tim boyd

All.....thanks for the feedback and comments. Cheers...….TB

Robert.....thanks for asking. I finished the model about a year ago, and submitted a how to story to one of the magazines shortly thereafter. No commitment on their part to actually run it, though, at least at this point. If they choose not to use it, I'll self-publish at my Fotki site...along with the 20 stories or so already posted there. Best.....TIM

As you know, the Three Window Coupe was a relatively short-lived bodystyle in that early automotive industry...Ford offered it only for the 1932-1936 model years More highly styled (and not surprisingly, somewhat less accommodating) than the more common Five Window Coupe, the Three Window Coupe might be viewed as the 1930's decade answer to the "Personal Luxury" segment (Olds Cutlass Supreme et al) of the late 1960's to 2000's. They also make for really cool street rods and hot rods. Below is a preview of all the seven projects in this album; there are multiple additional views of each model with detailed explanations, including detail shots, at this link. Hope you enjoy these building ideas from my collection, some dating back to over thirty years ago; two others completed just recently. Maybe these, along with the many great hot rod model projects posted here by other members of this Forum, will inspire an idea or two for your list of future building projects. Thanks for looking......TIM

Dennis...thanks for the comments and the inspiration....pretty cool to know that the article inspired you back then. That Street Rodder was a really interesting issue.....nearly 40 pages (IIRC) on model cars and other scale replicas. I remember telling Editor Tom Vogele that I thought he would get a lot of negative pushback from regular Street Rodder readers over devoting that much space to our favorite topics, but he went ahead anyway, and I don't recall him ever telling me later that this occurred. He also never said the following (that I recall) about the issue, but I always thought it was a flier to see if a model-based magazine would be a good addition to the then-growing McMullen Yee Publishing Empire. I've been recently in the process of going through my model collection and photographing like-typed (e.g., five window coupe) and posting them together on my Fotki site. I'll try to make sure I include that pink closed cab pickup sooner than later. Best..TIM

Dave Hill is among the most talented model car builders and automotive designers I have run across during my decades in this hobby. In the mid to late 1980's, Dave designed and built a series of 1/24th and 1/25th scale street rods and customs that built on an idea from another highly talented automotive designer (and in more recent times, author), Thom Taylor. Thom's idea was to apply the styling of the 1934 Ford passenger vehicle line to a roadster pickup body style, which of course was in high-contrast to the original 1934 Ford factory pickups of that year, which used what was essentially the prior generation 1932 Ford passenger car styling. Dave took that idea and applied it in (miniature) to a variety of model kits from AMT and Monogram. The result you see here. I showcased Dave's 1948 Ford Phantom Pickup in my then-monthly "Modeler's Corner" column in Street Rodder magazine. Dave's design subsequently took the form of a real 1/1 scale Street Rod built by Gary Vahling of Masterpiece Rodding in Colorado, unveiled in finished form in 1989. In more recent years, Dave has taken commissions for hot rod era automotive design and authored many articles in magazines such as Custom Rodder and various titles of the Buckaroo Publishing Empire. Individual images each of Dave's 1934, 1936, 1940, and 1948 Ford Phantom Passenger Car Pickups are shown here, as well as his 1949 Mercury Phantom Pickup. I photographed Dave's five phantom pickups on the railing of the deck at my home near Atlanta on a fall day in late 1988. I just rediscovered these slides during a major reorganization of my home office and model studio, and I thought you would enjoy seeing them now. Thanks for looking....TIM

Hot Rod Version of Aurora '34 Ford Double Kit, built straight from the box around 1979 or so.... Kitbashed version of the restored/showroom stock version of Aurora's '34 Ford Five Window Double Kit, built with drivetrain from AMT's mid 1970's AMC Gremlin kits and also completed around 1979-1980... ....TIM

A new series of 1934 Fords, done similarly to the 1932 Ford Street Rods or the 1940/48 Fords tooling created over the last twenty years, has been on Revell's possible new kit list for quite some time. But never made it quite to the top of the new tooling priority list. Now with Revell Germany/Blitz running the show, I don't have high hopes for this ever materializing as a newly tooled kit series. But time will tell.....TIM

There is an article in the current issue of the other model car magazine on assembling the A990 version of the Moebius 1965 Belvedere. I think you'll find it relevant and helpful for your article. Also check their website for an update posted there (scroll down on the homepage) as some of the key information omitted from the magazine article is provided there. Good luck...I think you'll enjoy the kit...TIM

Dennis,.....brilliant progress! Great ideas! Can't wait to see this one progress further....Best Regards...TIM

I think we can (nearly) all agree that the Revell boat kit hull is too wide at the seating area, perhaps even way too wide. But the overall hull length is clearly similar to the other 1/25th scale drag boat kits, which means that the kit was intended to be in 1/25th scale (it was originally marketed and advertised by Revell in its 1963 "Show and Go" release as a companion kit to their 1/25th 1956 F-100 kit). Interesting as well is that the hull width of the original AMT Rayson Craft kit is much wider than the hull width (at the seating area) of the Kindsvater hull that is in the retooled AMT "Hull Raiser" kit. Not nearly as wide as the Revell kit, but wider than I think we generally would expect having used the Hull Raiser kit as our primary basis of comparison. Excellent comments, btw. Thanks....TIM

Thanks for posting that image, Dave. It's probably the best one I've ever seen showing the position/angle of the Y-Block distributor....TIM

Fred.....glad to see you back at this one. Simply killer. TIM PS - check your voice mail.....TB

Smile…but not a fight, just a discussion TIM PS - when I first read that comment, I presumed it applied to the rollers on the trailer. And in that case, I totally agree that they are out of scale! TIM

This is an excellent recap of the differences between the two kits. I also seem to recall that the Custom had a slightly lowered front suspension stance. Again from memory, the custom kit included two sets of early Olds aftermarket headers - plated and unplated, and many of the stock version kit parts were still in the Custom box even though not referenced in the instructions. The only meager part of the entire kit execution was that the custom version tailamps were decals instead of real parts (the stock version tailamps - in this case real parts - were also in the Custom kit.) The Custom version of the kit was largely a recreation of the real car that Revell's late Product Development VP, Roger Harney, drove during and just after high school. As with David, for me, the Custom version was/is the kit to go for. TIM

That and also, the design of the windshield header made it nearly impossible to see stop lights and overhead signs. Outward visibility is a key consideration in an off-road type 4x4 vehicles. The contemporary FJ was a cool idea and a really creative design theme, but the execution had some issues which greatly limited the ultimate success of the vehicle in the marketplace. Nevertheless, and not too surprisingly, I hear that good used samples these days are considered borderline collectables and demand high prices accordingly. TIM

Interesting...... While in the early 1980's many high school parking lots and freeways and shopping centers were full of rusting 5-10 year old pony cars, in Northern and Southern California those same places were full of new, or nearly new, Toyota SR-5 4x4's! They were everywhere, enhanced by three-tone graphic tape treatments across the broad side panels (sounds bad, but they were actually a real visual enhancement). Will have to take a look at this kit....I don't recall having an original issue in my truck kit stash. TIM

Very interesting discussion on the frame rails. During my working career of 35+ years at Ford, I was appointed Ford Specialty Vehicles Marketing Manager in March of 1995. The primary responsibility of the job was to serve as the overall team leader of the Ford Special Vehicle Team. It also included conducting frequent media events on the SVT lineup and product philosophy. As at that point the SVT Lightning was in its third year in the marketplace, and we were doing ride and drive media events with small groups of very knowledgeable media personnel (primarily selected magazine writers/and syndicated local newspaper journalists.) Among these various media events, I don't recall us suggesting that the Lighting used F250 frame rails. But it is certainly possible; and it would have aligned with our SVT product philosophy to do upgrades throughout the vehicle to enhance performance capabilities. Someday when I go through my old SVT stash I will be looking for any information that proves - or disproves - this piece of info. In the meantime, enjoy the Round 2 reissue of this kit.. TIM

Once again....thanks everyone for your comments and thanks for your interest in this show and in the models and model builders who exhibited there...….TIM

Interesting, everyone assumes the Tamiya kit is better, and it is in whole, but one area where the AMT kit excels is the engine. There is more real, life=like detail in the AMT kit in some areas (check out the fuel injection pump). Pretty interesting given that the AMT kit was tooled 50 years prior to the Tamiya kit. Of course, the Tamiya see-through belly pan/chassis rocks. One area that surprised me was how much larger, physically the Tamiya kit was. But I measured them both (albeit not in the final assembled from with bumpers added), and they both appeared accurate in dimensional scale. My recollection from building the AMT kit when it first came out was that it was pretty fiddly in fit and finish. Enough so that the builder had to be pretty skilled to pull it off all the way through final assembly. TIM

Lloyd....those projects of yours sound exactly like the kind of models we love to see at NNL events....TIM

Greg I saw the announcement on another board and was really happy to hear the GLMFAA was returning as you guys were such a major part of the early NNL shows. But I never got out of the NNL booth during the entire event on Saturday....were you somewhere in the Toy Show part of the room? So Sorry I missed you guys.....TIM

Wow....what a great box art illustration....TIM

Lloyd, as John says, the "non competitive, non judged" idea was/is at the very core of the NNL movement from the very first event in Tom Woodruff's garage in the summer of 1980. Here's a copy of the flyer/invitation to the NNL West #2 in January, 1983 that helps to explain the NNL "idea". See the paragraph on the lower left called "What the **** is the NNL?"

Phil.....grouping like models together has been a part of the NNL ever since the "Merc Deuce Reunion"/NNL Nats #4(?) in the fall of 1981 (you can read about it in Scale Auto Enthusiast c. early 1982, or on the "35 years of Scale Auto" CD offering from Kalmbach. I don't know the exact count of NNL Categories (each signified by an NNL "license plate" designed by Tom Woodruff), but it is probably 15 or more.... including Primer Projects, the Theme Table, Cult Theme, Street Rods, Street Machines, Customs, Sports Cars, trucks (light and heavy duty), motorcycles, and several categories of race vehicles....TIM

Moebius and Round 2 have moved to the Detroit Motor City NNL over the last few years. For full coverage of the NNL Nats #39, see my post in the "Contests and Shows" folder (scroll down to near the end of the Forum home page.... or click here....TIM