Brian Austin

In the late '80s a couple of friends and I went to an eclectic toy and collectibles store in the Boston area (Mr. Big's Toyland in Waltham) and there was a large selection of Jo-Han kits. I should have picked up one of everything. ? I suppose everyone had one of these X-El flyers? I'll take a '58 Cadillac...

A Scenicruiser won't do anything for the WWII crowd. :-)

Huh... The Gar Wood body was put together by a CAD guy finding information on the internet. So different from the days of original factory blueprints!

http://cadillacdb.planeteldorado.com/Dbas_txt/prof59.htm FWIW, the author of the above website had this to say regarding the red ambulance in the MotoExotia listing I posted earlier. "This Miller-Meteor Futura-styled ambulance was offered for sale at auction on eBay in December, 2003. According to the vendor, tens of thousands of dollars went into restoring this car ...even though he said the gauges, wipers, blinkers and A/C were o/s. Note that the leather front bucket seats are from a 1964 model; the steering wheel from a 1965; the wire wheels are from the nineties, the boat horn is non-authentic, as is the upper chrome side trim running from the front door to the rear bumper. Late Extra, 4/2004: According to Sarah, my young friend and professional car enthusiast from Cleveland, OH, the base vehicle is a Miller-Meteor Sentinel model; Sarah is right! The car was acquired by an enthusiast in England for less than the $25K asking price. Corrigendum 5/2004: At first I thought those rectangular roof-mounted tunnel lights, blue lens siren and curved chrome side trim were not authentic, however, the new owner has sent irrefutable proof that all these items are genuine MM issue; he sent a period advertisement for Miller Meteor's Sentinel, Volunteer and Ambulandau models (see below). He added that the vendor had repaired most of the outstanding defects before shipping the car to Europe; he found the original front bench seat and sent that over with the car." The horns and wire wheels do for sure look out of place.

High-top ambulance. https://topclassiccarsforsale.com/cadillac/16064-1959-miller-meteor-cadillac-hightop-ambulance.html

I've seen their catalog but I've never seen any of their product. Apparently they had other Model T kits, along with horsedrawn vehicles and trains.

Apparently people do buy those basket cases to build their Ectomobile clones. Here's an ambulance in much nicer condition: https://www.motoexotica.com/sold_inventory/inventory/15277/1959/Cadillac/Ambulance/20192228?detail_embedded=true&leadsource=Showroom|motoexotica_sold_inventory

Nice build of the AMT kit to represent the car as it looked in the movie prior to becoming the Ectomobile. http://www.spencer1984.com/my_models/pre-ectomobile.php Someone's Flickr page with some good reference pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/37350472@N02/with/29469267498/ Sad-looking project car: http://davidsclassiccars.com/cadillac/418851-1959-cadillac-ambulance-original-condition.html

A quick search suggests that Tamiya has done an older FJ in 1:10 scale radio control.

I saw this large rendering hanging in the back of a styling model display at the Henry Ford Museum in 1988. I don't happen to know anything about the design. I always thought the squinty headlights were interesting...

Was there a similar flip earlier in the decade? 1999 seems later than what I might expect.

I think he's going for a general audience.

I wonder if casters will do a resin four-door body.

I saw an hour or two's worth last night. I had to go to bed just after the sun was coming up at the track. :-) I have no idea who might have won. I have one or two TV broadcasts from the '90s I taped on VHS. One incident involved a car going off the track straight up.

Here's another one...MAXmotive https://maxmotive.com/inventory/

https://maxmotive.com/vehicle/2018-chevrolet-silverado-custom-u0629/

I wish I had info on this one, or more pictures. I found this picture some time ago trawling Latin American sales sites for interesting vehicles. Frustratingly, the quality of photos posted with the listings can be rather poor. Many can be even worse than the one posted here. Note the rear window. This 1963 Corvair is apparently from Uruguay.

That's not the cab I was expecting to see on the ramp truck. :-)

Monogram did have a Paddy Wagon rod with a similar C-cab body, though that was among the lineup of another illustrious model designer.

There is nothing stock regarding the Foose pickup. The cab has been heavily modified, and the chassis is all modern custom components.

FWIW, there was a series of these, all designed by T.D. There was a grader, a steam shovel, a dump truck and others besides the roller. My father built the Honest Engine (steam locomotive) in the mid '70s and we still have it. Strange looking for sure, but fun. Models with a sense of humor!

From: https://www.motortrend.com/news/super-models-show-steve-magnante/ The first season of Steve Magnante's Super Models is four episodes long. In Episode 1, titled "Factory-Backed Street Racing in a '67 GTX," Magnante demonstrates the procedure for creating a scale-model replica of the Jimmy Addison Silver Bullet Plymouth GTX. The remaining episodes highlight an altered-wheelbase 1967 Chevelle SS, the Dodge Little Red Wagon wheelstander, and a 1968 Hemi Charger. We wondered how those specific models were chosen. "We needed to choose models that actually exist and are currently available," Magnante explained, "not only so that we could get a bunch of them to use for the show, but so that people watching would be able to find these models, as well. From there the question became, 'What can we do with the kit to make it more interesting than just building it out of the box?' In the case of the Jimmy Addison GTX, I knew that Revell has a wonderful model kit of the Sox & Martin 1967 GTX, and I knew that my parts box was full of parts." ====== One thing that struck me watching the episode was that it appeared to have been filmed at Steve's home, without a large TV crew. So it seemed to be a relatively easy show to produce during the current situation. Actually, it kind of reminded me of some of the YouTube channels I'd discovered during the past year or so, as their hosts were either building things or cleaning up old toy trains they found in their attic during the lockdown.

Adam Savage has a few videos of him assembling the Ectomobile kit from the Eaglemoss series on his "Tested" YouTube channel. Now there's a monster of a diecast! ? He stated that he had been stockpiling the parts sets for later, but decided during the lockdown to put some together. Honestly I'd skip the GB gear and build it as a stock ambulance or hearse, but that would be a bunch of money to throw at it. ?