Ace-Garageguy

As noted above, it was a "homologation special", a limited production model done to allow the aerodynamically slipperier rear window to be allowed for racing in NASCAR...

The one in my area has an excellent supply of materials, paints, and tools...as long as the guy doing stock checking remembers to keep up with it. Model kit coverage is pretty OK as far as current production US kits go. Lotsa RC stuff, toys, not great HO train section and some other scale RR stuff. Definitely better than nothing, especially as a source for brass, aluminum, wood and styrene stock and Tamiya and Testors paint. They also stock weathering materials and usually a couple of different silicone molding kits for making parts. Not bad at all, really. Nice selection of air brushes and parts too.

There are several more involved "chrome" processes for plastic. These are used for 1:1 custom parts and finishes, but a serious hobbyist could easily do the same thing.

Perhaps a Chrysler clay mockup that didn't make the cut?

Maybe a really horrible stretch limo?

Maybe a diorama...

Maybe one prepped for Bonneville... or other straight-line competition...

Another take on the old-school kustom theme...

It's an industrial vacuum deposition process that requires very specialized and expensive equipment. There ARE several companies that offer the service to hobbyists. Explained here: http://www.muellercorp.com/chrome.php

A Carson-topped kustom? (not my model) Maybe a truncated wagon? Or something long and lean? Or just shove a 426 Hemi in it, and a straight axle, and call it a gasser. Transplanting late-model Mopar guts under it could make a cool pro-touring type thing too.

This'll fix it...

Last year I let the web-hosting expire on my Ace-Garage.com website (though I continued to pay for the domain name, just in case). It seemed to be a waste of money to keep my own site when it looked like I would be working with Mills for the foreseeable future. But things change. I'm now contracting to two other high-end shops here, and fixing to set my machine shop back up in one of them, so to effectively market my skills, i need my own site back up. Luckily, though my web host did NOT save any of the old content, much of it is archived separately online, for which I'm grateful ()...as the XP drive all that stuff was on is now a charred ruin.

Yup, and I've bought each of those for between $35 and $50. Probably much more now though.

And if you put a pair of garden shears and little packets of oil and vinegar in the glovebox, you can take the concept of "urban grazing" to new levels. Do ya think kale will grow on that thing?

Beautiful. I love old steam.

Honey, not now. I have to mow the car.

Holy moley.

This is pretty spectacular. The model speaks for itself. More pix here. http://www.westway-aircraft-models.com/18.html

Last time I sold on Ebay, the LISTING was free. No fees until the item actually sells. I have no problem with Ebay's fees, either. The site allowed me to sell a very rare and expensive Lamborghini crankshaft to a guy in Spain as well as finding good homes for some vintage speed equipment...in only a few days. I'd still be sitting on that stuff years later otherwise. A good friend of mine also uses Ebay to market her own patented/manufactured product (as well as several other online venues and her own dedicated site). She's sold as far away as Australia via Ebay. Ebay offers the whole WORLD as a potential market. Their percentage fee is well worth it for the size of that market.

I don't see that as the same thing at all. You started your auctions at a realistic entry price, a price that encourages bidding. The market drove the price to whatever the highest bidder was willing to pay. No problem, no foul. And I doubt you had THOUSANDS of brochures listed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... I've been a student of Ebay auctions for many years, and it's been my repeated observation that starting auctions (on a wide variety of items, not just model-related) at a LOW price is much more likely to get bidders going. Once the feeding frenzy starts, the sky's the limit...and that's how it's supposed to work. Starting auctions for one part at the same price you can actually buy a complete kit for (in some circumstances) is simply stupid, pig-greedy, and almost a guarantee you'll have more NO SALE auctions than successful turnover. But there's still no laws against stupid OR pig-greedy.

Maybe I'd buy that if the seller in question was on his OWN website that HE paid for and maintained. But he's not. He has NINE THOUSAND listings he's getting FOR FREE. It adds up to a free ride on the cost everyone else with one or twenty listings is paying, pure and simple. And his rambling idiotic rants take up pages and pages of space for each listing. Nope...the guy is a parasite...sucking his sustenance off the hobby AND the Ebay policy that allows it. And ummm...how do you KNOW we're not supporting him on the dole as well? Ethics like he has are what makes the entitlement class in this country what it is today. "I gets mines no matter whose pockets it comes out of, and the less I has to do for it, the better".

To the best of my knowledge...yes. I've been collecting them as they come up for reasonable money.

I remember this car well. Even though its career was cut short, its pedigree (Chrisman) and unique appearance made it a standout at the time. Cool project.

With the close similarity of the body shells among the three cars mentioned, and the use of the corporate Chevy smallblock in the Pontiacs and Montes, it would seem that additional G-body cars would be relatively easy to derive from the Olds kit and other existing tooling (Revell already has, I'm pretty sure, a smallblock Chebby block backed up with an appropriate auto trans). The '86 NASCAR homologation-special Gran Prix 2+2 would be an interesting variation.

The sie pipes in the "new-tool" AlaKart do indeed appear small, but I haven't measured them to be certain. What IS curious (and I HAVE measured this) is that the old, correctly-scaled Dodge Red Ram hemi in the original kit will shoehorn into the "new-tool" kit's engine bay just as it does on the real car. The "new-tool" kit has a better stance than the original kit, but the front wheels / tires are also underscale...though they DO look good...if I remember correctly. Gluebomb original-tool AlaKart models are cheap and plentiful enough that anyone who really wants to do an accurate buildup of the first-issue version using the new kit discussed here can do so relatively easily. Incidentally, besides the Mod Rod fender unit having been modified to delete the side-pipe recesses, the louvers found on the aprons of the original AlaKart fender unit have also been deleted...for many years.