Phirewriter

Had a transaction with Dave Branson, would deal with him anytime! Thanks for being a great trader!

The whole series is pretty cool, hopefully we'll see all of them released. I know these get as about much love as show cars from some members here. Just remember kits like this are what some of us of a certain age/generation cut our teeth on while getting into model building. There are kits I have little interest in but understand people's attachment to them and certainly welcome any releases as long as they'll make money for the manufacturers.

Indeed it is a '55, at first glance all I noticed was that it had it's emblems shaved and was wearing custom Caddy hubcaps, plus the second full front view didn't show up when I first viewed the post. It's interesting to note that car was used in the storyline about why Chevy needed a V8, the timeline was 1953 at this point. Plus if memory serves me there was a '57 or '58 Cadillac parked behind it at one point during the vignette. You can just make out the windshield in the screenshot.

Gotta love those "California Special" tires that screech and squeal on gravel and sand. Plus the optional colour (and trim level) changing interior on those Ford pickups.

It's a 1956 Mercury. The cars that made America series is an absolute joke. It's almost unwatchable if you have any knowledge of cars and automotive history. One could write a long book on how bad the writers/research people, directors and producers botched this up. Makes one wonder how many other shows from the History/Discovery channel about general history, wars, their military vehicles and aircraft are similarly incorrect.

Those came with chrome versions of the Heavy Chevy (Camaro), the King Kuda and the Boss Hoss Mustang, all with a black or white interior. The white interior versions are much harder to find. There's also 2 versions of the catalogue that came with the Club Kits, one (early version) showing resin prototype models of certain cars and the Rear Board Beach Bomb and the later issue that has regular production cars, the side board Beach Bomb, plus the expanded line of Sizzlers and the 1/43 Gran Toro's. Not sure about the iron-on, seems like some do and some don't. Not sure if it has anything to do with early or late production or just if they were available at the time of packaging.

Jeez, thanks for that spoiler... Not all of us have the time to sit and watch the race live, guess I can stop and take it off the DVR now.

More than likely this car, of which there were kits from Eldon then Doyusha. Doyusha probably tooled and/or moulded it for Eldon since the original kit was sourced from Japan. Images from Google though I do have the complete set of Eldon Hot Rod kits, only the Sand Dragon was never reissued.

They've been getting into guitars too, guess there nothing they'll try to get their greedy paws on and throw a monkey wrench into another hobby.

Unfortunately the Carrera Cheetah has been out of production for a bit. The good news is that it was available in both 1/24 and 1/32 and Carrera does reissue cars on a regular basis. If you're not interested in eBay perhaps joining some slot car forums or Facebook groups to find what you're looking for might be a good idea. There's a number of good ones out there. In my area Facebook marketplace turns up used tracks from Carrera, Scalextric, etc... so you can get your feet wet rather inexpensively.

$87,000 US ?? MSRP for a fully equipped one here in the states is around $39,000. What's the hike in price, taxes?

TD has thrown in with Atlantis for now so perhaps it's that.

Harry Bradley had been a designer for GM for a number of years and in 1967 left to help with the initial design of Hot Wheels for Mattel. Different books on Hot Wheels history have him either leaving with copies/photos or simply had seen the final production design. Regardless, he simply drew up his design for the Hot Wheels version along with 15 others for their debut run. It just so happened that the Hot Wheels version made it to market before the 1:1 version did. 1968 was the introductory year for the redline Hot Wheels. He left shortly after to do independent design work, MPC being one of his clients in the late 60's into the early 80's.

I guess I don't see what the big deal is. When you factor values of toys of this era (yes in 1968 models were just toys) and consider that rare Hot Wheels from the first years of production regularly dive deep into four (sometimes five) figures and rare large scale slot cars bump into the low thousands, I'm not surprised to see rare/htf kits reach big money. I'm not even going by auction dollars, just basing it on what I've witnessed at slot car specific shows and Hot Wheels conventions. It's all relative I guess. As for Mr Herrick or any other true pro builders out there, if they can squeeze that kind of money out of a buyer, more power to them!

Just picked it up there tonight, thanks!

Yes indeed, kinda surprised the various diecast/toy and kit manufacturers didn't get ahead of this movie. I was aware of the movie for almost a year before it was released. Strike while the iron's hot as it were.

I would say some of those weren't even 1/32 as some of the guys I slot race with bought them for the bodies. They came out to around 1/35th? (or smaller) Kinda obvious when a correctly scaled GT-40 or Ferrari dwarfed them.

This was at the Milwaukee NNL a couple of years ago, it definitely rekindled my interest in these kits.

Thanks for the update, I'll be watching my LHS. I don't subscribe (to any magazines anymore) only because I'm tired of getting paper shreds instead of a readable copy.

Ha! I see what you did there?

Ray was a notorious re-caster, so that doesn't mean too much. The guy who mastered that body is a good friend, he's been doing work for Jimmy as long as I can remember.

Balsa foam isn't a cheap date either. I worked with a guy who was carving vac formed masters for slot and R/C car bodies and he used expanding foams from both Smooth-On and Alumilite. Basically pored into a box approximately the starting size he needed and carved away once cured. Not too expensive compared to some of the other ready to use products. Otherwise the suggestion of sign foam is good, shouldn't be too hard to find a shop to give/sell you some cut offs, just look for a shop that offers 3d signs and chances are they're working with it.

Well if it's someone else's work, you're copying it, and it certainly is one of Jimmy's bodies. Pleading ignorance doesn't make it ok. Took all of 30 seconds to Google "1/25 1958 Chevy sedan delivery" and his was one of the first to show up. His stuff is priced low enough that someone shouldn't have to resort to this, nice move. Stopping by his shop tomorrow, I'll be sure to show this thread to him.

The MPC trike kits were based on models constructed by Denny Johnson. You can clearly see the T'ranchula body was used on the original model. If you go to the contest and show thread and look up Tim Boyd's coverage of the last Toledo NNL he (along with some other members) has some excellent coverage with notes, etc... Denny's models along with Richard Carroll's and Ira Dahm's were some of my favourites from that time. BTW Denny also conceived the Zinger's brought out by MPC.

I dunno, after attending a show/swap last week for the first time in a while I'd say first!? If you have enough money to fill your trunk with kits, you have enough for a bar of soap! If it was one or two guys that's one thing, almost smelled better out back with the smokers. Sorry for going a bit off topic but jeez...