News/Updates 

       

New Entry to the Guest Gallery

Visitors to the Batmobile History site will recognize the latest modeler to join the Guest Gallery. Panzer is well-known for his cool & unique Batmobile customs, and has applied that talent to a replica of the GTO used in The Punisher. He even got the car signed by the man himself, Thomas Jane! Be sure to check it out, and then head over to his site for the rest of the photos starting here.


Automobile News: Chevy Volt

"Volt can deliver 40 to 45 city miles of pure electric driving, allowing commuters who live within 20 miles of work to never burn any gasoline, instead relying on a daily plug-in recharge from a home or office 110-volt outlet.

"When driving beyond the electric-only range, the car’s turbocharged 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine will automatically start, spin a generator and recharge the battery, effectively providing 50 mpg and a city range of some 640 miles from a 12-gallon tank of unleaded fuel.

"Running on E85, with only 15 percent gasoline in each 85 percent ethanol-based gallon of fuel, Volt hits an astonishing 525 miles per gallon of actual gasoline in the mix.

"The Volt concept shown at Detroit is equipped with an internal combustion engine that runs on regular unleaded gasoline, but GM’s E-flex System is engineered to accept any powertrain from fuel cell to biodiesel to 100 percent ethanol to hydrogen internal combustion engine, depending on the available fuel in that part of the world."

Read the full story at AutoWeek


New Link Added

I recieved an e-mail earlier today to check out International Model Registries. It's a pretty unique idea: you can now register your model to give it a unique "official" identity. Give it a look-see, it looks pretty cool.

Guest Gallery Update

Thanks to new guest DREDDBATFAN for sending some pics of his recently completed Monkeemobile! You can check out the photos here.

First Update of the New Year

The holiday weekend pushed off my usual first-of-the-month update, but the new Tip of the Month is up. Watch for more updates over the weekend!

Happy New Year!

Best wishes to everyone out there, I'm looking forward to a lot of new projects and some new features for the site in 2007. Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!

Just wanted to squeeze one more in...

I doubt I'll get any more done before 2006 rolls over into 2007, so here's my last one for the year: Blade's Charger. With this, the General Lee, and the Fast & the Furious car, I now have my trifecta of '68 - '70 Hollywood Chargers finished.

I hope everyone out there has a great holiday!

New Transformers Trailer is Available

I Need a Transporter

I missed seeing The Transporter in theaters, though I should've known better. Luc Besson is a sure thing in my book ever since The Fifth Element, and Jason Statham is as cool as they come. Add in some great stunt work and one of my favorite BMWs of all time, and it should have been a no-brainer. Fortunately the DVD release has helped me overcome this gross oversight in my movie-watching history, and a model of the car has now been added to my collection.

It's On!

The 2006 Holiday Auction is now up & running! This year I tried something a little different, but it was a lot of fun: a retired 1962 Chevy Stocker diorama. You can read the "nuts & bolts" version of how it was built here, or check out the Auction itself here.


Jada Monte Carlo SS

As you may have noticed, the 1980s Monte Carlo holds a special place in my collection. So it was very cool for me to see that one of Jada's upcoming releases will be an '86. I'll definitely be picking up at least one of these once they hit:



New "Stuff for Sale" page

The "Stuff for Sale" page has been overhauled to look & move a little better, plus I've added a couple of newish items from Reprolabels. You can check it out here.

New Jada Datsun 240Z Revealed



Jada posted some new photos of their upcoming Datsun 240Zs - you can see all the pics at jadatoys.com/.

Thoughts on Casino Royale

Casino Royle has been getting a lot of positive feedback, so I've been looking forward to its release. Having now seen it, I can say that the praise was well deserved - great performances all around, a good story, and the perfect overall style. Craig knocks it out of the park, too. He doesn't have the suaveness of other Bonds, but he has the ego and a very cool hard edge that makes for a very good performance. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where the fims go from here.

Unfortunately, it looks like those of us who collect and build in 1/24 scale still won't see an Aston Martin. I don't know why they insist on skipping this particular scale; I can't imagine I'm the only one who wants to see a DBS or Vanquish. Here's hoping.

TH Troubles

On visiting Theater Hopper today, I was unhappy to hear about Tom & Cami's troubles while attending Wizard World Texas. It's bad enough to be robbed like that, but to be confronted with, "That's, like, the four or fifth one today" from their hotel clerk is outrageous.

However, I'm glad that everyone is OK, and Tom definitely has taken a good attitude about the whole thing. I will take this opportunity, though, to repeat my suggestion from yesterday about picking up Year One and Year Two for either yourself or someone this Christmas. It''l be a great way to help them out.