DRIVER FIGURES and INTERIORS!!
Okee dokee. My McAllister stock car interior arrived late last week and it will work GREAT. Including shipping from direct from McAllister it was about $22 and with painting could be used pretty much as-is. It is HUGE but it was really made to have a fair bit trimmed away to fit lots of different cars. This piece has it's origins back (WAY back) in the '80's when we had 235mm stock car bodies we ran (sometimes) on our 1/10 pan cars.
I will HIGHLY recommend this product. I'll contact Bob Stormer and see if he can order some in so folks can combine shipping with other RC needs.
ALSO I stopped by the local Toys R Us with the little vac-formed helmet from the McAllister interior in-hand to see if they had a "figure" who's head would work inside for improved detail. As expected Barbies, etc are really WAY too big to be appropriate scale...unless Barbie and Ken are 8-ish foot tall monsters. Their heads were WAY too big to fit in the helmet shell which looks pretty good, scale-wise.
TRU had a rack of wrestling "action figures" and some other sports figures that were all somewhat smaller than the Barbies (et al) and looked to be a pretty good size. They all list price in the $13-20 range but there were several in a nearby location that had clearance prices of $3.50-10. I grabbed one of the $3.50 ones (Mr. Kennedy from the WWF Royal Rumble series) and took him home. Here's a pic of him with my VTA car for size comparison...he's pretty damn good. In fact I just measured him up and he's almost exactly 7" tall, which scales up to 70" (5'10"). As they'd say at McDonalds..."I'm Lovin' It"
And another pic of him with the helmet on.
If someone REALLY wanted to go to town I can see cutting him off below the armpits, having wifey sew him a little driver's suit (maybe scale down a doll clothes pattern...they still make those I think) and pose him in the car. He even has a "grip" like he'd be holding a steering wheel. He's a bit muscle-bound so can't get his hands close enough together but I think if I trim a little away from the sides of his chest where his massive biceps hit (or trim away at his massive biceps...this dude has been SERIOUSLY hittin' the plastic steroids!!) he could look pretty sharp mounted up in the cockpit of a car.
Anyway, that's what I've found. I'm not going to rush to get anything done, maybe just putter away this spring and have something ready for Fall.