tim boyd

I think it is bad-boy cool. Plus, the tubular crossmembers in the frame are the best ever for a contemporary street rod project. Rear suspension, though, is unrealistic as configured in the kit....TB

Jerry. your "history of rail dragsters" collection is an incredible body of work. Tremendous kudos from thsi corner on your achievement! TIM

Man....this model mentally and instantly transports me right back to the Baylands Raceway (East side of Bay Area/Freemont CA) when I was on the starting line helping Geoff Carter of Street Rodder cover the 1983 (or 1984?) Nostalgia Drag Racing event there. As Dennis said, you just totally nailed the stance and character of the real car. Way to go, Kelly! Count me very, very impressed.....TIM PS - terrific photos, too! TB

You guys knocked it out of the park this time! Big congrats to all....TB

Regarding Ray's decals, yes they are expensive to begin with, and overseas shipping is a big part of that. But in my own case, I found the decals (not for the Bronco but for a Revell AAR 'cuda accurization project) to be worth every penny. TB

Thanks for the feedback guys. Looking forward to seeing several of your possible builds of the kit when you get around to it, too! TIM PS - excellent suggestion, Tom, on the alternative source for that Dana axle! Thanks...

Good Point, Ron. I still want to do a second similar build of the kit, replicating the Revell sponsored car that ran NHRA Super Stock in early-mid 1970's. Already have quite a reference file on that one, along with the necessary decals. Will make sure to include the driveshaft loop on that one, for sure! Can't recall for sure, but I think that wagon came from the AMT-Ertl Orange Blossom Special kit. Nice replica, too! Best....TIM

A few years ago, I built this model from several of the Moebius and Model King 1965 Satellite/Belvedere kits. I built it with mods to reflect the winning form at the 1969 Indy Nationals (not a duplicate of the actual car, just a duplicate of the major mods that represented that car). UPDATE: Ran across my original research file on this car, and got the above info wrong. The model was inspired by two 1/1 scale A990's - the Miller and Guenther SS/A (Copper/Bronze) car that won the 1967 NHRA SS/A World Finals, and the 1969 A990 SS/C that - at Chrysler's request - was slammed together at the last minute and driven by Arlan Vanke in the summer of 1969 with the express purpose being to reset the SS/C national record (which he did, by 7/10ths of a second, no less) to spoil the debut of the new Camaro ZL-1 which was to run in the same NHRA Class. (That was also accomplished later in the season when Sox and Martin would win the 1969 NHRA World Finals). Mods included the "Firestone 500" front and rear tires from the JoHan pro-stock kits, and a Dana rear axle, sourced from one of the Lindberg 1964 B-body kits. The livery was my own creation. An abbreviated buildup (which I was not happy about at all) appeared in the other model car mag. (Later on, they did a sidebar on their website to fix some of the mistakes in how the build was presented). This was my first Moebius model build and, in direct opposition to much of the negative dialogue on this forum about that ktimaker, I was highly impressed with the kit. It had a lot of clever engineering and was a blast to build. Here are some pix.... Thanks for looking....TB

Guys....I do remember doing a buildup of the AMT '34 Sedan. I built three versions, the original kit's hot rod version, and the follow-up kit's 2 street rod versions. At the time Dennis Doty, whom I greatly respect (then and now) thoroughly trashed the body in his review in the Model Car Journal (if i am remembering it correctly). At the time, I thought he was off base and said so in my article. I don't recall whether it was in Scale Auto or my Modeler's Corner column in Street Rodder, but whatever, in retrospect I was wrong. But as far as doing a positive review because of fear of offending the kitmakers, that ship never sailed in this harbor. Someday I'll tell the story of Monogram's "Tim Boyd" kewpie doll. It was not pretty. TB

Special paint was a factory option on most domestics until the mid 1970's, when flexible "sight shields" became common to hide the gap between the body and the new 5mph bumpers. Sight shields were painted outside the assembly plant, as they needed a special flexible formulation to the paint. If you went ahead and ordered special paint anyway, the car was delivered with silver - or gray (molded in color, no paint) sight shields. U_G_L_Y. Body color racing mirrors were also painted offsite, making this also problem for special paint cars. As a result, this largely disappeared from the domestic car market at that time. TB

Thanks Alan! Cheers....TB

Alan....that flat out rocks! Way to go....TIM

Bill is spot on with his comments here. And yes, this has been proposed to Revell. Several times, in fact. TB

Ismael....would love to see your more recent projects here or in the mag....Best Regards....TIM

I just learned a few minutes ago that Pat Ganahl passed away Friday in a drag racing accident. I am shocked, saddened, and struggling to find the words. Those of you interested in hot rod, and those of you who were model car builders back in the 1970's and 1980's will know that Pat was an irreplaceable figure in both of these fields. He was without compare the world's pre-eminent hot rod journalist and historian and played a lead role in the evolution of several of the hot rod worlds' most respected magazines. To us model car builders, Pat was the Editor of Street Rodder back in 1977 when he gave this model builder the go-ahead to start a monthly column on model car building. We called it "Modeler's Corner". Though Pat went on to bigger and better things shortly thereafter, the column lasted over 20 years in the mag. And when Pat decided to move on, he wrote me a letter offering me the position of assistant editor at that magazine (which I respectfully had to decline due to recent employment at Ford Motor Company/) Pat and I stayed in touch over the years; occasionally I would see him in person at some of the California rod events, I think the last time was at the LA Roadster show a few years back. We corresponded from time to time, and those of you following his blog found out that Pat was a very accomplished model car builder, too. He even attended our second-ever NNL West event near SFO airport in January 1983 when he was at Hot Rod magazine, and he played a key role in organizing the Hot Rod Model Car Nationals which ran for several years in the midwest. Most of all, perhaps, he was a wonderful husband to Anna and father to Bill. Perhaps Dave Darby can add more details about what happened, or you can check out the HAMB at JalopyJournal.com GodSpeed Pat. You were truly one in a billioni....TIM

Thanks, Steve, for the explanation and for sharing here. Makes good sense (especially from a business perspective). Especially glad, too, to hear the approach you took with the '68 Coronet R/T clone project, and cloning projects yet to come as well...TIM

That would be my understanding.....TB

Actually it's exactly the other way around. The Wild Ones ki came first. Then the tool was run with the individual bodies as two separate kits around 1966. Note that the individual version boxes reflect the MPC box art layout as also seen in their 1966 annual kits....TB

Before this new production run, Round 2 had the factory remove all the plugged runners to see what was really in the tool. Very little of the original Rayson-Craft parts remained, and most of those were already present in the 2005 Model King Bonneville/Kindsvater Boat reissue (such as one of the two FE 390 Interceptor valve covers). Of course, personally I'd love to see new/clone parts for the entire Rayson Craft version, but I don't think that will ever happen given the other possible "clone" kit topics that would have a so much braoder market appeal....TB

To build on Patrick's comment....the 1973 Fed requirement was 5mph front/ 2.5mph rear bumper impacts, followed by 5mph front and 5mph rear bumpers. This was a huge hit to the auto makers as this demanded all sorts of unplanned and unfunded engineering and production resources to bring to market, plus the detrimental impact on design (witness the tragedy of the 1973 Torino front end vs. the super-cool 1972 Torino treatment). Some of the cars were given a partial pass by allowing the big rubber impact pads, but only for 1973/74. On the Mopars that featured this approach, you'll notice the rear bumper guards were smaller in 1973, and as big as the front pads in 1974. I considered this approach to be so much better than the "railroad tie" execution found on most Fords and some GM vehicles during those two model years. Plus, you could order the Mopars with a chrome bumper extension/pad holder that reduced the visual impact of the pads, as I did on my factory ordered '[74 RR. Of course, none of the promised savings on insurance actually materialized, the bumpers added weight and cost and reduced gas mileage, et al, et al. Out of respect for our hosts here, I will spare my perspective on Federal involvement in car design....TB

As for the Aqua Rod, in addition to having proper kit box art themed decals (the originals were nicely designed but poorly manufactured), I suggested that Round 2 consider adding a second set of decals based on the original AMT Sales Catalog illustration/announcement imagery/illustration of this then-upcoming kit. Don't know if that will make the final cut or not, but if it does, bet we see a bunch of the Kindsvater boats and Chevy Van tow vehicles with that livery on the model tables.... TB

Nicely done, Chuck! Mainstreamers forever!!!! TB

With respect to this post and to Steve's post directly after James' comment, let's not forget to include Revell in our rant. I bought five of the reissue of the '30A 5W Hot Rod, all from differing retailing/distribution sources, and at different times. I found that not only did the retooled '32 Highboy frame have multiple surfaces that were not polished after the EDM tooling process, but that the feed points for the frame were relocated vs. the original tooling in such a way that when combined with either removing the parts from the tool too quickly or as a result of polybagging the parts before they were fully cooled, of the five kits, only one had a '32 frame that was not warped. Two others had a frame that would be usable with some builder tweaking, the other two were not usable at all. I've not seen any other forum comments on the lack of polished surfaces, but fortunately sounds like most others who bought the reissue kits did not see the level of frame warping that I did. But still.... TB

Tim...this is just so, so sweet! Thx for keeping us in the loop as it comes together....TIM

Paul....great inspiration and execution! Way to go....TIM