Danno

Love those Matadors!!

Nice, Raoul!

Nice, Steve! Love the wagon, keg & cooler. A well-equipped recreational vehicle!

A beauty, Steve!

Very Nice, Raoul!

Very Nice, Tom! From the Small World Department: I always loved that Trail Dust, too. Denver Tech Center, east side of I-25. Good food, lots of it, not too expensive, great fun. Whilest living in God's Country, we ate many a scorched cow dinner there, and I surrendered more than a few gawdy gift ties! Our kids absolutely LOVED the two-story slippery slide in the middle of the dining room! You don't see that every day. This model brought back very fond memories the first time I saw it ... and more of the same now. Thanks for reprising it, Tom!

Nice group of builds

Nice build.

Nice.

Nice stuff, or should I say, nasty stuff, Chuck.

Nice, JW.

Okay. It's now January, 2013. Now the December issue is late (23 minutes late).

Sean indicated they've already corrected the spelling errors.

Are you sure?

Beautiful kit ... and beautiful build-up, Sean. I'm excited about the kit, but I've gotta say I'm disappointed in four things. (1) The Sirenlight looks odd and toylike. The mounting pedestal is too far forward and seems too large in proportion to the main housing. Cutting about half the height (from fender to main housing) off the pedestal, then repositioning to behind the vents will make it look right. But it's too bad we have to modify the police-car-specific parts right out of the box in order to make it look right. And, unfortunately, there will be a bunch of these kits showing up everywhere, looking like toys with the unmodified kit parts (Sirenlight and spotlight; see next item). (2) The "spotlight" is not a spotlight. It is a fixed-pedestal-mounted sealed beam lamp. Spotlights look like this: On the 1957 Ford, the spotlight shaft went through a bracket on the outer curve of the top of the fender and through the dashboard, with the handle falling between & below the door pillar to the left of the steering wheel rim. The exterior bracket/mount was like this: (Seen on a Thunderbird; note the shape of the spotlight head is different than the simpler, more common police design; this deluxe style includes a built-in rear view mirror.) (3) The radio control head captures the look of the period Motorola Twin-V radio control heads, but it is way oversized. It appears to be nearly as wide as the glove box door on the model. It looks (in your picture) more correctly sized for a 1/20 or 1/16 model. It looks good ... but it's too big. Here's a pic of a '55 Chevy with the next generation of Motorola control head. The Twin-V control head was not appreciably larger; this view shows the relative size in comparison to the dashboard of a similar car. And, by the way, where's the speaker? Is there a speaker box in the kit? The Motorola speaker box is shown here under the dash at the passenger door. (4) The absence of a well-engineered whip antenna, along with the absence of the speaker box. Having said that, I'll still buy all the kits I pre-ordered. The concept is great. The decal sheet is exceptional. The beacon is right-on (although it's too bad a Federal emblem wasn't included on the decal sheet). But I'm just a little disappointed to see this potential "home run" fall just short of the fence. The issues are not deal-breakers, but there was such a chance of hitting a grand slam homer with this one. There will be a ton of out-of-box builds of this kit on contest and show tables, with a lot of people looking at them and thinking, ''something just doesn't look quite right." Again, thanks for the previews! And, again, congratulations on a beautiful build-up. Congratulations to all of you on Dave's team for getting this good a cop-car kit to the market.

A basic fire department ambulance model (like your illustration) can be created with the generic decal sheets produced by Chimneyville or Bill Bozo, if you can still find them. Check with copcarmodels.com. The generic sheets usually have the maltese crosses and 'ambulance' or 'rescue squad' lettering, generally in silver or gold.

There's always cool stuff going on in Jim's head!

In the 60's, ambulance markings (and emergency vehicle markings in general) were very plain and subdued compared to what we're accustomed to seeing in the past 20 years. You'd be in good shape to just go with two- or three-tone paint and plain white, silver, gold, or black lettering. Nothing gaudy, no fancy graphics, and in general don't worry about exotic logos. Ambulances then were just fast taxis. Even the "Star of Life" emblems came much later. A red cross here or there, especially on side windows, was about the boldest ambulance markings were ... back in the day. Google-Image '1960s Ambulances' and you'll see what I mean. Just ignore the later stuff Google drags in and concentrate on the images earlier than the 70's. Good luck with your project!

Project just finished: Wow. Next project up: Huh? {I know you'll crank out a beautiful replica of it ... but ... oh my.} Seriously, can't wait to see you tackle those flames, my friend!

Sweet!

Nice.

Man, I don't know where those contests are, and I darn sure don't want to know! I've never seen, experienced, or even heard of that happening in "most contests." It's too bad that's been your experience.

I have to say ... IF the reviews were more current, then having a bunch of reviews would be fine. But, SA(noE) being full of reviews on OLD kits that have been out for months (or years, in the case of their "Classic Kit" series) is pointless. The past couple of years, virtually every kit they've reviewed was on the market so long before they got around to their review that I had already bought it and either built it or grokked it. Their reviews were old news. In this internet era, they should not waste the time and pages talking about year-old releases. And when they can't tell an AMT from a Revell . . .

My SA(noE) arrived yesterday. Finished it off in little more than 1/2 hour (that's how in-depth the content is). Now that I've had the appetiser, I'm ready and eager for the main dish ... MCM Filet Mignon-December.

Looks good!