Hi all, I'm a newbie to this site and still fairly new to the cake making and decorating world too

I am making a 3d wilton car cake for a mum at my DDs school, I'm on my 3rd attempt and its still all going wrong! The first one came out stodgy and soggy, the 2nd one sunk like a stone and I am waiting to see what disaster lies in wait with the 3rd attempt. I've tried using a core incase maybe that was the problem but that hasn't helped.....I'm making a loss on this cake now becasue of the amount of ingredients I'm having to go through (this cake thing is supposed to be bringing in extra cash not losing it)

some one please help, this cake has to be handed over tomorrow morning and I'm not even close to being able to decorate it...looks like a long evening ahead for me if I ever get the damn thing to bake properly

Sounds like you might have oven temperature issues. Ovens come with notoriously unreliable temperature control devices. Invest a few bucks (they're VERY inexpensive) in an oven thermometer so you can set your oven temperature reliably. It will take you a short while to figure out what the REAL temperature of your oven is when you set it at a specific point on the dial.

You may want to bake a little cooler and longer for that particular pan.

Are you using a mix or a scratch recipe?

I'm using my own recipe, based on the pound cake measurements.