Brian Austin

Well, I wasn't even aware there was progress on the Powell kit. Interesting to note. And, yes, we have a few unrelated entities bearing the JoHan name, leading to confusion. Someone should revive the Palmer trademark. 😄

Technically that's a truck camper. 🙂

There are AA diecast trucks with those wheels. Also, I recently got a bunch of old O Scale train parts that happened to randomly include a pair of black plastic truck wheels of that type that are awfully close to 1:25 or 1:24. I have no idea where they may have come from. They look and feel old.

Are these still in production? Is a four-door available?

I started this a few years ago, and I just got back to it. Recent reissue of the Edsel, with the canopy, surround and the interior from Revell's Lincoln Futura. This was initially supposed to be an alternative Batmobile, but I found the canopy from the Futura kit fit the Edsel body better than the one from the excellent Polar Lights '66 Batmobile. The balance of the body and chassis will be stock

I've known the term to be beavertail.

Watermark your pictures. FB is like any public space. Most of my Groups are drama free. On the other hand my former model club meetings were a lot like the negative aspects of FB at times. I'm not a sure FB is any worse than dealing with people in real life.

I thought being unique and not following the herd were good things.

Bring it up and restore it to running condition. 😄

Back in the previous century, they used to be termed "personalized", which would reinforce that these were built to suit their owner's tastes. Just like our own custom model project, I think.

I am reminded of the Dykes Automobile & Gasoline Engine Encyclopedia I inherited from my late grandfather, along with a small number of WWII aircraft maintenance manuals. Fun stuff!

There are tons of 100+ year old automotive (and truck!) texts scanned by Google and others available online. I've posted some from time to time, but the era seems too early for most people here to be of much interest. One of my favorite books growing up was Automerica by the wacky Ant Farm collective. There's a chapter describing the genesis and construction of "Cadillac Ranch" among other creative endeavors. Fascinating look into the 1970s automotive counterculture. One of the more well-known members of Ant Farm was Philip Garner (now known as Pippa) who has had numerous cartoons in the big automotive magazines over the years.

I modified a LIONEL "Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends" Clarabel coach to be a little more realistic. The chassis Lionel chose for this model actually came from their old "Bobber" caboose. The wheelbase is a bit short for this car, so I cut it in half and moved the ends out. The body was too wide, so I cut the body in half at the ends and removed some material. New end panel overlays were made from styrene, along with a new underframe. I reshaped the lower sides of the body to better reflect the graceful curve of the prototype. The toy was just too square. Buffers were made from ordinary plastic pushpins, slightly modified. British O Scale is 7mm to the foot, or 1:43. Wheels therefore were relatively large, and so I had to pull them off a "parts-car" F unit diesel loco made by Roco in Austria for Atlas in the 1970s. (These were known for their axle drive gears cracking and splitting.) The interior will need partition walls for the four compartments, along with longitudinal bench seats. So far I don't have much reference for detailing the interior. I was working on an automotive model project when this project just called to me and fell together. I'm just glad to be building something. It comes and goes for me.

Super obscure is the Mad Magazine TV Special of 1974. The first segment spearing the US auto industry of the era is fun.

The Look Mum No Computer channel on YouTube has a bit of everything for everyone. There are videos on vintage computers, old electronic musical instruments (and one authentic ex-church pipe organ rescued from a house) and a smattering of old cars. Many of these things are being prepared for the museum he has been building in the UK. Here he recently purchased a 1929 Austin 7 and takes us for a spin. Seeing the townscape surrounding his museum is fun. Cute li'l thing, isn't it?

Lots of promotional pictures and info here: http://nbc_supertrain.tripod.com/

One show that has stuck in my mind forever was Supertrain. IIRC It ran for a whole nine episodes or so in 1979. I still have the article I ripped out of TV Guide showing the promotional behind the scenes pictures. Fun stuff. You can find episodes on YouTube, but the best bits can be found on the clipreel video showing all the scenes involving the train itself. Two miniatures were used for the making of the series, one in 1:16 scale, riding on 12" gauge track, and the other at 1:8 scale on 24" track. The smaller one was recently unearthed and found to be in fair condition. If my math is correct, the track gauge scales out to 16 feet, which would seem to be rather impractical. The show was NBC's most expensive, and nearly took the network down after the 1980 Olympic Games they were contracted to cover were boycotted.

I recently saw that image on FB, and that's what I was envisioning that link to have been. I'm sure accommodations would have been cozy in that camper. At least you wouldn't be sleeping a family of four in it. 🙂

I'm not seeing the image.

I have to wonder how big the box for Renwal's Visible car chassis was.

I'm not sure what to make of it myself. It doesn't look roadworthy to me. 🙂

One topic worth researching is the Great Dale House Cars. http://housecar.com/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/08/16/colorado-great-dale-house-car-camper/ https://www.theautopian.com/how-a-man-who-couldnt-drive-a-truck-turned-a-bunch-of-crashed-cars-into-an-rv-business/