Mark

The '40 has a sectioned hood, but the body actually appears to be channeled (floor raised within the body) with the fenders then being installed higher up on the body. The running boards are eliminated also. I'd go the same route with the '36: channel the body (don't take a horizontal section out of it to reduce its height, but rather raise the floor which will lower the entire body). Then install the fenders in their original position relative to the frame, lose the running boards, then section the hood side panels and grille to tie it all together.

Stirred, not shaken...

Here's the semi-scratchbuilt rail frame midget built following the Joe Henning R&C articles. Balsa body/frame and seat, slot car tires, other parts from parts box including rear suspension from Revell parts pack (currently available via Atlantis). Front axle is a narrowed AMT altered wheelbase Nova piece. Louvers are from old Jo-Han customizing kits. Windscreen is two pieces of clear cellophane tape, pressed sticky sides together. I think the exhaust is formed from wire, with a small straw serving as the long pipe. I built this about forty years ago, so I don't recall all of the details. Wood is sealed with lacquer "dope", paint is Testors red enamel. The body lacks panel lines. I didn't want to paint them on, and lacking experience in working with balsa I couldn't cut them in to my satisfaction. The finish is holding up (dope hasn't lifted anywhere) but the newer epoxy finishing material for R/C airplanes is the way to go now. This is one of those things I'd like to take another swing at. This time the frame would be separate (and made of plastic), I'd find more suitable tires, and it might even have an engine. V8-60, Offy, maybe a scratchbuilt outboard or cycle engine?

I'm not sure which articles are in which magazine, but Joe Henning did a ton of articles for Rod & Custom (and possibly their short-lived model magazine) in the mid-Sixties. Among them was a 1/25 scale "champ car" made from a cut down Monogram Kurtis midget. Other articles include a Twenties Model T based sprinter with a tail section made from an AMT Double Dragster streamliner nose, a dirt modified with a chassis made from insulated electrical wire and a PAPER body, and a model of the 1911 Indy winning Marmon Wasp, body again made of paper. He also did a few carved balsa models, including an early Sixties Indy car (before AMT made their Watson/Parnell Jones kit) and a pre-war rail frame midget. Those magazines are still worth looking for if you are into these cars. My older brother was big into midget racers (he restored the Kurtis/Shilala car pictured in my earlier post; it crossed the auction block at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale last month) which got me interested too. I scratched a pre-war midget based on Henning's article. I'll pull it out of the display cabinet and throw a picture or two on later.

That Ace kit looks sort of like a Kurtis, but appears to have exposed frame rails instead of a round tubing frame concealed inside the body. One of Monogram's earliest car kits was the Mid-Jet, with a one-piece partially shaped wooden body. That kit had provisions for it to be powered by a CO2 cartridge (those were available as cheap "war surplus" items back then). I never put a ruler to the Atlantis midget (the former Monogram PC-1, Monogram's first plastic car kit) but I thought it was around 1/18 scale. The AMT 1/25 scale parts pack Hot Rod chassis is nearly the right size to fit the midget body (it's a bit too wide unfortunately). But it has working torsion bar suspension detail that is very similar to that of some Kurtis cars and their derivatives (Kurtis sold the design to concentrate on building Indy cars). The midgets could be built with any combination of torsion bar and crosswise leaf spring suspension, front and rear.

If there were any in resin, you might try searching "Etzel's Speed Classics". They did a lot of historic Indy cars, they may have done a midget or two also as many of the best Indy drivers of that era got their start in midgets.

Those are pretty much it. There was a 1/32 scale slot car from Strombecker, but I don’t think that one was issued as a shelf (non-powered) version. Other than that, there were a few wood kits in the late Forties that aren't replicas of any specific design (and are hard to find now).

I wonder if the molded styrene windows weren't added to the original issue Ranchero at some point. I've disassembled an early one (plastic tires) and it had molded windows.

There is one other issue with the multiple-piece body Ranchero. The doors are too short, owing to its origins in the Country Squire four-door wagon kit. The kit's doors are the length of four-door front doors whereas the 1:1 Ranchero doors are the same length as two-door sedan doors. Other than that, it's actually quite nice, even the places where the separate panels join are well thought out.

So many jokes, so little time...

The Toyota AA (the one that resembled a Chrysler Airflow) used a cribbed copy of a Chevrolet inline six. The same engine was used in trucks produced for war, the result being that the Japanese military used parts from captured Chevy trucks to keep their Toyota trucks running, and vice versa. The copied Chevy six was used in early Land Cruisers also.

Even with the vinyl slicks, the front tires are probably still the plastic ones. The small vinyl front tires in the Chevelle and F-85 funny car kits weren't tooled yet when the Corvair was last issued.

Hopefully "vintage" as opposed to "recent"...

Yes. It's little more than a flat piece of plastic however.

The NASCAR chassis is completely fabricated on anything 1981 and after, plus some back to the mid-Seventies. One could be used as the basis of a street machine chassis, but it's nowhere near to stock for anything.

That used "plastic" that had a low melting point. Don't chase one of them down expecting to melt styrene scraps in it...

One or both may have been the stock-only version that was sold later.

Accurate had their kits molded in Korea, if anyone has that one it might be Academy which has the Corvette Grand Sport tooling. Someone who had a connection to Accurate back in the day has stated that the Taurus likely no longer exists. How well it would have sold is an unknown. Monogram also had a Taurus kit. It would probably have come down to which company licensed the more popular cars running back then.

The Sears version may have been exclusive to their stores. Sears was hit-and-miss when it came to model kits after the early Seventies, but they probably still had enough stores carrying them to justify a special issue.

These were AMT trailers, not the ex-IMC piece. The box for this one used the same artwork as the Rat Fink trailer, with the trailer's side panel graphics changed.

The quarter panel trim on the 210 differs from that of the Bel Air, in that the 210 trim doesn't have the painted recessed area on the lengthwise strip like the Bel Air's has. There never was a '55 210 in kit form that I'm aware of.

That one (the blue van) started out as a Monogram kit with no engine detail. Revell later made extensive changes to it.

You'd have to research the R-5 version of the Studebaker engine to see if that option in the kit is accurate. Only a couple of them were built, none were sold to the public that I'm aware of.

It's all about subject matter. So-and-so's kits might be more accurate, better quality, whatever. But if the subject matter doesn't get someone excited, they're not going to be interested in it regardless of accuracy, quality, or price.

Only one of the AMT big rig trailers turned up to supplement the Atlantis items already on the shelf. The trailers are $24.99; the two Rat Fink trailers I bought last time around (same except for decals) were $19.99. Right now I've got a "15% off one entire purchase" coupon that came in the mail awhile back. That is good through the 16th. I'd suspect that if they get new stock in, it will hit the shelves around the 17th.