Pilot's Log

Graphics Widget Customizes YOU



Ford Focus Coupe version (which I don't think we get in the U.S. for some reason).

PS: Oh, hay--it's the convertable version. Hmmph. Lexus can build theirs for the American market but Ford can't? Highly illogical.

Rumor has it that Ford's Mustang Customizer contest ends today/Sunday so I copied my 21 ponycar designs to disk and compiled them here. The green one on the bottom left corner is the one I've entered to win, though I expect I didn't generate enough entry points to be a real contender.

MORE TO COME (I hope)

The other day, I went to Gatlinburg to window shop and to just plain avoid the noise and chaos of the renovation being done to Rather Manor's bathroom. At a sports memorabilia shop, I found some keychains of FOX Sports' robot mascot Cleatus in various team colors. I may buy one eventually, but I feel little urgency.

I'd thought, on the way back to the house, to "stat" him out for wargames, as the keychain figure was of a good size for CAV, Heavy Gear and other games I could play. While looking to get started, I found something that I'd been looking for for weeks but kept missing--a concept for a marketing campaign. (I had NOT misfiled it...just that I had changed my mind about where it belonged, and the other parts of my imagination didn't get the memo!)

Back in the Nineties, I was trying to get hired by a company that imported model kits from around the world. At the time, it was the height of the real robots genre of anime, and this company sold South Korean knockoff/bootleg versions of the popular model kits of the day. My thought, as an alternative of the cliche practice of making mecha into Transformers automatons, was to make a deliberate alternative continuity in which there could be hints of the "real worlds" but not infringe on existing anime properties.

I never came up with a title for this idea. When the CAV game came along, I adapted some of my concepts for my own use, but haven't done much with it. Like many sci-fi wargame continuity creators, I am loathe to make factions "good" or "evil"--although some concepts are easy to make one way or another.

Anyway, I've come back to this because now I have the resources to take the overall concept into new and more interesting directions. Suddenly I have NINE political factions to make livery, insignia and themes for and a galaxy to redraw.

Coming back to the idea spawned by my nostalgia for my Dad's Capri and this object:



Which is available from These People, whose website isn't helpful enough yet.

Leaving aside the internal workings of a car for a moment to concentrate on the styling...if I got the AR Bodies Mustang shell to play with and lay on a chassis, how could I make the result more Capri-esque for my taste? Poking around Wikipedia overnight gave me the answers:

1) Ford Flex headlamp and front turn signal units
2) Mercury Milan grille, or possibly Mercury Mariner grille if that works better
3) Mercury Milan tail lamps, and possibly an adaptation of trunklid geometry to incorporate
4) rear BUBBLE glass ala post-1978 Corvette, Seventies/Eighties/Nineties Camaro/Firebird, Mercury LN7...and of course the Eighties American Capri...to replace the rear windshield/quarter windows arrangement on the Mustang.

For street legality sake, the result would likely need off-the-shelf bumpers. Probably Milan or Marquis units...or even Mercury SUV ones. Depends on what fits.

Wish I had the tools to explore this thought to its fill extent.

http://acecombat.fb-apps.namcobandaigames.eu/picture.php?id=96

Dunno if you can see it if you aren't a Facebook member.

The train of thought that went through yesterday's post about the toy Porsche 917 led me to the Laser 917 and Aztec/Avenger/Valkyrie families of kit cars, inspired by the Porsche 917 and Ford GT40 cars respectively. Both the Laser and Valkyrie kit bodies are still in production, and now I'm wondering what could be the MINIMAL changes in architecture to each body design to make them work with the current Daytona Prototype race car hardware rules.

Yes, it's easy to start with a clean sheet of paper and work from there. But what about reviving the beauty and thrills of the past? What about setting a new standard based on the best of both worlds?

I am such a Titan. I want to play with the big toys but don't have the resources. Hmmph.

Wheels Of Futures Past.