Category: Miscellaneous

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hope everyone has a fantastic 2020, and that from 2019 you only carry the good memories!

For W-143 2019 was a great year. Of course there were fumbles, like that Top Model Alfa and the Hippie 917 upgrade. Oh, and of course, the fiasco of the decade: Photobucket 🤬. It’s been two weeks (TWO WEEKS!) and I still can’t see the photos in my account. That I payed for. But whatever, all my photos are hosted elsewhere now and those jerks will never get a cent from me again.

But if I do the math, the year closed in a VERY positive note. There were all the 917s and the Merc 300 SL. And the fantastic Büssing-NAG! And of course the two best grail models of the year for me: the W25 and the 917K/81. But if I had to pick the model of the year, I think I would choose the W25, just because I never thought I would get one.

So if 2020 is just half as good as 2019, it’s gonna be a great year again!

🏆🍾🥂🎉

The W-143 Garage

You know how I’m always citing the “W-143 Garage”? Or Just saying “Garage”? Well, that’s how it looks from the front. Or better, that’s how it looks now. I ordered a custom-built diorama and as you can see, it came out friggintastic. From now on you will see my pics with that backdrop. I’ll also re-shoot some previous cars where the photos didn’t come out very good, so even some older reviews will have new photos. And, I’m working on a new track diorama. If all goes well I’ll upgrade that one too.

Oh yes, I got a diorama for the back of the Garage too 😁. So to show off the new diorama, I rounded up the Art Wing of the W-143 Garage*. And just like the front, I think the back lot looks great too.

And by the way, I did the math for the first pic. If you add everything up, in that shot you have 5116 hp… That’s a LOT of poneys for the streets, if you ask me. But independent of the amount of cavalry, guess which one is my favorite supercar of all?

Why, the Porsche 959, of course 😎. The God of Speed, Mercury himself, drives a 959. So of course that’s the best supercar. Ever.

*Yes, I noticed that it got a bit crowdy back there. No, I won’t get a bigger back lot. Everybody will just have to rotate parking spaces.

To hell with Photobucket

That’s it, this was the last straw. I’ve used Photobucket for years, but after that absurd price hike they attempted in 2017, and with all the blackmailing attempts, I went to Flickr. Flickr is a pretty neat photo hosting service, but the fact that they scramble file names after you load them makes manually writing a photo address impossible. And, they’re photo browser stinks, it’s too convoluted to manage your photos.

But then PB reconsidered their stance and things seemed to go back to normal, so in 2018 I went back. Still, there was a LOT of downtime last year. However, for the last month or so, every single time I log on, I get an annoying message that I’m over my bandwidth quota. And if I don’t upgrade my account they’ll shut me down. According to my account data, I’m using about 80% of my bandwidth, so this sounds like they’re trying to bully me to upgrade. And as the cherry on top of the cake, today their servers have been down all day long.

So that’s it, I’m done. SCREW PHOTOBUCKET. I’m migrating all my photos elsewhere and this is the last time they see my money.

RIP Ferdinand Piëch

That’s Piëch with chassis #917-001, painted to look like as the 1970 winning 917K #23.

This Sunday passed away Ferdinand Karl Piëch, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche. A controversial figure in the motorsport industry, Ferdinand Piëch was at the helm of Volkswagen and Audi for many years. He is credited for saving VW from bankruptcy in the early 90’s and transforming Audi in a premium brand.

But to me, though, he will always be remembered as the father of the Porsche 917.

Ferdinand Karl Piëch
*04/17/1937
+08/25/2019

Face lift!

A couple of days ago WordPress decided to do an upgrade on their software. Oh yes, upgrades are always nice, right? Well, they also upgraded their editor, so that meant a change to the layout. Nothing big, but I spent at least some 4 hours changing stuff to the new layout.

Looks like things are working alright, and I have to admit it did clean up a bit the looks of the pages. But I can’t insert an image (emoticon) inside a text anymore, so there was a trade off.


Modeler Michael Paul Smith passes away

Anyone remotely interested in scale cars and dioramas has seen Michael Paul Smith’s photos. He’s basically synonymous to scale car dioramas, and his models, dioramas and photography were absolutely gorgeous.

He passed away on November 19th, and many say he has finally moved to Elgin Park.

He will be missed.