reddsun1

another of Doug "burningman" Schramm's photoshops.... of course, Ford would never produce another coupe--nothing that could potentially cannibalize Mustang sales...pity, cause if they made a rwd coupe based on the Fusion that looked like this--and with V6 or optional V8 power--I bet they'd sell. They could conceivably reincarnate the Fairlane nameplate with it, and they could go after the 35 and up demographic, those that might not be so quick to go in for a 'Stang...

that commercial was pretty friggin sweet. lol, i couldn't even begin to fathom what the insurance premiums were to cover the cars for filming...and that little "punt" off the retainer wall with that one car---i'm sure that wasn't intentional, and i'm just as sure the owner probably sh*t himself when it happened! "!$%#%%!!!! my wheels!! #&%&^J*#@!!!"

Yup, that Holden's been in this thread a few pgs back. Strictly a styling exercise--too bad--with no hopes of ever seeing production, AFAIK. But it shows the designers there definitely have an eye for stylish, hot rod-inspired lines. This one's got lots of character to it.

LOL, I knew the response to Gushi's "mad pass" would be pretty harsh. Some of the feedback from the SCCA boards... "Gushi is a work of art, good thing only 2 cars were involved in the lead battle. If someone was ahead of Meir(forgot how to spell his name) it would have been ugly for him/her. Then the banging on the steering wheel and cursing was just hilarious, serious tard material." "I'm not a fan of that crazy-arse pass he tried at the chicane. I thought that was going to end in tears and $$$." "Yeah that was brilliant, serious assclown Type R material there." "I'm not so sure that he tried tht move. I think he didn't realize, or forgot that a Corvette could slow down for that turn, and a Z car, well, not so much. Otherwise maybe he watched the Road Atlanta Speed GT race and thought he could pull the same move on a Corvette that Bob Woodhouse did." Tough crowd, tough crowd.

Hmm....for the discerning buyer, who wants a Ferrari... only different.

I see Forza Motorsport Challenge premiered on SPEED--I caught most but not all of it. Seems pretty interesting so far. Hell, anything's better than their normal of 22 hrs of NASCAR, 1 hr of dirt/monster trucks and 1 hr of any other kind of racing! Not sure about all the competitor's backgrounds--Gushi is a sonsored drifter, and Angela Cope [the butt of "girlie racer" scoffing early in the show] is a karter and NASCAR driver Derrick Cope's niece. The others are apparently amateurs[?] Lou Gigliotti lends some credence to the show--he's a pro racer with serious credentials; should make a helluva good coach for the "kid" driving the C6 Vette, and is also well known for his Corvette high performance tuning. Bit of a brand-image "disaster" for Year One, with both their cars plagued with mechanical problems only one episode into it. Then again, they're known more for their "show" than "go" with muscle cars. I imagine Gushi's curb-hop in the road race will probably draw the ire of many in racing circles. Some will surely condemn it as "video-game" style racing, gutsy but seriously dangerous.

Okay, judging from the screen caps from a couple pages back in this thread, I'd think it's safe to say that the animators spent entirely too much time and effort in accentuating the breast and buttock anatomies of the female characters--that's just gratuitous and unncecessary. My initial reaction to pics of the [upcoming?] Ride Armor toy were: "this one might be a definite pick-one-up-er." But after studying them a little more, a deficiency in the toy's design rears its ugly head; i.e. in "Ride" mode, the bike looks too dang small to be a practical mount for the rider. Scott looks like he's trying to ride a moped or something; it looks like there's no conceivable way a rider could use the armor boots to ride/control that thing, as it appears. I realize that compromises must be made between the proportions of each mode in order to get a workable/producable toy--for instance how some say that Yamato's 1/48 VF's are optimized for fighter mode, thus compormising somewhat on battroid/gerwalk. In Toynami's case, the sculpt seems to have been optimized for the aesthetics in armor mode? I guess if the bike were made more proportionally correct, it'd have been too big for the figure to even stand when transformed?

True, a logical conclusion might be: "if it's a bigger scale, then a greater degree of accuracy should be possible..." But I don't think it's nearly so much about that, at least with 1/18 scale toy planes. I figure a lot of folks are willing to forgive minor detail misses for the sake of having one huge-a$$ cool toy to display [and yes, go swishing around the living room with when no one else is home ]. And we mustn't forget these are made to appeal to a pretty broad spectrum of consumers: from discerning adult collectors all the way down to little kids ["ages 5 and up"] who don't give a hang about whether say, the cockpit controls coincide with the prod. block variant--they just dig having one huge a$$ cool toy to play with. That, plus one must remember that these are some pretty big hunks o' plastic that're being molded. I imagine the thickness/viscosity of the material being molded may play a factor? Perhaps some fine details must be sacrificed for cost effectiveness, ability to max out the production capacity for given moulds? My wife, God love her--she got me the TBF for Valentine's Day. Upon opening it up and inspecting it [i thought I'd never be so psyched over a non-Macross/mecha toy--or a toy period--again], there are some fit and finish issues, to be sure. There are some places where gaps are present between piece edges, and the moving parts feel like they have to be handled gingerly, lest a tab/piece snap off or something; the plastic feels a bit "brittle" for lack of a better word. But I'm willing to forgive that; cause in the end, it's one HUGE A$$ cool toy.

I've often wondered "what's up with all they wildly varying scales, as if picked at random?" Like, just how the heck did they come up with 1/32 for a scale, anyway? I see 21st Cent announced a new 1/48 scale lineup as well, which is kinda cool--it's a scale I've wanted to see their toys done in. It would mean being able to display some pretty well detailed toys and see how they'd compare in size next to my VF-1S Roy. and they've announced a 1/18 Tuskeegee P-51D---ooh, I want one! I want one! A bit OT I know, but I went to Walmart last night, and low and behold, those 1/18 Avengers are clearanced down to $25. Oh, the temptation! Oh the guilt of it all! In a moment of weakness, I found myself deliberating: hmm, either something for the wife for Valentine's; or snatch up the toy, and risk her wrath? Yes, it's terrible, I know. To their credit, Bad Cat Toys has clearanced some of their 1/18's down too: the Stukas and P-51D "Hurry Home Honey"s are down to $29, and the first-run F86's are down to $36, respectively.

Yes, it is rather er, well--fugly. Someone ought to grab the head honcho's at D-C by the scruff of the neck, shake 'em around a bit and shout: "look, you've got a clear winner in the Challenger; it looks good, buyers have expressed unequivocally that they want it, and you've got a great powerplant/s to stick in it and give it some balls. Quit dickin' around and get 'em to the showrooms already!!"

Who knows? Maybe collectors will luck up, and Wal-Mart might carry some? It's been killing me when I go to my local Wally World, cause they have quite a nice selection of 1/18 21st Cent toys. -"Atlantic" Avenger [this thing's fuggin huge!] -"Bunker Hill" Corsair -"Ridge Runner" P-51D -P47D "Eagleston" and olive drab -Me109 night fighter -Ju87 Stuka Helluva selection, and all at just a measley $39.80 each--even for that big ol' Avenger! But heck, I don't have room enough for the crap I've already got! Alas, maybe someday...you could end up dedicating a whole basement or wing of a house to these big suckas!

I have a couple of 1/43 scale cars [which would be fractionally 'larger' than 1/48?] on the dresser next to my VF-1S, and Roy looks like he could hop in and drive one quite comfortably. If you use the 'official' dimensional measures that are floating around out there, then a real life VF would be about the same size as an F-16 Falcon [though ever so slightly shorter at the vert. stabilizers]. That's the frame of reference I go by. P.S. Does anybody have any pics of the 1/60 VF-0 next to a 1/48 VF? [As if there isn't scale confusion enough already] from the pics that I've seen, the pilot fig. from the VF-0 looks to me like it's the same size as the one with the 1/48. What gives?

That's you? Nice pics. Wow, Dana. You're pretty!

Oh that's an easy one. "If the Zentraedi never showed up..." then man would still find plenty of reasons to compete for resources--i.e. use racism/nationalism/or some other -ism--to come up with an "excuse" to fight and kill each other. Oh sure, there'd be increased exploration and settlement of space and the like, but in a nutshell: without the aliens, the Macross universe would pretty much be, well--GUNDAM! ...'cept maybe with more music... ...and love triangles...

OMFG, someone paid $5 Mil for Carrol Shelby's Super Snake last night! That's gotta be some kind of world record. Shelby mania has reached a new level of zaniness....it's like a cult or something...

The horror...the horror.... Doesn't surprise me a bit though. Just another of the untold number of TV show pilots that never got picked up by any studios. Who knows just how many treasure troves of cheesiness lie buried in TV studio vaults waiting to be discovered for our masochistic enjoyment.... The 'cowboy' is familiar allright--that's actor Brad Johnson, who's been in a variety of movies/television--mostly of the B-grade variety--shows over the years, most recently as a recurring char on CSI.

Don't know if this helps, but HLJ has their VF-1A "Hikaru"s on sale right now, 20% off...

Pic of the new Ford "Interceptor" concept. There's more pics out there to be found, but this one's pretty much all that's needed. Initial reaction? "Meh, looks like pretty much a rip-off of the Chrysler 300, only about 2-3 yrs after the fact." Looks kinda like an old '50s refrigerator laid over on its side, with big bling-bling DUmB wheels stuck on it.

Just scrolled back and saw the Camaro 'vertible pics. Well, at least they're getting back to basics in regard to what we've come to know and love about the 'original' Camaro; i.e. rear seat big enough for a couple of small kids or grocery bags at best. This whole thing with the plastic engine covers and what not is pretty annoying too. The people that design them ought to have to be the people that work on them; then maybe we wouldn't get so much of that superfluous crap. Besides, it's supposed to be a muscle car, right? I'd wanna see what's motivating me down the street at neck stretching velocities, not a bunch of stupid dress pieces. Looks like a big, detail-less mono-block of plastic--like the engine bay of an oversized die-cast toy.

Absolutely. Coolest. Scale. Model. EVER. Given his fabricating/engineering prowess, I'm sure it'd be no problem whatsoever for him to fab up some servos to control throttle/steering/etc. and make what would be the most accurate and expensive--and jaw dropping coolest--r/c car ever made. Hypothetically speaking of course; I realize that'd kinda spoil it in a way. In the vid when they start it up and he reaches in the font to blip the throttle, he's actually mashing the gas pedal--that's where the driver's feet would be. Gives you an appreciation for the absolute balls it took [and takes] for the men who drive these cars in anger, in an era when crash-worthiness and driver safety were mere afterthoughts. Hope it doesn't take another 15 yrs for the P4. Now that one's gonna be a fuggin monster--the sheer intricacy, twin coils, V12, and on and on, yikes!

I didn't think this warranted its own thread, felt it would be best suited here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3NVJ4pEFuY Oh. My. God. If this level of devotion--or fanaticism--is not enough to make him the true definition of "Tifosi" then I don't know what is. He's fabricated all the molds and all of the parts himself, SO HE COULD CONCEIVABLY MAKE MORE. I'm a bit torn on this though. On the one hand, I think to myself: "The folks at Ferrari should know about this." This man's devotion deserves reward--hell, they ought to give this man a Ferrari, if for no other reason than for all the positive spin they could put on it. On the other hand, I think: "No, Ferrari should never know about this man." In this litigious world we live in, and as fiercely protective as they are of their image/brand, the buggars are liable to sue the poor guy if they found out he was making "their product."

I've been catching up on Frisky Dingo on youtube, and been loving every ep. Is it by the same guys who created Sealab 2021? I can't remember any of the creative staff of that show, but I recognize some of the voice actors from Sealab in FD as well. The humor of the writing seems to be in a similar vein: campy and way out in left field--but hilarious. Has had me laughing out loud at my comp screen every ep. Definitely better than some of the other detritus that's managed to find its way into CN's programming lineup. That being said; if it is from the folks that brought us Sealab--where the hell is Eric Estrada?! C'mon, who else out there wouldn't mind having some Frisky Dingo action figures? If some independent toy maker out there took a chance, made up some 5" figures, I'd wanna go out and cop 'em.

Hee-larious! Not quite as funny as pt. 2, but still loads of fun. Hope they keep 'em coming!

I swear, this thing looks just like the "Morningstar" fighter from the old Wing Commander games....

I wouldn't be the farm on it. This is not the first time Ford's played with the idea. There are some '65 or '66 Mustangs with "wagon" rear ends on them floating around out there, but thankfully, they didn't start making Mustang wagons then, either. Don't have any pics conveniently available, but they do exist.