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Post by Rallymaster on Nov 30, 2007 22:09:52 GMT -6
I'm not sure (it might be my 13 year old computer) but when I look at pictures some of you post, they are way too big for my screen to see the whole thing. I have found that when I load mine onto Photobucket if I select "message board (640 X 480) they seem to fit the format better. This can be changed even after they have been posted on CC. Am I right about this or should I stop buying models and invest in a new computer? I suggest everyone use a maximum size of 800x600 for posting images in the Coffin Corner.
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Post by Rallymaster on Dec 1, 2007 23:19:12 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Nov 30, 2007 17:50:10 GMT -6
Thanks for the reminders Paul. I'll pen a "year-end" update in December. Thanks for keeping it civil out there boys!
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Post by Rallymaster on Sept 22, 2007 9:17:35 GMT -6
Dave McGowan has accepted the mission--thanks guys! --Rallymaster With respect to the Guest Gallery, going forward, I'm going to "favor" kits that have not yet been submitted from the Show Room. To help facilitate this, I have exported the Show Room listing to an Excel Spreadsheet. I'm looking for a volunteer to accept the assignment of taking this spreadsheet and denoting which ones have yet to be submitted to the Guest Gallery (by coloring the cell I guess.) If anyone is willing to take on this somewhat tedious task, please drop me a line at: dave@wac77.com and I'll send you the spreadsheet. Thanks, Dave
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Post by Rallymaster on Sept 22, 2007 7:01:57 GMT -6
With respect to the Guest Gallery, going forward, I'm going to "favor" kits that have not yet been submitted from the Show Room.
To help facilitate this, I have exported the Show Room listing to an Excel Spreadsheet. I'm looking for a volunteer to accept the assignment of taking this spreadsheet and denoting which ones have yet to be submitted to the Guest Gallery (by coloring the cell I guess.)
If anyone is willing to take on this somewhat tedious task, please drop me a line at: dave@wac77.com and I'll send you the spreadsheet.
Thanks,
Dave
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Post by Rallymaster on Sept 22, 2007 4:39:39 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Sept 16, 2007 23:16:37 GMT -6
Bidding in an open and honest system is the foundation of capitalism. I just sold some Chevy Rally wheels on Ebay. I gotta tell ya, I really wish those 5 bidders would have gotten "out of control" but alas, they only paid what the market would bear. And that was about 200 bucks. Rats. There is a "Dragon Wagon" that has just been listed on the Bay. The seller is sweetmaple , and it's listed under vintage Monogram kits. Ipredict thi will get out of control, too. I love old Daniels kits, but I HATE the bid wars on EBAY. This is not my kit. I just hope it is won by a member of this forum. Good luck!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D
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Post by Rallymaster on Sept 3, 2007 7:54:44 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Aug 26, 2007 20:23:17 GMT -6
I talked with Tom Daniel for about 45 minutes today. He was very excited. He said things were "exploding" for him. Apparently, his son Kelly and Tom's 1st wife have incorporated two "Limited Liability Corporations" (LLCs) for both Tom's designs and Kelly's designs (for those of you who don't know, Tom's son Kelly is an excellent artist in his own right and has done Tom's latest T shirts like the Red Baron and the T'Rantula.) Now I don't understand all the particulars, but Kelly has located a series of wealthy-type enthusiasts who want to build many of Tom's most famous designs in 1:1 scale. I believe the builds will be videotaped to be used in some future non-annoying car TV series or something. According to Tom even some famous car builders (i.e. Chip Foose) are very interested in building at least one of Tom's designs. Apparently, all this will start with a full-size T'Rantula. Tom said it will be built 70s-style, true to his original design. It will be displayed and fired up at the west coast "Cacklefest" in the Long Beach area next June. Tom just attended this cacklefest and said he sold over $1,000 of merchandise in about four hours. Among the "fans" buying his stuff was none other than Tom "Mongoose" McEwen. For those who don't know, these "Cacklefests" celebrate drag racing's glory days with many original funny cars and rails restored to their original glory. They are all given a proper dose of nitro (or alcohol) and.....well that's why they call it a "cacklefest"! Here is a link to the latest one. My friend Louis Kimery attends these at Bowling Green, Kentucky each year and says they are fantastic: www.cacklefest.com/event-photos-7.shtmlThere is much more than that going on (as if that were not enough!) including a planned TD museum, perhaps in Tom's current town of Knaab, Utah, and other ideas Kelly keeps coming up with. I'm sure Tom's California Corvette is in the mix for restoration and his younger son Brian has already pledged six months driving 3-4 restored cars around to different shows and events. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Tom Daniel story and have seen his "TD Career" page on his web site. Like most of you, I started building Tom Daniel's kits in the late 60s and they were my favorites. Were it not for Tom Daniel and Monogram Models, we would not be sharing the Show Rod Rally today. Tom's career was at its zenith in the early 70s. But it was not until the early 90s that Monogram started reissuing a lot of his kits and Johnny Lightning did some other things with him. That 20-year span was not the best time of Tom's life and the "revival" of hot rods and muscle cars, which helped spur new interest in his old kits, started a new chapter of attention and modest and gradual prosperity for Tom. In the late 90s a guy named Phil Davis and another friend built Tom his first web site and created Tom's VHS debut "Tom Daniel, The Man Behind The Models." I came onto the scene a few years later, rebuilding Tom's site with an on-line store and more. I purchased a Macintosh computer for him and flew out to "Las Toilet" (Tom's name for Las Vegas) a few times and spent some weekends training him so he could surf the web and communicate with fans and customers. Jaimi (Cricket) Torok has since taken over Tom's site and has taken it to new levels, most notably with a "shopping cart" making it easier to do business there. I give you this background because, if things go as currently planned, it seems we have arrived at an epoch for both Tom Daniel and for showrods. Tom is 71 years old, and while his new LLCs will ensure a more orderly and professional preservation of his designs, the fact that he can witness many of them being built yet in his lifetime, and perhaps even "star" in TV show interviews discussing them is truly special. Personally, I’m in awe that there are people “lining up” (Tom’s words) to now make his designs full-scale. Imagine going to a show and watching a large block of ice, with large chromed tongs imbedded in it, slowly melting on the back of a full-sized Ice ‘T’. Or eating a slice of pie literally taken out of the back of a real TD Pie Wagon. Or conversing (in broken English) with an illegal alien Mexican national hired to sit in an authentic Tijuana Taxi (sorry, I could not resist that one.) If you're a regular to this site, I know you'll share my hope that both Tom's and Kelly's plans exceed their ambitions. And if I were you, I'd start saving your dimes in anticipation of traveling to one of the locations at which these 1:1 Tom Daniel "models" will appear. For us, it will be the greatest SHOW on earth! Dave Rasmussen Rallymaster
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Post by Rallymaster on Aug 25, 2007 22:37:48 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Aug 13, 2007 20:06:30 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Aug 12, 2007 16:44:22 GMT -6
Don't know if this one is true or not, but it looks like it could be?--d. ------------------------------- A NY man retired. He wanted to use his retirement money wisely, so it would last, and decided to buy a home and a few acres in Portugal. The modest farmhouse had been vacant for 15yrs.; the owner and wife both had died, and there were no heirs. The house was sold to pay taxes. There had been several lookers, but the large barn had steel doors, and they had been welded shut. Nobody wanted to go to the extra expense to see what was in the barn, and it wasn't complimentary to the property anyway......so, nobody made an offer on the place. The NY guy bought it at just over half of the property's worth, moved in, and set about to tear in to the barn.......curiosity was killing him. So, he and his wife bought a generator and a couple of grinders.......and cut thru the welds. What was in the barn...............? Go to: www.intuh.net/barnfinds/afa70.htmand start wishing it you had bought the place.
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Post by Rallymaster on Aug 3, 2007 20:52:56 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Jul 16, 2007 12:27:44 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Jul 11, 2007 19:23:39 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Jul 4, 2007 7:08:13 GMT -6
PS3? Xbox? Man no wonder my kids laugh at me so much. Not too long ago they were talking about "J-Lo....Jay LOw....J-LOOOW....." So I inquired: "What's going on with Jay Leno?" I was serious. They almost fell over laughing at my ignorance. Oh well, back to my Route 66 magazine. I sure hope something like this sticks. You're absolutely right Dave, kids now need an "alternate outlet" and if it helps to keep the hobby alive, so much the better! I'm a little disappointed that they are focusing on "something for the boys", there are little Danikas and Sarahs out there too. (And Dave, just so ya know, it's PS3 and Xbox now ;D.) "Paulie"
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Post by Rallymaster on Jul 3, 2007 18:23:16 GMT -6
This seems to be the 2nd such startup (last one revealed here was Ridemakerz). This newest one allows "boys" to race car after building and "detailing" them. As I noted last time, not the model-making we grew up with, but it's better than kids just watching TV and playing Nintendo. This one happens to be in the Milwaukee area: www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=627792
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Post by Rallymaster on Jun 24, 2007 6:52:04 GMT -6
Special thanks to Dennis Doty who alerted me to this fantastic piece in Street Rodder on the XR6: tinyurl.com/3ct4z8I'm going to capture this story for the XR6 page in the Show Room. If any one has an XR6 out there, this could be your inspiration to build one for the Guest Gallery--without the LEAD (read the article and see what I mean!) --Dave
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Post by Rallymaster on Jun 23, 2007 7:16:31 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Jun 23, 2007 7:08:47 GMT -6
It's true--HMW gave me a pass for the weekend since she's taking child #2 to a BBall tournament. I made the 1st Milwaukee Nationals but missed last year. Should be a blast and many thanks to Mark for giving me this opportunity.
I will take pics (of both the models and the best 1:1 rods) and post links to them here in late July.
--Rallymaster
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Post by Rallymaster on May 24, 2007 22:10:11 GMT -6
Mike sent me this pic the other day. He got the "Arctic Heating Element" lit up and working. I updated the Hannibal 8 page too. Check it out:
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Post by Rallymaster on May 19, 2007 5:30:06 GMT -6
Got this E-mail forwarded from Tom. Cracks me up--look at the attachment for a chuckle--d. -------------------------------------------- From Shinpei kusanagi To: Mr.Tom Daniel Hallow, You must be surprised to receive this unexpected mail from me. My name is shinpei kusanagi, a japanese editor making a magazine. Now we are making new magazine "Model Smith" and have a chance to introduce your "1/12 Mean Maverick" 1971 made. A writer of this page is a big fan of you. he found this maverick on e-bay and built it 2 years ago. Now this car is one of his best collection. Besides that, we would like to have a permission from you to use your photo attached for the page(just your photo, not with the letters), and if it is possible, would you mind sending us a photo data with bigger size of this? (see the attached file) I am sorry for this short notice, but I would appreciate it if you accept this favor. Just in case I attached the pdf data of the page of the magazine. Please conform. Thank you. Best regards Model Smith Shinpei kusanagi
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Post by Rallymaster on May 30, 2007 8:26:45 GMT -6
Fascinating twist (evolution?) of our favorite hobby? If it works, could it spur or even just help support plastic car model-building?--dave ---------------------------------------------- May 29, 2007 After Build-A-Bear, Build-A-Toy-CarBy JOANNE KAUFMAN Lucky for one entrepreneur, the founder of the stuff-and-outfit your own plush animal phenomenon known as Build-A-Bear Workshop never got far on her idea to pursue a build-a-car concept. Since 1997, when she opened the first Build-A-Bear workshop in St. Louis, that founder, Maxine Clark, has been besieged with people full of do-it-yourself ideas (make your own books and decorate your shoes, to name a couple.) A few years ago, Ms. Clark herself wrote up a build-a-car business plan, but said she was too busy with bears to do much else than put it on her to-do list. The bears are now available in 300 stores worldwide. In 2005, Larry Andreini, 44, an entrepreneur from Fairfax, Va., with a background in financial services and customer loyalty programs, came calling with a concept called Ridemakerz, a make-and-outfit your own toy car business. “He fit in with our culture,” Ms. Clark said in an interview. “He understood what it takes to bring a brand to reality.” She decided to collaborate with Mr. Andreini in the form of a $3 million investment and an estimated $15 million in back-office support from Build-A-Bear Workshop. The first Ridemakerz store is scheduled to open Friday at an entertainment and retail complex in Myrtle Beach, S.C., followed in July by an outpost at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. “Through the partnership we’re able to see every store performance of every Build-A-Bear,” Mr. Andreini said. “We have access to data that tells us the best place to open our shops.” Fathers and sons make up 70 percent of his target audience. Here’s what they can expect at the Ridemakerz store. Customers select a chassis type (street or monster); body styles (stock or custom, a Ridemakerz brand hot rod, a Ford Mustang GT or Dodge Ram pickup, to name a few options); paint schemes; sound effects (for example, sirens or race sounds) and style of locomotion (free wheel or radio control). After the 10- to 12-inch cars are assembled, there are ample customizing and accessorizing options: tire treads, grille guards, side pipes, snowboard racks and decals. Mr. Andreini estimates that a fully tricked-out vehicle will run about $75, including $25 for radio control. For the budget-minded, there’s a stock tuner car for $12. Build-A-Bear has a 25 percent stake in Ridemakerz, a figure that will go up to 30 percent by January, though the companies will remain discrete entities. “There’s tremendous potential here because there’s nothing else for boys out there,” Ms. Clark said. While the do-it-yourself market “hasn’t exploded, it hasn’t faded,” said Sean McGowan, a toy industry analyst and managing director of the brokerage firm Wedbush Morgan. “Build-A-Bear continues to open 30 workshops a year and earns back almost all of its investment in a store in the first year,” he said, “and I can’t think of many other businesses that can say that.” Still, he questions whether there are “as many revenue opportunities” with cars as plush toys. “Hard plastic isn’t as inherently profitable as cloth,” he said, adding that “Ridemakerz has a reasonable shot.” Jim Silver, editor in chief of the magazine Toy Wishes, is more skeptical. “If you want to make a plush animal, there’s nowhere else to go but Build-A-Bear,” he said. “But there are a lot of model kits that let you make your own cars at home. Ridemakerz will be competing with them. “And with a car it’s how you play with it,” Mr. Silver continued. “It’s about the set and the tracks. Ridemakerz doesn’t offer that. Can they succeed? Yes. But it’s a higher mountain than Build-A-Bear had to climb.”
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Post by Rallymaster on May 16, 2007 15:38:37 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on May 11, 2007 13:22:30 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Apr 15, 2007 20:44:59 GMT -6
Dig this one-off Rommel's Rod project a fan sent to Tom Daniel: www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=72qtp4kf.8f5fj66j&x=0&y=smq7ziYou do not have to sign up to veiw the slideshow. This is from the builder to TD: ------------------------------------------------- Hi Tom, I've loved your work since I was a kid ( a while ago ), and anxiously await the return of the greatest kit in history..until then, I thought you'd get a gas out of these pix - it's one I kitbashed myself! Thanks for all the great humor and inspiration over the years..rock on! - Phil Deren, Cherry Hill, NJ -------------------------------------------------
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Post by Rallymaster on Apr 15, 2007 16:44:54 GMT -6
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Post by Rallymaster on Mar 17, 2007 7:16:04 GMT -6
Many of you guys are into bikes, so this may interest you. As a personal note, the designer did his undergrad work where I got my B.S.--UW-Stout--d. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- March 18, 2007 Handlebars Stripping Down a Harley to Draw Young Riders
By PHIL PATTON IT is almost exactly 250 miles in a straight line from New Hampton, Iowa, where Rich Christoph grew up, east to Milwaukee, home of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, where he now works. But Mr. Christoph, 27, designer of the Harley XL 1200N Nightster, did not get there by following a straight line.
The 2007 Nightster, a back-to-basics road bike, is pitched as something of a rowdy sibling to the Sportster, the entry-level Harley whose 50th anniversary the company is observing this year. Harley rolled out the new Nightster for test rides by the crowds that gathered in Daytona Beach, Fla., this month for Bike Week, a raucous event that coincides with the start of the racing season.
Mr. Christoph calls the Nightster “a no-frills, bare-bones bike” and “an accessible bike with attitude.”
The company is hoping the bike has enough attitude to lure younger riders — closer to the age of its designer than that of the average Harley buyer, now about 46. With matte or black finishes replacing much of the chrome plating and gleaming paint that is traditional to Harleys, the appeal of the $9,855 Nightster lies more in its gritty toughness than as a nostalgic throwback.
The company’s chief styling officer, Willie G. Davidson, and Harley signaled their desire to move beyond familiar themes — though in measured steps — by choosing a young designer.
“Willie G. was literally looking over my shoulder while I designed it,” said Mr. Christoph, referring to Mr. Davidson, who is a grandson of one of the company’s founders.
“The Nightster is a cool new interpretation of the Sportster theme that embodies the original essence of a bike that’s been part of the Harley family for 50 years,” Mr. Davidson said in an e-mail message.
Mr. Christoph grew up on a farm near New Hampton where, he said, “you can either work in the barn or at the feed mill.” His unconventional résumé suggests that he departed from the straight and narrow.
He left Iowa State University after a year, he said: “Flunked out basically — partying.” He liked to draw cars, so he loaded up his battered Dodge Aries K-car and drove to Detroit, where he found a job in the clay modeling studio at Ford Motor while attending classes at the College for Creative Studies.
Then he moved on to the industrial design program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
Mr. Christoph, who had owned a succession of Kawasakis, began to draw motorcycles. “When I started doing that, I realized it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he said. For a class, he built his own custom bike, using welding and metal-bending skills he learned fixing his father’s old Oliver tractors.
He took his bike down to Harley’s headquarters in Milwaukee. “I came riding my portfolio to the interview,” he said. Even the Harley design staff was impressed.
He was hired — his title was Industrial Designer 2 — and assigned the task of dreaming up a no-frills version of the Sportster. For what became the Nightster, Mr. Christoph took off all the chrome and ordered up a cover for the drive belt drilled for weight reduction in what sales materials call a bullet hole pattern. He gave the bike a very low seat and specified fork gaiters, those old-fashioned bellows on the front suspension that he says protect the seals from the exoskeletons of bugs.
“I went back to the immediate post-World War II period when G.I.’s came back and rode used Army bikes,” he said. “They took off everything they could for speed — front fender, a lot of the back fender.” The bobbed (shortened) rear fender became the keynote of a whole bobber tradition, a Harley motif that in recent years has been overshadowed by the elaborate custom choppers produced for television shows.
“Willie G.’s own bobber — a ’47 knuckler — sits 20 feet from my desk,” Mr. Christoph said. (For aficionados, the knucklehead engine is a landmark of Harley history.) Bobbers contributed to the outlaw image of Harleys and bikers in general.
Aiming for what he calls “the clean bobber look,” Mr. Christoph devoted considerable effort to the bike’s rear view. Instead of hanging a stoplight from the fender, he combined its function with the turn signal lamps, as is typical on cars, and placed the license plate on the left side of the bike. That side-mounted plate is the signature of the Nightster’s outlaw theme of rebellion.
“I wanted people to wonder if it was legal,” Mr. Christoph said. Among the first to wonder was Harley’s legal department. The design sent them digging through motor vehicle statutes; even after assurances that it was in compliance, many in the company were nervous and wanted to change the arrangement. “We organized project ‘save the license plate,’ ” Mr. Christoph said.
Mr. Davidson added: “The clean rear fender is the key to the styling of the Nightster. It’s a look that couldn’t have been achieved without the stop-turn taillights and the side-mount plate.”
Even with Mr. Davidson backing the idea, according to Mr. Christoph, it took weeks to get the configuration approved.
That process may suggest why the personality of the finished product contrasts with the mood of Mr. Christoph’s jagged original sketches and enthusiastic descriptions of the bike. As produced, the Nightster is awfully well housebroken for a machine with aspirations of grit and grunge.
It comes with elegant details: a classy orange pinstripe on the fuel tank, and light stitching on the seat that emphasizes its handmade quality.
“I also wanted it to have a rat-rod quality,” Mr. Christoph said, referring to the revival of interest in historically authentic finishes among hot rodders. He thought of matte black, like the repainted 1961 Chrysler Imperial he once drove. The wheel rims and hubs, handlebar and front suspension legs are black. Most of the chrome is gone, to be sure, except on the exhaust pipes, whose length and cut was specified by Mr. Davidson.
The engine, the same rubber-mounted, fuel-injected V-Twin used in other 1,200 cc Sportsters, is done up in a matte finish called Medium Gray, a hue also found on the transmission and airbox cover. All that gray mutes the bike’s rebel black, a reminder that for all its overtones of rebellion, Harley-Davidson is quite a conservative company.
And why shouldn’t it be, given its record of success?
The company reached its 100th birthday in 2003 and during the decade preceding, the average age of its riders had increased by roughly 10 years. It has since held roughly steady. Luring 20-somethings will require squaring respectability with rebellion.
Is the Nightster different enough to appeal to younger riders? “I expect it to be highly customized,” Mr. Christoph said of the bike. The company’s huge accessory catalog may be the true masterpiece of Harley design today. The success of Harley has always been in the ability of riders to imprint the bikes with their own personalities.
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Post by Rallymaster on Mar 17, 2007 7:10:53 GMT -6
Curious--has anyone here ever built this model? ---------------------------------------------------------- March 18, 2007 Collecting Is It the Real Thing? Or Can You Actually Drive It?
By JIM NORMAN FOR enthusiasts who want to own the car made notorious by the actor James Dean, there’s a choice:
They could spend about $1.5 million for a restored 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, the model Dean was killed in, and put it into a carefully guarded and climate-controlled garage, or pay Special Edition of Bremen, Ind., about $30,000 for a freshly built replica.
Apart from the replica body being made of fiberglass and performance that may be better than the original, most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference.
Kevin Hines, the owner of Special Edition, said his shop sold about 125 cars a year, divided evenly between Spyders and replicas of the Porsche 356A Speedster (starting at about $25,000) at varying levels of equipment and engine configurations. The bodies with interiors are shipped from Brazil, then mated with air-cooled Volkswagen-style engines and assembled at Mr. Hines’s shop. He said it took about six weeks to finish the car.
Whether it’s a replica of a Porsche or one of a handful of other classics, you don’t need to be a millionaire to travel like one when you go to the corner store for a quart of milk.
For the driver who prefers to tool around in a car like the 1938 Talbot-Lago that sold for more than $3.5 million at the Christie’s 2005 Monterey Jet Center Auction in California, perhaps a modern Talbo from TLC Carrossiers of Riviera Beach, Fla., would work. It has the original’s fluid ovoid shapes that cause collectors to swoon, and at $150,000, one less zero in the price tag.
George Balaschak, the owner of TLC , said he had built 20 cars since he started in 1991, with two more under construction. A customer has to wait up to a year for delivery, but in return he (all the customers have been men) gets a custom-mixed color and the interior he likes. One Talbo buyer chose an interior of suede and ostrich skin, Mr. Balaschak said. The car uses the same Jaguar 3.9-liter V-8 and automatic transmission that Ford uses in its Lincoln LS, mounted on a custom-built chassis. “It’s stable at 120 miles an hour,” Mr. Balaschak said. “I’ve driven faster, but I would not recommend it.”
Then, there’s one of the favorite head-turners of all time, the Auburn Speedster, known as the boattail for its distinctively pointed rear end, which sold in the 1930s for less than $2,300. One sold at the Christie’s Pebble Beach auction in California in 2001 for $314,000. But people who want to actually drive a convincing replica can buy one from Speedster Motorcars in Clearwater, Fla., for $98,000.
Speedster Motorcars also offers a modern version of another iconic collector car, the 1955 Mercedes 300SL, known as the Gullwing for its striking upward-opening doors. An original attracted 71 bids and a top offer of more than $500,000 in an eBay auction this month, but was not sold because it failed to meet the unstated reserve price. The replica sells for $125,000.
And if a classic hot rod is to your liking, you could have outbid the winner of a chopped and channeled 1938 Lincoln Zephyr, who paid $432,000 at Barrett-Jackson’s auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January 2004. Or, if you don’t mind a car that’s just a tiny bit higher off the ground in the front and can accept niceties like custom-made leather upholstery, air-conditioning, power windows and a modern V-8 engine, you could pay Speedster $98,000 and await delivery in about seven weeks.
“People who buy our cars do it because they are blown away by the body styles, and they want cars they can really take out on the street and use,” said Jeff Akins, the operations manager for Speedster, which sells 40 to 50 cars a year. Unlike the originals, he said, “these are comfortable, modern cars.”
“They have power windows, power brakes, power steering, air-conditioning, all the things that modern drivers want.” And because they use all-new, off-the-shelf General Motors suspension and drive-train components, Mr. Akins said, they are easily repaired.
In the 1968 film “The Party,” its star, Peter Sellers, drove a Morgan, a hilariously quirky three-wheeler. It had a V-twin motorcycle engine out in front of the axle between the two front wheels, and ahead of the long bonnet. The engine of this low-riding two-seater powered the single rear-drive wheel. If you were to find one of these bone-jarring contraptions, you would expect to pay an average of $20,000 and as much as $35,000, according to Hemmings Motor News.
But a modern version is available. Arthur Rayner makes the BRA MG3 Morgan replica in a 1,000-square-foot shop in Ditchling, England, about 50 miles south of London. The car has adjustable suspension, an engine with greater than the original 9 horsepower and the ability to cruise at 70 miles an hour in comfort (a relative term, when it comes to open-cockpit three-wheelers). The MG3 sells for about $32,000, more than the collector price for an original.
Jack Staples, a retired business executive who has 11 Mercedes cars in his collection in Clearwater, recently bought a replica Gullwing from Speedster Motorcars even though he owns an original.
Mr. Staples said he was attracted to the replica by the reputation of its engineer, Ron Clark, a noted Ferrari mechanic, who is also the president of Speedster Motorcars.
“He did a magnificent job on this car,” Mr. Staples said. “Apart from the lack of Mercedes badging, they are exactly the same. You can’t tell them apart.”
He said the original was “not the world’s greatest driving car.”
“It’s a bucket of bolts. I bought the replica because it’s something I can also drive.”
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Post by Rallymaster on Mar 17, 2007 6:59:49 GMT -6
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