The Eagle Has Landed... In Pieces!... [PIC]

It's always an adventure receiving a prototype model direct from the Chinese vendor. It's, of course, one of a kind and I get it to photograph for the pre-order advertisements and then send it on to be shown at various venues. These prototypes are generally hand-built and usually have some defects that I either have to shoot around or digitally correct. But the real problem is breakage as the securing and packaging of the model is generally not well thought out and can actually cause built in stresses that will break up the model while in transit. I have a pile of models that came beyond repair that I could give to someone who wants to craft a junkyard diorama. Before I even open the shipping box, I shake it to listen for parts rattling around. When I got this #36 AAR 1967 Gurney-Weslake V12 Eagle Mk1 (T1G), shaking the box sounded like a thousand loose Legos were inside. Well, as a kid, I wasn't really interested in these open wheeled cars that I thought just looked like cigars on wheels. Of course, watching James Garner in the movie "Grand Prix" a half dozen times got me a bit more interested in that form of race cars. Well I opened the box of this 1/12 scale model to find that the big heavy wheels and tires were not supported sufficiently cause the suspension components to shatter at all four points. Now I had to do something I had never even thought about: How the hell did the suspension actually work. Some of the pieces I couldn't identify and I sent pictures to Raffi Minasian to identify like where all the loose hoses should be connected to and identifying some of the small engine components. Once I got a mental picture of what had to be done, I cleared off the kitchen table and proceeded to laboriously reassemble the broken parts and also restore the proper geometry. A few times, the connecting pointes had shattered I had to bridge the gaps with thick gap filling cyanoacrylate. Every assembly required me to make a jig, usually out of modeling clay, to give the repair time to completely cure to bear the weight of the wheel. It took me a week with my wife giving me that "When is this going to be over?" look on her face. When it was finally finished and the geometry was perfect, I gingerly set the model down on its wheels and it survived. I took a set of photographs and sent them off to all the parties, and then I had to prepare to pack it up for someone in California to be shown there. Well, after diagnosing the failures of the original packaging, I repackaged it with what I thought was adequate support of the wheels and shipped it out. Well, I failed also and the guy in California also got it in pieces. Now he was supposed to be an expert modeler, and he just threw up his hands and told our boss it was impossible to restore to proper geometry, which kinda pissed me off, because I knew it was possible because I did it!!! Well, as a postscript, the vendor reworked the securing points and packaging and when I got the first production model, it was perfect. So here's the final run of pics on this gorgeous eagle-beaked Grand Prix car.