Motor City

I owned my folks' '76 Regal coupe, and my brother also had one. They were more expensive than the Cutlass, but looked better without the wrapover grille of the Cutlass and Grand Prix. It was very formal looking and there wasn't a bad line on the car. The Century had a slanted grille and looked sporty, and was also the Indy 500 Pace Car that year. With an emblem and grille change, you could get three kit variations. Out of the '73-'77 "A" bodies, I would think the '73 SS, El Camino, GTO, Grand Am, 442, and Cutlass Supreme would sell well. Variations on all of these could be made for '74 and '75 models. A '77 Can Am should also sell well. I think the Big Three were too busy at that time trying to meet emission and bumper crash standards to bother with model cars, but it is time to see some of these done.

Hello Dave, Thank you for all of the great kits that Moebius has issued and will be issuing. It's great that you are not doing the same cars as everyone else (variations of Impalas, Chevelles, Camaros, etc.). My wish list: '41 Buick Special or Century fastback, '48 Pontiac Streamliner sedan-coupe (fastback), '53 Skylark, '53 Fiesta, '53 Caribbean, '54 98 hardtop, '54 Eldorado, any Hornet hardtop, '57 Bonneville, '57 Adventurer, '58 Skyliner or Ranchero, '59 Super 88 hardtop, '61 Starfire, '62 Grand Prix, '62 Starfire, '63 Grand Prix, '63 Wildcat, '64 Starfire, '66 Starfire. '66 Catalina 2+2. I better stop as I'm getting writer's cramp!

Hi Randy, Thanks for the link to the other site. Your work is awesome. Jim

That's beautiful work, Randy. How did you get the hood paint details on the '69 Mach 1 and '70 Torino Cobra, and where did you get the decals for the '74 Z-28? Jim

That looks like Bob Tate standing next to the rack.

Hi Casey, No, I don't recall exactly where it was. It was no more than a couple of short blocks away from the headquarters. It only took a couple of minutes, at most, to get there. Jim

In the fall of 1974, I had a break of several hours between college classes. Instead of an extended lunch, studying, or playing pinball, I decided to drive down to the Jo-Han factory on Moran Street in Detroit. That year, Detroit set a murder rate record for the city that has not been surpassed. To put it mildly, it wasn't a safe city to drive in. The neighborhood was a bit run down, and I had to be buzzed in. The woman was very helpful when I told her that I wanted to buy some model cars. She had me wait several minutes. While I waited for her to come back, I admired the models on display in their showcases. She came back with a bunch of promos and kits. She thought the '68 442 kit was missing some parts (it wasn't). Here is what I got: '68 442 kit, '69 Toronado kit, '71 442 kit, '72 442 kit, '69 Coupe de Ville promo, '69 Eldorado promo, '71 Toronado kit, '72 Toronado kit, '72 Eldorado kit, '69 GTX promo, '70 GTX promo, and '71 AMX kit. The price was $3.00 each plus tax! I only have half of them now. Had I known, I would have kept them all! A couple of years later, I was taking a Marketing class and made arrangements to visit the MPC and Jo-Han factories (AMT wasn't interested, as I recall). The MPC guy was very helpful, giving me sales information and marketing strategy, but no tour of the plant. When I got to Jo-Han, they didn't want to give me the tour. I told the person that they PROMISED me a tour, so they relented. The Moran headquarters was nothing special as I recall. I met the owner, John Hanley, who seemed rather quiet. I was driven a few blocks over to the injection molding plant, an old building with no sign to indicate what it was. Most of the workers there were women, which was a bit of a surprise to me. I watched some of the operations, but production wasn't exactly booming there in 1976. They were working the machines and pulling parts off of the molds. I don't recall if any assembly was going on. On a related issue, the thread regarding Testors snap kits had some comments about Jo-Han snap kits. I was very unhappy with these kits. I had most of them. What I found galling were the large-diameter plastic axles and cheap, hard tires. The axles would not be easy to swap out with metal ones so the cars could roll. The comments about the '75 Cutlass grille were correct, too. I knew there was something wrong with it, but never compared it to the real car.

Why was this car done AGAIN? AMT already did versions of the Impala in 1962 in hardtop and convertible forms, and later issued SS versions of both bodies. Why not do something new like a '62 Starfire, Grand Prix, Wildcat, XL, or Monterey S-55? Or, do some models from the same era that were never done: '63 Grand Prix, '63 Wildcat, '64 Starfire, '64 Catalina 2+2, '65 Starfire, '66 Starfire?

There were a few errors in the article. REO formed in 1904 after Olds wanted to continue manufacturing economical cars, but his financial backers wanted to build luxury cars. So he was forced out and started REO. REO continued making cars through 1936, and trucks through 1975, in Lansing, Michigan. Diamond Reo was the name of the truck in later decades after REO merged with Diamond T. GM was formed in 1908 and initially consisted of Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac. Oakland was added in 1909. This pre-dated U.S. Motors. It's true that Olds was using a moving assembly line before Ford, and that part is lost on most historians. Ford perfected the use in the assembly line, but he certainly didn't invent it. The Rickenbacker plant still stands in western Detroit. I saw a 1925 Rickenbacker touring a few weekends ago. The Hupp plant is gone. The Detroit Historical Museum has a mid-twenties Hupmobile roadster in its collection, but it isn't on display.

thanks, Casey and Richard!

Thanks to all for your suggestions. I'm at work, so I don't have any promos in front of me . To clarify, the early AMT promos used nail heads from 1948 or 1949 to probably 1952, slotted screws in 1953 and 1955, nails in 1954, and slotted screws from 1956 onward (disclaimer: don't quote me on all of those years as I'm going from my memory). I think all of my Jo-Han promos have the nail head or non-slotted screws. Some of the promos have the nails in so tight that there is no way to get a pair of pliers on the nail head, and a putty knife or chisel is too thick to pry up with. Is there some other effective tool to pry these up without damaging the head or gouging the chassis? I have a few windows to reglue, as well as a few chassis to straighten out from kids leaning too hard on the models when playing with them. I could also use a couple of screws for a '56 Roadmaster 4-door hardtop. These are smaller than the screws used on the AMT models of the 60s. Thanks, Jim

Hi, I was wondering what is the most effective way to remove old nails that were used instead of screws to secure the body to the chassis on old AMT promos and many Jo-Han promos. I saw on another forum that using a soldering iron on the nails will heat them up enough to remove them from the body. Wouldn't that melt the plastic mounting posts? Thanks, Jim