Ace-Garageguy

Can't tell you about "all", but I have several of the Aurora issue that are red.

I need to build something very close to that. I've got a '40 Tudor g-bomb with hopelessly glued on skirts. Those radiused fenders will solve the problem nicely.

I don't have your specific answer, but Testors released some Fujimi Porsche kits.

Good to see you getting back to so many of these, Dennis. Always a pleasure to see a real-car builder who gets the guts right on models.

A great inexpensive resource for kitbashing parts, as well as random idea generating, is what a lot of sellers on eBay refer to as "junkyards". These can range from several built-up models in pretty good condition, only missing a few parts, to bags or boxes of mixed and unidentified parts, to hopelessly broken or bodged, painted-with-a-dirty-pinecone gluebombs. When I first got back into hobby model-building in 2005, I found these were a good way to get a resource of parts to swap for building something different than the kits as-boxed allowed, and also a source for almost complete models usually much cheaper than an unmolested kit would cost. And sometimes you'll find something really nice hidden in with the junk when the stuff arrives. In some cases, it's a roll-of-the-dice, because assembled models MAY have so much glue they're almost not usable, but even the worst trash can become something cool. And as far as ideas go, I had no intention of ever building a '61 Dodge Dart Phoenix until this arrived... For the build thread, click below:

Definitely has that look...several styling elements from other cars kinda randomly stuck together.

Nice scale engineering on those hinges. Doing swing-up-and-over is always a good trick.

It's a very unusual car. I saw one in Germany many years ago, and always remembered the little fins in the rear. The whole thing is Mercedes-esque, which of course it was supposed to compete with. Saw one not too long ago in a mid-'60s Eurospy movie, didn't really recognize it until I noticed those little fins with the down-turned chrome strip at the rear.

Probably not as good as a 9-second Geo Metro...

I'm not a fan of the front end either, and I agree it needs at least a roll-bar. There are always things individuals would do differently...and I grant the blurb about its performance in the vid is pretty silly. The lack of outside shots of the car is annoying too. BUT...if the owner is telling the truth, this is an owner-built car primarily, in the true tradition of hot-rodding. When asked why he started with this car, he said "it's the car I had". There you go. Hot-rodding. It presents some interesting ideas for somebody who has a gluebomb lying around, or just an unloved kit that needs a fresh sense of direction. That's all. Maybe the thread ought to be moved down to the reference pix section anyway.

1968 Buick Riviera, 11" engine setback, Winters QC rear end, real carbon fiber flared fenders and panels, fabricated suspension, 780 crank HP, 718 ft.lb. torque. Definitely cool, definitely different.

I have enough pie-crusts to last a lifetime, and some of them ought to be the right width for this. You're welcome to a pair if you want them.

Looking good. Much good historic info and build tips here too. I had the same problem as you James, with the slightly off-register tires. Still deciding how to proceed. Anyway, what you've got so far is very nice.

Bump.

Good stuff. Lotsa stuff I wasn't aware of, too. Thanks.

Let me see...hmmmm...nope. I didn't say it's a crime. Why is it a crime to agree with somebody about an obvious flaw? What's the new standard of conduct here? If I can't lavish fawning praise on everything, just shut up? It's a nice model. I'll buy one. I'll fix the issues. Mine will look more like the real thing than this does at the present time...unless the manufacturer elects to further tune the tooling. Why does that make people angry?

Maybe while you're harping on "reading the rule book" you should also look for MY post where I mentioned that specific fact...that the 24" rule was implemented because cars with noses pointed to the stars were becoming dangerously unstable at speed.

I noticed that too. I figured I'd just smile, go on my way, and correct it when I build one. You have some serious nads risking the wrath of the "good enough" crowd.

Excellent points. Though there IS a currently-available real-world Hilborn mechanical W-block setup available, the manifold itself is the casting developed for EFI. This may imply that there was no cast Hilborn manifold for the W in-era, or IF there was, that the tooling no longer exists (so far, I haven't found an original). In the wayback, Hilborn individual manifolds for the first-generation Oldsmobile OHV V8 were successfully adapted to the Lincoln Y-block (for which there WAS a Hilborn setup, though it was VERY rare), because the intake port spacing of the Olds and the Lincoln Y-block are almost identical. The point is...the port spacing on the W-block Chebby is very similar visually to the Olds and Lincoln. A source for the Olds manifolds is the Revell Anglia or Thames drag-car kits. It's a start, anyway.

Anyone who's paying attention to the creeping censorship across the major social media platforms...very often resulting from entirely innocuous posts from which words and phrases are taken ENTIRELY OUT OF CONTEXT, AND THE POSTERS DEMONIZED...should be very concerned. No telling why you were blocked or banned or removed. Hard to think of a way photos of scale models could violate any "standards of conduct".

Arrived today...actually marked on the bottom, IS the Maisto version.

The Hobby Town near me always has several open, pilfered kits on the markdown table. They're usually expensive kits, like 1/24 scale aircraft, or the Renwal military repops like the "Atomic Cannon". I don't have any idea HOW anyone could open this stuff in-store, but the last 1/24 aircraft kit I looked at there was missing the clear tree, the engine tree, and the decals.

And consider this: if it DOESN'T dry "diamond hard" and "level like glass", I smell a billion-dollar class-action suit.

Wha...wha...WHAT??? There you go Steve, RUINING the FUN again. ()

Espo makes an excellent point about the depth of the window openings. I like these AMT Chevy kits a lot, but what's always driven me to distraction about them is the toylike thickness of the material surrounding the windshield and rear window. It takes some careful effort with a Dremel and files to correct it, but in my opinion, it makes the model much more realistic. As the front and rear glass on these cars is a single curve (as opposed to compound), it's easy to make much more real looking "glass" from clear soda bottle stock, too.