Ace-Garageguy

If it costs a penny more to build than Ford makes on each one, they're losing money.

This is the problem. Americans, in general, don't give a bad-word about fuel economy, as long as gas is relatively cheap here. They're mostly fat now, and they buy big fat vehicles. They are very short-sighted in general, and the ones who DO get on the environmental bandwagon usually do it with virtue-signalling vehicles in the Prius genre (never mind that an older Neon or Toyota or Honda is vastly more efficient in overall life-cycle-energy-cost and true environmental impact). Remember...less than 20% of US drivers are now capable of driving a manual gearbox. This hardly bodes well for the "cognoscenti" getting any really cool little cars over the long haul.

The recent Revell '29 doesn't have a hood. Part of the reason is the stretched engine bay dimensions. This old-tool kit (and other versions) would work, however, it will have to be stretched. The AMT hood will have to be stretched to fit the recent Revell kit as well. NOTE: The AMT kits can generally be found a little cheaper than the old Revell kits, if you're buying one for parts. BUT...the frame and suspension in the old Revell kits are superior if you're wanting to do a "traditional" buggy-spring car.

Forget it. The clear plastic may also have been attacked chemically by the brake fluid. Different plastics react differently, and clear parts are chemically different from not-clear parts. Even if the problem is only etching on the surface (from the primer or the brake fluid), it would take a lifetime of painstaking work to sand and polish all those little areas. If you want to broaden your skill set, the part is probably large enough to use as a master to make a mold to make a vacuum-formed clear replacement from. If it were me, I'd try to find a gluebomb that has a good window. Not impossible, but it will take some looking.

The AMT '29 Ford hood is pretty easy to fit to the Revell kit, and a '32 hood can be narrowed at the rear and slightly reshaped in front, plus shortened a tick. Ask on the "wanted" section for the AMT '29 hood. There were tens of thousands, at least, of that kit made (in many different releases), and somebody here is sure to have one they'll part with.

I've loved my share of Fords over the years, but the last one I drove, a brand new rental Fiesta (in 2015), felt unnecessarily heavy, rode like an old truck, and didn't handle particularly well. Of course, it had all kinds of useless "tech" bells and whistles that have absolutely NOTHING to do with actual driving. My friend's 2005 Neon with 120,000 miles on the clock is a MUCH more fun car to drive. It's quick, nimble, and feels like a light sports car.

Hmmmmm...I'd really be surprised if they pulled the plug on all those lines. But...GM has let it be known they're not really interested in selling cars in the not-too-distant future. Apparently they'd rather provide driverless "transportation-on-demand" modules to a totally tech-dependent, safety-obsessed, physically inept, testosterone-free futureworld. Glad I'll be elsewhere.

EXCELLENT. You reminded me of me when I got my first "dead" engine started. It's a great feeling.

That, and tattooed women, which I think is the aesthetic equivalent of bolting an illuminated plastic pink flamingo to the hood of a Ferrari.

Air bags. It's raised to drive. Adjustable suspension like this, sometimes pneumatic, sometimes hydraulic, has been around for decades. The wheel openings on the yellow car have been moved lower relative to the fender tops to enhance the visual effect, too. The Citroen SM (and others) could be dropped almost that low on its stock suspension.

Yup. This has been a thing for several years. Who knows what the logic is.

Nothing cooler than a fake fiberglass car with fake rust on it. Pile on fake Olds valve covers (on a SB Chebby) and a fake blower too. Fake QC rear end covers are also a must. Be sure to get a chick with fake equipment on her chest to complete the look.

And steering racks, head gaskets, water pumps, timing chains, and rather a lot of engine swaps.

IIRC, several of the 1/24 NASCAR kits have aluminum seats of that general design. Cutting one down a bit to fit a Spridget shouldn't be too difficult. There's also a VERY nice PE Kirkey seat available: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-24-Scale-Kirkey-Style-Racing-Seat-Exclusive/282909779127?epid=684600230&hash=item41debca4b7:m:m4YxX4YZkiyS3v_vf-YrnAQ

Skill-free people usually work pretty cheap. There's an old saying in the building-cars world that is always true. There's GOOD work. There's CHEAP work. There's work done FAST. You can have any TWO.

And I don't have to. I can see the quality of the work plainly right here. PS. I'll give you this...MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, in all fairness, MAYBE the parts of the work that NEED to be done correctly on the chassis and suspension and engine, the parts that DON'T show here, JUST MAYBE they're acceptable. If that's the case, I have no real gripe with the thing. One mans art is another man's vomit-on-a-plate. That's all I got, and that's as far as I'll bend.

I've had more than a few of these in the shops over the years.

I NEVER said that weld was on that car. It's not my problem if that's what you read into it. And I stand by my implication that the craftsmanship is on a par with it, as far as I can tell from the video of all the rough edges, sharp projections, no hump over the trans, tack welds that look like they were all done on rusty metal with flux-core wire and an el-cheapo mig welder, etc. Deny any of that.

Bachmann, which I find to be pretty decent RTR cars...especially at less than half the price of retail. The layout I'm planning is an entirely fictional post-Atlas Shrugged environment, circa 1960 (so I can use a few GE U-boats in there too), with a locomotive and car rebuilding facility, close to a small steel mill, coal mine, and the beginnings of a new post-societal-breakdown Taggart Transcontinental. Featured equipment is to be (fictionally) randomly salvaged last-of-the-steam-early-diesel era, with a lot of heavily weathered pieces sitting in the yard awaiting reconstruction, and shiny-new looking locomotives and cars (from different eras) coming out of the rebuild shops.

That is not what I said. I said: "the world's full of people who can't tell this from this " I suggest you pause the video just about anywhere you please and look at the standard of craftsmanship. It would make a real fabricator vomit.

You're absolutely correct. Even Ed Roth's famous Mysterion (which I love visually) was fragile, and is reputed to have broken its frame once while being unloaded from its trailer (I'd love it a whole lot more if it could have put all the power those two FE engines could make to the ground in a tire-smoking burnout...but the engines themselves are said to have had no internals at some times the car was shown ) But...it takes a LOT more effort and knowledge to build something that is well-finished and functions than to build a big, rusty doorstop. The harder something is to do, and the MORE effort it took to accomplish it, the more impressed I usually am. No awards for slipshod everyone's-a-winner in my world.

My issue with most of this trash is that there's NO engineering in it. Applauding slipshod non-craftsmanship just spits in the faces of those of us who have spent a lifetime developing SKILLS. And you simply have NO logical grounds to argue the road-worthiness or safety of any particular custom-built vehicle without having inspected it from the standpoint of someone well versed in vehicle dynamics, correct engineering practice, and every aspect of fabrication. SOME of these things CAN be driven in the real world. The VAST MAJORITY CANNOT. PS. I've seen "rat-rods" where every weld is something to be proud of, and the fabrication is clean and competent. Though they're not MY particular style, I have no problem with those. The ones that are just slapped together with zero regard for function and the "right" way of doing things (and there ARE objective right and wrong ways of doing things with cars) frankly, disgust me.

Though not wildly successful for a variety of reasons, the two prototype trainsets were in pretty much continuous use for 10 years, from 1956 until 1966. Both locomotives still exist, and 4 of the original cars (which were actually heavily modified GM bus bodies). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerotrain_(GM)

It MAY cause your acrylic to crack and blister. Try testing on an inconspicuous place before you potentially ruin your interior.

One of the absolute bottom-lines that seems to be frequently forgotten here and in just about every other field of human endeavor is that there are many different personality types, and people have many different motives for doing things, and just as many different ways of dealing with criticism, constructive or otherwise. A strong personality that is interested in mastering any activity or skill can take constructive criticism in the spirit in which it's offered...a sincere willingness to HELP. A strong personality can also deal with rudeness or cruel criticism without imploding or running to a mommy figure for protection. The other extreme is someone who posts primarily to get the social-media affirmation-attaboy dopamine hit, and who's not particularly (if at all) interested in skill-building...which requires the pursuit of objective truth and brutal honesty with oneself concerning skills and shortcomings. You can't please everybody, and it's senseless to try. You CAN be respectful and kind to everybody, however; stating objective truth is NOT unkind, though the world we now inhabit often seems to interpret it as such. How anyone responds to respectful, truly constructive criticism is THEIR decision. There's another point I think bears repeating that seems to be overlooked often. There are many different levels of talent. Contrary to what has become a mainstream rallying cry, we are NOT all created equal, and how much innate TALENT we each possess determines in large part how much SKILL we may each develop in a particular field. For example, I simply do NOT have sufficient talent to be a concert pianist, no matter HOW MUCH I PRACTICE. BUT...there are certain talents i DO possess that allow certain skills to continue to improve with practice. EVERYONE has things they will ultimately be able to master with effort, if they so desire, and EVERYONE has things they're just never really going to excel at. Doing the best you can with your God-given talent at whatever your current skill level is is FAR more important (as far as having a genuinely satisfying life goes) than seeking meaningless accolades for just showing up.