotely for someone with the right skills (which has been demonstrated repeatedly...but nobody seems to be paying much attention) and the self-drives, no matter how heavily protected by "security" will be vulnerable as well. In addition, they appear (at this time, anyway) extremely vulnerable to relatively unsophisticated means to disable them in multiples. And several exploits against the "internet of things" have shown conclusively how vulnerable to hacking that particular piece of idiocy really is. There are some very bad people in the world, but there are also those who persist in the delusional notion that everyone everywhere loves puppies and unicorns. I look around, and to some segments of Western society, it's as though 9-11 never happened. So...tell me what makes a more tempting terrorist target than a busy rush-hour interstate segment with a high percentage of driverless vehicles whose sensors and/or communication abilities can be shut down simultaneously. You get a very large steaming pile, in an instant, for a very small investment. WHY do humans seem to be in such a hurry to give up both their freedoms AND their responsibilities to technology and government, going unthinkingly through life saying lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala, while they look away from the dangers staring them undeniably squarely in the face? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uber-self-driving-car-fatality-reveals-the-technologys-blind-spots1/ https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42710215

Yes, and one of the reasons I jumped on it was 'cause it's white. The blue '86 XJ is going with me too, but she'll get heavily hot-rodded, while the white one will only get Euro bumpers and lights, and be the pristine vintage going-out-to-dinner (etc.) car.

I've mentioned this, and I sincerely believe that a large part of what we're seeing is the result of a long-in-coming and gradual switch from driving being at least somewhat about DRIVING to it being about transportation appliances that get people and their stuff somewhere, in the greatest comfort, with the least effort, and with as many non-driving-oriented accessories and capabilities that a manufacturer can cram into a vehicle. We've already seen that only around 18% of US drivers today can operate a manual gearbox. That's an indicator that the physical involvement with the machine and the driving experience in general is waning. The whole approach to owning and using a vehicle is different than it was just 20 years back. The concept of "handling" has also been taking a beating, even in the enthusiast press. Where high lateral-acceleration numbers and crisp transient response used to be the main defining elements of "handling", it now seems that these concepts are relatively unknown, and rarely cited as incentives to buy a particular vehicle. High center-of-gravity SUVs and crossovers, though perceived as "safer" than cars by many, sacrifice two of the primary accident avoidance capabilities a vehicle can have...namely the above-mentioned high lateral-acceleration numbers and crisp transient response. Cars, by nature and the laws of physics, are just better at those things...but they're not what anybody cares about. How easy a vehicle is to enter and exit, how many "cargo configurations" are available, what its crash ratings are and how much "connectivity" it offers, heated seats, cup-holders, etc. have taken precedence over how much fun it is to drive. But make no mistake. People buy what's marketed to them most effectively, and what their friends and various media sources and online communities tell them to buy. Consumers in general know NOTHING about how a car operates, or what's stupid design, or what's logical and efficient. And they don't care. That's why marketing works. For anything. I assure you, had little fun-to-drive gas-sipping econoboxes been marketed as heavily as road-crushing SUVs, pickups, and "crossovers", we'd see an entirely different American automotive landscape. But higher profit margins were available on loaded pickups and generally larger vehicles, so THOSE were the ones that got pushed. And I freely admit that if the DRIVING experience isn't particularly important to you, and if you can only have one vehicle, a light SUV or crossover makes a lot of sense. But at this point in time, I just don't care. Far as I'm concerned, there's almost nothing new that lights my jets. But there are still a whole lot of older, interesting, highly competent and FUN vehicles out there, just waiting. And because I'm not dependent on anyone else to maintain my old vehicles, I'm kinda like a kid in a candy store, having my cake and eating it too, if you will. I can have a ball DRIVING while most everyone else cruises around in their mobile living rooms that tell them where to go and park themselves when they get there, oblivious to their surroundings and the machines they occupy. That's just fine by me. (I know...TLDNR)

I got a little closer to bringing my recently purchased Jag XJ6 home. The previous owner had taken much of the dash out, and dropped the steering column, in an effort to trace a smoked wire in the climate-control system. He finally got tired of messing with it, so she's mine now. Just a few things to address before she's running again, at least enough to go cross-town on her own power.

Had to go to the other side of town to help a friend bleed the clutch on his old Miata, and get my recently purchased XJ6 Jag a little closer to bringing home. Stopped at HobbyTown on the way back and snagged a Revell '66 Suburban, a Hasegawa scribing template set #1, and a Helix small circle template. Gonna put on some Christmas music while I open the Suburban, and be a kid again for a few minutes.

I'm one critical SOB, an engineer, and a mechanic. I think both vehicles are just fine, and I don't understand the constant bashing of them by internet "experts". I have long relationships with PT and Neon owners. To me, they're perfectly fine little cars; somewhat unnecessarily complex to work on, but good vehicles. One client has a 2001 PT that's getting close to having 200K on the clock. She's owned it since 60K indicated, and it's been as reliable as a brick EXCEPT for things that were bodged by other "mechanics". Same scenario with a 2005 Neon with 120K+ . For a while now, I've been de-buggering things also bodged by other "mechanics" who were just throwing parts at insignificant issues they were too incompetent to diagnose correctly. Over time, lotsa money got spent "fixing" things on the little car that never did actually get fixed, as they weren't broken in the first place. For instance: the owner paid over $1000 total for multiple cam-position sensors, plugs, wires, a coil pack and a throttle-position sensor, with NO improvement in the symptoms. The actual issue was a bad $25 sensor in the automatic gearbox, but the chimps who worked on the car just couldn't figure it out. Just about anything ever built (other than cars with major flaws like the first Yugos snapping crankshafts) is really pretty decent. They usually start going bad when ham-handed and ignorant "techs" start "fixing" them, at dealerships while under warranty, and at independents as they age. This sort of statement by me always ticks off a lot of folks, but I know the business inside-out, worked my way up in it from floor-sweeper to owner of multiple shops over the years, and employer. It's almost impossible to find a COMPETENT mechanic anywhere. Sad, but very, very true.

^^^ Yup. Yup. Yup.

First Fiat-Chrysler culled it's car lines. Then GM dumped all of theirs. Now Ford. I guess it's the new game of do-whatever-everyone-else-in-the-US-car-business-does. But hey...demand for US-built Asian cars is way down too. Guess those urban-adventure ads aimed at the terminally clueless are working, and now they all think they need trucks and SUVs to haul their organic kale, picket signs, and penny-farthings.

I'll let you know if I ever finish one. I've probably got plenty of time to think about it.

And I WOULD bet my own money on a '26-'27 Ford body on the Revell '28-'31 frame, a GOOD '34 3-window version of the AMT 5-window kit, and a bullet-nose Studebaker...Moebius of course. The market for these in the States is HERE NOW, but they won't be around forever. Only the Stude would take a whole new toolset, too. The other two are easy.

One device to rule them all...