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Posted (edited)

They're waxing down their surfboards, just can't wait for June..

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yeah its kinda crazy but I had a spare XR-6 (remember that?) chassis around and I was looking around for a kool application for my new darling, the half-a-V8 Pontiac engine from the Mickey Thompson Attempt 1. Then I was drawn to the newly released Revell of Germany Trabant Universal. Throw them all together and youre gonna get a surfin safari all the way from the shores of the Ukraine to the waves of Habana, Cuba! Yeah Baby!

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engine has been modified so instead of a big blower hanging off it, for more "euro"ization and just plain driveability along with the sleeper factor, I adapted some left over Weber side draft carbs which still need some detailing. also, that Hemi head. yeah its got a Hemi, or half a one anyway.

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comments and questions welcome! unfortunately this one is pretty back burner so might not progress very rapidly, but slowly and surely!

jb

Edited by jbwelda
Posted

unfortunately this one is pretty back burner so might not progress very rapidly, but slowly and surely!

Builder's bloc? :D

Are those the AMT(?) early Halibrand kidney beans on lo-pro tires?

Posted

>Are those the AMT(?) early Halibrand kidney beans on lo-pro tires?

could be, dug em out of the parts box for some future build...might look good on this.

don't know on the color scheme yet, probably something simple though. and I might attempt a scratchbuilt fold back canvas top. roof rack for surfboards for sure though.

jb

Posted

Love it! What a cool motor choice for the plastic bomber.

Let me tell you guys, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, thusly communism, (no politics meant here), because in the film "Full Metal Jacket" a handful of Marines would end that stuff anyway.... :D . All of us in Europe were able to smell those cars in traffic!

My first venture into the former eastern state of Germany was a thrill, early 1990. I was driving then a relatively new VW Golf and this car was not made for those old cobblestone roads! I mean real old roads. Like similar to the days of the Roman Legions. Real cobblestone roads! I could drive 15mph through the villages, or 45mph, it didn't matter. there was no way to negotiate those roads with a car from the West. The least that would happen would be the glove box lid would lose it's cool.

The East German made Trabant cars would fly over these roads, and lose nothing. They were actually a car for the people, an east German Volkswagen. They still stank like hell, and after a year or so, there were none left.

It was still interesting to see villages that hadn't changed since the days that my dad was there in WW2.

Sorry jb for the hijack, I just wanted to share an insight.

I'll be following this one for sure.

Michael

Posted

Michael, I never did get to see East Germany. We lived in West Germany from 1969-72 and the closest I got was standing at Checkpoint Charlie after visiting the Escape Museum. Even then there were East Germans who worked in West Berlin, and I remember watching those Trabants headed back home through the Checkpoint.

A lot of the American kids I knew did get to tour into East Germany, but my family couldn't because my father held certain US military clearances.

Posted

Hi Tom, the East was very interesting right after the Fall. A wonderful experience! The towns and villages were, when outside of Berlin of course, quite intact after the decades from WW2. The roads in the small towns and villages pitiful, locals had told me these were still after so many decades readily kept for quick movement of tanks and artillery. Often too the "pavement" was made from concrete slabs placed one after the other, especially over terrain that was often moist (like from steams and tributaries overflowing). Tanks roll better and save the environment and we don't have to re-pave so often was the argumentation.

I was asked once from a local high school teacher there, how should he answer the students' question, "explain to me democracy"?

I was wearing at this meeting a red tie, a usual for me with a dark blue blazer and grey flannel slacks. The guy thought I was one of the "other side", and wondered why Americans would wear red ties.

Often I did not have an immediate answer.

Progress is good.

Michael

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