Groovtastic car whiff thread of grooviness.

[puddingwrestler]

Real world, but still fascinatingly whiff-ish: Kaiser Industries Argentina!
After the Kaiser corp. went bust in the US, they moved to Argentina and kept on building the same line of cars. With very interesting results when the Argentinian market demanded things like hearses and utes!
http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Argentina/

[jcf]

well.............this is one i did last year............what if the Dukes of Hazard had bought a monster truck 

Very nice, but I have hard time picturing Bo and Luke in a Japanese truck (the Chevy Luv was an Isuzu KB).

[Weaver]

Real world, but still fascinatingly whiff-ish: Kaiser Industries Argentina!
After the Kaiser corp. went bust in the US, they moved to Argentina and kept on building the same line of cars. With very interesting results when the Argentinian market demanded things like hearses and utes!
http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Argentina/

Have to say I rather like the lines of the Carabela - 

[puddingwrestler]

The stock Carabella sedans are actually exactly the same styling as the last Kaiser's made in the US. Kaiser Chief I think they were called.
Kaiser's problem was that they had bitching styling, but no V8 engines available...
And this was the era when even economy cars used a V8.

[PR19_Kit]

I took some piccies of my car Whiffs tonight, but can't find the Merlin engined Chevy van sadly. It was badly damaged some years ago and I filed it for repair, but can't remember WHERE I filed it.  

The three cars below were built in the '70s, the Super Bug in '72, the GeeTO Tiger in '74 and the All American Rail in '76, rather obviously in the latter's case. (It was the BiCentennial Year, remember?)

The Super Bug used a Revell 22jr chassis with an Airfix Bond Bug body shell, mated to an IMC SOHC Ford 427 engine. The trick is the body is 1/32 scale and the rest 1/24th....  

The GeeTO Tiger was an AMT 'Barracuda' funny car nose, itself a Whiff, mated to the back of a cut and shut AMT Pontiac GTO. The chassis was a scratchbuilt rear end mated to the front of a nameless Revell rail chassis, with the GTO engine mounted in the rear.

The All American Rail consisted of two Revell rear engined rails joined together with both their engines connected. The body is wholly vacformed over a balsa master (which amazingly I still have!) apart from the very tip of the nose. The rear part of the body had to be formed in four parts and joined together, NO fun! Most of the titles on the AAR were hand painted, I'm darned if I could do that now, and anyway I'd make my own decals for it.

All three cars won the Custom Car and Hot Rod class at the IPMS UK Nationals in their respective years, as did the missing '73 model, an RW rear engined rail and the Merlin engined van in '75. After doing that 5 years on the trot I gave up, as there was too much 'halo factor' going on, and there were other models miles better than mine that should have won.

[PR19_Kit]

2nd batch of piccies.

[Mossie]

They're great kit!  I'm especially liking the Super Bug!

[DaFROG]

Model Expo 2008 featured a hot pink camo scheme souped up Kubelwagen with V8 I believe in the back, and a similarly style Schwimmwagen - think they were by the same guy who make the V8 engines hot pink hotrod style ME109 that was there as well...

[MiB]

I love that cars...especially VW Beetle and General Lee monster truck!

[sequoiaranger]

Cars aren't my modeling "groove", though I have made my share over the years.

What has always surprised me over the years is that car guys seem to have full "permission" from their peers to cut, chop, decorate, customize, etc. *CARS* and are lauded for it, but aircraft or ship guys seem to have the JMN gene and have stoutly resisted recognizing the "legitimacy" of these whiffs.

Rant aside, I like seeing custom car models. Keep it up.

[Geoff]

Sorry not a Wif - but I want one of these!

[puddingwrestler]

Cars aren't my modeling "groove", though I have made my share over the years.

What has always surprised me over the years is that car guys seem to have full "permission" from their peers to cut, chop, decorate, customize, etc. *CARS* and are lauded for it, but aircraft or ship guys seem to have the JMN gene and have stoutly resisted recognizing the "legitimacy" of these whiffs.

Rant aside, I like seeing custom car models. Keep it up.

That is because it is done in reality. Most car modelers (especially me) get into it because they lvoe the idea of customized cars but either cannot afford them,. or are to young to drive. Also, some of the things you can afford to do with a model would run into six or seven figures in reality...
Real world car culture is divided into those who like cars pure and exactly as they left the factory (the Concourse Crowd) and those who can't help but try to improve something, often performance, but sometimes looks, classiness, comfort etc (the Customizers).
Customizers are further divided by what they customize and how. This can be very confusing to those outside of the culture. For instance, anything built after 1948 cannot be a Hotrod when using the hard line definition of hot rod. There are JMN-like hot rodders who will fight to the death about this definition!
Also, the exact meaning of 'custom' depends on how it is spelled. With a 'k' is different from with a 'c'...
It's all rather confusing really.
But it's an accepted part of the culture, so the modelling side accepts it as well. In fact, things are free-er on the modelling side. No one will say 'You cut up a perfectly good model of a Dusenberg SJ? That'd make me cry!' but they would say 'You cut up a perfectly good Dusenberg SJ? You've made me cry!' if you used the real thing. People do to models what they cannot do to real cars, and other people respect them fro doing it.

[DaFROG]

fresh from this years model expo:

[Weaver]

Customizers are further divided by what they customize and how. This can be very confusing to those outside of the culture. For instance, anything built after 1948 cannot be a Hotrod when using the hard line definition of hot rod. There are JMN-like hot rodders who will fight to the death about this definition!
Also, the exact meaning of 'custom' depends on how it is spelled. With a 'k' is different from with a 'c'...
It's all rather confusing really.

Uh huh - try starting a discussion around a bike rally camp fire about the difference between a Lowrider, a Chopper, a Bobber and a Streetfighter. Then walk away quickly while a) sanity and a b) peace still prevail.....

[raafif]

in a far distant future ...
           where vehicles still need to be tested, comes ...
                                                the cloned & improved descendant of the Stig.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rg-b/4412408932/in/pool-855956@N24