Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Tiny Car Podcast Episode #8 Drag racing special with Jim Kampmann
56 Plays10 months ago
Torben and Jim go through a number of drag racing subjects and techniques used in building them.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Tiny Car Podcast
00:00:03
Torben Rothgeb
Welcome to the Tiny Car Podcast. This is your host, Torben Ross-Geb, and my co-host, Bob Madrigg, coming to you live from the Lake Creek Studios in beautiful Minneapolis, the coolest city in the world.
00:00:17
Torben Rothgeb
Hello, everyone. It is great to be back at the Lake Street Studios. Thank you for listening to the Tiny Car Podcast. We wouldn't be able to do this without all of our amazing fans.
Guest Jim Campman on Drag Racing
00:00:29
Torben Rothgeb
We are happy to welcome Jim Campman back. How's it going, Jim? It's going very well, Torben. Thanks for asking.
00:00:36
Torben Rothgeb
Well, unfortunately, Bob could not be with us tonight. He is in church getting right with God, saying some prayers, thanking God that he got done with his indie kit, um and hoping for a good white elephant present. But we got Jim here, and today's show is going to be drag racing focused.
Achievements and Future of Melrose Missile
00:00:57
Torben Rothgeb
That is one of the areas that Jim excels in. He won a lot of things with his Melrose missile this year.
00:01:05
Torben Rothgeb
um Now quite shamelessly, I have a lot of future projects here, and I would like to ah get your advice on the best way to build these.
Building Realistic 80s NASCAR Models
00:01:16
Torben Rothgeb
Now we're going to be working off a three-point rubric. all right So bear with me as I explain this three-point rubric. And I'll use an 80s NASCAR as an example.
00:01:29
Torben Rothgeb
okay So for number one on this rubric, if I was building an 80s NASCAR, like a Buick Regal or a Monte Carlo or something like that, um there are a few things I would have to do, even if I was just building it for fun, even if I was just building it for for the shelf. sure um The window nets have always bugged me with those. So I've removed the window nets. The exhaust headers had an experimental kind of thing where they you glued them together. I would cut those off. And then the exhaust dumps looked really bad. So I'd replace those with um either aluminum tubing or plastic tubing. um And then the windshield, depending on the one that you're doing you know between the Grand Prix or the the Regal or the Monte Carlo,
00:02:20
Torben Rothgeb
um would need a little bit of work um like the Regals and Salvino's fixed that when they redid it but still you might have to add some material to the front window. chair And so the at the very least I'd have to do that to those just to get them to look ye okay. So that was my number one. um Now for a rubric number two,
00:02:44
Torben Rothgeb
um They didn't have roll bar padding, so if you want to get a little more detailed, you could add some roll bar padding. um You could do seat belts and stuff like that, sure adding extra detail, um you know maybe run some oil cooling lines and stuff like that um for a number two.
00:03:06
Torben Rothgeb
um rubric and then number three I don't usually go there but we would call that like if somebody is just knocking it out the park for a contest build and trying to uber detail it so kind of like clay campish blowing up the car yeah and doing everything so we'll we'll be working off that three-point rubric as we go through some of these cars sure um and thinking about how how to build them now um atlantis just came out with the mickey thompson they've been re issuing the one sixteenth scale cars
Challenges in 1/16th Scale Model Building
00:03:42
Torben Rothgeb
uh... so if i'm building a one sixteenth scale one and we can talk about that one specifically uh... what would i need to do for a number one the the bare necessities just uh... to make it passable well there any changes i would have to do for it out of the box uh... well i mean i think that if you built it out of the box and followed
00:04:05
Torben Rothgeb
the pain scheme and did all the decals and because it comes with wiring it comes with the blower belt it comes with poseable wheels um you would have a pretty accurate representation of the car now how accurate is the wiring that comes with it it's pretty it's pretty decent uh... this particular atlantis the one sixteenth kits that they've brought out um are basically the Ravel tooling from the early 70s. So Ravel had at that time in the 70s had like a vinyl tubing that they used, whereas they should have used um steel braided braided braided line. yeah
00:04:53
Torben Rothgeb
But they didn't have that at the time. I don't know why, but it was probably expensive. um And we're talking mass-produced kits coming from you know China or whatever. so um So maybe the ProTech line? Well, what I'm out i'm getting at is I suppose I haven't seen this kit, you know, you didn't open this so we haven't looked at it. But my understanding is it does have something that represents the braided line. Okay, nice. I don't know how close it is without looking at it ahead of time, but they're ah they're a little finicky, the kits are to build. um But if you take your time and follow the instructions,
00:05:34
Torben Rothgeb
Um, you can make a pretty decent model out of it. I know I built a couple of those when I was a kid, you know, when I was 12 or whatever, and, uh, I was pretty, pretty happy with the results. Uh-huh. So yeah, I mean, I think it's, if you're talking about, you said number one. Yeah. The Atlantis one. Yeah. I think, I think it would be pretty decent. Um, the car has been restored. So there's a lot of pictures out there right now of the car. Um, so.
00:06:02
Torben Rothgeb
Yeah, that's, you know, if you want to do something more involved in that on that particular kit, um you'd be swapping out parts and that kind of thing, because if you're getting this specific... Like, yeah, if you wanted to move up to number two, right and you wanted to, you know, add some maybe a fittings ah to the gas tank. sure And now what do they call that that's attached? It looks, you know, where the normal ah fan belt would be on a car. what did they that What's the official name for that where the fuel line comes into it and then it distributes the fuel. It's like a fuel pump or? Yeah. I mean the the front of the engine the front of the engine has ah a pulley system. but It's a blower basically. It's a 871 supercharger and then there's pulleys that come off the front of that and there's a blower belt that you know
00:06:59
Torben Rothgeb
is in sync with all the different pulleys. And then in then inside that is the fuel pump. okay yeah And then that'll like that'll actually be in the kit and the lines for that will be in and you'll run those lines up to the fuel tank, which would be up in the front. And there you go. It's ah pretty simple.
00:07:19
Torben Rothgeb
um Pretty straightforward. You're going to have, like you talked about one, two, and three, there will be seat belts, which are more of a harness type of thing. ah And you're talking about early 70s, so technology wise, you know, the cars were or somewhat of a representation of the real body or the real car. um And so they were big. And, you know, as opposed to now, which they're tiny and stuff is a lot smaller, so that there's not as much room to put all that stuff in the car, if that makes sense. but Yeah, now I do remember when Clay Kemp, he built, when I think it was Revell, redid the charger.
00:08:07
Torben Rothgeb
The Hawaiian charger. The 116th kit. He did a photoetched steering wheel. So did Model Car Garage do a 116th Funny Car set? I believe it's actually um ah fairmon Fairmont. Scott Poppam makes a lot of 116th scale photoetched parts. He does some some steering wheels or you know that kind of thing.
00:08:35
Torben Rothgeb
Does that same set come with seat buckles? I believe so. ah um Okay, cool. So now good color for the Mickey Thompson blue, just a regular um metal flake blue. Yeah, you know, you've got this color here. What is that? Well, this is a medium blue. Yeah. And that was
Finding Right Colors for Mustang Models
00:08:57
Torben Rothgeb
I had that out for the Ed McCullough blue um for the Rebel one. But I know um in the past I've done
00:09:08
Torben Rothgeb
the TS maybe 19 for a metallic blue. I did the Ninja 65 Galaxy car in that. It's kind of a darker metallic blue. um And then ah this blue ah that I had on the Mickey Thompson Mustang Funny car. Is that the Mica blue? That's straight ah the LP. um And that with, you know, I cut that with some of that Mr. Hobby self-leveling. Right, but what LP color is that? Boy, I don't have a lot of time remembering that. But yeah, I think that looks like a like a blank and blue. that looks That looks pretty good. It might be a little little bit dark.
00:09:53
Torben Rothgeb
You just have to play around a little bit. Yeah. so Yeah. Now, for the green elephant, that's just a regular metallic green. Like a medium metallic green. No, it's it's like it to me ah Don't they make like a candy grain or like a Something to that effect. No, okay it's more of but It's more of a candy type color that actually looks right on. I've seen a few people build that car and with the cans that's what they use and it looked really good. ahha Yeah, now of course if you're doing the Atlantis, they redid the wheels. so um But if you're doing an older one, 16th kit, then you probably want to replace the wheels with the Atlantis ones. yeah
00:10:37
Torben Rothgeb
because the ones in this Ace McCullough one were real like spongy rubbery. Well they were trying to make them as realistic as possible and they those tires don't have a lot of air in them and so they wrinkle you know on the ground and so that was they were trying to replicate that effect but you could actually get you know, to look like that. But unfortunately, over time, those tires would shrink in the plastic bag in the box and true up like a rubber band. Okay.
Popularity of Atlantis Kits
00:11:10
Torben Rothgeb
And so you would open the box, like if you hadn't bought the kit yet, or if you had bought one in a swap and you opened it up and it went, OMG, what's going on?
00:11:20
Torben Rothgeb
Atlantis when we did the tires for the all those kits and they sell them on their website and then they're just like the you know regular kit tires that you see in all the kits that are out today so this was just kind of a one-off thing that Ravel did they were trying to replicate you know an accurate method for the tires and anyway so that's kind of that thing but yeah Yeah, I think the Atlantis kits are pretty nice. I mean, the plastic quality is good. They're made in the USA, low production numbers. So if you're interested in getting one, you probably wouldn't want to wait around too long. Yeah, they're pretty popular.
00:12:04
Torben Rothgeb
Yeah, well, one of these days I have ah ah bought, I think in total, probably about eight or nine of them. So it's about time for me to build one. Eight or nine, one sixteenth kits? yeah Yeah. Really? Unfortunately. Yeah, well, when Revell came out with the Hawaiian, I got the Hawaiian charger. yeah And then I got the green elephant and then I got the jungle gym one.
00:12:28
Torben Rothgeb
And then at Mantiques, that wonderful place in Wisconsin, I bought the Vega body. I'm trying to get around this without hitting the microphone. yeah I got this body ah for 20 bucks, ah but then I had to buy another jungle gym car for a donor kit.
00:12:45
Torben Rothgeb
yeah Um so I got that one and then uh Mark Raleigh uh had uh Ed McCullough one for sale and then he gave me a Mickey Thompson yellow one and then uh Ralph uh was nice enough beside the Mickey Thompson blue one. Okay. Um and then I also have one of Scott's buys, he had ah the Chitown Hustler decals and a few parts in it. And then I was able to piece together another Mark Raleigh partial one. ah So I could probably build that one
Model Kit Acquisitions and Plans
00:13:21
Torben Rothgeb
as well. So okay um yeah, so one of these days I'm gonna have to put one of those together. And actually the dungeon, they have those bigger cases that I have my indie kit in and I think they would fit in there.
00:13:36
Torben Rothgeb
Only $8. Yeah, you'll have to have a big case for those. and you know they there But they're not huge. They're not as big as you would think, maybe. Hell, I think now almost at to that kit is almost that big just because those Indy cars are so long.
00:13:54
Torben Rothgeb
Yeah, I mean, they're they're all basically, these are basically like one 18th diecast size, maybe a little smaller because they're one 16th. But yeah, no, I think you're right. i think They're, they're more manageable.
00:14:07
Torben Rothgeb
Yeah. Now you were responsible for all of the polar lights, funny cars. Yeah. And so, um, I got a few of those I wanted to ask you about, uh, the, uh, why don't we start with the big John, uh, Tasmanian, uh, the, uh, Barracuda, um, funny car. Now you were saying a good, uh, color, a good mix for the candy red.
00:14:31
Torben Rothgeb
would be the TS 42 and the TS, whatever the clear red is. fair yeah yeah And so i'm I'm trying, you know, in the past, people have said gold for an under color for that. But whenever I did that, it always turned out more orangish bronze. It was a good looking color. But unfortunately, ah you know, I was at at the time I was trying to do the 41 Willys. And it it was a great color, but it wasn't the John Mazmanian color.
00:15:01
Torben Rothgeb
I think you could play around with the bronze actually would might be a closer color to the base gold. and And those cars were all different too. So the mazmanian cars were all basically the same candy color. But if you got to a different team, they might it might not be exactly the same shade and that kind of thing. So you want to test it out, see what kind of color pictures you can find out. There's a lot of stuff out on the Internet of but of that kind of thing.
00:15:31
Torben Rothgeb
So now for the ah chassis underneath the funny cars, um how did they change over the years? Well, I mean, they evolved like anything else, like NASCAR, or those kinds of things. The early, early funny cars were the ultra wheel based cars like the Melrose Missley you brought up. Yeah, I built. um They were more of an altar wheel base.
00:15:58
Torben Rothgeb
wheel wells, wheelbase, and the car still had the engine in the front. The driver sat basically in the same location as the original car, um maybe moved to the center, and they evolved to the point where they had a removable body, and it was still based on an original, you know, original steel body, and then they made a fiberglass reproduction. Dino Don Nicholson and Eddie Sharman, those gentlemen started out with the early funny cars, the Ford variant, and then Chrysler got involved with some of the stuff that they wanted to produce or to sponsor. And so um the early funny cars, like you said, the big John Mazmanian or the gas Ronda car that you got there on the table, those were like a Logie style. Logie was a chassis manufacturer, you could go
00:16:55
Torben Rothgeb
buy a chassis from them, get the right wheelbase and pick your engine and whatever and go go racing. So they all had catalogs back then. And these guys ran across you know the United States you know every day of the week, match racing. And there weren't that many races at the time. So people were just trying to make a living. It was kind of a circus type atmosphere. and But they evolved to the point where they you know you know spend more money and make the car you want to make the car go faster, make it safer, NHRA and IHRA, and they were all involved in the development of the rules for those cars. And so you've got a bunch of different representations of the different periods that
00:17:49
Torben Rothgeb
that they ran. So now ah the chassis that came under all of the 70s rebel kits, was that still a Logi chassis or whose chassis was that by then? No, there were there were a few guys that was more specialized. ah John Butera was involved in in that and they were they were actually You would get them more out and out in California and in the Midwest, Chicago.
70s Drag Racing Chassis Customization
00:18:18
Torben Rothgeb
um There were different guys who were building them. But they were they were more, would I don't know how to explain it, you would go pick up the car and it would have the body and the chassis and it would be sitting on wheels and tires. And then you'd go you know have the engine built, head pink would build an engine for it. And then you'd go pick that up and then get the car painted. And then you're off to the races or whatever. So that's kind of how that
00:18:44
Torben Rothgeb
Uh-huh. How that went in the 70s. Now, did the engines follow the manufacturers or did everybody run Hemis or they run the 429 Ford engines? Yeah, I mean, it's it's ah it's a complicated question.
00:19:01
Torben Rothgeb
because you have to look at the different manufacturers when they got out of racing like Chevrolet and you know GM got out of out of racing completely in the 60s. So there were guys that were still loyal to Chevrolet like Bruce Larson or Dick Harrell. So they would still run a blown, it wouldn't be a Hemi, but it would be a Chevrolet big block Chevy engine.
00:19:27
Torben Rothgeb
And they were pretty successful with it jungle ran jungle Jim ran a Chevy engine when he could but He ended up switching over to Chrysler's in the 70s because they were just more reliable and he didn't have time to waste on trying to make them work and that kind of thing that the Fords were Were difficult to to keep them running all the time they were you know high maintenance, they had the, you know, the chain drive, the 429s and the 427 sock motors were complicated. And so they tried to run them, but
00:20:07
Torben Rothgeb
The Chrysler's were just so much more reliable, more purpose built, you know, like a NASCAR, you know, same kind of thing. So, um, they just kind of want out in the, in the end. And then, you know, it just got to the point where it didn't make sense to run anything else because availability and cost. So what year do you think they gave up on the Ford motors and just want all Hemis?
00:20:32
Torben Rothgeb
Well, it would have been the early seventies. There were still a couple of guys that were in die, die hard. You know, they were going to go to the end, but they weren't, you know, there was one, uh, gentlemen, I want, we won't get into too much because it was a dragster, but he actually ran a, uh, a blown, uh, Chevy engine. Jim butcher was his name. And he actually won a couple of national events ah with that in the seventies. Um, but for the most part, everybody was running Chrysler's.
00:20:59
Torben Rothgeb
Okay. You know, it's kind of like the rear engine dragster craze that, you know, took off because of garlots and then everybody was running those too.
Hemis Dominance in 70s Drag Racing
00:21:07
Torben Rothgeb
So, but anyway. Yeah. Now I'm moving, uh, well for the polar lights you did, uh, now I got the, the Barracuda funny car and then the, um, the gas Ronda, I believe allowed you to do a 69 or a 70 Ford. And then there was also a Dodge Charger.
00:21:29
Torben Rothgeb
that they did. Mini charger, right? The Mr. Norm, Mr. Norm and the Hawaiian chargers. 69 mini charger, that's what they called it. Now, um how were they compared to the one that Revell came out with in the early 2000s? So you're talking about the like the Chai Town Hustler. The Hawaiian and the Chai Town Hustler. Those were purpose built. I mean, they they spent a lot of tooling money on those.
00:21:58
Torben Rothgeb
kits and they had actual cars that they measured off of. Whereas the polar light stuff that we did was based on the resin bodies that we developed that were accurate at the time of the actual cars. Based on, you know, we started with when we did our bodies, we started with a stock production like Charger or Barracuda. And my partner was in the business, Jim Johnson. He actually stretched the wheelbase and all that to make the, you know, the longer nose and all that kind of thing. And narrow the body, chop the top. ah hu But they were made, the molds were made from those masters. Whereas the Chi-town hustler, the Hawaiian, you're talking about the Ravel in the early 2000s, where they had the actual Hawaiian
00:22:47
Torben Rothgeb
Funny car that was restored and they measured off of that which you know, you can just Could basically it's a replica of the actual car now that that's the car that was an a newer version or that was a car that was run in the late 60s early 70 was 60 it was 69 70 Actually 70 was the this is the one that you've got there on your shelf there but um we did the Hawaiian and they also did Hawaiian so there's actually two of two recommendations or are renditions of
00:23:24
Torben Rothgeb
the same car. ahha But the difference is that the one we did, we based it off a production kit, and the one they did was off the actual real car that was restored. They found the car in Hawaii, brought it over here, had it rest restored, and it's right on the money as far as accuracy and that
Evolution of Hawaiian Funny Car
00:23:44
Torben Rothgeb
kind of thing. So it's it's more a case of, I mean, the Hawaiian has a story of it's all of its own where um when they When they ran the first Charger, um it was out in California and it actually took off in the lights at the top end. It took off like a plane oh and crash. Yeah, no one got hurt or anything like that. But after that, he built another car and it was a lot different. The chassis was different. It was much safer. um okay And it was kind of a legendary car over the 70s.
00:24:19
Torben Rothgeb
Yeah, now I think i I met one of the drivers at the Farmington Mopar in the parks show. And he was, he got in a wreck. ah Larry Reyes is his name. Yes, Larry Reyes.
00:24:32
Torben Rothgeb
but now that was a different But he drove that Hawaiian car that I was talking about that ah that crashed, yeah but he didn't get hurt it in that car. Okay, he got hurt later on. He got hurt in another car in the 70s. He's still around, obviously you met him. <unk> Great guy. yeah ah He drove a lot of different cars for different drive for different teams.
00:24:54
Torben Rothgeb
but da So now if you were looking for a donor chassis, what would be the better chassis to use? Could you use the the newer Revell one from the early 2000s? You could depending on which car you wanted to do. ahha it would I mean if you want to do a different charger, yeah you could do that.
00:25:16
Torben Rothgeb
and the The one thing I would say, would you don't have one here, I brought mine that I built. The Chi-town Hustler that Revell did yeah was a very unique chassis. The driver sat off to the side more in in the normal location.
00:25:31
Torben Rothgeb
ahha and he had like an escape hatch and on the car and that kind of thing. That would be like a one of a kind. He wouldn't use that for another. The Chi-town and would it just be that year or would you do it for the later charger, the Chi-town hustler? No, you you would go back youd go back to the Ravel.
00:25:50
Torben Rothgeb
early 70s. If you want to do like what you were talking about before, the Hawaiian that you have in 1 16th, that's out. It was out, you know, a few years ago, like Clay did. That was a pretty accurate chassis, you know, as Ravel did a lot of those. ah so Okay, sounds good. Well, tell me about the resin ones, because before you did polar lights, you did resin. How many different resin bodies did you do?
00:26:17
Torben Rothgeb
Well, so funny car specifically, I think we did probably about 40 of them, different ones. 40 different bodies. Yeah. Wow. I mean, if you, you know, it's just one of those things where you start doing them and it's like, well, we should do this one. Well, let's change this and do that. And then pretty soon you go, well, you know, it just kind of, it's like anything else, supply and demand, what kind of strikes your fancy, um,
00:26:44
Torben Rothgeb
You know, so if if a kid comes, if a stock, you know, know what kid comes out and you go, geez, we should do a funny car off of that. and That just kind of starts the ball rolling and then.
00:26:56
Torben Rothgeb
You know, we focused on cars that we really liked. That was kind of our interest in the hobby from from the get-go. So we wouldn't do like a thunderbird, like a fictitious car that ah looked like a funny car or whatever. okay We focused on actual race cars. real race cars um You've got a couple there on the table, that the jungle Jim Camaro. ah That was one that we were hoping that polar lights would do. but Um, that we just ran out of time and different things happened. And, you know, over the course of the timeframe where people left the company and they weren't interested in doing that kind of thing anymore. It wasn't a case of, you know, they didn't want to do it, but it just didn't happen. So.
00:27:43
Torben Rothgeb
Now you did an earlier Camaro, and that was more probably a lot more accurate than the Model King Reissue. i I built that, but it took quite a bit of stuff to do. Actually, the 68 Camaro that we had was um ah one that a friend of ours that was a really good bill. He's still around. He still builds named Paul Rowe, and he was doing some bodies on his own. And he basically offered that up to us.
00:28:11
Torben Rothgeb
um In trade for some bodies basically. Okay, and they were really really nicely done and so You know one is sitting in your lap and you don't have to spend a lot of money and you give them give them the credit that he he deserves Okay, it's a great way to to get stuff done. and I know people do that all the time where they're offered They're like in 3d printing now. They're looking for people that actually are designers who'd be interested in selling some of the stuff they've done and it's ah It's a fun way to do things. I've met a lot of really great people over the years that were able to do some of those things. and It helps us helps everybody in the long run, the hobby as well as the consumers. so
00:28:55
Torben Rothgeb
ahha yeah So now I had, on my last podcast, I had Andy Martin on, and he was talking about when Johan came out with their Mustang Funny Car. Yeah, the one he had here.
Accuracy of Johan Mustang Kits
00:29:11
Torben Rothgeb
Yeah, um that it was kind of groundbreaking because up until that point, the kit manufacturers were just taking sco stock kits sure and doing Funny Cars. But this was the first like kind of purpose-built um Funny Car.
00:29:26
Torben Rothgeb
Now you mentioned that for this particular body, um it was the Mickey Thompson. It was accurate for the Mickey Thompson. Yeah, it's it's only good for that car. It would not surely mold down a one. It would not be. It's it's doable. I think it's passable. I don't think it's too far off that it doesn't look good. But it's not it's not the same. You know, she actually ran at the time her boyfriend whatever, Connie Kalita was the, yeah and he built a car originally and then he got a new car and then she got that that Mustang and they repainted it. okay and And they all had Chrysler's in them, they weren't they weren't using Ford engines at all. So it would need a Hemi in it.
00:30:13
Torben Rothgeb
and um the It was a different ah fiberglass body manufacturer than did Mickey Thompson's. Mickey Thompson's cars were all on his own. i mean he did He had those built in his shop. He had a couple of gentlemen that were but working for him that did all of his work for him.
00:30:33
Torben Rothgeb
Pat Foster is one of the guys. ah and that's why they got in He was involved in with Ford engines in the 60s, but you know this particular car that you've got has actually got a Ford engine in it. so
00:30:48
Torben Rothgeb
and that's pretty much That was pretty much it. he After that, he ended up running Chrysler's in then in some of the newer cars. He only raced on the funny cars up until like the mid 70s, like 76, 77. And he got out of it after that, so. Now, um AMT, is it AMT or MPC that did the Connie Colletta funny car, the Mustang funny car? Oh, you're talking about the white one? Yeah. Yeah, that was MPC. MPC. Now, ah you're saying that body's maybe a little bit off?
00:31:22
Torben Rothgeb
Oh, well, no, to do that car, it would yeah wouldn't be that far off. Okay. And then what was the light blue one they reissued? Blue Max. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's pretty accurate. It's pretty accurate. Build it out of the box. Okay. Good. Good. um Now, while let's see. Did we do all the funny cars? I'm still just amazed. 40 different funny cars. How many of them can you name?
00:31:53
Torben Rothgeb
I'm sure I'd run out after like 30 or so But if I really thought about it because you know the thing is is I resident cast every one of those things Okay, nobody else read resin cast me so I would remember what I did So you know if you know if you get into the grand and we get all the Mustangs You know all that stuff. No it would it wouldn't take that long but um I mean as far as what you have there The only thing you haven't really touched on, I would say, would be the Penzel or the Pepsi Wendy's, Perdome Car, the the Firebird. That was another series that Monogram came out with in the early 80s, 85 actually.
00:32:36
Torben Rothgeb
and those were really accurate at the time. So you know like I would just say if you want to build something for fun out of the box, I know how you like things to be. Well, you know yeah there's not a lot of cleanup.
00:32:53
Torben Rothgeb
no um No, I built, because I built the Bluemax Mustang, yeah um ah which is the same chassis. And I was amazed, because I had done a handful of Revell 70's 125th scale funny cars. And so I'm building and I'm like, damn, I'm almost done.
Building Challenges with Older Kits
00:33:09
Torben Rothgeb
And I was just amazed because, ah but you know, it shouldn't surprise me because monogram engineering wise have always been pretty, pretty well put together and they go together pretty well.
00:33:22
Torben Rothgeb
So yeah, that I wish they would have done a ah more some of the 70s chassis che because that Revell chassis gets really old after a while and it's hard. As many ah really cool 70s funny cars that I'd like to build, um it is it is kind of hard to go back and sand off all that stuff.
00:33:45
Torben Rothgeb
especially if you got a two-part chassis that you're going together. yeahp And then you gotta strip off all the chrome on those 70's rebel cards, re-chrome them, or you know if you're doing a level three, like our our boy Jay Lewis always did, I think he remade a lot of those parts with just metal rod and you know stuff for the chassis. And then you're you're going down a rabbit hole and probably going to get 100 hours into your your build, at least. I would say more than that, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. um So, but no, the monogram one. And I got the decals from Chuck to do the Pepsi Challenger. And you've been working with Chuck. I don't want to mispronounce it as Bork. Borkner.
00:34:39
Torben Rothgeb
foreign toughborn And I also have the snake. Right. Army car. Army car. And so I'm looking forward to building those. They're really good and engineered. Now the question I had too, Monogram did a Corvette, right? But it was a fictitious Corvette funny car. Or was it MPC? Maybe MPC in the 80s. Somewhere in the mid 80s. Yeah. um I was in the mid to late 70s that they
Corvette Funny Car Model Accuracy
00:35:15
Torben Rothgeb
did the Corvette. It wasn't wasn't very good. no i there's i mean there's There's a couple different ones we could talk about. There was AMT did one.
00:35:24
Torben Rothgeb
And MPC did one. MPC one actually was pretty nice. It was the late 70s. It was very close to like ah Tom McEwen or John Forrest's body. And Tom West was involved in that that time at the time with MPC. So he had been working with Ravel and Aurora and jumped into MPC and got them to do Corvette, an Omni,
00:35:54
Torben Rothgeb
that were both really accurate. the So you could build actual race cars out from those? No one ever did really any decals for those bodies. You know, they were fictitious cars and the NPC livery. Yeah. Now, so you, but the like if, cause they did the decals for the Tom McEwen, the gray Corvette, the Hot Wheels had a car on it. They did it. So you could do that from the kit.
00:36:24
Torben Rothgeb
o Well, I mean, know it would be, um, you have to do some test fitting. I just say that with the decals. Okay. Cause they are more design. We actually had a resin body that was 124 scale and slick said decals, several different versions of that car. Okay. Um, that's a good stuff for us. Yep. Truth be to a comp resins also made the same body so you could get it from them too. Okay. So, all right.
00:36:54
Torben Rothgeb
Well, and then, um, Salvino's is supposed to be doing a new, uh, funny car. Yeah. New Toyota. They had the Toyota contract with NASCAR. And so, um, you know, they were, you know, kind of got roped into it that way. Um, are you looking forward to those? or I am actually, I'm, I'm, uh, always excited to see something new, uh, from anybody if if they want to put the money into it. If Toyota sounds like they're.
00:37:23
Torben Rothgeb
gung-ho to have replica models of their cars. Bron caps had a Hot Wheels tribute car that he wanted. Oh, that'd be really cool. And I'm sure that's something that they would want to do. So yeah, i I welcome that with open arms. So I'm hoping it's, you know, got a lot of detail and fun to build. So yeah. Awesome.
00:37:48
Torben Rothgeb
And then out of new stuff coming, i also ah Mobius was redoing ah the Maverick, the Johan Maverick. um Now it's not really redoing it, they're doing their own doing their own version. yeahs i mean We used the Johan as a guide, yeah but it it's all new tooling from China. And surprisingly the Johan cars were werere really close to being right on the money. They didn't have to do that much, ahha change a lot to to get to match well what Mobius is doing with this but this new car. so well and And looking by you know by all the other Mobius stuff, it's going to be really accurate yeah as well. Oh yeah, yeah. ah hu and And when do you think that'll be out?
00:38:40
Torben Rothgeb
Um, I'm hoping it's going to be this year. I haven't. Well, it wouldn't be this year. It'd be next year, 20, 25, because we're into, you know, December 20, 24. So yeah, I would think probably middle of the next year, we'd see them on the shelves. Now, do they plan on doing any, uh, specific, uh, drivers? Uh, well, you mean you're talking about basically probably pro stock. Yeah. Pro stock. Yeah. I know they're they're talking about doing like a Dino Don Nicholson, uh, Maverick.
00:39:10
Torben Rothgeb
Um, maybe maybe any sharp and I haven't heard any licensing for those yet. So I don't know if they'll be, you know, fictitious or what we're talking about, but they would be very accurate for that particular era of car. Yeah. If you wanted to build the model, I'm sure as you know, slicks and those companies will have decals form if they aren't available already. Now, how likely do you think they'll do the mercury comment?
00:39:35
Torben Rothgeb
Oh, I think it's pretty likely because it's really not. There's not much to change. Just ah yeah the grill on the hood and the and the tail light panel. Yeah. I mean, if they do a a Mercury pickup truck more than likely they do a Mercury Bobcat. Yeah. Well, awesome. That's definitely something I'm going to look forward to.
00:39:55
Torben Rothgeb
um Well, moving on to other projects, I think I've i've run through about the funny cars I'm interested in. um The Thunderbolt, you've mentioned before, Revell came out with that in the 80s sometime? ah Yeah, I'm trying to think, early 80s, I believe. Now, and that goes together pretty well straight out of the box, do you think? Oh, yeah. No, it's it's ah it's a very nicely designed, engineered kit.
00:40:24
Torben Rothgeb
I'd say the only challenge really would be the headers because they had those, I don't know what you want to call them, but they were very, they went around the actual cross member and the front suspension. um So you actually have to like put them on in the back, you know, like inside the chassis, like you of flip the car upside down and slide it up into the engine compartment and and they like glue together like two pieces.
00:40:52
Torben Rothgeb
So now you want to do that at the end? Yes. OK. All right. Good to know. Good to know. um Yeah, I have ah visions of trying to do the Georgia Shaker Thunderbolt, and then also the Georgia Shaker Falcon that Model King ah did. ah Now, that kid is a little more crude, right? um now ah To get a number one, even to get to a number one for the Model King kit, what would you recommend on on that one? Well, I mean, just from my experience with those kits, they look a lot better sitting on the shelf than they do. Well, no, I mean, i'm not i'm not it's not a dig, it's just that
00:41:45
Torben Rothgeb
they if you look at a like if if you If you build model cars, for example, and you've built a few of them, you'll know that the chassis fits tight up against each side of the body on the inside underneath. ah And it's tight inside that body. Whereas these kits were not that way. They had a huge gap around the outside on the inside of the body.
00:42:10
Torben Rothgeb
and You would have to actually secure it some way because I'll just flop around inside inside the body. and um It doesn't look that good when you flip it upside down. I'll just say that. Actually, the year relate to that the year we went to the N and L East, I think my brother had built one of those. okay And then somebody else had really made that a labor of love. sure And I remember my brother talking about they they don't belong on the same table because he had built his you know straight out of the box. yeah oh yeah and you know
00:42:48
Torben Rothgeb
You have to look at it. It was the only game in town. It was the only one that was ever done was the AMT Falcon at the time. That's what you get. People embraced it. They had a lot of fun with it. Got a lot of licensed kits out of the deal and they sold more kits. You were lucky enough to find them.
00:43:12
Torben Rothgeb
Yeah. yeah no yeah ah to what And the way things turn out, I i don't know if I was telling you this, but so I bought the Phil Bonner one for like, of course, I got the Phil Bonner one for $5 at our auction. Nobody was bidding on it.
00:43:29
Torben Rothgeb
Uh, but then I was thinking I'd like to do with the Ford rollback truck. I'd like to do, um, a Thunderbolt and an altered one. yeah we talked about that And, uh, so then, and it looked good if they're all the same color, same team. Um, and so then I'm wondering.
00:43:46
Torben Rothgeb
Well, that's the same kit. Then how would I do that? Make aftermarket decals and not really, but there's not much to it. And so then I'm scrolling around on eBay for about, you know, three weeks and finally one comes up, but it's partially built. It's not altogether, but it has the decals I need. So then I'm, you know, I'm debating and it says, well, you know, screw it. You only live once.
00:44:09
Torben Rothgeb
And so I bought one that was partially built ah and it was like for basically for the decals because I had the Phil Bonner complete one. And so and it ended up but between shipping and all the little things that they they put on for eBay, something like $45. And then, wouldn't you know,
00:44:29
Torben Rothgeb
I'm at the dungeon for something completely different and they had bought out a collection and then they have a sealed one on the shelf for $49 for, you know, about what I paid for this partial one just for the decast. So, um, like many projects, it starts out as a $5 filled bond or complete one. And then you go down a rabbit hole and then, you know, but, uh, hopefully it'll be one of the projects I get, uh, I put together.
Speculation on Model Kit Reissues
00:44:57
Torben Rothgeb
Um,
00:44:58
Torben Rothgeb
Well, I mean, the reality is you're not going to see those kids come back out again. The one you're just talking about. You don't think round two would ever scoop it back up? Well, I mean. Because they've scooped up a few other little king ones. Well, the the Falcon actually has been reissued in that.
00:45:15
Torben Rothgeb
Galaxy, yeah the Galaxy tow vehicle with the Falcon, yeah. But like I said, it's been out for a while. They're selling them at a discount now. They must have made quite a few of them. ahhu you could only You could only get that kit with all the stuff, you know, with the Galaxy. yeah And so i I just, I don't know. I mean, never say never, I guess I should say that. so yeah Yeah. Well, and and those are all Acapulco blue.
00:45:45
Torben Rothgeb
that Both the Thunderbolt and the... Yeah, you know, Hubert Platt might not have used that same color on on that Georgia Shaker that... Was it the Phil Bonner was the other car he were gonna do? Yeah.
00:46:01
Torben Rothgeb
It might not be exactly the same color, but it would look it would look okay. you know Who's going to know? ah hu You weren't there. so Yeah, you you weren't there. Can you talk about how many different ah races that some of these guys ran at and they're just getting by. so yeah um All right, well, I got a couple other, I'll probably move on to pro stock. ah Okay. With the yeah the Shirley Sheehan. Sheehan? Yes. Dragon Lady. Dragon Lady. Now, I got decals for from Penguin, because the kit decals seem really big.
00:46:38
Torben Rothgeb
um And penguin made a couple after I know you'll love to hear this but yes slicks has them now Oh slicks has them too. Yeah, okay, and they're sized properly for the kit Well, and I I really don't want to hate on slicks You know in spite of three sets for the Mickey Thompson car But and I still have a plan for that. I'm a painter all the light blue on the Mustang Funny Car. And then if I cut just some Mickey Thompson out, hopefully that will be small enough that it'll work on the car. I got a couple other, I got another set okay that I can do that with. And we'll see how that works. I'll keep you guys updated.
00:47:19
Torben Rothgeb
um I feel like if it's small enough, and if it's not old, and if it's not fluorescent, if it's fluorescent, give it up. Because so I don't know what it is about the fluorescent ah colors, but any of the slick fluorescent, because I was doing a 96 Richard Petty throwback scheme, um because they had that 25 years of STP or something. And so they did a lot of those schemes, and I was trying to build a silver car.
00:47:48
Torben Rothgeb
And ah the roof 43s were fluorescent, you know, the rocket red. and And man, I bought set after set of those, put liquid decal film. Now, the one thing I have not tried with slicks, maybe I need to, is just the ah spraying the cloth coat. Because I tried the liquid decal film from Micro Set. And that's always worked for like, because I do a lot of starter kits and starter kits decals.
00:48:17
Torben Rothgeb
They look god-awful and they shatter and that worked for me with the starter kits, but maybe spraying, you know, like Tamiya clear or some other clear over it, maybe the spray clear would work better on slicks. Yeah, I never tried it. Good luck. Yeah. Yeah. I know.
00:48:33
Torben Rothgeb
well Well, you know, it's too bad because Slick's, well, you've been looking at that Gasseron, the funny car. Now, did they ever do um one that didn't have all those little Pearl overlays, just an all, um it would have been Poppy Red, just the all Poppy Red car?
00:48:51
Torben Rothgeb
you mean a gas ronda car yeah the gas ronda car because they they give you the decals to do that but i'm really scared to do because um when did those polar light kits came out what in the 90s Yeah, so they're working on 30 years old, almost 25 years old. And they were a slicks decal product. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So envisioning myself building them. I didn't see anything wrong with them, the ones I've seen built. I i haven't built that one in particular. but Yeah. Yeah, I know you might have some problems with it. I would say...
00:49:27
Torben Rothgeb
You could do the Blue Max, which doesn't have that. You could do the... And they reissued with the Tommy Ivo. Tommy Grove. They had the Tommy Grove car, which is blue. You could do that car.
00:49:42
Torben Rothgeb
there there's They did the, I'm not gonna think of the name of it now, but there's been other versions of the Mustang that you could do. yeah Chuck Warner sells some stuff. Slick says some stuff. Frantic Ford it was one I was thinking of. It's yellow, that's a pretty attractive car, so um they don't have that. It was a custom paint thing back in 69 that everybody was doing. you know the Oh, it looks sharp. Fish eyes and all that stuff. No, I remember Rod Maskew built one of his first shows. He came here. He built that gas ronda car. And I love the poppy red color. I love orange and it just looks super sharp. um But boy, I would be nervous putting those on. sure But yeah, what a cool looking car.
00:50:35
Torben Rothgeb
yeah Yeah. Um, but I think I've covered just about everything I have out. Oh, the, uh, 67 Dodge Cornet that so kind of sits low on back, but did those cars sit kind of low on back? That's a drawing. Okay. but But even on the one in the box, uh, did they have like, uh, regular size tires or what kind of slicks did they run back then? Oh, no, they ran. They ran a slick, like a nine inch slick in the back. Um, not like the pie crust one.
00:51:06
Torben Rothgeb
No, not at that point. In late 67, that's what that car is, 67 Dodge Cornette. No, that wouldn't have been a pie crust slick at that point. It would have been a good year, probably Blue Streak or something like that. Because it's getting to 67, 68, 69. The pie crusts were gone. They they were a hard compound.
00:51:28
Torben Rothgeb
ahha So no. OK. Oh, I don't want to forget about ah the Vegas, the 2Vega, the Grumpy Vega. The Bruce Larson car. They reissued recently. Now that's another version of where, you know, kind of like the Falcon altered wheelbase where you can... I think it's a little better than that. Not a lot better, but they put all their tooling money into the bodies ahha and and that kind of thing. And then they're leaving it up to the builder to actually try to make it more accurate.
00:52:03
Torben Rothgeb
Because those cars evolved, you know, when Jenkins debuted the Vega, it was not stock, but it was not what they evolved into, you know, four link suspension.
00:52:17
Torben Rothgeb
you know, bigger slicks, all that stuff. So you have to, you have to pick what car you want to do and then try to replicate the how accurate you want to make it. So you were talking about number 123. Yeah, um one, you know, you would make it like curbside or You would make it from the outside looking down at the model like you wouldn't look at the chassis. Yeah You could do a lot of work to the to the engine compartment the engine Mm-hmm, you know all that stuff then you get into two you'd maybe want to have that chassis more accurate Yeah, now is there a donor chassis that would work for that era did because they really haven't done a really hit from that era, right? They're all pretty old
00:52:58
Torben Rothgeb
ah Yeah, they're pretty old. i mean you'd have to You'd have to cobble up something. You'd have to make your own wheel tubs and things like that. It would be a fair amount of work, but it's definitely doable. you The body is the hardest part you know if you're trying to get accurate. you know that That would be the more more accurate piece of the puzzle. so now and You had mentioned before that they it comes with a big block and it The K350 would be the best. Yeah, it was a small block that that Jenkins actually ran the car. There were a few guys that ran big blocks, but they were running in like IHRA or match race trim. So you definitely want a small block because that was the, they had a weight that they had to match with the car and those engines were high horsepower.
00:53:50
Torben Rothgeb
small block Chevy, 331 or whatever. so okay yeah and But the slicks and everything, yeah right out of the box, curbside would work. yeah but Yeah, you'd have a nice looking model. I think a lot of them that I've seen on tables, show tables and stuff, just built out of the box, get them to sit right, nice paint job. you know Yeah, no, they look really good. i mean
00:54:21
Torben Rothgeb
Now also I got the Firebird Pro Stock car. They did that early 90s. They did both the STP ah paint scheme and the Pennzoil paint scheme. Yeah. um ah Bob has given me some good paint to do for the Pennzoil car. Okay.
00:54:41
Torben Rothgeb
what what ah ah They build up pretty pretty solid. Oh yeah, those are those are fun builds. you know The Ricky Smith s STP car, he actually was good friends with with Petty and and you know they're in the same neck of the woods so they got to be good friends. and so He got got the sponsorship for Ricky Smith and those are you know fluorescent red, petty blue. um That's the kit I built one years ago. It didn't survive over the years, but it's it it goes together really really well.
00:55:21
Torben Rothgeb
yeah And now which, I thought Model King reissued one of, was it a Firebird or was it something else? so They reissued it. um They didn't reissue a Firebird, but I believe it was like a, it was even newer than I think it was like a Warren Johnson era Firebird. And they reissued some pro modified cars too that were generic. so Awesome. Well, that that is a,
00:55:52
Torben Rothgeb
number of drag projects. Oh, ah the Pro Street Barracuda from MPC a while back when Scott bought out. tell It wasn't Van Dyke who was the other guy that he brought the collection of. um I don't recall. Oh, Bob Shapiro, maybe. Well, Shapiro was early. Maybe it was Van Dyke. Van Dyke was the later one. Yeah, Shapiro was first. but Yeah, Van Dyke, I bought the Barracuda because basically just because I had one as a kid. um Is there anything accurate that I could build from that? As a matter of fact, there is because that that particular reissue.
00:56:33
Torben Rothgeb
was the original Motown Missile Barracuda. Oh, nice. 1972. So the the way that the box are, and I'm looking at the box, you know you've got it sitting here, is more of a cartoon. It's not really that, the scoop isn't really that pronounced. They made it a pro street, so it has side pipes. It's got this little wing on the back. You get rid of all that. It's got bumper guards on the front. Get rid of those.
00:57:00
Torben Rothgeb
um Make it a 72 Barracuda. There's lots of, you know, the car's been restored. It was a a state of the art at the time. A car, you could do it. do it I mean, Slick's does the decals. um There's actually a couple other cars you could do from that kit. Okay, nice. Don Grossier had a Barracuda. Chuck Warner makes decals for that.
00:57:25
Torben Rothgeb
um It's, it's a good curbside model if you wanted, I mean, as far as you could detail up the engine and that kind of thing, the chassis would be, it would be passable, but it's, it still needs some more work, but you know, they still were stock from the start. You know, they started with a body in white, 72 Barracuda and you know, went from there, but yeah, no, that would be a fun one.
00:57:51
Torben Rothgeb
It's black paint, one color. Nice. so So now you would need a new bumper or just to cut those off and re sand it and paint it chrome. Actually what would really work easy is kind of a.
00:58:03
Torben Rothgeb
whatever you want to call it, cheat cheat the system kind of a thing. Take the Barracuda front bumper from the Johan 71. The actual Barracuda car, those are the same bumpers. you know They were pretty much the same all the way through 70 to 74 and they just had maybe a little, I mean the 70 would be the most different. but pretty close to the same. I think if you tried to put set it up you know on the body and look at it, you'll see that it's really close. And you wouldn't even have to strip the chrome off of it because you know the Johan kit didn't have chrome bumpers in it. so okay Actually, I think it did on that particular one, but it'd be easy to change. Okay, cool. and then But now the hood,
00:58:52
Torben Rothgeb
The blower on the hood is too big. It's not a blower, it's a hood scoop. Hood scoop, I guess. Pro stocks had like two four-barrel carburetors and a hood scoop that they ran on the car. And the one that they actually show on the box is nothing like the actual kit scoop. I think it's actually pretty close to the original pro stock scoop. Okay. Nice. And of course, leave the side pipes off. Correct.
00:59:23
Torben Rothgeb
sell to somebody in MCCM I Thought I I built I think I built that straight out of the box. It's very good but Yeah, it's been reissued a few times I was hoping that they would reissue it as the Moton missile in you know from round two We'll see it seems like something round two would would do. Yeah, it's possible not doesn't take a lot of doing Okay Yeah, awesome now, um When I met with the last ah podcast I did with Bob, we were talking about the themes. um Now for Five Alive, which i was I was telling Bob, I was kind of surprised about how that got picked. um But do you have anything that you you might build for that? ah Yeah, actually I do. um
01:00:12
Torben Rothgeb
Now, just for our listeners, uh, the, the five alive theme, um, was it any model a year with a five in it, or since RPM is a racing club, any, uh, race car with the number five. Right. So, um, if we're talking about drag cars, since that's kind of what your podcast is about, yes I was actually thinking of, um,
01:00:38
Torben Rothgeb
Because drag cars don't typically have a number on. The only number they would have on the car would be the driver's number. Like for example, you know Don Perdom was like 771 or whatever it is. 612 is what it is. Anyway, um but the cars actually have a number that NHRA gives them to put on the car. And so it would be like in the window, on the side window. So there's a couple cars that I could do. One in particular I'm thinking about is a John Hagan had a 68 paracuda.
01:01:12
Torben Rothgeb
and his number was 5855 or something like that. So it would be, there'd be enough fives there that it would be passable. So something like that or Bob Glidden had five, one of the years he finished fifth in the world. So I could do, he had a probe that was number five. So I could do that, but um that's kind of what I'm thinking. So, but I think it's a great idea. It's something different. yeah madam So, yeah.
01:01:37
Torben Rothgeb
Well, I'm shooting for a 55 Chevy um ah for years, ah you know, just like ah my funny cars that I've been, you know, I build a few but ah I own a lot more. I've been wanting to do the Indy car pace, Indy pace cars. And so the 55 Chevy is always one of my favorites and it's a great kit. So I'm gonna try to get that together.
01:02:01
Torben Rothgeb
Now I was bobbin for me on the last podcast I thought it would kill two or three birds with one stone with the. um The mccm had a fifty five i thought they're doing all shoe boxes but evidently they're doing fifty seven heaven so it's not gonna quite fit that.
01:02:22
Torben Rothgeb
um But that might be a reason to get my years and years and years ago, I did the 57 Ford Fireball Roberts car, and that was a ah stalled project. Oh, killed two birds with one stone. Yeah, so hopefully. Very good. I can break that back out and maybe build that for that. um And then, ah you know, we were talking and and probably the the Torbin challenge will be our other RPM challenge thing.
01:02:51
Torben Rothgeb
Do you have any stalled projects for that that you might bring? Or would you do more?
Intimidating Model Kits
01:02:58
Torben Rothgeb
Because Tom Finch mentioned ah kits that scare you to death as well that you could also add for all those really focused builders that don't have any stalled projects. yeah I don't really have any stalled projects. I'd probably do a kit that scares me to death. And what would that be? ah Well, there there's a couple of them, actually. Well, I mean, it's it's not really that.
01:03:20
Torben Rothgeb
big of a deal, but they're resin kits. One is a, it's actually a Ukraine kit, but it's a 550 Spyder Porsche, 124 scale. It was scary because it was expensive. It was like 150 bucks, but it's ah it's beautifully done. so it's ah I love the car.
01:03:42
Torben Rothgeb
you know It's curbside, it doesn't have an engine. So I think it's just, you know it's one of those things you just, grab it and go and just have fun. Yeah. Yeah. one Well, it's funny, ah Ukraine must really be into model kits. It seems like they have, I've heard of a lot of stuff coming out of Ukraine. And then I have this kid, you know, I teach ELL and he's in, he was in kindergarten last year and his teacher um came up to me and was like, um,
01:04:14
Torben Rothgeb
He was like, ah well, you know, Nikon, he really, he was trying to talk to me about this car. And I don't know much about cars. It was like a McLaren. And I'm like, McLaren? Yeah, that's it. And ah he he was really into McLarens. And, you know, and then, of course, I can't help myself. So I'm going through was.
01:04:36
Torben Rothgeb
Bruce McLaren was this real famous, and and you know, about probably 25 seconds into that, I'm boring her to tears about this, but, and he's he's ah from Ukraine. So, you know, must be a lot of ah car lovers over there. So, you know, go Ukraine.
Ukrainian Model Kits Popularity
01:04:53
Torben Rothgeb
ah two Yeah. Yeah. Between the bombings. Yeah. Yeah. No, we can, we can pray for world peace. yeah Maybe one day it'll happen. um But,
01:05:05
Torben Rothgeb
No, ah well, that that would be one of the kits that scare me to death. um You know, we I talked about that with Bob. um The problem is I have some installed projects too. Sure. That I have plenty of installed projects, but I have plenty of kits that scare me to death. And one of them would be that to Accurate Miniatures McLaren. Well, and the Corvette too. But so but now i got I got an idea for the Corvette because bob always gives me grief for bringing my own kit to msm but they never have any cars
01:05:36
Torben Rothgeb
i mean i would have been stuck building a stus bear cat or an airplane or a tank right
01:05:43
Torben Rothgeb
is that how you ended up with the the folks wagon, was it that thing? Yeah, that kubel wagon. Yeah, that kubel wagon. Exactly. That's what I had to do. It was a military vehicle and you turned it into a drag car. That was the only choice. I'll dare you. This year, I'm planning on bringing an accurate miniature Corvette.
01:06:07
Torben Rothgeb
and actually from your book that you sold at the N and L North that had that really cool picture of, and it looks like it's either Nassau blue or Viking blue. It's kind of a silver blue Corvette with a like number three in it. So I'm going to do that from my white elephant for MSM. I'm going to bring that because who the hell is going to steal that anyway? nobody Although I thought about it. Hugh Hite might.
01:06:34
Torben Rothgeb
But I don't think he built his from the year before and I did build mine from the year before so okay I don't have to worry about that one ah Speaking of white elephant.
White Elephant Project for RPM Club
01:06:42
Torben Rothgeb
Did you get your white elephant built for RPM Club? I'm still working on it, so it's and that's a funny car right i painted it yesterday actually and that was a Jane snow charger jean snow charger, okay, cuz I built that one actually, but I build it we had the RAM The earlier version yeah, this is the Ravel Um, drag series kit that they did. They've reissued it several times. Um, I built it at the 16th version when I was a kid. who And, so i've I've actually got it painted and I used this, uh, clear red, um, Batala gray. Okay. And that came out really good. It looks really, really nice. yeah Highly recommended. So you'll like it. Well, speaking of things that scare you, I think I got the slicks decals here.
01:07:33
Torben Rothgeb
four talk about a double whammy uh because how uh the white bear dodge being up here in minnesota the white bear dodge car for that same body but holy hell i would be very scared to use that pink i had that car painted And the paint was phenomenal when I got to the decals and it didn't work didn' work. So I i would say, well, here's the thing. and I mean, I'm not trying to send you a different direction, but Chuck makes those decals.
01:08:05
Torben Rothgeb
Oh, does he? Okay, for White Bear Dodge. Yeah. Well, and then... And then if you ever saw Jay Lewis did one in 16 scale. Oh, I imagine that was awesome. You just throw yours away. Yeah. Did he paint all the pink himself? Yes. No, he was... I don't know that it had any decals on it. I think it was all painted. Oh, man. Yeah, that guy would say that at that point. He was amazing. Well, he's amazing. He is. He's still alive.
01:08:33
Torben Rothgeb
hopefully he'll start building again uh both him and if we could get Brad Knight uh he talked about getting a challenge with Brad Knight, Jay Lewis, and uh your boy Jim Johnson who would be most likely to complete something. That's actually kind of a good idea. I don't know that um I don't know that the last person you mentioned would actually get it done but I think um Brad probably would be an up for it. ah I mean, we'd have to get him to come to a meeting first. but Yeah, the last thing I saw him build was that boat. and Remember that great big, it was an RC boat.
01:09:12
Torben Rothgeb
yeah yeah well He's got enough money that he can just buy the one-to-one cards and race those around. He doesn't have to build build the model kits like like we do. ah Now, you brought some cards. Did you want to talk about those? or Well, we we should probably get to the rest of the podcast first. no or um Yeah, well, i'm I'm getting towards the end. I do have the ah the Super Six and that was since we're in the midst of the holiday season, the Super Six, this podcast is your six favorite holiday specific foods. You want to go first or you want me to go first?
01:09:57
Torben Rothgeb
um You can go first. I kind of have up kind of figured out already, but I'll see if it's the same. Okay, or whatever all right. Well, um for Thanksgiving, stuffing is definitely my favorite food for Thanksgiving.
01:10:12
Torben Rothgeb
um i Can I can just keep eating that over and over and over again, especially you with gravy on don't want to know how many calories it is um then ah for Christmas I don't have a whole lot of specific ones, but I do have the Andes ah peppermint mints or Something that I like ah for Christmas um Easter Cadbury eggs, you know, my mom wasn't a big cook so I got a lot of these things. It gets even worse. ah For St. Patrick's Day, I would say ah the Shamrock Shake, when McDonald's came out with the Shamrock Shake, it was a sign that spring was on its way. and so okay
01:11:02
Torben Rothgeb
well and It's funny, I don't consider myself a mint person, but I have two mint foods on there. um now ah probably Not that it's my even my favorite pie, or even my favorite top five, but when I think of holiday specific, I probably have to go back to pumpkin pie. It's about the one time a year I'd eat pumpkin pie. yeah um But you got to have a a lot of whipped cream but okay on it. And then i for number six, I would probably go, again, don't want to know the calories. ah Eggnog is is really tasty.
Favorite Holiday Foods
01:11:43
Torben Rothgeb
Although you got to ration yourself because if you drink too much, it's going to feel like you have a bowling ball in your stomach because it's pretty heavy.
01:11:52
Torben Rothgeb
And I think I did that as a kid a couple of times, drank half the carton, and then had to lay on the ground for a while. OK. Well, you didn't get it. OK. So I'll just i' go start the same way. So Thanksgiving, um I would agree with. Well, I would say stuffing is OK. But my whole thing as a kid was sweet potatoes. OK. Because it had the marshmallows on the top and all that. It was, you know.
01:12:16
Torben Rothgeb
high calorie. We call them yams. I don't know the specific difference. But you know, it's the same thing. The little marshmallows. That is really important. yeah Right. And then Christmas, um I don't know. ah I don't know what what's a traditional Christmas thing to eat. I mean, you know, it's everything. So I don't know. Yeah, that's why I went with eggnog and Andes Mintz. Yeah, I mean, um We usually have lamb for Christmas. My wife's a really great cook and so we usually have that. So that's that's ah that's a regular thing for me. So I you know i would say that it's cooked for properly. And then you didn't get into Halloween.
01:13:05
Torben Rothgeb
yeah You know, the candy obviously is ah is a popular thing. Yes. Now, ah did you trade, ah did you and your brother ever go trick or treating and then get back and trade candies? Oh, sure. Yes. And what would you usually trade for? Well, you know, i my my staple, which would be you know peanut butter cups or oh yeah snickers.
01:13:29
Torben Rothgeb
you know i'm i'm pretty The only thing I don't like is anything with Almonds or oh see I wish I would have traded with you because I would have traded um majority I would trade you I would trade three musketeers for Snickers all day long Okay, cuz I you could have the three musketeers or even the Milky Way's I'd rather have the Snickers you know and another thing that we did actually and when I was growing up was for Christmas Christmas Eve we would do I
01:14:02
Torben Rothgeb
fondue on Christmas Eve or whatever. So he's got that on New Year's Eve. Yeah. But that was kind of fun. It's kind of a tradition or whatever. You you can, you can do a lot of different things, meat, cheese, bread, you know, that kind of stuff. Um, I don't know what number I'm on. So, uh, yeah, I would agree with you on the, um, uh, St. Patrick's day. I would go with like green beer. el Okay. There you go. So that was kind of a tradition. We'd go to the the St. Paul, um,
01:14:32
Torben Rothgeb
parade every year and we'd go to one of the local establishments and they'd had green beer. So that was kind of a tradition. So I don't know if that's that's six. but It's close enough. It's get a close. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you don't have any ah favorite Easter candy? We're in a big sky. big peep sky.
01:14:54
Torben Rothgeb
I've never actually had a Peeps before. You're not missing a whole lot. No, it doesn't interest me at all. It looks so fake. Yeah, that yellow. No, I think the Canterbury egg actually is a really good choice, so. Yeah, I need some coffee with it, though. I know it's going to be corn-holioed out, but it's a little too rich yeah sure yeah without something to wash it down with, but yeah, yeah.
01:15:19
Torben Rothgeb
All right, well, ah thank you so much. ah Hopefully um you're gonna help me get some of these drag projects done. um You know, we were pretty barren at the RPM. We had about five drag cars. We had more than we did last year, though. yeah Okay, yeah. Last year, I think there were two. Jim Allen did a 71 Mustang. And then I was at Troy Stank. He had a 55 Chevy, maybe.
01:15:48
Torben Rothgeb
Something like that. And your Melrose missile, and what were the, you can you think of the other two? Well, yeah, Bob Halliday had a Fiat. Oh yeah, that's right. Fiat, if you altered, that was really nice. And um there was also, yeah, I know what you're talking about, there was a 64 Dodge, I think that might have been Stanky's. Oh, okay. That was like a um Bill Maverick Olden car, I think.
01:16:17
Torben Rothgeb
I'm not calling it gone, but it was Bill Maverick, who's yellow. So yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So and and I'll put some of my bills that I brought with me yeah on the table and you can take pictures of them. Do you have a Facebook page? Yes, we will put them on the Tiny Car Facebook page. So you can see some of the beautiful ah work that Jim has done over the years.
01:16:45
Torben Rothgeb
I know I had, you know speaking of things that I had that I wanted to build, ah when Ravel came out with the Chaitown Hustler, I had gotten that. ah But Jim did such a great job on building that, that I quickly moved over to the Hawaiian. And unfortunately, that's one of my stalled projects, but hopefully i'll will we'll get that done, um because it's mostly painted. What else did you bring? I brought a few few older pieces.
01:17:16
Torben Rothgeb
I did a scratch-built Cheerleading with Johnny Dragster that I entered in there with Val, Hot Rod, and the World Car Championship. Nice, nice. I brought that Chi-town hustler that you're talking about that I built. I actually finished second at the IPMS Nationals. Oh, nice. I don't know what year that was now. It was a lot ago. I want to say it was about 2006, 2007-ish, maybe eight.
01:17:44
Torben Rothgeb
um yeah Yeah, that is really cool. And then another one that I have is ah the Miller. ah Now, what was that called? It's funny because Miller genuinely followed suit with all their racing cars. ah But for some reason, they did a totally different scheme with their funny car because it seemed like when they did the Miller Warrior for the funny car,
01:18:12
Torben Rothgeb
Uh, they didn't do any of their, uh, you know, NASCAR, uh, Miller sponsored stuff or in the, in the car. Yeah. Uh, yeah, they kind of, they kind of did similar, depends on what year it was. Uh-huh. Uh, some of them may have, you know, the Jamie McGrath thing or, uh, uh, the Miller warrior was basically, you know, Paul Lee had a, basically it was called the, the, uh, war Eagle.
01:18:39
Torben Rothgeb
OK. And he got with or he got Miller as a sponsor. And so rather than try to totally change it, they still wanted to have some sort of a, you know, Indian theme or whatever. So that's what they did. OK. Awesome. Awesome. All right. and And what else did you bring? I brought a Jungle Gym. No, that I did. This was with the good stuff. Oh, nice. Present Body. We did our own decals at the time.
01:19:10
Torben Rothgeb
So it was a display for when we solve the kits it sold the we sold the reservoirs. I've got a Cobra Jet Mustang that I did back in 2006. Okay. And you used to own a Mustang, right? I used to have a GT, yes. Yeah. How'd you like it? Oh, I loved it. just You know, I was storing it all the time. I had to move it a lot. So it got to the point where it's like, yeah, I think I'd rather have the money. so OK, awesome. Awesome.
Conclusion and Holiday Wishes
01:19:41
Torben Rothgeb
All right, well, I'm going to go ahead and sign off. I want to thank Jim for joining us and again giving us all this knowledge on drag racing, sharing his knowledge with us. And thank you to all the listeners out there. I hope you had a wonderful ah holiday season and hopefully an upcoming holiday season. will
01:20:05
Torben Rothgeb
treat you with many good gifts, styrene gifts under the tree. So please take care of yourself, stay safe, and keep building.