tim boyd

Round 2 had a table just inside the door at the NNL Motor City today. No sooner than I had paid my money and walked through the entrance, than Steve Goldman of Round 2 yelled at me to come over and take a look. As if I wouldn't!!! Steve had really exciting news to share, and it is very clear to me that Round 2 has some incredibly exciting projects in the works that will be breaking cover in the next couple of years. In the meantime, he discussed several of their near term introductions, and gave me a thorough tour of their upcoming 1968 Dodge Coronet R/T convertible, which actually has quite a number of improvements over the original annual kit which I will attempt to show in the images at the link below. What is also evident is that more than just cloning the old AMT bodies and kit contents, Round 2 will now be using those as a starting point and engineering product upgrades, corrections to more accurately reflect the 1/1 scale kit subjects, and new build contents such as the factory hubcaps that are being added to the '65 GTO curbside kit. Be sure to check out the detail/closeup photos of the R/T convertible to hear all the revisions (well actually, according to Steve, only some of the many refinements builders will find inside the new kit box. All I can say is, keep buying these new Round 2 product introductions and there will be much more on the way in the future. Exciting times in the scale automotive kit world, for sure! All the product news in 39 photos and captions is at this link. And thanks for looking! TIM

Wonder who will be the first to post the news from the show.....and can't wait to hear your reactions!!!!!! TB

Someone on another forum speculated that they would all be gone by the time the doors opened to the public. Don't think so. There are closer to 200 magazines, and multiple copies of some issues. I don't know where exactly they'll be placed on the floor at the NNL Motor City, but keep your eyes out and grab a few if you find them...TIM '

Steve and all: Very exciting to hear that the Mystery Kit may break cover at the NNL North. In this entire 22-page thread, seems to me that I recall only seeing only about three to five correct guesses. Which means that 95% of you are going to be really, really surprised. Hope Sunday is the day! Cheers...TB

Thanks very much, David! Cheers....TIM

Thanks Claude! Was hoping you'd get a chance to look at this one given some of your own recent projects! Best...TB

Thanks Craig for your all comments! As to you reaction to my retirement from competition allowing more time for my publication work, there's actually more than a little truth to that. Plus after a couple of years, I realized that as a writer//builder, I really shouldn't be competing against the very hobbyists who are reading my work. One of those rare instances where it all aligned perfectly...TB

Heads-up if you are headed to the NNL Motor City....there will be a large number (well over a hundred) back issues of model car magazines that will be free for the taking there. These are being donated by the Estate of late modeler Chuck Helppie as well as clearing out duplicates from my own magazine collections. Includes issues of Model Cars, Scale Auto, Scale Auto Enthusiast, Scale Auto Modeller (UK publication), Motor Racing Models, Scale Auto Contest Annuals, Car Modeler Annuals, and more. Thanks to Steve Perry for handling the logistics of getting the magazines to the show floor. Feel free to take all the issues that you want, as whatever is left at the end of the show will go in the recycling bin... Best....TIM

Bob....thanks a bunch for posting that link. Sure didn't remember that article being 11 pages long, but Hank was a very inspiring (and fun to read) author inspired us (including you and I) to try new thinigs in our modeling. I never even tried Swirladelic, but from what I hear, it was a hit or miss proposition. And the technique first appeared, if I am recalling correctly, in an AMT kit (possibly the Funny Hugger 1 Camaro???) that was first released in 1969??? Best....TIM

Jim....great to hear your reaction. The cobwebbing was demonstrated by modeler journalist Hank Borger in Car Model magazine around 1972ish. It basically involves taking a #00000 brush, dipping it is a bottle of Testors enamel (like the old PLA bottles), and slowlly pulling the brush away from the bottle, causing the paint to create a long, thin strand of paint. And then having your model car surface to receive the paint lying below the stretched strand and letting the strand selttle on the model surface. It then has to be sealed under a coat of clear. Explaining this now makes me wonder how I ever pulled that stuff off! Must have taken a ton of practice first. Here's an image of the model that Hank used to demonstrate the technique in his article,; you can see it in the hood stripes. I photographed it at the NNL Motor City last fall...it currently resides in the model collection of John Ostrenga of Wisconsin....TIM

To all who have commented above....thank you all so much for your kind comments. I was hoping that this thread would prove interesting to the MCM Forum, but I am frankly a bit overwhelmed by the kindness and appreciation you all have mentioned above. Very', very best to you all...TIM

Ron...yes, actually that happened several times in my earlier modeling career. (My 1968 MPC/Car Model/Doge funny car entry that won 4th nationwide melted in front of the photography booth during picture taking; it took 50 years (until 2019) to bring that one back to life, and my 1970 MPC National Finals entry, a maili-in to the national finals, was finally returned after many calls to the Car Model Magazine office, in a box with no packing and in many pieces. That one I put back together relatively quickly, but it was never the same in total). Upon reflection, it is a bit surprising I stuck with the hobby! Best...TB

Bob...that's the one! Really cool that you have that old issue of Car Model, and even better, remembered the image. Thank you...TIM

Hah, Tim, thanks for your comments!!!! For those that do not know, after being a winner himself in the early years, Tim Slesak became a judge (if I am remembering correctly) during the later years of MPC Contest series l(mid-late 1970's). In the earlier days (1969-early 1970's), the MPC judges were mostly the same ISCA judges who did the full-size judging. In the shows run by Carl Casper (Flint, Dayton, Cincy, Louisville et al) he judged the model contests himself. In later years of the series, accomplished model car builders (and past MPC contest winners) were asked to join in on judging, which in my view generally helped to deliver better results. Tim was NOT a judge in the 1972 finals that I commented on above, and I do not recall him being a part of the 1979 Omaha Regional Finals either (although I do recall that two of the three judges there were well known participants in the model car hobby). I even myself was asked to help judge one of the MPC National Finals (in a year I was not competing), as well as helping judge several of the earliest GSL's (before I stopped due to my concerns over the judging policies), and for several of the Rider's Hobby Shop chain contests in Michigan. Soon after I stopped judging in total because I just didn't feel right about "anointing" one model as being superior over another, particularly as the skill levels increased and more competitive models were found in all the contests (but I digress....). Tim, I obviously greatly appreciate your kind comments and observations about my collective body of modeling work. As for the 1972 MPC Nationals Finals winners, they were Steve Anderson, National Champion (dual rear engine streamliner rail), Dave Nowatniak, Second Nationwide, and Scott Sullivan, Third (Plymouth Road Runner Funny Car). Tough crowd, to be sure! (Source: Appendix A, p. 177, The GSL International Model Car Championship, by Mark S. Gustavson, 1998, Championship Publishing LLC, Salt Lake City, UT). Of note, Steve Anderson was also the 1979 MPC National Champion, and the overall winner of the first Hot Rod Magazine model car contest in the late 1980's. Finally, for those reading this thread, highly recommend you follow Tim Slesak's build threads. He is doing some flat-out awesome work these days...TB

Bruce, Steve, Bill, and Jim: Thanks very much for your comments! TIM

Thanks so much for the comments, Bob. Back in the MPC Contest days, much of the factor in winning was showing creativity, not just accuracy and workmanship. Kinda (actually, very cool) to hear it registered as inventive on your end! In answer to your question about decals, I cut them out of two decal sheets from the AMT Tommy Ivo Front Engine dragster kits which were first issued during the time I was working on these models.... Best...TB

David....I recall starting that model sometime in 1969 and i would have been age 15 at the time. The three car set was finally completely finished just before our April 1972 trip to Washington DC for the MPC Regional Finals there, and I turned 18 that month. I believe the pickup was finished before the other two cars, probably in late 1970 or early 1971 when I would have been 16....TB

Roger, I agree with your comments on the backlight width and respectfully disagree on the top leaving an as built "chopped" appearance. To each his own, I guess, but thanks for the response and your info. TIM

Not a NASCAR fan at all, but just ordered this - congrats to Joey Logano and the Ford Performance Team, and also to Salvinos for proving a business model no one thought would work does indeed create a viable enterprise and a very cool series of products that are filling an otherwise unaddressed model car kit market segment. Bravo! TIM

UPDATE: On Monday 24 October I emailed Moebius requesting replacements as noted in my prior post copied above. On Thursday 27 OctoberI rec'd an email response from Moebius apologizing for the issues and stating that replacements were going in the mail the same day. On Monday 31 October I rec'd a package with the parts. It was sent first class mail. Today I checked the replacement parts and they are perfect. I'm sure they wish, as we do, that this had never happened, but their response as mentioned here and in other message in this thread suggest that they are doing their best to rectify the situation. Best....Tim

Like you John, I would vote for the '67 to 72 Chevy/GMC pickups to be Moebius' next truck kit project. Specifically, starting with the '67/'68 with its unique hood design which is really popular in the 1/1 scale hot rod and restoration marketplace, and is essentially unavailable to us modelers due to the costs of AMT 1967 and MPC 1968 annual kits these days. I don't speak for Moebius here, but unlike many kit requests that are voiced on this board, I think this specific subject actually has a decent chance of eventually materializing in kit form, whether from Moebius, Revell, Round 2, or someone else. TB

The Moebius Nova and Chevy II sedan Gasser kits were not based on a digitally scanned 1/1 car to my understanding, which was the primary discussion taking part above in this thread. During the model kit project development, an early version of the data set (not derived from 1/1 scale digital scanning) was 3D printed, again to my understanding, which was the prototype shown several years ago. Also, as has been discussed at length on other threads here, my research led me to the conclusion that the Chevy II Gasser two door sedan roof was not chopped. It appeared as chopped because there was an exaggerated height to a molding along top of the door and quarter panels, which visually served to reduce the DLO (daylight opening above the sill and below the roof). When Moebius made adjustments to the tooling to address this issue, the concerns about the roof appearing chopped seemed to me to largely disappear in the model car hobby. Having said that, I again acknowledge that some others (including yourself) see this differently. I also do agree with some of your other critiques of the final roof design, although to my eye they are minor enough that they do not impact me personally enough to keep me from building the kit again a second time. The question you pose on costs of digitally scanning 1/1 scale cars vs. having to redo tooling to address proportion issues is one that I too have questioned for a long time. Even fifteen years ago, the costs to digitally scan a 1/1 were only in the mid 4-dgit range (at least to 1/1 scale automotive manufacturers), and certainly would have gone down in cost since then. As alluded to in Steve's post above, the real cost hit was in the personnel and hours to take the resulting digital data, process it, and adapt it for a scale model kit tool. At the time, Revell was not willing to take that step, but in more recent years (including the kits you referenced, as well as the Starsky and Hutch car (I am told)) have proven (I hope) to Revell that the investment in 1/1 scale digital scanning is worth it in the long run. How those economics affect a smaller volume manufacturer like Moebius (where much of the kit development is largely done by one person to my understanding), I could not say. I hope the economics evolve to the point where 1/1 scale digital scanning becomes more of a given in pretty much all kit development, as I share the belief of many here that it does lead to a more authentic scale replica. Best...TB

I'm almost certain that I have previously posted pictures of my 1969 Charger El-Camino style pickup that i built back in 1969/1970. What I have not done, I am also pretty certain, is show the entirety of that entire project, that also included a 1970 Charger funny car with a scratchbuilt tubular frame and interior paneling and a matching, mostly scratchbuilt Charger-themed towing trailer with a number of operating features. Yesterday I posted new photos of the entire three-car set, along with a very detailed explanation of how the project came about and its results, in the Drag Racing section of the forum at this link. If the subject interests you further, you might want to take a look there, and if you do so, I want to thank you for your interest. Best to you all....TIM

Yesterday I posted a long story with many pictures on a three-car model project that included a 1970 Charger funny car with a scratchbuilt tubular chassis and interior, a 1969 Charger converted to an El-Camino style pickup, and a mostly scratchbuilt tow trailer of my own design with several operating features the Charger funny car that also included 1969 Charger design themes. If you are interested in reading more about the trailer and the accompanying vehicles, you can see the whole story here....thanks for looking. TIM

This is my most ambitious and detailed model car project ever. It was constructed over two-year period during my sophomore to senior years in high school, to compete in the 1972 Washington DC MPC Regional Model Car Customizing Championship and the concurrent MPC National Grand Finale the same weekend. Yes, the three models you are looking at were all completed 50 1/2 years ago as this is written.Having competed successfully at the regional level in the MPC series for three years at that point, I knew that something well out of the ordinary would be required to compete at the national level, particularly in the funny car genre. I thought that if I put together a funny car, tow trailer, and tow car all featuring the second-generation Dodge Charger design themes and with a matching color scheme across the three, that might be enough to do the trick. The funny frame was 100% scratchbuilt, designed by me and inspired by magazine photos of the first iteration of Gene Snow's 1970 Challenger "Rambunctious" with its direct drive (no tranny) layout. (Note: the chassis construction took place about two years before Jo-Han's kit of this car came out, and that kit iteration included a Torquefilte tranny in lieu of the direct drive layout of my car). Primary materials were styrene tubing (with the metal rods removed) and .015" sheet styrene (for the interior). The entire front suspension was functional, using scratchbuilt, working coil over shocks and working four-bar radius rods. The steering was also functional and turning the tires right or left moved the corresponding two-piece drag link (with frame mounted mid-length bracket) and drag link. The suspension and steering parts were mostly brass rod fabrications. I included other build features not found in most other MPC contest entries of the time, including a full onboard fire extinguisher setup, underframe contacts for to connect the auxiliary battery for the engine, and frame to header braces. Full chassis wiring was also designed in, routed through frame brackets along the interior compartment. The engine, of course, was a 426 Hemi, using the best available parts from my kit stash. The induction system was the Crower "8-Holer" as shown in a c.1970 Car Craft magazine rail dragster feature article. The engine included all applicable c. 1970-72 wiring and hoses, using Jim Keeler's "Unraveling the Snake Pit" series in Car Model Magazine as the primary reference. I even included two tiny scratchbuilt supercharger blowoff valve fittings in the front edge if the intake manifold - a first in 1/25th scale models at the time. Both the induction tubes and the exhaust headers were stylized with vertical extensions (to add a bit of creativity to the funny car genre); the exhaust extensions were removable to fit into a compartment in the trailer prior to the car being loaded there. The funny car body was from an MPC 1970 Charger annual kit, heavily modified including being narrowed, the roof being dropped downward at the A-pillars, a working escape hatch added to the roofline, the rocker panels partially sectioned away, and the front and rear ends being filled along with added spoilers at both locations. The yellow tinted windows included backlight vents with a stylized "TV" vent design, tying to the livery added after paint. The trailer was my own design, mostly scratcjbuilt but using extended side panels from an MPC 1969 Charger annual kit. The bulkhead area was built from sheet styrene, as was most of the interior. Four interior side panel inserts were hinged with working latches and opened to reveal tool sets cut down from two MPC kits of the era (perhaps the MPC J-Car?). The ramps and trailer storage areas were cut from the MPC Clear Display trailer kit pieces. The tailgate worked, and the dual axle setup was again based on the MPC Trailer kit. The trailer rear gate - widened from the Charger kit taillight panel area - lowered down to allow loading of the funny car with the ramps attached. The tow vehicle was my design of a 1969 Charger pickup, a body style that was rumored to be introduced that model year in one of the "next year news" articles of the day that I had read at the local drug store magazine counter. (In one of those "you can't make this up" instances, I recently found the actual subject article while going through the magazine collection of my now-deceased modeling buddy Chuck Helppie). The engine was a 426 Hemi and featured full wring, down to the smallest electrical lines, along with a clear hood with yellow acetate insert to match the funny car windows. The interior was updated to 1970 Charger specs (bucket seats, steering wheel, et al) using leftovers from the annual kit that sourced the funny car body. The pickup used a set of American 200 S "Daisy" wheels, to match those on the trailer, all sourced from two MPC 1970 Challenger annual kits. The tow vehicle/pickup was painted in Testors Competition Orange with Clear, just as the base coat of the funny car and trailer. For paint on the funny car and trailer, I designed a square-based side panel graphic, using Testors Gold with a Testors Silver overlay of squares, then overcoated with Testors Transparent Red. The horizontal surfaces of the funny car, and the trailer canopy area, were treated to an insert base of Testors Gold, then a Grecian-Key design was hand painted on the surfaces. Pactra Candy Gold was then applied over the design. The Charger body C-pillars and the sides of the trailer canopy wore an inset of c. 1962 Pactra "Pearlustre" Pink, with white cobwebbing (per Hank Borger's procedure as described in Car Model) added to the center areas, followed by a clear overcoat. All painting (other than the Grecian Design) was done with aerosol cans - I did not own an airbrush at the time. The livery was originally planned to be decals from the MPC 1970 Don Garlits front engine rail kit, but as the project dragged on, I used those on an interim project. The final graphics came from two boxes of the first version of the AMT Tommy Ivo rear engine dragster kit. My family drove to the Washington DC MPC event in April, 1972, and the funny car won "Best of Show" at the MPC regional event there, but did not place in the top 3 at the MPC National Finals. (One judge suggested to me it would have won 4th nationwide had they been awarding that prize). But what happened to the trailer and tow car, I asked, incredulous that they were nowhere to be seen. I was then told that because the funny car would not fit in the trailer, the trailer and tow car were disqualified. WHAT??? Turns out that the judges had failed to read the instructions and did not remove the header extensions before placing the car on the trailer. GGGRRRR!!!! Further, I was told that my blower induction system was not realistic; again, they had failed to read the explanation that it was in fact inspired by the real 1/1 scale Crower 8-Holer system. Would the entire three-car set had been strong enough to displace the eventual third nationwide winner? We will never know; perhaps not. But to be sure, this left a very bad taste in my mouth and given a somewhat similar situation that occurred at the 1979 MPC Finals in Omaha (Judges who did not read the instructions and made incorrect assumptions about the 1/1 scale accuracy of my entry), helped lead to a decision to never again enter a model car contest. And I haven't, either, personally finding much more enjoyment instead from participating in the NNL-style non-competitive model events. Well, thanks for wading through my account of my most ambitious and detailed model car project ever. Enjoy the photos, most taken earlier this month (additional photos can be seen here). And please forgive me for some less than pristine repairs to the drag link/pitman arm setup, which finally failed five decades after its initial completion.Best to you all....TIM