Ace-Garageguy

I vote real because no modeler could build a wall that nasty. Each individual block was placed separately, apparently without string, and a model would probably be dollhouse or G-scale sheet, and very regular. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Welcome! I always like to see gluebomb saves, and particularly '32 Fords. I like your sectioning job...not too much, and should look good channeled. Here's one of mine (and I'll be glad to remove the link if you feel it detracts from your thread )

I've been very happy with Win7, have an internal one terabyte backup drive (which is more than sufficient for what I use this old built-from-junk system for), but I understand 7 has an apparent limitation as to accessing all of a backup drive over 2TB or so, though it's fixable.

That could conceivably be a browser issue, or even an anti-virus glitch. Very rarely, I've encountered the PP site being apparently offline for maintenance or upgrades too.

I particularly like that, too. It lets you keep your money in your pocket, literally, until you see if the item you bought actually matches the description in the auction. This has eliminated the need to go through the hassle of getting a refund from an uncooperative seller on several occasions lately when the item I received was blatantly different from the description. In a couple of cases, the sellers apparently knew they had been trying to palm off carp, as they said "just keep it" instead of wanting it shipped back. Refund-credits were instantaneous.

At the moment, I'm thinking the old body shell, hood and nose on the new fenders, frame and suspension, with the old engine and gearbox. The new-tool kit definitely has a better stance than the older one...but I haven't actually looked at what it would take to fix the old one either. Incidentally, I have a couple of the original issues un-started, as well as a couple of the newer ones, so some serious measuring and cutting (if required) is in my future. But it's too involved a project for me to get into until I clear the decks of several others. Neither of the Hilborn injection (an important part of the original original) setups are particularly well done either, so some refining and scratching will be necessary there too. Parts by Parks makes a nice set of aluminum stacks, at least.

The single greatest shortcoming in the "new tool" kit is the ridiculously underscale engine and gearbox. Whether this was a mistake, or thought to be a necessary "adjustment" (not at all necessary, as the correctly-scaled engine from the old-tool kit fits in the new-tool engine bay) has never been addressed to the best of my knowledge. Additionally, people have actually argued about the accuracy of the new-tool engine, expressing endless "opinions" for pro and con. I've MEASURED the real engine this is supposed to represent, divided by 25, and removed all doubt.

WOW ! I need one. Thanks for the link too.

If you happen to have a Galaxie '48 Chevy lying around, it has some nice "Wayne" speed equipment too. Here's the story of the Wayne Horning / Harry Warner contribution to making stovebolt Chebbys go fast. http://inliners.org/ and click on 'Historical' to the left.

I ran the VIN shown above, 8R02S125559, through google. This is what I came up with. Read the rest here: http://www.ponysite.de/barn5.htm Dave and Jim Smart tried to investigate into the whereabouts of the real BULLITT car in the early to mid 90ies. It took them years after years to trace down the history of the real thing. Share their feelings, and read on, when they finally got a hint on the whereabouts of the real car... Dave reported: "The fellow who spotted it sent me some photos, but I swore they would not be published anywhere. He does not know the owner of the car, but rather the man whose barn the car is stored in. I know it's really *the* car, as the VIN 8R02S125559 matches that on a letter from Warner Brothers confirming that the surviving car was sold to an employee of the studio. The letter is dated 1970, and is on Warner stationary. As the car sat when the photos were taken, it was in about #4 condition. Though there was a lot of surface rust on things like fasteners and suspension parts, the body seems to be fairly rust-free. It has spent most of its life in the state of New Jersey, near New York. In the photos, the car still wore its New Jersey license plates. Here's a quick rundown of the condition: 66,000 miles on odometer; car seems to have been in a minor front collision -- bumper, valance and grill are all missing, radiator support is bent; engine is in place but does not look like it has run in some time; carburetor missing; upper shock absorber mounts missing; many holes in inner fenders where extra bracing had been installed; the interior (Deluxe) is mostly intact, but quite dirty with trash all about the floor; 4-speed transmission still there, but stock shifter has been replaced with a Hurst unit (in the film, the car had a stock Ford shifter); clutch pedal sits on floor -- as if the clutch or linkage are damaged; original American Racing wheels still on car, with rusted lug nuts; a non-sock (cheapie) steering wheel resides where McQueen's favoured leather wrapped Shelby steering wheel once served steering duty; Max Balchowski's numerous welded-on camera supports and modified exhaust (with glasspack mufflers) are still in place but badly rusted; extra bracing on rear leaf spring mounts; there is a factory "fog lamp" switch below the ashtray (car in movie had them removed, obviously). And there are two items which really point to this being the "real deal", besides the VIN. One is a fist-sized hole in the left inner fender inside the trunk. I have surmised that this was used to route exhaust from a trunk-mounted generator (to run lights and camera equipment). Nobody making a replica would likely do this, as water and mud would easily be thrown up into the luggage compartment. The second is the door tag, still in place. Everything fits the circumstances of a car intended for use by Warner Brothers. The build date (late '67), DSO (Los Angeles), and other things confirm that this is, in fact, the car. As far as what it would take to restore the car, I imagine it would need to be a "ground-up" resto. On the other hand, one would not want to disturb the modifications too much, for fear of harming the value. I imagine that if it were mine, I would do my best to get it mechanically sound, including a rebuild of the engine and trans. You'd also need to go through the brakes, and probably replace some of the suspension components that were subject to rotting. Any car that has sat for so long (I'll estimate 13-18 years) tends to deteriorate from lack of use. Some minor body repair on the front to make it look decent, and a refinishing of the wheels would be in order too. I imagine that not touching the body too much, it would need about $10,000 in repairs." Update July 2002: Meanwhile the car has been moved from the Kentucky barn to another location. It is no more in the Kentucky barn indeed as we know. The current owner had been contacted by film producers more than once. There seems to be quite a good reason to keep the car hidden or maybe just a Man's promise, from what we know today.

Yup. I tracked the photo to this site. It DID rust in half and apparently isn't the McQueen car...at least the one in the OP photo isn't. http://rustingmustangs.com/1968-mustangs-for-sale/1968-fastback-rust-bucket PS. It's a good story, Carl. I hope the car really HAS turned up and gets brought back. If it's been stored in Nevada, it ought to be still more-or-less structurally sound, and not terminally rusted like the car shown above.

I have to wonder about the truthfulness of that photo actually being the car it's purported to be. One, it has a red decklid. Two, it looks like it was repainted blue, not green...over a much lighter color. Three, it also looks like the unibody has rusted and collapsed, not broken as a result of a jump. Four, the LF fender visible in the photo doesn't have a hole for the side-marker light, visible on the movie cars. Four, the car in the photo has "MUSTANG" letters on the front fender. These were removed for the movie cars.

Here's the Facebook link... https://www.facebook.com/Bobs-Paint-etc-335668269977149/

Last time I was at Hobby Town, Tamiya seemed to have rather a lot of military greens, and I'd think one of those would come pretty close to what you're after. The green box-art car is very close to SEM self-etching green primer, by the way. NOTE: The self-etching primers are HOT. BEWARE. WW II aircraft used rather a wide range of "zinc chromate" primer colors, from bright yellow-green to a blue-black green. The particular color had to do with the plant the plane was made at, the dates of manufacture, and blending of remnants of various stuff to use it up in planes that probably wouldn't last very long anyway. This has been discussed at some length on military aircraft modeling forums, and by restorers of real WW II combat aircraft. You can almost pick a color you think you like in the yellow-green-dark green-blue-green range and call it "chromate". There are several off-the-shelf primer rattlecan colors that look pretty good to me for the yellow-green commonly found INSIDE WW II aircraft structures, a fairly easily obtainable one being Duplicolor Self-Etching green, DAP 1690 (though there are some later versions of this product that are considerably less yellow).

That's about it. And welcome to the forum and the hobby. It can be a whole load of fun, it can be frustrating at times, it's certainly challenging, it keeps your mind in gear learning new effects and techniques, it improves eye-hand coordination, and it can open doors to learning a vast amount about the history and operation of internal-combustion-powered vehicles.

I've spent most of my professional 40+ years designing, building, restoring, modifying, and race-prepping cars. I've owned my own shops, resto-body and mechanical, including one that did fleet maintenance on one side and high-end sports and exotic cars on the other. I've also worked in aviation as an airframe-and-powerplant mechanic, and as an engineering consultant, primarily on aircraft composite-material structural repair systems and fixtures, as well as in product development and design. I still do the occasional technical-writing freelance job too (including patents). For the past several years, I contracted to an internationally-known high-end hot rod shop (that's had multiple magazine cover-cars) as a fabricator, mechanical designer, and electrical system designer and builder. While there, I built most of an all-steel '33 Plymouth with a FAST-injected 354 Hemi, and an LS-powered '47 Cadillac convertible. Recently, I've been contracting to two local companies, one that builds high-end street rods (currently doing all the guts on a ground-up Jenkins 572-powered '67 Chevelle with EFI and loads of other onboard electronics) and another one specializing in repairs, mods and resto work on high-end collector, muscle and exotic cars. Shortly, I'll be setting up my machine shop once again, this time as an in-house adjunct to one of the companies I'm currently working with. I'll probably be working until I fall down dead while doing it, but in the meantime, I can make damm near anything. Now, If I can just do something about my back. I'm sure I can make parts that work better than the worn-out OEMs, but installing them might get a little tricky.

So, this afternoon I'm in my own bathroom, minding my own business, listening to the tear-off crew working on the roof next door, and I happen to glance out the window. What do I see but someone sneaking across the somewhat overgrown part of the back yard and going to the door on the shed, trying to open it. I've got some good stuff in the shed, and I keep it padlocked. This is a relatively low-crime neighborhood, other than the occasional home invasion, so I figured the stuff in the shed should be OK...especially during daylight hours. I give him a couple of moments, 'cause I can't really believe some fwad is trying to rip me off in broad daylight. When it becomes apparent he really IS trying to lever the hasp off the shed door, I scream out the window "hey, can I help you? WTF are you doing?" and other decidedly non-warm-fuzzy things of that general nature. When I yell, I don't sound like a toothless old fart, but somebody who just might do serious harm. Fwad looks around, can't see where the shouting is coming from, and scurries back across the yard and disappears. After I pull my pants up I go over to the house getting the roof. I'm seriously PO'd and I recognize fwad by his clothes. He says "I was jus' lookeen for a place to sheet", and that really sets me off. I'm surprised nobody called the cops on me. Anyway, the ba-tards now know there's a crazy old SOB who just might be around. So my question is this: why do I have to put up with people who seem to think it's OK to "sheet" in my yard (which is totally BS anyway), or people who think it's OK to help themselves to MY belongings...just because I'm probably not home? I'm sure some of you will make your typical snide "get off my lawn" remarks, so go for it.

Thanks. Good to know. Now, if we can just get a measurement on the scale diameter of the rear wheels...

Beautiful, as usual. When someone asks "what is show-quality?" I should just remember to simply refer them to your models.

I was recently at the Grand Canyon for the day, haven't been there since maybe around '09. There seemed to be a lot more trash, water bottles, candy wrappers, etc. there than I'd ever noticed before. Frankly, this made me furious. Some stupid little shitts come ostensibly to see one of the most spectacular sights on Earth, and they think so much of it that they use it for their personal dump. If I'd seen anyone dropping trash into the canyon or even on the path, my honest gut reaction would have been to want to chuck THEM over the edge. I'm sure I was radiating hostility and rage towards anyone who had anything that looked disposable in his or her hand. And sadly, at least one of the rare California condors that have been hand-reared and reintroduced to the wild has died from choking on some moron's waste paper at the canyon. I just do not understand how anyone can be so totally self-centered, unaware, and uncaring about beauty to drop his garbage wherever he feels it's become too much bother to deal with responsibly. How frigging hard IS IT do put your damm garbage where it belongs, anyway?

Similar in concept, "split" Holley Dominator carbs are still built. The closeout plates are available from Holley and at least one other manufacturer.

This bluish-greenish-grayish was pretty common on the Allison 1710 that was used in the P-40.

Kewl.

Beautiful shots of very different country from both Ed and Dan. Man, we sure live on a pretty planet. And I sure wish I could understand why so many people seem to think that this is the way we should treat it.

Perfectly stated, at least from my own perspective.