Art Anderson

All the shaping was done with assorted needle files, the filler used is Zap-A-Gap CA glue, filed and and sanded to shape with bits of 400-grit sandpaper and a lot of patience.

OK, my turn! A couple of years ago, at the Detroit NNL, I scored a MIB 2nd issue of the Monogram '34 Ford (the shorter deeper box, stock parts only kit). Over this past holiday break from work, I decided "it's time". So into it I dig. The first thing I noted on the body, and coupe roof were some incorrect shapes (Monogram did the coupe roof with a considerable overhang at the sides, with a molding above and behind that speaks more of drain moldings (which those bodies did not have, and the belt line moldings looking more like a couple of "rounded" steps, rather than having a prominent indented crease between the large molding and the the window surround. So, a whole lotta filing, and the adding of some strip styrene. Here we go, stock kit roof, to adding some .025" styrene strip stock, to the final shaping of the slightly flared-then-rolled-under edges of the A-pillar, above the door, and down the B-pillar/upper quarter panel:

Correction! Ford indeed did use aluminum cylinder heads on the V8, from the introduction of the 1933 Model 40, through model year 1936, as standard equipment. Art

You've seen my '13 T, I know!

White is what most folks think those tires were, due to the primitive camera's and black & white photography. Over the years, I have seen REAL vintage tires of that era, and despite their obvious rot (those tires were made with natural latex rubber, without any carbon black added (that didn't come into play until about 1914, they were a buff (yellowish tan, like the sidewalls of high end racing bicycle tires) back in the early days of the automobile. i used a buff-colored cartoonist shading marker on the tires of my '13 T, will be looking to see what I can find at Michael's or Hobby Lobby to do that again, as the college bookstore I got the shading pen a couple of years back has dropped that line.

Actually, the correct name for this car is "American Bantam", after the name of the American Austin Company, which was reorganized out of bankruptcy in 1935, and went back into production, the Austin name having been dropped (in fact, all ties with Austin in the UK was severed), and this revised version of the American Austin was named simply "American Bantam"

This is where photographic research comes into play. First of all, Google should be your friend. As I suggested, the first cars I would search out would be '32 Fords, and don't limit that to coupes--pretty much the upper interior upholstery of any '32 Ford closed-body car would be so very similar to the coupe (after all, Deuce bodies--any of the closed cars--are pretty much square boxes, with no serious curves beyond the rolled corners where the roof meets the sides, the rear panel and such. And yes, there was upholstery above the beltline (think above the line of the lower edges of the side and rear windows). Take a look at any pics you can find, that show the inner window reveals (framing). Note from what pictures you find, that the B-post (structural member which holds the door latch is a wooden part, about 2" wide that goes all the way up to another wooden member that lays across the top of the door opening, again to strengthen the upper sides of the body. On all car bodies of that era, the roof is supported by a pressed steel member which also serves to firmly "tie" both sides of the body together, and on the interior that is covered with fabric. Again, if you can't find any decent pics of those for a '32, look at Model A's, as those (if not identical) can more than likely pass any modeler's muster. Such bits of fabric as was used between the window framing and door jamb won't large at all, neither will any such strips of fabric that surround the inner frame of the back window. The headliner was fabric, and is a good inch below the steel top, and is stapled to loops on the back side of the cloth to the underside of the wooden roof bows, and will have a sharply defined "corner" (like the joining of drywall on the walls and ceilings of a frame house). Across the top of the windshield opening, there was a milled-to-shape wooden member, which served as a structural member to hold the windshield frame (deuces had windshields that swung out from a hinge at their top), which would be fabric covered as well. The headliner was stitched (hidden stitches) all the way around on all four sides.

Travis, start by Googling '32 Ford coupes (for that matter, even 30-31 Model A coupes, as their body construction is pretty much the same, even if they are styled a bit different), but basically, coupes of that era were very much 2 passenger cars, save for the 3-window '32 which was about 9 inches wider. There is a package tray behind the seat, which goes side to side, and all the way back to the back of the interior. Art

No, K&B marketed their's as micro-sized glass balloons. Of course, back then, my model workshop was a walled off room with one window and no AC, I tended to leave the back breezeway door open, as well as that window---eventually, the microballoons got to be everywhere, on my then 12' long workbench. However, in the winter, they tended to just "lay there" wherever I was working with the stuff.

Tom, back in the day, the first microballoons were phenolic resin, but microscopic glass "bubbles" pretty much became the norm by the mid-80's. Those aren't prone to static electric at all, in my experience, they have just enough weight that they don't even blow around much. Art

I was using K&B Microballoons back in the late 70's for laying up 1/25 scale Indy Car bodywork. Used the stuff over that then-new blue insulation styrofoam, sealed with 5-min epoxy. Once I got the shape down, and reinforced the cockpit sides with 1/2 ounce fiberglass cloth, I simply layered the mix on, until I got a thickness and the basic shapes. Once that was done, I opened up the radiator air intake, any openings for axles/suspension, the belly pan engine vent and the cockpit--simply took the body outdoors, and poured acetone into the cockpit, kept doing that, until all the melted styrofoam was gone (only a little bit of cleanup to get any the stray epoxy off the insides of the body. Next, I finalized the bodywork by cutting the various panels apart as needed. Did several of them back in the day. Art

Another, but small pic of the car in question. Notice the offset in the bodywork, placing the driver to the left? That side was where that titanium tube (which memory is trying tell me was about 12" in diameter) tube was, It held the fuel (and I believe also the on-board oil tank), and formed pretty much the backbone of the chassis. The car was more than a crazy idea--front wheel drive had not made the 500 since 1953 or so, when the last front-drive Novi qualified. The positioning of the engine pretty much precluded using a "conventional" Joe Hunt portable electric starter, so it had to be ramped up onto a starting "platform" by it's front wheels, and secured somehow, while starter "rollers" spun the front wheels to fire up the engine.

Bill, I should have looked closer at the pic before sharing it. The website had ID'd as the Mickey Thompson car, but in looking at it, it's one of the two STP Novi's that were built to Ferguson 4WD design, pretty much copied from the 1963 Harry Ferguson car. It's a 4 wheel drive chassis.

Bill, the car in question AND it's tubular "chassis" is mentioned in this article: https://books.google.com/books?id=LyYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=mickey+thompson+1965+indy+car&source=bl&ots=bAagLi6rKo&sig=DyuAJKOagbuoVsqayIKpyr1bKBQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN0YSkxLnYAhXDSN8KHSGlAMc4ChDoAQhcMAE#v=onepage&q=mickey thompson 1965 indy car&f=false

Bill, the Challenger Wheel Special was documented rather widely in the racing press in the spring of 1965, and was constructed pretty as I described. What you posted is essentially the layout of a Lotus, fabricated in aluminum. However, Mickey Thompson's entries (1963-66) were always "interesting", he not having available to him of aircraft-style monocoque construction, as well as being somewhat of a maverick hot rodder, in the eyes of the racing establishment.

Back to Mickey Thompson's Challenger Wheel Spl. As I stated early on, this car had a chassis that began with a length of titanium tubing, about 12-14 inches in diameter. It was not monocoque construction, the body surfaces you see in photo's of it were separate from the chassis. It was also front-wheel drive, the last one ever entered at Indianapolis, a driveline layout not seen at the Speedway since the last of the front-drive Novi's faild to qualify in 1955.

And, in its day, the tires would have been a buff color, definitely not black with whitewalls.

Actually, the "white" tires are more period-correct than black for these ICM Model T's. From the beginnings of rubber tires in the 1880's or so, until about 1915, automobile tires (made from natural latex rubber) were a "buff color", due to the latex rubber and that the idea of adding carbon black to the rubber compound had not yet been thought up. Pure white is not correct, either, as that would have meant adding a white pigment to the rubber back in the day--in period photographs, the tires look white, due to the still primitive camera's of the day, as well as the rather primitive black & white film and developing techniques. For the "buff" color I mention--look at any high-end lightweight bicycle tire--the light tan or buff sidewalls. That is a much more correct look. Art

For an Austin 7, take a look at the Heller BMW DIXI--Austin 7 built under license in Germany. Of course, along those lines, I could go for both a stock American Austin and an American Bantam, both as roadsters--small enough that it could even be a double kit!

Unfortunately, there's just not a large market for model kits of the great Classic Cars of the 20's through the 30's. For whatever reason, that was true back in the 1960's (a decade when seemingly anything in a plastic model car kit would sell like sno-cones on the 4th of July) and even more true nowadays. The sheer cost of tooling up a new model car kit virtually precludes doing subjects that would require serious "missionary work" selling--at least here in the US. Overseas, it's a bit different I think--although there really haven't been any newly tooled Classic era model car kits done in years, save for the ICM series of 1/24 scale Opel Admirals, and even those have wound up being offered at a discounted price in order for the importer(s) to clear space for faster-selling subject matter. Heller and Italeri Classics sold reasonably well in their domestic home markets when first offered, but even today, virtually nothing in newly tooled subjects of such cars. As for resin transkits--it takes an interest on the part of the resin-caster, enough so as to take that plunge, bearing in mind that they'd be chasing only a handful of sales while spending a lot of their time creating an acceptable master for casting. Art

Guido Fieuw did acquire (but not directly from me, as I refused to sell any to him due to his vituperant online tirades, any of my Duesenberg transkits. Those transkits included the Figoni et Falaschi boattail, better known in Classic Car circles as the "French Speedster", a reworked (for accuracy) Murphy Boattail Speedster (the one long-wheelbased car that was built for the biggest single customer of Duesenberg, George Whittel--the model that Monogram did with a diecast body and hood--but inaccurately as an SJ, which the Whittel car is not and never was), and at any rate long out of production; a generic Model J Berline (photo below of my current build project is below), and the fabulous Gurney Nutting Speedster, which real car was built for the Maharajah of Indore, India by the British coachbuilder, Gurney Nutting, and a Duesenberg Model J non-supercharged conversion parts set--both the engine parts and the louvered hood. This is the Berline, as I am choosing to build it, with blind rear quarters. Believe it or not, it's a blend of the Monogram Murphy Town Car body, with (yes!) the sections of 4 AMT 1932 Ford Tudor sedan bodies to make up the roof! (the door handles are those thingies that are turned upward--I discovered that the sharp end of ordinary straight pins, bent into a right angle, then slightly blunted, are perfect for those then-ultra modern streamlined door handles seen on numerous cars of the early-mid 1930's. Hopefully, I will get back onto this one later this year.

A rear view of the Cord Westchester shown above:

Actually, the late Lee Baker (a long time good friend of mine, and an excellent modeler of Classic Era cars, I might add) had nothing to do with my three Cord resin transkits. I had acquired, from the late Bill Harrison from California, a Guido Fieuw Cord 810 resin sedan, that had been slush-cast in fiberglass, but was hopelessly inaccurate and by reason of its very thick material section, pretty much unusable. Lee Baker also had nothing to do with the creation of any other other kits that Guido produced (more on that below). I did use Guido's mold, and slush-cast a new body in polyurethane resin; then taking that, and cutting the roof (including the tops of the doors) away from the lower body, grafted that onto a fresh Monogram Cord body shell, which resin section included the entire rear of the body. (the trunk area). Then using numerous photo's of the real thing from books in my library (this was before I had a computer, and certainly before there was much in the way of even rudimentary websites showing such cars. The car pictured is my Non-Supercharged 810 Westchester with the "flat back" trunk. I then did a second sedan, this time as an 812 Supercharged Westchester, with the "bustle trunk". After these two were in production, I sent one of each to Guido, complimentary--and got my chops busted in return--he went on a tear, swearing that I'd merely copied his work directly, which was untrue. About a month into the production of the two sedans, I worked up the Cord Convertible Coupe, A/K/A the Sportsman, from the Monogram convertible phaeton, which entailed completely reshaping the entire trunk area (much more slanted than the Monogram Convertible Phaeton), with raised convertible top as a separate piece. Miles Lee Baker (deceased about 12-13 yrs ago) was a very close friend, going all the way back to our meeting and getting acquainted at an IPMS Regional Convention in Indianapolis in 1977. I became a member of the Lake Michigan Model Car Club in suburban Chicago, and met with Lee monthly, every time I drove the 140 miles to Western Springs IL for club meetings. When I started up All American Models in January 1989, Lee started contacting me about doing resin transkits of 30's V8 Fords along with transkits for Monogram's Duesenberg Model SJ kits. I did several transkits for the Monogram Duesenberg, of which Guido did recast and sell (but never affected my sales at all), so I brushed him off pretty easily. While I did sell a fair number of the Duesenberg resins, the stars of the series of masters that Lee Baker created (most have a few of my touches in them) were the 30's Ford V8 cars. Art

I mastered, and cast both varieties of the Cord 810/812 sedans. A guy from South Africa had done both before (Guido Fieuw) but they were horribly inaccurate, and very crudely cast. I did the flatback sedan as non-supercharged, the trunkback as a supercharged version. Here's a pic of one of mine, built:

Just picked up the February 2018 issue of "Collectible Automobile" magazine: GREAT article with lots of pics and descriptions of those bare-bones basic entry level cars of the 1950's--you know, the ones your schoolteachers drove. Well worth reading! Art