Ivo's Showboat, Thompson's Challenger 1 why not The Summers Brother's Goldenrod ?

[DrKerry]

Kool stuff!!!

[Ace-Garageguy]

I would also tend to think that perhaps a part of the reasoning behind Revell's failure to kit the Goldenrod would stem from the typical builder's reaction to the Challenger and Showboat models. I recall even at the time the kits were first issued, they were whined about as being difficult and fiddly.

If I had been Revell's product development guy and had heard all the bashing of the kits, after having put so very much effort into producing them, I would have written off any thought of doing something so "difficult to build" in the future.

Surely the Goldenrod would have been an even more challenging kit, to build as well as to tool for production.

[Shardik]

Yeah, but why not the Red Head? se-e-e-e-exy!

New book out. Save the salt worth the price of admission. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0964617587/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=TMNZGN15B6B5&coliid=IH32FZJUTXSYE

plus part of the price goes to "Save The Salt"

Greg, I ordered mine two months ago.

[cdan delivery]

Yeah, why not the Redhead??? What a beeeyooteeful car.

[Scott Colmer]

X3 on the Redhead. Possibly the sexiest hot rod around.

[Casey]

Yeah, why not the Redhead??? What a beeeyooteeful car.

I think part of the problem with streamliners is almost everything is hidden from view. Transparent windows/canopies are kept to minimum, so you can't see what's inside. There's no hood to lift off, hinge upward, or remove to show off the engine like on a typical passenger car, and if the streamliner has a full bellypan, you have nothing to see underneath should you pick it up to look at it.

The Challenger I model has removable panels, true, but there's also a very famous name attached to that car, too, which I suspect helps a lot. Mickey was a great promoter of his own LSR attempts, too, and had established relationships with the press which helped get the word, and his name, out there and visible to the general public. That promotion sure didn't hurt Revell's odds of selling more Challenger 1 kits.

LSR racing is not like NASCAR, NHRA, etc, with a ton of sponsorship money pouring in, plus they run 20+ events in a season, all of which are broadcast. These are still mostly unknown racers spending most of their own money, so the drivers don't have name recognition with the model buying public.

[Crazy Ed]

I think it'd take a Very Successful Movie of the 60's LSR Salt Racers for there to be enough interest in them for a manufacturer to even consider a run of Kits. Although a well done kit of the Arfons's Jet Powered Green Monsters might succeed just because they have to be considered the Parents of the Star Wars Pod Racers!

[Greg Myers]

Edited February 17, 2014 by Greg Myers

[PeeBee]

Great movie and an inspiring story. There's a couple of photos of Burt Munro (with his Indian) competing at Bonneville in the 1964 Popular Hot Rodding Yearbook.

[stillnotpc]

Is that trike a record holder?

[KarlS]

It is still at the Henry Ford.

[Greg Myers]

I think it'd take a Very Successful Movie of the 60's LSR Salt Racers for there to be enough interest in them for a manufacturer to even consider a run of Kits. Although a well done kit of the Arfons's Jet Powered Green Monsters might succeed just because they have to be considered the Parents of the Star Wars Pod Racers!

Have you tried this http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Duel-Inside-Record-Sixties/dp/1554076331/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393884381&sr=1-1&keywords=speed+duel ? It's mostly about the early days then a jump to jets and rockets pretty much leaving out the Challenger and Golden Rod of the '60's.

[Art Anderson]

In all this, it's often difficult to realize that for most people, LSR cars are actually rather obscure--sure, people know pretty much that there are guys out there who strive to go faster on land than anyone else before them--but that's very much where it ends for many.

Now, had the LSR been in contention every year or so, instead of now seemingly decades between challenges, there's just not a lot of publicity surrounding this type of car, and when a new one crops up, not a lot of press interest either. I suspect that translates into projected rather poor sales for a new model kit of one.

Art

[Mark]

It must have been both exciting and frightening (perhaps at the same time) to have been a product manager for a model company back in the 1950's and 60's--pick a winner and you were the company hero--but choose to do a kit subject that was a "turkey" and you'd likely become the "goat"--perhaps preparing a new resume' to attract your next employer.

I suspect that the truth really was, even as late as 1960, that nobody in that young plastic model kit industry really knew just what subject(s) would push the "hot button" with modelers--who back then were primarily kids, boys from the age of perhaps 9 or 10 to about 15 or 16 or thereabouts. Of course, model kits of any year's new cars were already known sellers, but what about other automotive subjects? Looking back, subjects beyond what Detroit was showing off every fall (along with a few model kits of older cars that were then "iconic" in the hot rodding and custom car world) must have been, at best, a ###### shoot--their ultimate popularity being about as predictable as a rolling of the dice or pitching pennies against a brick wall out on the sidewalk.

Even saying that, I'm pretty sure that many, if not most, new model car subjects sold at least enough to recoup their tooling cost, but there surely were some that simply "laid an egg"--I was told by AMT Corporation managers that their '53 Studebaker Commander Starliner and it's companion, the '63 Avanti sold very poorly when first released circa 1964, enough so that it was a good 10 years before either was reissued--and then again--that tooling sat on the shelves for another dozen or so years. But, alongside that, AMT's original 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop Trophy Series kit remained in continuous production from early 1962 through at least 1996--a run of 34 years and likely several million kits produced over that stretch of time.

Other kit subjects turned out to be wildly popular for a few years--based I suppose on the popularity of the real thing, only to fall by the wayside as fascination for the real thing faded away in the public's consciousness.

Art

Both the '53 Studebaker and the Avanti were available through 1967; both were issued with the "wordless" box art that AMT used for Trophy Series kits that year (that coincided with AMT's changing their numbering system). The Studebaker body and related parts were also used (with the Piranha dragster chassis) in a funny car that was available in this period also. The Studebaker was issued again in 1969 (the Gasser series, with the printed cardstock drag strip starting line display base). That issue is also in the 1970 catalog. For 1971 it was issued in yet another box ("Double Whammy", the one copied for a late Nineties Buyers' Choice issue). Both the Avanti and Studebaker resurfaced in the mid-Seventies Modern Classics series. So the Stude, at least, was available pretty much continually in one form or another through the mid/late Seventies.