Reference

Japanese Kei cars

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Kei cars are a class designed to get around Japanese tax and insurance legislation. They’re tiny, the light weight making them nippy around town despite their one or two cylinder engines.

Jalopnik drove a trio of kei cars belonging to an American fan, then took anexample of Mazda’s first ever four wheeled vehicle to a dealer so they could compare it to the manufacturer’s current models.

If you want to model these cute little things, then Arii’s Owner’s Club range has a number of them, and the three wheeled delivery trucks and other classic Japanese vehicles of the 60s and 70s that you keep seeing in Kung Fu movies.

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Gluesniffers Anonymous

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Coop’s uploading dozens of photos a day. They’re all interesting and loads of them are relevant as photo reference (some of them include naked ladies, which is cool too). Subscribe to his feed if you’re interested in hot rods.

A set that I think went up today is of, as he puts it “Some bad photos of vintage model kits I have assembled in a sloppy fashion.“

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A bundle of reference links

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Whilst going through the archives of Spinneyhead, I’ve found a few posts and links that might be of interest to modellers-

Fetch!
The Russian dog anti tank mine.

Captured
In the dynamic flow of a battlefield equipment can get lost or captured. A quick trip through captured and repurposed weaponry-
The world of captured planes
Captured Planes
Captured Allied planes (Warning- cheesey beyond belief music, which is a shame because there are some very useful images here.)
A collection of pieces about captured B-17s
Fleet Air Arm planes captured by the Axis
A gallery of tanks captured by the Germans
Modelling a captured Russian KV-2
Israel made good use of captured T54s and T55s and various other vehicles.
Russian tank museum, including many captured tanks.
Captured First World War tanks.
Ships captured by the German Navy.

Test Beds
I’ve just been to the Museum of Science and Industry and checked out the aviation hall. Interesting stuff-
Avro Lancasters were used as flying test beds for jet engines. Video of the tests is online here.
The Avro 707 isn’t quite a flying wing, but I have a soft spot for the delta wing planes such as this and the Vulcan.
A picture of the Hafner Rotachute (more) hiding away in the corner of a painting has given me ideas for another novel way to land assault troops. The Germans used similar devices for spotting from U-Boats.
But the most affecting plane in the whole display is still the tiny Yokosuka OHKA, a suicide jet that was pretty much a desperate last gasp from the Japanese.

Wing and a Prayer
The Me-163 ‘Komet’ was quite an astounding beast. I alluded to a similar plane when the Wasp squadron visited Dreamland (Chapter Three, blink and you miss it). Flight Journal has a long interview with one of the Komet’s chief test pilots.
It also has to be remembered that the Germans weren’t the only ones experimenting with new and unusual aeroplane designs. The Allies’ first jet plane was the Gloster Whittle, a pre-cursor to the Meteor and test bed for jet engines.
The ‘Hiller-copter’ and Landgraf H-2 were early twin bladed helicopter designs.
America experimented with flying wings in designs such as the XP-56 and XB-35, which I’ve mentioned many times before, but there were also experiments with gliders along the same lines.
The Brits also experimented with flying wings, as well as canard and tandem wing designs.
Even the Swedes got in on the act with the Saab 21A.

And also- Engines of the Red Army

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Jalopnik at SEMA

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Car blog Jalopnik is at the SEMA motor show in Las Vegas at the moment, providing us with galleries of interesting reference material.

Honda’s many custom cars on display. Bizarre and overblown examples of the tuner car phenomenon.

Matte is the new black. High end customisers display their take on the rat-rod primer look.

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Decay

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Mostly, when modellers depict abandoned buildings they’re that way because of battle damage. However, there are corners of every town with buildings that have just been vacated, fair subjects for the railway layouts and non-military dioramas. So these pictures of a Russian ghost town, abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union, might be useful reference material for the effects of 20 years abandonment.

via BoingBoing

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Graf Zeppelin found

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Hitler’s only aircraft carrier was the Graf Zeppelin. Despite being launched in 1938 it never saw service. The Red Army captured and recovered the ship after it was scuttled in the Polish port of Szczecin in April 1945. Contrary to agreements to sink or destroy Nazi vessels, the Russians used it to transport looted equipment, and later as target practice for their dive bombers. After this battering the ship disappeared and its exact location was never known until recently, when an oil exploration survey found the ship on the bed of the Baltic Sea near the Bay of Gdansk.

Graf Zeppelin in wikipedia.
A model of the Graf Zeppelin.

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Gun trucks in Iraq

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I built this Ford F150 with a machine gun in the pickup bed as a joke. I was contemplating a Mad Max style future set of models, a black humour apocalypse.

It seems that real life is a step or two ahead of me, as these pictures of gun trucks in Iraq show. It’s not so funny any more, but still tempting as a subject.

via BoingBoing

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Model Car Resources

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A great way to lose a couple of hours on a rainy Sunday evening. The SoCal Car Culture Model Car Resources has a load of links to, mostly American, garage kit manufacturers. I’m dreaming of having enough time, money and space to make a few of the things I found. There are occasional dead links, but not so many.

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Ford Pop hot rods

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The next two big builds for Small Scale Customs will be 1:76th scale Ford Popular and Model Y hot rods. I’ve ordered the whitemetal kits today and it’s time to start looking for ideas and photo reference.

Popdaddy, one man’s history of the build of his second Pop hot rod.

Images from hotrodding.org.uk– 1 2 3 4

The “Revell Rebel”- 1 2 3 4 5

A battered but very fast Pop.

‘Pop’ Browns hot rods

’59 Pop featured in American Car World

Hotrodphotos.co.uk

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