Neddy

Nah, tickets don't apply to them because they're Special.

Thanks Pete, this one did indeed retain the rear quarter window glass, therefore looks like it was a Crayford. It actually looked considerably better than the saloons ever did!

Stuck in traffic coming through Canterbury earlier s'afternoon I saw a beautiful white P reg (1975-ish) Ford Cortine Mk III 2-door convertible in absolutely perfect condition. First one I've ever seen and I'm pretty sure not a factory-built option. Crayford perhaps?

Agreed! My favourite Ford from the '60s era, often overlooked by Cortina and Zephyr fans. Lovely clean understated lines, neat interior. Glad to see this one is sans chrome waistline strips.

Ouch! You have my sympathies. As a born and bred petrolhead I really feel your pain. The story behind the Polish aluminium bodies is a fascinating one. Gerry Hawkridge (owner of Hawk Cars) always wanted to get as close as possible to the originals but the cost of UK production was prohibitive. However, he got wind of an aircraft factory in Poland lying idle ever since the fall of the Soviet Union and went to investigate. He found a fully equipped factory and a number of very skilled workers all lying idle, fully skilled and experienced in the production of military aircraft-grade aluminium work. The rest, as they say, is history... It brings a whole new meaning to the term "MIG welding" though!

Every time I check back on the progress of this grot-box I find something more to admire as well as laugh at. It's truly an inspired piece of work. You're right about the spare tyre too, I should have realised that before pointing out the lack of lack of tread. Silly me...

My attitude exactly. Especially with 1950s-70s American cars, the vast majority will by now have been restored, restomodded and/or customised to some degree so anything goes. For me that's part of the enjoyment of building cars from that era.

@Fastcat, I'm also into 1:1 scale kitcars and have been for years. On the Kent/Sussex border there's a well-respected company called Hawk Cars who produce very high quality and accurate replicas of several AC models including the original Ace, the 289 and the 427, using handcrafted aluminium bodies made to order in Poland as well as fibreglass bodies. Their products are a joy to see and drive - have a look... Hawk Cars

LVP's right, they are twin torsion bars, one acting on each hinge. Clever arrangement and I can't for the life of me see how you could make it work in miniature. Maybe thin nylon filaments would have the necessary torsional flexibility but the ends would need to be attached very firmly to both hinges and bodywork to make it work. Adjustment would be a complete nightmare too as it would mean changing the filaments for fractionally thicker or thinner ones. You might be able to cheat by using thin brass tubing with thinner brass rod inside, tight enough to be just short of an interference fit, thus replacing torsional loading with friction sufficient to hold the trunk lid open, but that's about as far as I could envisage it going. Just my two cents' worth...

Greetings from the other side of the country and welcome to the forum. I'm more into car modelling than aircraft but I hear where you're coming from - some of the builds I see here are so good it's scary! It's great to see them progress though and I learn a huge amount just by following some of them.

Wot Spiny said!

Agreed, they look spot on and the general stance of the vehicle is much closer to the original.

This isn't just a build, it's a modelling masterclass. It's the first time I've seen modelling magnets in action and answered one of my many puzzlements - how to keep car doors shut! Many thanks for the tip.

Beautifully built and detailed especially the interior. Having spent a considerable time rattling around the UK and the Continent in one of these with a folk band back in the late '60s I am almost too familiar with the inside of it and you've really got the "feel" of being in one again. Top notch photography, too!

Hi Sean, a belated welcome to the forum! As others have said - and I can confirm from personal experience - they're a friendly and helpful bunch here and there's a wealth of useful information too. Confidence will only come with experience, but it'll come pretty quickly as you find your feet and each completed model becomes better than the previous one.

Exactly, which is why I'm not worried about it. I'm getting it cross two separate PCs but they both run Linux and i suspect the problem in my case may be confined to the way the Linux drivers interact with the OS.

I'm with Mrs CC on this, it really is damn' funny! Enjoy the build!

I've just tried using a fresh install of Chrome with the same result so I suspect it's a simple rendering issue related to graphics card drivers. It isn't worrying me and I tend to regard it as just a glitch in the Matrix. Until the OP mentioned it I suspected it was a minor problem confined to Linux but either way it isn't a common issue. I only ever experience it on this site so I think it must be something to do with the way graphics are drawn in from an external host as opposed to being stored within the the platform.

It's not just you Ralph, it seems to be a "feature" of this platform. I use Firefox 64bit running in Linux Mint, various versions on three different machines, all patched right up to date and kept that way. Caches and temps cleared on a regular basis, all having no effect. Not noticeable when scrolling down but if you arrive at the end of a thread (most recent post) and scroll back up the thread, any images will appear then almost instantly disappear and reappear after a second or two, several at once overlaying each other before finally sorting themselves out. It's a minor annoyance to me, no more, but it could be affecting those using other OS's.

Like the rest I'll be very interested in how this one turns out. I agree the front end is best consigned to the parts bin and like the idea of the T-bird rear panel. This sort of thing is right up my street and it'll be great to see the end result.

The more I see of this the more it's making me grin. The carpets - both front and rear - are now thoroughly and appropriately manky. I love the extra touches - the books and so forth - and the details are spot-on. All you need is a driver and passenger dressed in kaftans, headbands, barefoot sandals and plenty of beads, man...

Beautifully built model, especially in 1/43rd scale. Lovely to see a representation of a 289, the more elegant and understated older brother of the 427 that everyone seems to produce.

Brilliant! I love the dealer sticker and the rust around the door hinges where they all went. The only comment I would make (and strictly tongue-in-cheek!) is the amount of tread left on the spare tyre. IRL that would have been worn down to the point where it was good for nothing but a fingers-crossed spare!

Picking up on a suggestion I've just seen in another thread, when you're adding finishing touches to the windscreen, don't forget to photocopy a beer mat and shrink it down to the size of a tax disc for true realism...

Wot he said! Sometimes you just run out of superlatives. I think I'll just sit back and enjoy the show.