SCALE MODEL NEWS

SMN HIPPY WORLD News that the 1:24 scale Volkswagen Microbus kit is now being released as a delivery van gave us food for thought when we saw some pix of a snowmobile-style VW bus. The new Revell VW bus kit looks really interesting, and underpinning it with a set of caterpillar tracks from a tank kit could make a nifty model, highly suitable to enter in a competition - especially if it ws in a suitable diorama display. Adding the tracks shouldn't be too difficult, as each side-cut is a simple one, straight between the front and rear wheel arches. You could also add an LED light on the roof, and even better, add the lift-up centre-section. As you can see, the VW beast is actually a mobile disco. Once the roof is raised, big PA speakers swing out on pedestal arms. Then all you do is crack up the volume, down a few beers, wait for sundown, smile at the girls and have a ball! The pix of the VW Discobus were sent in without a credit, so if you know the source, let us know. Thanx.  ...

SMN report: LEGO builders number in their legions, but we've just come across someone who has blown our socks off, a Dutchman titled the ‘Mad Physicist.’ The day job The Mad Physicist is just that - a physicist - in his day job, and LEGO-building is strictly a hobby that’s far away from the computers and laboratory. The title came from fellow LEGO builders who sometimes seemed to think that he must have a way of doing things that others wouldn't normally come up with. Stunning LEGO models ‘Mad’ or not, the models are simply stunning, and we show just a couple here. The V-22 Osprey is not only a fair replica of the real thing - note the rotor blades even have their blade twists incorporated correctly - but it also has retractable landing gear ( pic above ). One of our favourite Mad constructions is called Brickston, a play on the South London borough of Brixton. We don’t know about the actual store names, but in general, the model matches our old-time memories of the place well....

Mat Irvine goes custom crazy Although the wacky cartoonist and car customizer Ed Roth died in 2001, his legacy of amazing ideas and art - and not forgetting the infamous ‘Rat Fink’ character - lives on. Since Revell started making kits of Roth’s ideas in the 1960s, they have rarely been off the shelves.  Regular customs from Revell Revell has produced 1:25 scale kits of many of his most famous creations such as the Beatnik Bandit, Surfite, Road Agent, and Mysterion, and reissues them regularly. The Outlaw custom was one of the first kits to be made, and here it is again, now featuring new box-art, but basically the same kit that first appeared way back in 1961. Gear shift or weapon? The Outlaw was one of Roth’s very earliest designs, going back to 1956, and was originally called Excalibur because he’d used the handle of a revolutionary-period sword as the gear shift. However, urban myth has it that nobody could pronounce the name, so he renamed the car Outlaw, a story which perhaps...