Tuesday, March 25, 2014

AXIA Skyline R32 Damaged!

So while looking for more kits to feed my addiction, I stumbled across someone who had a Tamiya AXIA Skyline Gt-R racing kit for sale.
I love old R32 Skylines, and especially the racing versions, so I went ahead and purchased this one.

The kit of from 1991, was brand new in the original shrink wrap. I went ahead and sent payment, and waited. (not so patiently).

Finally it arrived, and I was disappointed to see that the Postal Service had delivered the box damaged.
Upon opening the shipping box, and the shrink wrap on the brand new kit, I discovered what one piece of the entire kit got damaged.....

Yep, you guessed it, the body had been crushed. Looks like the roof had been smashed downward. It bent the passenger side windscreen pillar, and completely snapped the driver side pillar (right hand drive on the Japanese Market vehicle).
So now I'm stuck. 97% of the parts are just fine, and completely useable. But the one BIG one, is damaged and broken. I can try and fix it, as I don't think I'll find a replacement laying around, and if I turn in the damage to claim the insurance, they will take the entire kit, and then I am back where I started.



Friday, March 21, 2014

1970 Plymouth Superbird

While I am not really what I would consider to be a huge Mopar fan, there are certain models that stand out to me.

This 1970 Plymouth Superbird being one.
1970 Plymouth Superbird
It started as a more base model Plymouth Roadrunner, and was fitted with an aerodynamic cheating nose cone, and giant wing on the back. The theory at the time was that the wing was that tall, to get it into "undisturbed" air flowing above the car.
This later was debunked, and it turns out the height was determined by the clearance needed to open the trunk.

Really just to get the trunk open
The addition of the nose cone, adds 19" over the length of the same year Roadrunner.

Giant nose cone for high speed aero.
My choice for color is a color known as "Lemon Twist".  I forget the actual Plymouth paint code, but this is a close approximation.

I did some research online, and really fell in love with the yellow color, with the black stripes and roof. However, there appeared in online searching to be different shades of yellow.
I don't know if this was factory, or people had repainted their cars, or even if they were clones made in someone's garage.
There was a company that offered correct, factory matched lemon twist paint, but I couldn't see spending $15 for a bottle of paint just for the one car.
And seeing as Lemon Twist was only offered on a few mopars, of vary limited years, I didn't see needing it for more cars in the near future.

This particular kits came with the factory 440 - 6 barrel set-up. It is basically 3 2-barrel carbs.
I also found it difficult to get good clear pictures under the hood of a Superbird, so I picked out some details, in colors that I felt added some visual interest under the hood.

All in all, a great kit, of a really unusual and identifiable car from the muscle car era.
The only thing that could ever even be remotely confused with it, would be it's corporate cousin, the Dodge Daytona.







Friday, March 14, 2014

A lucky day shopping... complete set!

So I had a little running around to do this morning, and managed a couple of quick stops, and managed to come up with these beauties....

Cars 7 thru 12 of the Cool Classics series from last year.
These are great looking cars, all have cast chassis, and special wheels and "frosted" paint.
Kind of a matte color.

I have heard several people talk about the cards having a blue car, or a red car on them.... One is harder to find than the other... somebody else says the exact opposite. And since I can't find a definitive answer, I just grabbed the ones that I can.

I am most excited to find these, as they fill a bit of a "hole" I had been saving for them on my wall.
This is where I put some of my non-mainline cars that I want to show off.
As you can see, lots of Cool Classics there. Also at the bottom some of the K-mart day mail-in cars that I have collected. Boulevard cars, RLC club cars, and even some of the candy cars from this year that my sister-in-law found for me in Texas.

Cut off in the picture are also Muppets cars, and the Monster cars.

So now I have a complete set of all 30 of the cool classics, and have already found numbers 1 thru 6 of the Cool Classics for 2014, so I'll be looking for the rest of these as well.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Next project

So despite the weather I have decided it is time to get started on another project.

Just a sneak that should give it away to those who know.

When part #202 looks like this, there is really only two possibilities to what I am building.