Wickersham Humble

Nope; the interior of the kit body suffered the same result, and it was vintage painted styrene; the hinged cover was just Evergreen flat stock! I'm trying to get up ambition (to divert time from current in-progress builds) to strip the foil and attempt a re-do. I hadn't realized how old the BMF was, I guess; it was the natural aluminum finish and because I had almost a full sheet, I suppose it seemed 'fresh'. Definitely gave the wrong look -- fooey! I did a rebuild of an ancient 'Double Dragster' frame and 'body' using model rail-road rivets under the BMF (same sheet) that turned out barely acceptable. It was the base Dragmaster chassis and two-piece enclosure from the 1962 (?) AMT kit -- which we kids welcomed with open arms; so many options (like the Sizzler kit). I put a blown flathead in it, whitewalls, etc. to resemble a late-'fifties rail, featuring of course the bare-aluminum look panels with rivet lines. It's expensive, but from that experience, I've kept BMF on hand that is dated/fresh; just in case age was the factor. I can always use out-of-date foil, I guess, for fancy masking. A couple of early 'sixties annuals on which I had to rebuild the roofs (damaged when I packed my collection in a big carton when I got my draft notice in 1967 (after becoming 1-A upon getting my B.A.!) and someone set a heavy object on it in our attic. Covering the cabin glass on the hardtops with BMF protected the elderly clear styrene from damage while I reconstructed the 'bubble-top' roof pillars with brass, epoxy and Bondo! I peeled it off successfully and believe I used isopropryl alcohol to polish any residual adhesive away, then Meguiar's plastic polish. (I think old fashioned finishing compound is just as good, however) and it seemed to work okay. I still have a backlog (at almost eighty) of ancient kits to build, and only have ventured a few resin repros. Thanks for the suggestion, though; 'and, it's a mystery. Think about it.' Back in the day, I knew the noticeable difference between 1/25 and 1/24, but never really noted the out-of-scale stuff as much as sixty-five years later. Things have improved so much in that time!! I usually don't put any figurines in my kits, but the driver figure in the re-pop "Slingshot" kit looked pretty natural for that era. I did a lot of massaging of the body parts to get a different look (a short-wheelbase digger has a 'different look' built in -- especially when the hemi is stacked with a 6-71 blower, U-fab multicarb manifold, etc.!) especially the driver's compartment coaming at the rear. I regret not being able to create my own decals (yet) and using a ultra-fine-point Sharpie pen to attempt the graphics. I do think that there was an important digger named 'Top Banana' back when. Thanks for the informed comments, Peteski! Wick

Pat W: My first car was almost a Morris Minor ragtop, black with white top, sitting in the bone-yard of the dealership (Pont/Buick/GMC) where I worked on and off. It had something wrong with the engine (probably some local tried to drive the Western highways like we did our US cars; fast and long, and fried the itty thing!) which we never figured out. I even priced a replacement in the JC Whitney catalog at about $125 plus shipping, but no guarantees -- so I filed it as a neat idea that fizzled, and kept looking. Now that I look back on 1961, I can see that I'd have taken a lot of razzing by my crowd for driving a Brit skate. Only our teachers ventured to drive V-W's in our rural N CA town, plus on 356 Porsche and a MGA. Oddly, only one or two pickup trucks were in the HS student parking lot, a '55 Chevy and natch, a '56 Ford F-100; cool in thier own way, but considered mostly work vehicles in a ranching/lumbering area, and not good rod material -- nor ideal for 'parking' at the submarine races. My eventual first, the jazzy '55 Chevy was far, far to well-known locally, and the fuzz could always spot it anywhere; they particularly didn't like the lakes pipes!! Wick

Here's my 'Sling Shot' and comparison to very old Model A tub rod. Tub BMF-aluninum was old, I guess, wrinkled badly after a few months! Turquoise candy is Testors or Pactra done in 1962 or so, rest of the kit is Mono parts box and etc. Blower is from AMT 1/25 kit; all sizes over the years!! If these don't load, don't be surprised... Wick

Bill, Yep; the first gen hemi (I can't bring myself to capitalize the 'h', because Chrysler didn't invent the design, by fifty years or so) made an enviable place for itself in competition history, unmatched by any other in it's day. Well, Mickey Thompson won the '63 Winternationals in a Pontiac 'hemi' that used some MoPar valve gear components, but... As a child of the 'fifties, it still amazes me how very few hemis of any family (Dodge, DeSoto, and Chizler) were actually seen in cars back then; the various Dodges were super-scarce (I worked in a Texaco station, and at the local Pontiac/Buick/GMC +Rambler dealer, back then), DeSoto's were becoming low-sellers leading to their demise in '61 powered by B-blocks, and in N CA Chryslers/Imperials weren't plentiful anyway. They were expensive to hop-up, nothing like a Chebbie at all, and besides were closed out by 1959 until the 2nd Gen came out in '64. Finding a hemi even in a junk-yard hulk was a notable event. One of my college roomies in '65 was a MoPar fanatic (he loved math, too!) and almost bought a '56 DeSoto 2-dr HT with (no kidding) a hemi and stick-shift! Almost; he found a cherry '59 Dodge at a better price -- the first guy I knew who ever ran radial tires, no less. Was sideswiped by a flat-bed trailer truck, but the truck lines repaired it. I was a A-block car, not fast at all, but rakish -- he loved it! We were given a Chrysler Industrial 354 in a swap with the local Ford dealer, but after investigating the cost of speed goodies for it, flipped it for a B-block 361. Cool valve covers, said 'Chrysler Industrial' stamped right in 'em! The little '54 Dodge was smooth as a turbine, and a great lugger for being only a skosh larger than a Chevy six! Still, I could build two 283's for the price of a hemi engine kit and machine work, so... I saved my Dodge Red Ram from the Ala Kart kit I bought in '62 (?) for years, as it was so unique; still have it in a Model A rod kit. Early hemis I still have were also gratefully accepted in the AMT Double Dragster kit, and the Buick Spl station wagon - the latter I'm just now finishing as a panel delivery two-door, with naturally a nailhead! (Boy, don't get me started!) Wick

But, the original 241 Red Ram hemi was smaller than the Chrysler/Imperial-DeSoto block, in 1/1. Drove a '54 with overdrive stick for a while, really nice mill! Ole' Wick

Pete; the other reason was decisive, my skills at almost eighty -- can't see, or use a one-hair brush well enough to do a credible job. And I know how critical I invariably am of figures in dioramas at shows... almost to the detriment of really enjoying the plane, tank, or car shown. As I 've often said: people who don't get old never have old people's problems! Wick

It's always a bit shocking (if that's apt) when major and trusted firms slip out-of-scale parts in, or like was reported in one the mags, use the molds for an SBC for a MoPar truck motor. (Of course, the old B-block looked a lot like a big Chevy, in fact!) I bought/built the Mono 'Sling Shot' dragster last year, supposedly at 1.24 (yes?) and posed it next to one of the Model A phaeton kits I made into a drag car sixty years ago -- so like eras -- and they are not comparable, to my eye. Is it true that some Mono kits were 1/20 scale? Funny: I wanted to but a GMC huffer under the six 97's on the dragster kit, and got one from my parts box that looks exactly right -- and it's AMT! I used the ARE five-spokers from the old Sizzler kit, and they're good to go. Don't notice that they are too recent ('63 intro) for a late-fifties digger! Being iffy scale is one reason I don't attempt to do figures for my kits, even the dioramas. Maybe I'll find someone who'll do some as a paid service (giving credit at shows. OC!) as nowadays I can't see well enough to do face detail, etc. Oh well... Wick

Pretty good tale! Old MoPars ran a long time; we came to CA in 1951 in our 'new' 1948 Plymouth two-door sedan, dark navy blue (looked like a big V-W, but cute) as Dad had bought it with his War Bond savings at about $1,700. I learned to drive in it, out on the old Devil's Garden USAAF emergency strip north of town, later an air tanker base, and then a Corrections Camp. When banished to KS in summer of '62 (my white Chevy up on blocks until August,) I worked on a ranch for my Uncle. As I fixed all the equipment of his that I broke, he offered my their old 1946 Dodge 4-door sedan for free to drive back home. I was jazzed until I found out they'd parked it in favor of a '56 Plymouth because the casting on the steering-column three-speed linkage had cracked away; pot metal that couldn't be welded. I wasn't making much money, and ended up spending quite a bit of it for a ride home on the 'Hound (Greyhound Bus Lines), what with meals and all. The Dodge was only 15 years old, and might have made it, even over the Rockies; we drive cars 50-60 years old now and think little of it! Repeat with me: "I wish I had that Chevy back!" Can't afford one anymore! Had over twenty, over the years... Lots of my HS friends drove flathead-6 MoPars, and were happy enough. We have Dad's old '51 Chevy now, found in a town of 100 folks thirty years after he sold it, but it's my sons, and restomodded (injected 350, 5-speed, discs, PS, and all the other good stuff, though it looks almost stock except for ARE Torq-Thrust mags and radials. The old 216 and little drum brakes really are inadequate for modern driving. My '51 Ford is strong enough to keep up, but the stopping power -- oh my! After looking at the photos of my cobbled-up model, I was ashamed of it, esp the tail-lites! Wick

Great fun! You and I could have worked for Roth, or Mouse Studios? I always told my art students to use the very best paper they can afford... Most of my old drawings from the 'fifties are on newsprint, and rapidly disintegrating. Wait, maybe that's to my benefit? Wick

Tasty: I love it! I have two books of cutaways and his usual brilliant stuff by Yoshihiro Inomoto; lots of comment and history too, but all in Japanese! He sent them to me in hopes I could sell them to American publishers back in the '80s, but I had no luck at the time, even with my publisher HPBooks (Fisher Books, CA Bill's Automotive Handbooks, etc.) which is just sad. They're small, home-market format, but would have made beautiful coffee-table books -- what am I saying: still would! He wanted me to be his American editor, and oc I wanted the job. Inomoto-san was a Japanese national treasure, and a great person; sort of a Japanese Dave Kimbell. He was going to furnish me with a rough English translation (he wasn't monoglot; had okay English, judged at Pebble Beach, etc.) and I was doing the final draft. As Ziggy once said: "When my ship came in, I was waiting at the airport!" Wick

Me again: sorry, the BOIO art is the rough one from Canva graphics; my bad. Also, fans of the Brewster Buffalo will note that in the rush, I forgot it had a three-bladed prop! Wick

Okay, these are aircraft paintings, and not cars, but these are cover illustrations by me for my two-novel set (on Kindle), Bird of Ill Omen and Bird of New Hope. Adventure historical fiction of the American aviation from before WW I until the end of WW II. Shameless promotion department: available in eBook or paperback, and as cheap as I can sell them, as an introductory offer. The kind of action/romance (well, some romance) that I like to read. Try the free sample read. Lots of carefully researched history, and echoing many events in the 'Golden Age of Aviation' -- and lots of cars, too! Wick Humble BOIO was done thirty years ago, in a school fair T-shirt painting contest, BONH just last month. Both hope for comic book style.

Dan, hope the 1/1 was as sharp as your model!! What a great first car! What year was that you got it? One of my college roomies Dad bought him his first car, another Impala bubble-top, but no SS. He called it the '2-2-1' because it had a two-barrel carburetor (283) , two-speed transmission (PG), and single exhaust -- half of the Olds muscle car! Quiet, comfortable, and ultra-reliable -- cheap to keep! His was mint green with the aqua interior, and withstood a lot of gaff; only mods were baby-moons and a contact-paper 'wood dash' we inflicted on it. Kept the stock muffler! Another roomie had a '60 Studebaker Lark two-door hardtop, with 259 and B-W A/T; a lot more fun than you might expect, and a durable little bomb. If it had a 4-speed, I might have bought it when he became a family man. By this time, I'd gone back to a '55 Chevy I'd picked up for $475; 265 and three-on-the-tree, which quickly became another Mystery Shifter -- Chevy column shifts were the pits when wear set in; got stuck between first and second if you weren't careful. Oddly, I owned two other '55s with 265 V-8s, both converted from 235 sixes by previous owners! No 'vee' bowtie emblems under the tail-lites, like my first car. Wick -- again.

The model of my '51 didn't upload, here it is. Converting the AMT '49 coupe to a '51 isn't as easy as it might seem; fabbing the chrome '51 tail-light housings was a challenge I didn't quite meet, obviously. Luckily, my 1/1 car had lost it's grille, so that part was easy, and changing the dash/steering wheel wasn't bad. Anyone remember those cylindrical accessory headrests that were all the fad in the mid-sixties? Best accessory was my gennie Hurst 'Mystery Shifter' kit; really let me swap gears; beat all Corvairs but the Spyders, and most Chevy sixes -- and Volvos! My Ford was a budget car, and kept it's single 2-bbl. carb and stock heads. The Crestliner, for some reason, was based on the '51 Tudor sedan, not the coupe body; same length roof as the Fordor; note roll-down quarter windows, not flip-out like the Club Coupe (as I recall, the Business Coupe had fixed quarter windows), and wasn't as sporty in profile, but more foot room. Ford, oc, belatedly came out with the true pillarless hard-top Victoria in mid-1951, so the Crestliners were only sold in 1950-51, and discontinued in that crazy two-tone form when the Vickies hit the showrooms. All hardtops were based on convertible doors/windows, etc. A '51 Vick has all the mounting holes for a folding top, vestigially. Also, many had a special custom steering wheel, which had probably been glombed off my black/yeller car by the '80s when it was restored. It's a real highway cruiser, with 3+OD, front and rear Fatman sway bar kits, new springs, etc. I lowered the front about 1-1/2-in. after that pic was taken, put on Porta-A-Wall whitewalls and some new stock dog-dish caps that came with the car (the nifty full wheel-covers, the first for Ford, keep popping off with the R205-15 Michelin radials it has. This car also had Red's Headers, dual Smitty's, and a 12V system with alternator, and H-4 headlights. A flattie always sounds a bit offended when 12V hits the starter motor, but boy does it fire right up! "Purrs like a kitten..." but no lakes pipes to roar! Yep, putting in a new idler-arm saved the steering system. Former owner drove it to V-8 Club meet in NB, also to N OR. Re-upholstery showing it's age, and some dubious body repairs, but fun for all, if hard to park! Wick Sorry the photos aren't better; I'm learning.

Whee; nostalgia-is-us! This is my third car, 1951 Ford Club Coupe; it has the flathead from my second ride, a $50 rust-bucket from MI, which drove to CA under it's own steam, so to speak; it was so decrepit that the very fact that some one would attempt that in 1963 is amazing! This is also a $50 car, bought with dead engine -- my wife's cousin Jerry had been commuting to our town to work on the Sothern Pacific, and usually considered anything under top speed to be wasting time, BUT he had the wrong dipstick in the flattie, and burned it up for lack of oil! After a year of driving it at Jr. College, the replacement mill burned a piston, so I got a reman flathead from a wholesale out fit Dave Beck Inc. in L.A. (same guy who was busted for racketeering with the Teamsters?) who mostly sold truck parts. My step-dad had trucks up in Modoc Co., and let me borrow his Beck catalog; the total for the 239-cu.in. V-8 (exchange) was $98.00 plus shipping! It ran like Jack the Bear, and was flathead motoring at it's best; we all loved the car and I improved it as budget permitted: new interior and full-body job with new Hondouras Maroon enamel from a Redding CA ?$#9,95" shop called Marcum Bros. -- cost me $100 total. It came to grief a year later against a '59 Dodge; no-fault accident in a blinding snow storm! I put in new A-arms and front fender (from one of my parts-cars!) and got most of my dough out of it. I now own a '51 Crestliner (very old restoration) with a new flattie (now costing $6,000.00!) just for fun. It's named "The Wanderer II" in memory of the original one -- and with the loose Ford steering, it did wander! Ole' Wick

Wick again: I didn't search this topic, but I'll bet this is the umpteenth time 'my first car' has been floated to the clan. If I can find the snapshots of my '55, I'll do a decent scan and my bro says he can clean the images up for better definition; sorry they were both roatated badly! I guess now I'll dig up my second, third, and so forth... Thx for the interest! Let's see more!

Everyone has a first ride, but I'll bet not too many are closer to Fred Flintstone's than this one! Boy, I loved it -- and it hated me! Live and learn, says the man alomost eighty! 1961: my '55 Chevy Delray two-door 'post' in all it's glory: lowered front and rear, red rims with 'Hollywood Moons,' lakes pipes, nosed & decked, all vertical bars removed from grille, 'Refrigerator White' with blue pinstriping by local genius 'Coop'. Also, built 265 Power-Pak, three on the floor (with 'Vette shifter, plate with ash tray, and all. Once one of the fastest cars in our rural county (in N CA) but slipping down when all the 390 Fords,413 MoPars, 6.5-Litre Ponchos, and 409 Chevys became numerous. No, I didn't build it, but I made payments on it ($26.60/mo., plus insurance, license, and gasoline) on an income of about $45.00 a month! Still, I never raced a car that I knew I could beat, and got trimmed a lot. It held Robert Hight's '62 Sport Fury through first gear, and then he said bye-bye (the Force funny-car's uncle and namesake) but we agreed the mouse motor played a superior tune at max rpm's. Last time I saw it, after selling in '63, was in the Shasta County Sheriff's impound yard: like an old girlfriend, it can be painful to see the last of your first ride! Outlaw to the last! What was yours, and are your photos as poor as these survivors? Wick Humble

John, Mott was a brilliant cartoonist/illustrator, per R&T stuff he contributed. Very distinctive style! I'm still planning the scan and submit on those photos, and yes a number of them have been published before, including by me in several articles for Street Rodder, Old Cars Weekly Car Exchange, and Special Interest Autos magazines. I have several showing the '58 Impala coupe mock-up posed with '57 Ford and Plymouth, btw. Life is complicated right now, and I've had a crummy attack of sciatica that slows me down horribly! Many car mags consider photos submitted with articles their property, which was prevalent before the ability to scan and copy that we have now came online; I let SIA, etc. have a huge amount of material I'd researched simply for the reason that the articles didn't really pay enough to let me make film-photographic copies. I recall taping GM b&w glossies to my 'fridge door, and shooting them with my old Nikomat on a tripod just to get some to keep! Wick

Them's the same. I got the engine from one of the old AMT Trophy kits; '36 Ford coupe, I think. Let me know if you find any? Story: In about 1986, I needed some sheet metal welding done on a '55 Nomad we'd adopted, and didn't feel I was up to the risk, so engaged a crazy old professional welder to section in a rocker/part fender (Nomad's rust!) and was trying to get a price guesstimate out of him. He said he'd heard that I also built models, and was finishing a '41 Chevy coupe as a replica of one he'd drag-raced 'back in the day' -- and that if I had a 1/25 Buick Nailhead engine to make it accurate, he'd just swap his work for that -- and I did! He did beautiful work, and went away chortling about his Buick mill, so we were both happy! Thanks, Wick

Not actually the original 'stock' type, but could do. Sorry to put you through all this hassle! My original is just the unpainted 'tin' version, with the lateral cross-grooves. Looks distinctly Buick Nailhead, for sure. Thx! Wick

Marty, thanks, that's cool! Be aware, I don't need the entire sheet, just the two 'hornet' decals. I'm building a resin 1/24 scale of my step-dad's 1952 White 3000 tilt-cab (bought new back then, as a semi-tractor) as a ramp truck using a Ford C-series cab-over chassis, and he always called the two-tone green rig 'The Green Hornet'. If I have anything you might need in trade...? My decals are mostly 60 years old now, but some fresher! Wick

Les, thanks, I'll follow up on that suggestion! OC, I have no printing capabilites, and not very adept at resin casting! The earlier cab with the late bed would get'r done! My little bro had to pick up a train crew at their coffee shop the first day he worked for the old Southenr Pacific, and his wet boot slipped off the'crummy' clutch as he parked it, running right into the exterior wall! Our USFS didn't use crew-cabs, but the local RR and loggers in N CA did. Wick

The resin I'll need, it seems, is this obsolete Modelhaus Dodge long-wide bed pickup, but if this doesn't get results, I'm giving up after three tries. I want to convert it into a 3/4 Ton 4x4 to replicate the last USFS Class IV fire tanker I was foreman on, in 1968. (Actually, ours was earlier, I think, more like '61.) It had bold 'Power Wagon' chrome letters on both hood sides, and tall, skinny stock steel wheels, a 318-cu.in. V-8, 100-gallon water tank (as I recall) with 'lunger engine/pump and one 2.4" rubber-hose live reel. Motorola radio, took box and Handyman jack, with Barden bumper. Any hopes, out there? Ole' Wick, age 79 and counting....

Had high hopes for these requests; thanks for viewing, at least! Still want them. Wick

Post WWII: clearly the superfine Studebaker 1953-54 Coupes! I've loved these cars since the 'fifties, and always get a thrill when I see them today. Not that they were great mechanically, but the Bourke/Loewy body and interior are not only far ahead of their time, but still 'look so right' today. Followed closely by the ever-classic '55 Chevrolets, and the 1961 Pontiac 'bubble-top' coupes. Imports: Early Datsun 240Z without a doubt, Porsche 911, and the European exotics from the 1950's-60's. Oh, and the Scarab racers! Pre WWII: Coffin-nose 1936 Cord, again ahead of it's time, and so bold! 1933-34 Ford (esp coupes/roadsters) and the Lincolns that inspired them. I put a lot of weight on style, because the mechanical shortcomings -- they all had 'em, even the '55 Chevy (my first car, and one of many including a Nomad) has lots of room for improvement. But, improving a car (the 240Z also comes to mind, and I wrote the book on restoration for that one) is enjoyable and rewarding. Ole' Wick