Real Cars I Have Owned In Diecast Miniature Chapter Two: Audi 100LS

May 22, 2020

#386

Gentle reader,

Yes, this is the 386th post I have written. A 386, coincidentally was the first personal computer I was involved with. It was my new (and permanent) wife's. She had upgraded from a 286.

It was a Gateway 2000, it ran at 16 kilohertz, it had a 40 megabyte hard drive and four megabytes of ram. 

But I digress, this is 2020 and that PC is long gone. Here is a link to the master list of all articles I have written about diecast cars and HO slot cars.

The Robb Collections: INDEX To EVERY Diecast Die Cast Car And HO Slot Car Article I Have Written  

My previous article along this line was the second one about my first car, purchased in September, 1973, a 1964 Chevrolet Impala two-door hardtop.

The Robb Collections: Johnny Lightning 1964 Chevy Impala 1:24 DieCast Car Super Detailed  

All photos EXCEPT the orange Audi coupe were gathered off the Internet.

My wife and I refer to our first (failed) marriages as, "In a former life...."

In a former life, my wife sold her first new car to buy me a Triumph Spitfire 1500. 

She had mentioned that she liked Audi cars, so I traded my six-month-old first new car, a 1979 Chevrolet Monza in for a 1975 Audi 100LS.

Similar to this 1974 model I found on Bring-A-Trailer's website. This car, by the way is all original, a real time capsule.

The trunk is HUGE. We were able to fit a playpen and various baby things as well as all our stuff for a trip to upstate New York. By the way, the car broke down on the way back on the I-495 Beltway around Washington, D.C. I did not have AAA then. I have since then.

Unlike almost every front-wheel-drive car today, Audi and the larger VW cars had then had the engine longitudinal. 
The engine is completely in front of the front wheels. As you can see below. Look how tiny, and offset, the radiator is. 

Ours was a light silver-blue color and it had small hub caps instead of full wheel covers like the one above. It also had a manual transmission while the one above has an automatic.

Someone in Russia has this diecast model of a four door Audi, but it has the European headlights and he wants almost $400 for it.

I suspect there are other people who have this four-door sedan model, but this is the only one I found. I REALLY like it!

There are two limited production 1:18th scale Audi 100 Coupe models out there, that are very expensive and nothing opens. This white one is made by KK and is RESIN, not diecast metal.

Extremely well detailed and yet, one can only enjoy it from the outside. Like some cool car you have come across in a parking lot. You REALLY want to open the door and sit in it.

This lovely model is from BoS Models and is also resin. I suspect that the same molds are used in both cases.

There are watermarks as to who sells this one on each photo. I cannot afford either one of these, but on eBay are a number made some time ago, in diecast metal, with all openings working by Anson models.

I paid $49.95 for this without the box from this seller on eBay who has a massive amount of unique cars for sale: 
Items for sale by charliecasa | eBay

I like the registry number: FUN W26.

Yes, car tires WERE very narrow and wheel/tire sizes were much smaller diameter then. These are 14" wheels.

A coupe is not a car a family man would buy. I imagine the trunk opens farther than on this. But look, a spare tire!

Photos in which they car appears more yellow than orange is due to my having to get my LED lights very close to the car to illuminate interior shots.

Very good details on the interior and really the whole car. I have no idea when these came out, nor the original price.

The car in the Bring-A-Trailer web page has shots of the undercarriage and this is a very good representation of it.

You can clearly see how far forward the engine is here. Longitudinal means that the engine/transmission is front to back in the car, like rear-wheel-drive cars are. 

As you can see above, the automatic transmission is where it would be on a rear-wheel-drive car or truck. The front suspension mounting is completely wrong on the model. There is no crossmember on the real car.

But I guess they had to have a way of attaching the lower control arms to something. I just noticed they even molded the two horns, right in front of the exhaust. Which, now that I look at it is also on the wrong side of the car. Oh well, OCD sucks sometimes.

Before safety regulations mandated safer locations for gas tanks, almost every car had it right below the trunk.

The exhaust on the four-door sedan is different as you can see above. Gas tank is at the top of the photo, so we are looking towards the front of the car. Very simple beam rear axle. Not like independent rear suspensions of today.

I have this Spitfire coming today. It is a Mark IV in British Racing Green, also 1:18th scale.

This is a photo from 1982, made with a JCPenney 110 film camera of our 1974 Spitfire 1500. It had a larger engine than the Mark IV but less powerful due to US emission regulations and only one carburetor. Yes, my six foot three inch, long legged body fit fine. Those are thirteen inch wheels and tires.

The Triumph Spitfire (and GT6 coupe) will be the next chapter in this series.

Thanks for reading my humble blog. Please click FOLLOW above and leave comments below or on Facebook.

Scott
May 22, 2020
#386

Roku Express + At Last a Roku Device With Audio Output To Receiver

May 12, 2020

#385

Gentle reader,

I have written about many things, over the years, but this is a first, a review of a Streaming Device.

Prior to Amazon announcing they were coming out with a series about Heironomous (Harry) Bosch, the legendary LAPD detective created by Michael Connelly and beloved by millions of readers, we had never streamed anything.

Being somewhat OCD and suspicious of Wi-Fi, even though ours is supposedly secure, I wanted the connection hardwired. 

Note: All images were gathered from the Internet. Except photos of my installation.

Thus, I looked specifically for a Blu-Ray player that would stream Amazon Prime. Samsung made a number of them, so I bought one and ran a Cat-6 cable through the attic from this room at one end of the house, forty feet to the living room at the other end.

Soon after, one of our daughters gave us a Roku Stick streamer, similar to the one above. Ours is the 3500X.They came out in 2014.

It plugs directly into an HDMI input on the back of the TV. She also gave us a 24" HDTV to use it with. I installed both in our room. But frankly, we rarely used the TV and thus not the Roku stick.

The interesting thing about this is it must use some ultrasonic sound to operate, being that the stick is behind the TV.

Since we were not using the Roku Stick down in our room, I moved it to the living room. It performed much better than the Blu-Ray, but had no way for audio to be passed to the receiver for the surround sound.

Sometime later, I came across a Roku 2 XS which has Angry Birds as part of it, at a thrift store for a few bucks. It uses a special remote that works similar to WII remotes. The remote did not work, but I found a like new one on eBay. It required an Ethernet (CAT) cable to attach to our router which was upstairs. Fortunately, I had run one to that room years ago.

If you wish to find out more about this type of Roku, which I just read uses Bluetooth for the remote:
Roku 2 official: Angry Birds intros casual gaming support - SlashGear

Above is everything in the box except the booklets. This type of Roku device requires line-of-sight for the remote. The purple and white strip is clear double-sided tape to secure it to your TV.

The back side with USB power input and HDMI output as well as a 1/8" or 3.5mm audio/composite video output for older SD TVs. IF, your TV has a USB receptacle, then a cable plugged into that will power this Roku. 

 When it is on, there is a white LED illuminated.

The remote is very similar to the Roku stick's remote we are quite used to but sends infrared signals rather that inaudible ones.

Convenient buttons for Netflix, Hulu, VUDU and sling. Ours has Prime instead of sling.

The device is piano black to match many TVs.

Roku recommends sticking it to the bottom of the screen's frame, but ours has a couple of levels, so I stuck it here.

For the official word on this device which is an update with the addition of A/V output over a previous model, click here:

Roku Express+ (2018) | Turn your old TV into a smart TV. | Roku  

So, what do we think? It truly is WAY faster in every way! The picture is crystal clear, the audio is clear as well. I have a better audio cable coming, but the thin one from the factory works fine.

We had bought a larger (32") Vizio HDTV for our room which is "smart" but fortunately with no camera. It has their own streaming setup as well as many popular apps built right it. When I saw how much faster it was than the Roku stick, I wanted to replace the living room's 42" TV.

Fortunately, thanks to a half price offer ($15) directly from Roku, there is no need for that needless expense.

So, if you have an older TV that you wished you could stream with or, like me missed the big sound from a receiver and speakers, but don't want to spend a lot of money. Buy one or more. You won't be sorry you did.

Thanks for reading my humble blog. If you like, please click the FOLLOW button. Also feel free to leave comments below or on Facebook.

Scott

May 12, 2020

#384