<p>The NAMAC toyfair today. Overcast the bigger part of the day, but no rain. My turn to drive. An average fair, not too busy, and I finished my round before closing time. Theo showed me one of his selfmade beauties, and I only bought for a few euros of crap.</p>
<p>

</p>
<p>

</p>
<p>The gold one in front is from Norev. I mainly bought it because I owned such a car once in real once, and it was totally crap. I will tell you more once someone (preferebly a member who never answers.......) guessed the make.</p>
<p>The other three are Corgi. Everybody can see that although they are wrecks. I picked them because I need the seats from the Ghia for others who might need them.......wierd thing is that the inside of the doors are red, the rest of the interior is creme. Although it is easy to change the colour of the doors insides, there are no marks they were changed. Also the dog is still there.</p>
<p>The Bentley still has good wheels, in fact the rest of the car can be of use one day as well.</p>
<p>The most important one for me is the DB4. It will be used for a very special project later.</p>
<p> </p>

Cheap models for projects. Nice to see and hear about.

nice score Kees!
I only picked up a delivery at Rob's and delivered a few cars to other collectors. Met Gerrit and Jan too, it was a not too busy fair.

Fuego?

My guess is the Matra Bagheera. If I remember right it has 3 seats almost in line across the width of the car, an idea that didn't catch on (luckily).I reckon that sort of idea would appeal to Kees .

<p>Fuego, nice try Theo, that was a car that did not look like any other car, but Terry is right, it is a Matra Bagheera. I bought this car in real around 1983, when it was only about 6 years old. It looked very good, and like Terry says, there were a lot of extraordinary things with it: 3 seats in front, flip up headlights, the whole body was made of fiber glass, engine (Renault 1600) in the rear, even in the dash, the radio was built in standing up on one side ! It was well taken care of when I bought it, but it turned out to be a complete disaster. I only had it for a few months, but the engine broke down twice, and a second hand engine had to be built in a few times. Both vacuum(....) units for the  front lights blew up (how can you do that anyway....?), which costed a fortune. Even the V-belt broke, which is no problem to replace with any other car. With this one though the engine had to be taken out again to place a new belt, and the same with placing new spark plugs believe it of not. I remember the moment this beautiful car was standing in front of my house in the rain, it failed again, so I had to go to work on my motorbike, which kept me going for 30+ years without any problems. Next day, looking at the car, I saw hairline cracks coming up on the roof, and I decided to sell it.</p>

<p>Which brings me to this.....</p>
<p>Text removed.</p>

<p>As No one is interested in this, I removed the text.</p>

<p>No thoughts, so text removed.</p>

Keesie,
It may not be that people have no thoughts merely they cannot argue with the views you expressed. If a page such as this is seeing fewer and fewer participants there is not a lot we as individuals can do to encourage people. It may be my fault , I belong to a site that was a flourishing car group (Ford Scorpio), we are down to 4 now and none of us has a Scorpio any longer .

<p>Thanks Terry. Sometimes I have difficulties to find the right words, but it is not a matter of an argument, the case of one says yes, the other says no. What I wanted  to achieve was that  there must be more members than only me, who realise postings are getting less and less. That is why I compared this low period with the other forum, in which exactly the same thing happened.</p>
<p>About a page or topic being seen less and less, I wonder why there are counters, so you can see how many members visited that specific topic. If the counter shows a number, is that topic then visited by THAT number of members? If so, as I said, sometimes I have the feeling I place a topic which took a certain time to make, and then visited by a lot of members only answered by two or three. In that case I can better send a PM to those two members.</p>
<p>The comparison with the Ford Scorpio cannot really be made in this case. The Scorpio was a car of which most are long gone, so members go away. With modelcars there will always be people who have an interest, I think.....I hope.</p>
<p>What can and what cannot be done to 'poke up the fire' ? There will always be ways to try this. I gave some examples, like giving away a model car, a repro box, whatever. Thing is, I cannot go on with that, as I also did this on the other forum, to realise I was the only one who did that.</p>
<p>I also learned something concerning this: members who are really involved, I answer and try to help, but if someone who is not very active, asks for a spare part or whatever, I just ignore him........</p>

<p>About your Scorpio club, see it like this: the 4 members still there are all members,  die- hards who you can really talk to!</p>

I'm sure there are many different reasons for the lack of responses, but I'll share some of mine, just as an example...

In the years 2010-13 (maybe 2014 as well) I was hunting vintage models big time - often discovering new things about them, getting inspired for new candidates and so on. This meant that I was very active here, trying to learn, and also to share my own experiences + photos.

This has changed drastically: I now collect only Silas Models resin cars, modern trucks and Atlas models, so I have no new stories to share, knowing that very few, if any at all, members are into these trucks or any modern castings for that matter.

It also means that postings here no longer inspire me regarding new potential purchases. It does NOT mean, however, that I don't enjoy reading about diecasts, it's just that I really don't have anything useful to say, other than "nice model", "good score", "excellent restoration" or something like that. I guess I could post more such comments, but they always remind me of Facebook likes, not really contributing with anything - and they certainly won't help bring the site to life.

Also, a lot of posts are about restorers buying wrecks and turning them into mint models. This is another subject where I can't be of any use to other members. I never restored models, so don't have any tips, tricks or ideas.

What it all boils down to is, that in the majority of cases, I'm impressed with/happy for the posters, on their finds and restorations, and I enjoy reading about them... I just don't have anything to say, apart from the "well done"-type comments mentioned above, so... I don't say anything.

The ongoing problems with the site certainly don't help either and to top it all off, most of my model photos are on a drive, to which I currently don't have access.

Maybe others can share their stories as well? I would think that at least some have similar reasons.

<p>I wonder what the very special project for the DB4 will be.</p>

<p>Thanks TB for explaining how things changed for you. The fact you specialize in a certain make of brand, explains why you are not into oher postings. Thing is, I also have that. Although it seems I am active in all sorts of things, I am into Corgi, so other postings I read sometimes, but I do not answer, simply because I hate to say 'very good' or 'interesting', like you mentioned. Remarks like that could cause replies like 'thank you'. This, to me, is not the way a forum should work. Even a NEGATIVE remark would be better than that.</p>
<p>The fact you 'changed' into just Atlas or Silas models, is not the reason things go down. Other people specialize as well, and there should be always people to turn to.</p>
<p>I meant, I notice there is just a GENERAL lack of interest going over the forum.</p>

<p>CCE, I will and cannot tell you what the DB4 is for. Simply because I do not reveal plans untill they materialize. I DO have dreams, but I keep them to myself. I met too many people in the past who said I they would do this or that, buy a certain house, a certain car, and........help you out with things, and in the end it does not happen. The positive to all this is that I learned to do things myself.</p>