tim boyd

Good question. The short answer is that I was engaged in discussions with many other builders and friends during the NNL and never got to the part of the table with the trucks this year. I have done full coverage of the semi-trucks in particular in prior NNL's because I find the kits, the subjects, and the builds to be fascinating on many levels. Pat Redmond (posts on another Forum) did a great job covering the Trucks section in his coverage this year. Also, check out Howard Cohen's coverage. Best regards....TIM

Greg.....hope you can finish it and show it sometime in the future....and thanks for playing along even if you didn't quite get finished in time, this time. Cheers....TIM

Gerry....I gotta seriously consider getting this one. Is it really buildable (compared to the British white metal model Lusso I bought in the late 1980's)? Are the body proportions reasonably accurate? Do the white metal window/upper door frames look realistic when finished? Since it still looks like we are not going to see a Lusso in 1/24th scale styrene, is this the holy grail (acknowledging the MFH pricing structure) we've been waiting for? Would really appreciate your view on this (along with anyone else who has bought and/or built this kit)....thanks...TIM

Bernard...how cool to have your modeling skills applied to the drag/ski boat genre! You have probably already confirmed this from your research, but for others reading this thread, the choice of a 427 FE Wedge is spot-on for drag/ski boats for the first half of the 1960's. The FE "Interceptor" V8 was totally dominant in the various boat classes for both drag and endurance racing....and only later on did the Hemi become as successful. The Revell Parts Pack engine is a good one, too. Cool work on the hull decals, too. The one drawback to the Hemi Hydro (vs. the original "Show and Go Drag/Ski" version of this kit) is that the tuck'n'roll of the revised seat setup no longer matched the tuck'n'roll of the side panels which remained from the original kit. It's not a huge difference, but it is noticeable. Norm Veber used to cast the original issue interior parts which were a perfect match to the side panels. Maybe he still has a few laying around. Whatever you come up with, I'm sure it will sing! TIM

Thanks all for your feedback. As someone who has been photographing model car contests for nearly 40 years now, it has always been my belief that it is important not to just look at the models, but also to learn who actually did all that great work.....TIM

Matt....I will make the correction/update. Thanks for the feedback... I was in another part of the room and could not hear the announcement of most of the awards. Of course, I'm from the "there shouldn't be ANY awards at NNL's as they are non-competitive model car shows" school of thought, but I do understand that this info is of interest to many.... TIM

Wow. That looks terrific! TIM

I presume you are speaking of Randy Derr's 1/12th Camaro....I didn't take any photos of it as I had taken a bunch at a prior NNL when Randy debuted the completed model. But there are a number of very good images of this car in Howard Cohen's photography of NNL #38, also posted here in the "Contests and Shows" section of the forum. Hope that helps....TIM

The AMT/Ertl 1972 Corvette Convertible kit, first issued around 1991 or so IIRC, also has a luggage rack. As noted above, the GM and Mopar racks are slightly different, but I plan to use the '72 Corvette kit rack on my replica of my 1/1 factory-ordered '74 Road Runner E58, to which I added the luggage rack (it was still a Mopar dealer accessory even though no longer factory orderable by '74) after I took delivery of the car. I did not remember the luggage rack from the '75 Corvette annual kit or the '80 Monte Carlo kits, thanks for the info guys! TIM

Alan.....very,very sharp build of a kit that was clearly engineered to different aspirations and market expectations some 60 years ago. Way to go! And please, keep posting. Your work is ALWAYS inspirational and interesting to me, and I suspect, many other readers of this forum. Cheers, mate.....TIM

Full coverage of the main show, with its "American Road Racing" main theme, and a separate post with the results of the "Vintage Beach Racing" Cult Theme....all posted in the "Contests and Shows" folder of this forum (scroll way down the "General" forum page for this section). TIM

See this link for a photo album picturing each and every entry in the 2017 NNL Nats Cult Theme, with builders identified and additional commentary. Pictured above...one of several photos of Tom Woodruff's Vintage Beach Racer created this year specifically for this "Vintage Beach Racing" Cult theme...thanks for looking.....TIM

Builder names will be added tomorrow. Lead photo is Jim Drew's "Daytona Finish" - 135 more images at this link. Thanks for looking....TIM

Tom's response here is spot-on with the situation as I understand it. Round 2's business approach for the model car hobby segment is primarily updating and reissuing old tools...and I for one think they are doing a fine job given their situation. Make no mistake, I'd love to see Round 2 do a new series of full-detail S550 Mustangs delivered with the same level of excellence as their recent full-detail current-gen Camaro kits, but I don't think that's in the cards for Round 2 right now. In the meantime, I'm also glad the Revell and Moebius ARE delivering all new tools (although I am anxiously awaiting any signs that Revell would get serious with some full detail S500 kits, and seeing no smoke signals on the horizon whatsoever) TIM

See September 30th update at top of this thread....thx Tim

AMT's Trophy Series Early Olds V8 was in the AMT "'39"/'40 Ford sedan.....with a Hilborn fuel injection option and a (from memory, correct me if I'm wrong) 3-2 barrel setup. TIM

Chris....great job! This one would be a great fit for our "Vintage Beach Racing" Cult Theme at the NNL Nats in Toledo, Ohio in a couple of weeks. Don't know where you live in Canada but if it's somewhere in Ontario that is commuting distance to Toledo/Sylvania....we'd love to have you join the fun. But whether that is feasible or not, really enjoyed seeing your work here....TIM

Richard you are correct...the AMT '67 'cuda DID become the MPC '68 and '69.....same tooling used for all. TIM

“We muscle car modelers ain't got that much more build time left in our hourglass of life.” Greg....so true, so true.....TIM

As Mark commented above, my guess is also that we will see a 1/25th 'cuda AAR at some point and I suspect that if it does happen, it will happen sooner than some of the speculation above suggests......TIM

I completely share Mark's view on this....back in the day, JoHan's first gen Logghe chassis was the best on the market. MPC's second gen Logghe chassis (such as the 1970 Cyclone "Cyclops" kit was the first MPC funny car chassis that was really competitive with JoHan's, primarily because the MPC tool replicated a much more up to date Logghe chassis design. IMHO, JoHan then re-established their funny car chassis "leadership" with their 1972 Mustang/Pinto funny car kits, as duly noted by Mike elsewhere above in this thread .....TIM

It's been at least a year and half since I last saw it....I'll check my notes and see if I documented anything that would answer your question.....TIM

This is getting really into trivia, but for 1970 1/2 Dodge also introduced painted racing style left/right rearview mirrors for the Charger; these are very rare and almost never seen on the real cars that are still left out there. For a model you could use the racing mirrors from the various 1970 Challenger or 1971 Charger kits (or their Plymouth equivalents) but you will need to kitbash the bottom of the mounts to the body as the Charger mirrors attached on the horizontal door surface next to the beltine, vs. the sloping door panels on the aforementioned Mopars. TIM

Me too.....these are factory correct, although seldom seen. I wouldn't have ordered them on a real 1/1 scale 1970 Charger R/T, but they are nice to have as a building option. For those of you not familiar with the 1970 Charger R/T, there was another factory side graphic option that could be ordered in place of the "Bumble Bee" stripes. It was an enlarged pintstripe type treatment that ran along both the upper and lower breaklines of the side "wedge" styling lines. TIM

FM3 Panther Pink/Moulin Rouge was a factory 1970 1/2 color, introduced around February of 1970. At that point in the 1970 model year the muscle car market was tanking big time, so dealers did not order much fresh factory production with the new mid-year features, which is one of the reasons these were so rare when new. FM3 was only available as a regular production order for the remainder of the 1970 model year only. It was listed as an option for all A, B, and E-body Mopars, so that includes Dodge Darts, Coronets, Chargers, and Plymouth Dusters, Satellite/Road Runner/GTX's, and Barracuda/'cuda. As mentioned elsewhere in this this thread there were just a few factory-produced 1971 Mopars that were special ordered with FM3 paint; these are pretty well documented by now to the point that if you wanted to paint a 1971 Mopar muscle car in Panther Pink, go ahead and do so and say that it could have been built in 1/1 scale using the same special order process. By the way, years ago I fully documented the factory correct applications of all those "Muscle Era" special paint colors from Ford, GM, AMC, and of course the Chrysler High Impact paint line; it is available as a downloadable .pdf for a minimal price. If any of you are interested, PM me and I will send you the link to order it TIM