tim boyd

Kevin...great theme and some really, really good work on display here. Thx for sharing and best wishes as you bring this one home! Cheers....TIM

The conversion to a Dana rear end was one of the first steps when I built my kitbashed circa 1969 Indy Nats Belvedere A990 a few years ago...btw the AWB Coronet kit does include the Dana rear end....TB .

This whole topic of which kits are hot is so subjective and non-factual when it is based on just a few stores in different geographic areas...and I want everyone to know that up front (as I suspect James does too). But store owner John implied that he had sold cases and cases of both kits, and was especially really short of the A990s vs. his market's demand for that kit. But still... (smile). James, very interesting, and glad to hear, that the Mercury M100 is a top seller in your woods...I would have never guessed that. I suppose I better grab one too before they disappear...TB

During a Friday visit to my most revered model car shop (Model Cave in Ypsilanti, MI), co-owner John told me that the Moebius Coronet kits have been flying off the shelf at his store, all three in demand but especially so the A990 kit. SE Michigan is an unusual automotive market (because of the presence of the automotive industry, which impacts the model car world too), so I wouldn't necessarily suggest that what does on here is indicative of the rest of the country, and certainly not the world (although John's top sellers there are the Gundam kits!). Still, really good news for our friends at Moebius....TB

The annual AMC show at Greenmead, Livonia, Michigan at this link.... Thanks for looking! TIM

Dave, I was a Ford guy, never worked for GM. I knew John from his days at AMT-Ertl and we got along fine, but I've heard (second-hand) stories that while he was at GM licensing he could be difficult (from the kiltmaker's POV) on licensing issues....TB i

Thanks Jim....that certainly looks like one impressive piece of kit! TB

Moebius is continuing to work on their C10 project....but I wouldn't expect to see anything on the shelves just yet....TB

I recall hearing that Atlantis still has hundreds of tooling sets to go through and catalog, etc. May just be a function of workload and priorities. As far as licensing goes, at least when I was still there, Ford had a very supportive licensing policy and department when it came to scale replicas....TB

Same here Dan...TB PS - Especially if the kit includes full and complete engine and underbody detail....TB

Bob...terrific! Big congrats....and you are yet another model car builder who we can add to the list of very successful 1/1 scale automotive builders...very, very cool...TB

Bob...I do not do this one on the regular rotation, but the turnout this time was, at least by the time we left at 11am Saturday, equal to the last time I attended which I think was 2015ish or so. In any case, hope you can make it again at some point in the future....TIM

Luc...sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this...been super-busy here at the Boyd ranch and just now getting caught up. I never paid much attention to the Polar Lights Coronet, because even though it was a very innovative design and merchandising effort, the body treatment was just completely wrong to my eye - the shoulder below the belt line sagged as it traversed across the body side, while the real car has an ever so slightly upward arc instead. (That '64 Polara sheet metal that carried over the the '65 Coronet was actually a very complex set of surface developments. I know firsthand that Dave M. and his associates spent a great deal of time working on their project to accurately capture the real car's contours and dimensions.) But today I drug out the Polar Lights kit and took a look. On my example the pre assembled plated grille with engraved headlamps would not release from the body. But comparing the Moebius grille anyway, it is smaller than the PL grille, particularly in overall width, and the ends of the Moebius grille have a different contour than the PL grille opening. To be honest, I don't see a viable way to swap the Moebius Grille into the PL body and have it look right. I don't know in detail the future plans for this Moebius tooling set, but myself I would wait on the possibility that they might do a showroom stock Coronet 500 hardtop spinoff at some point in the future, rather than attempt to build the Polar Lights kit in any way. Just my view, though... Best.///TB

2024 NSRA Nats North 9-24 I just attended the NSRA Nats North in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for the first time since the early 2010s. This is an interesting show...it reminds me of the NSRA Nats events back in the 1980s in Columbus, St. Paul, Oklahoma City, et al. The vehicles here are primarily built by their owners, as opposed to, for instance, the GoodGuys Nats in Columbus where pro-built cars are far more prevalent. Another key difference here is that at this event, most of the cars fit the old definition of "street rods", i.e. 1948 or earlier bodystyles, while the GoodGuys event tilts a bit toward post-1948 subjects. (Remember that the NSRA was years later in welcoming post-1948 cars than GoodGuys...) Here, many cars are clearly from a build genre dated 10, 20. or even 30 years ago, yet these same cars look very clean, contemporary, and present themselves very well even in today's context. Just one example? Look at the prevalence of 15" mags here vs. the 18s, 19x, and 20s et al at the GoodGuys events. Saturday of the show started out with heavy fog, lending a somewhat surrealistic tone to many of the images here. But I enjoyed the event nonetheless, as a trip back to and a tribute to the world of street and hot rods back when it was primarily a do-it-yourself hobby. Very, very cool. 182 images posted at this link in large, high-res .jpg files. Thanks for looking....TIM I just attended the NSRA Nats North in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for the first time since the early 2010s. This is an interesting show...it reminds me of the NSRA Nats events back in the 1980s in Columbus, St. Paul, Oklahoma City, et al. The vehicles here are primarily built by their owners, as opposed to, for instance, the GoodGuys Nats in Columbus where pro-built cars are far more prevalent. Another key difference here is that at this event, most of the cars fit the old definition of "street rods", i.e. 1948 or earlier bodystyles, while the GoodGuys event tilts a bit toward post-1948 subjects. (Remember that the NSRA was years later in welcoming post-1948 cars than GoodGuys...) Here, many cars are clearly from a build genre dated 10, 20. or even 30 years ago, yet these same cars look very clean, contemporary, and present themselves very well even in today's context. Just one example? Look at the prevalence of 15" mags here vs. the 18s, 19x, and 20s et al at the GoodGuys events. Saturday of the show started out with heavy fog, lending a somewhat surrealistic tone to many of the images here. But I enjoyed the event nonetheless, as a trip back to and a tribute to the world of street and hot rods back when it was primarily a do-it-yourself hobby. Very, very cool. Thanks for looking....TIM

Back in the mid-late 1970s I was doing some commission work for AMT from time to time (along with going to college working part time, and building my own MPC contest models). One of the projects they assigned to me was to build the 1/16th scale (I think) Japanese (Entex...?) kit of the Mustang II Mach 1 fastback. AMT wanted it to show at their annual Sales Rep Meeting as a representation of the size and features of their upcoming series of 1/16th scale kits (1955-57 Chevy Bel Air/Nomad et al, T-Bird, 64.5 Mustang). I painted it Testors Brown with a tan interior and i recall it being a fairly good kit other than that the tires appeared (to my eyes at least) to be undersized....TB