Art Anderson

I wrote this for the AACA (Antique Automobile Club of America) forums several years ago" <<Are you speaking of Offenhauser Engineering & Sales, or Offenhauser Speed Equipment? The two were always distinctly different and separate companies, bearing the same name. Offenhauser Engineering was the small company started by Fred Offenhauser, as he picked up some of the remaining bits and pieces of the failed Harry Miller operations, primarily the Miller 22-cid DOHC 4-cylinder marine racing engine, which Offenhauser, with the aid of Leo Goosen, the legendary engine designer, evolved into a 255cid and 274cid racing engine for competition at Indianapolis and other AAA Championship races. Offenhauser also continued the 220cid engine as a sprint car engine, and in the late 30's, brought about a 91cid version, the famed Offenhauser Midget Engine. Those three series of engines were pretty much the only engines through the early 1960's that Offenhauser produced as their own (Offenhauser also built the Winfield Straight 8, the Winfield V8 [A/K/A Novi], and the Scarab F1 engine for the late Lance Reventlow--but all of these were simply custom projects, and were never sold by Offenhauser to any other comers). As such, Offenhauser Engineering, nor the successor company, Meyer-Drake (who never changed the name on the building, nor the "brand" of the engines) probably never felt any need for a catalog, as such--the reputation of their engines was all the advertising they needed. The "other" Offenhauser is the speed equipment company. This company, started by a nephew of Fred Offenhauser, and actually trading on the family last name made famous by his Uncle Fred, produced high-compression aluminum heads, intake manifolds and such for Model A & B Ford 4-cylinder engines, branching out into classic finned aluminum cylinder heads, intakes, headers and such for flathead Ford V8's, and finally broadening their line to include just about any and every American production passenger car engine of the 40s, 50's, and 60's. Offenhauser Speed Equipment has printed catalogs of their product for decades, the ones from the late 40's and 50's being perhaps the most fascinating, I am sure. Their products also appear in catalogs from Bell Auto Parts from at least 1950--I have, someplace around here, a Bell Auto Parts catalog for 1950, which shows virtually the entire Offenhauser Speed Equipment line available in that year. Art Anderson>> To carry this further: Fred Offenhauser, of Offy engine fame, started his career as a master machinist for the Miller Carburetor Company in the early 'teens, in Los Angeles, and rose to be the Superintendent at Harry A. Miller Inc., builder of the legendary Miller race cars of the 1920's. After the demise of Miller in 1932, Fred Offenhauser took out his back pay in the form of machine tools and many of the Miller patterns and drawings. Fred Offenhauser continued to build complete racing engines until the US entry into WW-II, at which time he turned his company's attention to defense work. In 1945, Fred Offenhauser sold Offenhauser Engineering to the partnership of Dale Drake (son of J. A. Drake, maker of high performance aftermarket intake and exhaust valves under the name JADSON, and himself a noted Indianapolis car mechanic and "riding mechanic" as well as the builder of a legendary midget engine, the "Drake" --a watercooled conversion of the Harley-Davidson "Knucklehead" motorcycle engine), and Louis Meyer, the first 3-time winner at Indianapolis (1928, 1933, 1936), Fred Offenhauser retired upon selling out Offenhauser Engineering, and lived another 20 years or so. His company, Offenhauser Engineering (the name was continued by Meyer-Drake for another 20 years, until Louis Meyer left to handle the sales and service of the 255cid Ford DOHC Indianapolis engine in 1965. There was never any association, other than the family name, Offenhauser, between Offenhauser Engineering, and Offenhauser Speed Equipment--in fact, several historians have written about the rather deep rift between uncle and nephew. Art

Uh, didn't the model car kit marketplace pretty much force manufacturers to kill of those so-called donut boxex? Art

Just to aid you a bit: Ford introduced the 24-stud V8 in 1937, and their flathead V8 remained that way through the end of the 1953 model year. While in details such as combustion chamber, perhaps slight differences in the head stud spacings, along with a couple of variations in the water outlets, the appearance was pretty much the same through those years. Certainly close enough for model work I would think. Art

Some of those speed shops made heads and such for the 21-stud 221cid flathead V8's, in addition to later 24-stud heads. Art

Of course, Italeri kits come in much larger boxes than say, a standard AMT, Moebius or Revell kit. Bigger box, more room for information on it, but bigger boxes take up more space on hobby shop shelves, which can be a tradeoff. Art

Think of it this way: If one takes a pre-built diecast metal model car apart, down to the point of taking it back to kit form, for the purpose of modfiying, or just merely repainting it, what the Sam Hill is the difference between that and taking a plastic kit, painting and assembling it? Does a model being done in diecast metal make it any less a model? If so, what does that make all those Hubley diecast metal model car kits (Model A and T Fords, '32 Chevies, '30 Packards, Duesenberg Model SJ's) any less a model car kit than the same subjects in plastic? I think not. Art

Rob, and yes... Those were glaring errors on the part of not only the folks at Racing Champions-Ertl in Dyersville IA, but also a serious lack of management expertise and oversight at RC2's headquarters in Oak Brook IL! Racing Champions, when they bought out Ertl, which included the AMT kit line, let go way too many people who truly knew and understood what was in all that AMT and MPC tooling, replacing them with lower level folks (albeit very good people!) who had little if any understanding of just what was in all that tooling (nearly 3000 different tools by their own claims. In 2005, after RC2 had laid me, along with all but 4 of the staff of Playing Mantis, I was offered a small retainer to help AMT/Ertl come up with reissue assortments, not a one that came to fruition due to their lack of even basic knowledge (the product manager at that time was a very nice lade, whose expertise was in their doll and action figure line (go figure that one out!!!). They supplied me with complete tool lists, but they had no idea where those tools were, what condition they were in, so on and so forth. It's little wonder that glaring errors in packaging VS the product inside happened--it truly was a case of the "blind leading the blind", and I dropped out of that after 2006, just not interested in dealing with that sort of indifference. It was even worse at RC2's Chinese manufacturing campus--those people simply would not listen. Communication (VERY essential when dealing across cultural and language barriers, especially with the ill-informed folks in Dyersville) is essential if anything is to get done. Little wonder that Learning Curve (which is what RC2 is known as today) were probably more than happy to wash their hands of all that tooling, which is now owned by the former owner and founder of Playing Mantis, Tom Lowe, founder of Round2. This is not to attempt to address inaccurately mocked up and tooled models--every model company that has ever existed has had their share of those over time. Dave Metzner at Moebius took a pretty big risk, for example, in posting up pics of the tooling mockups of the first of the Hudsons and the '55 Chrysler C300. The comments of course came quick, thick and fast--but everyone on this set of forums has seen the ultimate result--both cars came out looking pretty darned good, if you ask me! And in the bargain, the box art does not misrepresent any of the three car kits (or for that matter, the International Lonestar) one bit--what you see on the boxtop is what you get in the box. Sure, little effort was given to show all the pieces, but for the reasons I mentioned earlier--a box art showing all those parts, along with renderings of the real thing or photo's of the built up model would have been so "busy" as to perhaps make those kits a much harder sell than they needed to be. Art

OK, on the premise that a Federal law was passed, and signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1966, it STILL took another 10 years for model companies to embrace the idea of putting pictures of a built example of the enclosed kit on the boxtop. As has been pointed out in several posts in this topic, most of the Japanese manufacturers stayed with box art illustrations, ranging from simple, to the almost iconic Tamiya box art paintings. I don't seem to recall any complaints made audibly about either that, or the switch to photographs. I would submit, that any lawyer looking into virtually any model car kit produced today, would be hard-pressed to find any discrepancy between the boxtop and the contents inside, unless the kit in question was an Xmobile instead of the advertised Ytireburner. As long as an illustration shows the content of the kit box correctly, and does not show a feature or features that cannot be built from the kit inside--then I rather doubt any lawyer would even take up a case alleging fraud. As an interesting sidelight: Who among us complains if we open up a newly reissued AMT kit from out of the prehistoric past, only to find a number of parts "re-included" when sections of sprue were un-gated? Of course, with any old tool suddenly reissued, there can be errors made--most of them I've seen were tires that didn't fit, although a few instances of kits having completely wrong chrome trees in them, but even those have been rather rare--and when called on the error, the manufacturer has diligently tried to rectify the situation. There is a lengthy Wikipedia on the "Truth In Advertising" issue--well worth reading. Art

If only I could locate my 1950 Bell Auto Parts Speed Equipment Catalog! That catalog is a veritable gold mine of information along with tremendous illustrations. Art

More than a couple Craig! A lot of us called AMT Ertl in person on that one. In July 2004, I found out why that happened:: RC2, then the owner of the AMT brand and tooling, put product development into the hands of a lady (trust me, Mary tried, and she was cool!) who had absolutely no clue as to cars! This is a perfect example of what happens when corporate management comes into ownership of a company about which they neither know nothing about, nor do they care--if they even know enough to care! Don't press me further for my opinion--I don't relish being banned from these forums!

The biggest fly in the ointment here is the tires! When one looks at a real car, one sees a car with the tires having squished down due to the weight of the car against the road. That is almost impossible to translate into model kit tooling, frankly, unless a model company is willing to buck consumer expectations, make the tires with that "squish" in order to get the correct height. Are you willing to accept that, as opposed to perfectly round, fully inflated tires in a model kit? Just sayin' Art

Nowhere in my treatises on this topic have I ever said anything about compromising dimensions. A GM A-body is a GM A-body is a GM A-body, pure and simple. To that there should be no question. The only way to compare for accuracy of a model kit is to compare the model with the real, 1:1 object, something that isn't often possible for the model car builder (really now! How many of us have access to a '50 Olds 88 and/or a '49-54 Chevy two door sedan anyway?) A couple of examples here, if I may: This is my '59 Chevrolet Biscayne 2-door sedan It is based on the excellent Revell '59 Impala Convertible, first released in 1994, I owned, at the time, a '59 Biscayne 4dr sedan, and I KNOW the differences between the roof height of the sedan/station wagon/El Camino, and the Impala convertible/hardtop (and they are significant!) Based on considerable research (I owned and operated All American Models back in those days!), I found that the length of the doors (A-post to B-Post, NOT the door skin length BTW) was 6 inches longer on the 2dr, regardless of whether it was a 2-door sedan (this model) or a convertible/hardtop body. And, all the other body dimensions all across the GM line save for the Cadillac Series 75 Sedan Limousine were EXACTLY the same that year (GM produced ONLY A-bodies in 1959, if you do not believe me, look it up!). The other issue on this conversion was the roof and the windshield (BTW, the body length back then is the length from the cowling back to the bottom of the rear window--the trunk, faired into the body is not part of the actual body shell!). Based on what I learned back in 1994 (before I had a puter, BTW) I discovered that the roof for my Chevy was exactly the same regardless of the number of doors, or the marque of the car--Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac 4dr sedans all used exactly the same body, no matter the number of doors--again, all A-bodies!). With that in mind, the roof for this model came from a JoHan '59 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special (1/8 inch actual measurement too narrow, as I pointed out earlier), but in length and height EXACTLY correct--I took my measuring tape out to the driveway, slapped it on my Biscayne 4dr, OK?). The entire windshield frame, from the beltline up is from an AMT '59 El Camino and it is correct--again, my research gave me the requisite dimensions!. This body was done in resin, at All American Models, and trust me, had it been significantly off, I would have heard about it, trust me on that one! Now, I did slightly juggle the curvatures of the roof, but not altering the "planform" line as seen from the side, front or rear--ONLY at the sides, to give it a slight change which to my eye (and I believe my eyes were very correct in this assessment, given as I owned the real car at the time!) made it look correct. To this day (and this built example I still own!) this model is right on the money.!) Now, for the second example: Also in 1994, I mastered a '58 Chevrolet Delray Sedan Delivery, from a PMC '58 Chevy Impala Nomad promo. Now there are contour inaccuracies in that body shell that I chose to not correct--they were just more than I was willing to make the cuts to correct (viewed from above, the real car roof is slightly bowed along the sides--think of a very subtle football shape here), and the drain molding curves ever so slightly upward from the A post to the back of the roof--something that a customer in Norway complained about--I refunded his money, told him to keep the transkit). But even at that, I learned, through research that dimensionally, my transkit was right on (in addition to the '59 I showed and mentioned, I also owned a straight and true '58 Delray Sedan Delivery!) and I did all measurements needed, including the side door length off the real car. I did alter the roof shape, to make it more correct than the PMC promo (which was done in 1957, BTW), and given that there is less than 1/2 inch difference between a '58 Chevy HT/Convertible windshield glass from that of a sedan or station wagon, that was easily taken care of--the AMT '58 Impala is a tad off in that regard!), and went forward. So go figure, huh? (a half inch in our scale is .020", and is hardly noticeable on either the AMT '58 Impala or my sedan delivery--perhaps my only deviation from perfect dimensional accuracy) But in the end, that sedel looks pretty right. Now, will my model numerically fit the GM Fisher Body drawings, even their stamping dies? I dunno--but the bottom line is that to me, and the 400 or so customers who bought the transkit, it does--or at least allegedly does) represent the real car almost perfectly. I am well aware that in classic Greek architecture, there are relatively few perfectly straight lines, but those Greek architects were masters of optical illusion. Beat, battered and weathered as it is, the Parthenon in Athens shows that to this day--but that is not what I have postulated, or proposed. Compromise dimensions (and yes, in 1949-50, Oldsmobile DID use the very same A-body as did Chevrolet, but to get a true reading, GO MEASURE A REAL ONE!,l NO?) but do not compare one model kit to another, done 37 years apart to state which is accurate (and which is not, please!. I will, even though I had to fudge a dimension on that Sedan Delivery, I will hold out for correct dimensions EVERY time. And it is experience such as this that got me the job of "Automotive Research Specialist" (product development guy) at Johnny Lightning Division of Playing Mantis, with the side job of assisting at Polar Lights, and more recently, aiding with the development of model car kits for Moebius. (and yeah, I still put my pants on, one leg at a time!) Art

Dimensions and proportions are one thing, that often very subtle "looks right" is quite another, which is what I tried to explain earlier. Dimensions and proportion are pretty easy to nail down--after all, the scaling (either up or down) is simply a matter of numbers, and really quite simple middle school math. But, it's that subtle 3D shape that, while it can be perfectly correct numerically, just doesn't look right, for the reason of visual perspective we all have to at least some degree, what with our binocular vision and our eyes normally having some overlap of visual fleld, one eye seeing exactly what the other eye sees, albeit at a slightly different angle. Laser scanners are, in this matter, pretty much like a single lens camera--both "see" whatever object on which they are focused, in very much a 2-dimensional way (even though laser scanners can "read" the subject for depth, in a way very similar to how normally visioned humans can. This is very much why persons involved in the research process of product development tend to take hundreds of pictures of a real car from every angle imaginable, and pics that show perhaps only the subtleties of say, the curve of a roof panel from different points along the way just for the purpose of capturing the actual curvature. Correctly finessing those slight compound curves ought never to compromise either dimensions or proportions on the model kit body, for example, but should serve to help make the finished product look as real as possible. A good analogy from the world of sculpture (in stone such as marble, or even in bronze), especially if the figure being sculpted is signifiantly larger than life. Michaelangelo, the legendary Renaissance sculptor purposely altered some shapes of the person(s) posing for his work, to make them look incredibly lifelike when viewed from the perspective of seeing a figure created from "life" at an angle greatly different than the viewer would ordinarily see a real person in the same pose. Yet for the most part, his statues are pretty true to height and proportion, with just those shapes altered to make them seem real to someone viewing them from the position of their own eyes being perhaps half the distance from the ground as the eyes of the person depicted in that statue. In reverse, sometimes that has to happen, when creating softly curved objects such as cars in a scale far smaller than the real thing. Art

Harry, Bear in mind, if you will, that back in "....the days of the $2 model kit..." that two bucks was very much the equivalent of $20-$25 dollars today (1/25 scale model car kits back 50 years ago had an MSRP of $2.00--something us older guys surely do remember very well). Frankly, would not detail photo's of a box art buildup, showing closeups of say, the completed engine bay, the interior, the chassis be far more informative? Seriously, if one thinks about it, photo's of the raw parts trees, when reduced to a size that fits on say, the sides of the common, standard sized model car kit box (thinking AMT, Revell, Moebius kit boxes here) would be so small, the details so tiny as to be more "busy" than truly informative. Consider also that 50 years ago, there were virtually NO legal notices printed on model car kit boxes. Fast forward to today: Every licensor will require some legal notice "used under license from" or (fill in the blank here) used under license from (again, fill in the blank), or such notices as "Jeep is a registered trademark of Chrysler Corporation"--not to mention the politically correct multilingual text virtually required nowadays. I'm looking at the excellent box art for the Revell Kurtis Midget as I write this. The top and ends of the box have color pics of the Offenhauser powered midget, those show completed models, in the colors and markings offered on the decal sheet and called out in the painting instructions. One side of the box shows a finished midget (the same one that is on one end of the box), a closeup of the opened engine bay, a shot of the PE sheet of details, a shot of the two types of hitches provided for whichever type of tow vehicle, a pic of the main version of the midget shown on the boxtop ON the trailer which is part of the kit, and the remaining end of the box, and a drawing of a Revell 48 Ford station wagon with hitch and midget on the trailer included. The other side panel of the kit box is all text: Features of the kit printed in English, Spanish and French which also includes a brief historical blurb about the Kurtis Midget, Next to that is another box of text, giving the colors of paint needed to paint the blue and white midget, again in three languages. Beneath that is text giving the required legal notice as to who produced the kit and denoting Revell's copyright claims to it; A very clear statement that the box "Contains ONE plastic model kit, in three languages, the UPC bar code, and the legally required "country of origin" also in three languages. On the bottom of the box are more legal notices, in three languages, and explanation of Revell's "Skill Level System" again in three languages, a very important legal disclaimer warning about small parts being a choking hazard (very important to have that, as I am sure any lawyer would state!). Also there is a notice of copyright from Revell in Elk Grove Village IL, further notice to the consumer to "keep details for future reference (again in three languages), a statement of distribution in Europe through "Revell GmbH & Co KG and their address in Germany. Also printed there is a notice about where to obtain customer service, and one indicating Revell's website. Now, all of that leaves virtually NO ROOM for any of the things you suggest--any photo's or artwork showing the parts trees would be so small as to be more confusing than informative, frankly. The purpose of box art on a model car kit, jujst as with the artwork and text on any blister card or box for any product you and I see in retail stores is to get that product to shout out to you and me, "Take me to your home!", tempered of course with all manner of legally required or certainly recommended notices and disclaimers. As one who spent nearly 30 years either directly in, or certainly involved to some degree, in hobby retailing, this particular box art does a very good job of presenting the enclosed product accurately yet attractively, and gives clear notice in readable print that it is an unassembled model car kit. (by the way, the two builtup midgets pictured SHOW that there are two types of intake systems, twin carburetors AND Hilborn fuel injection, which takes care of depicting the options available inside the box.). I don't see much more to ask than what this kit box shows, frankly. Art

Well. Alan, Be aware that the Curtiss Conqueror aircraft engine was a V12, NOT a V24! I helped my uncle deliver a Conqueror crate motor to Purdue University's Aviation Technology school back in the early 1970's when my Uncle Charlie located it in Minnesota--for the restoration of the Curtiss P26 Biplane fighter they restored for the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Fairborn, OH. BTW, that engine was installed in the Duesenberg chassis for the so-called Mormon Meteor II. Art

Harry, Nice sounding, but if you really think about it--modelers in general, and model car builders in particular, seem to have gotten along very well for a good 60 years without all that (of course, AMT kits of the early 1960's had illustrations of various parts, particularly the custom and hop-up parts in their car kits on the sides of the box). And over those 6+ decades, I doubt very many people complained; certainly in my almost 30 yrs of involvment in retail hobbies I cannot remember a single incident where a kid, his parents, or adult modelers complained about not being able to see what was included. As for built model photographed VS illustration, that's an issue that can cut both ways: A beautifully built and finished model looks great on a box top, but when a neophyte modeler buys the kit, tries to make it look that way, inexperience all too often leads to disappointment--"I tried, but my (fill in the model name here) doesn't look like that!, or the model was haphazardly done (witness the early AMT/Ertl box art models, many of which were done, in the 1980's, by middle and high school age kids from the Catholic schools in Dyersville (which town has NO public school system, just parochial), which as a hobby dealer in the 1980's I saw as more often than not, detrimental to the subject matter in the box from a marketing point of view. The same thing could happen with Japanese kits and their gorgeous illustrations: I vividly remember the absolute CRAZE over Lamborghini Countach model kits in the mid-80's (1984-about 1987, when I could not get enough Countach kits of any mfr to satisfy the kids demanding them!!). More than once I heard disappointment because that iconic model car subject kit didn't come out like the illustration. So, go figure. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the 50th Anniversary of my HS graduating class (West Lafayette Senior High School). Now I might well be considered to have been the WLHS Class of '62 Automotive Modelers, but there were 3 or 4 other guys who were consistent builders as well. Three of us spent perhaps an hour at our Meet & Greet Thursday evening, reminiscing about MODEL CARS, and this very subject came up. None of the three of us could remember ever being disappointed at what we found in a mainstream model car kit box, vis-a-vis what the boxtop showed. It's always been this sort of quandary, I think, going all the way back to the very earliest of Revell/Gowland & Gowland Highway Pioneers kits. But of course, had the likes of Premiere, Palmer, and even Pyro been forced to show built and painted examples of their often horrid products on the boxtops, likely their products would have flopped very quickly. Art

Tim, I overlooked something in my posting: I believe it was Dennis Doty, who did the '51 Chevy Bel Air Convertible box art model, who convinced AMT Corporation to allow Bare Metal Foil. Their resistance earlier stemmed from a complete lack of knowledge and understanding of the stuff (bear in mind that Eldred Mason, founder of BMF in 1970, kept trying to promote the stuff for doing natural metal finishes on scale aircraft, where it continued to find only limited acceptance from modelers, and downright prejudice from IPMS judges. However, once Tom Valmassei and crew in their art department got a good look at a model car trimmed in BMF, they saw quickly how it brought out the details of chrome trim far better than Testors silver paint. I believe the 51 Chevy convertible happened in early 1977, about the time I started doing the "Countdown To The Sixties" series of cars. I too raised the ire of the art department, in 1980, with the reissue of the 1907 New York to Paris Thomas Flyer by Lesney/AMT. In looking over the kit, it was very apparent that the bright gold-tone plating on the radiator, headlights. taillight, hubcaps and bulb horn would have been very toy-looking in appearance on the model, which depicts the car as it finished the race (The Winnah!!) in Paris, somewhat the worse for wear after nearly 20,000 miles of driving and sea transport. I called the art director at the time (whose name escapes me now), explained the dilemma to him, and he more or less gave me carte blanche to give the model the appropriate weathering. Having an excellent book of color pics of the cars of Harrah's Automobile Collection, with several shots of the Thomas--I built and painted the car as the pictures show--THEN weathered it lightly, but gave the brass parts a slight tarnish effect with an airbrushed "wash" of extremely thinned out Testors "Rubber", which gave the brass parts a very realistic appearance. Then, in keeping with accuracy, I omitted the left side headlight lens (the real one was broken out somewhere between Berlin and Paris, and angled that headlight slightly downward, just as it appears on the actual car to this day (the only thing I wish I could have added, but AMT didn't include) was the Parisian's bicycle which got hoisted up on the left running board so that its headlight would make the Thomas legal for the streets of Paris, and keep the Gendarmes happy, but Oh Well!. Anyway, when the model arrived at Lesney/AMT product development in Warren MI, consternation ruled! I got a phone call, with a stern comment that I should not have modified the kit in any way. I pointed out that no modification was made, just a slight adjustment of that headlight, and of course, omitting the left headlight lens. The guy wasn't happy, but agreed to study it more thoroughly. About an hour later, the Managing Director of Lesney AMT (a British chap then commuting from suburban Windsor) called me, and assured me that the model was MORE than acceptable--he being a Matchbox Toys veteran really appreciated that attention to detail and finish. PHEW! Perhaps my most satisfying project was when I was commissioned to do a conversion of AMT's Kenworth Conventional tractor, to the Alaskan Hauler. Once the kit and pics arrived, a quick phone call to Troy MI netted me a dozen sets of American LaFrance Ladder Chief chrome trees, so I could do the front fenders on that rig from the diamond tread running boards. That, and scratchbuilding the heavy-duty "headache rack" were principal to making it look like what it should, for display at the 1978 HIAA Trade Show (wherever it was that year). I was told later, that the art department went ahead, used my trade show prototype for the catalog and box art pics, but I was never really able to confirm that (too bad digital cameras were 20+ years into the future, huh?). Another project that was very intriguing, was to do a built "prototype" Gar Wood Packer Body for the AMT Ford C-600 City Delivery box van. For that, I was given the truck, along with a sell sheet from Gar Wood showing 3 views of the packer body, which was a size that really should have had a tandem rear axle. This one was done for the 1978 HIAA show as well. The body was constructed from .040" styrene sheet salvaged from the So-Fro Fabrics store here that my then-wife managed. I did the thing, delivered it in person, never heard anything about it again. In June of 1982, I was at the annual model contest put on by LaGrange Hobby Shop in LaGrange IL (an outdoor contest). Walking across the street to the store, what did I see? That prototype Ford C-600 Garbage Truck that I'd built. I inquired about buying it from them, but they weren't interested in selling. Oh Well! A couple of times back in the 90's, at GSL, there were a number of box art builds auctioned, which had been donated by AMT/Ertl. Art

Now, how about making those helmet fenders separate from the fairings, then a version of this bodywork as the car appeared on Bonneville Salt Flats in the late summer of 1935? Also, will you be making the two-stage supercharger, along with the "ram's horn" intake manifold which is dramatically different from the standard SJ intake as produced in the Monogram kit? I assume this is to be a transkit for the Monogram Duesenberg SJ's? Art

It would be cool to see the rest of the '32 Ford selection of body styles done by Revell using their very excellent base deuce chassis: B400 Convertible Sedan Sport Coupe Cabriolet Phaeton, Pickup (both roadster and closed cab) with the option of the commercial truck grille shell) Station Wagon (Woodie!) A Fordor sedan would be a stretch though, I doubt that this subject would see enough sales to warrant the extra tooling costs. Art

Interesting, but I believe "urban legend". I built a lot of box art models for AMT Corporation (later Lesney/AMT) in the years 1975-81, and NEVER experienced such a law, nor any type of regulations of that sort. AMT decided, in late 1975 to start using photographic box art showing model kits built exactly to the instructions, straight out of the box, which was more than a year before James Earl Carter became president. This was due to the rise of "Nader's Raiders", groups of law students who went looking for anything that could be convincing to a jury in a lawsuit regarding any allegations of consumer fraud, unsafe products, that sort of thing (BTW, Ralph Nader got a cut of every settlement, made far more money that way than from royaties on his book (reported in the press in the late 1970's). My instructions from AMT's art department were very rigid: Model cars were to be built exactly as found in the box (they did ask that mold parting lines be smoothed out however), body colors were specified from readily available Testors and/or Pactra hobby paints, and a specific pattern of painting chassis and suspension details had to be followed to the letter. No Bare Metal Foil could be used, all chrome trim on bodies had to be hand painted with Testors 1146 Silver. The only variance from the kit was that window glass was not to be installed, they decided to to some airbrush retouching to give the hint of glass, so that interiors could be seen readily through the windshield. Monogram took things a bit farther: They engaged famed IPMS diorama and figure painter, Shepard Paine to build up their box art models, and almost always, those were shown in a diorama, but with no added detailing whatsoever. MPC was quite similar to the standard at AMT, as were Revell and Testors. It was quite interesting at the time that not a single European nor Japanese kit mfr did anything of this sort, except for some of the rather odd subjects (things like plastic kits of electric fans, that sort of thing which had some popularity in Japan but seldom seen in US hobby shops outside of some of the largest cities). Entex went the photographic box art from the get-go--but Glencoe Models did only sporadically. Williams Brothers, who started producing plastic kits of famous racing planes from the 20's and 30's didn't, however. To the best of my knowledge, no law was ever passed requiring such box art--all of this was driven by a fear of lawsuits, and certainly no fear of such seemed to move Model Rectifier Corporation to insist on such photographic boxtops from Tamiya, nor did the importers of Hasegawa, Fujimi, Aoshima, Heller, Italeri, or Airfix. Union Model Company did use photo's of built models on their kit boxes when they entered the scene in the mid-1980's though. Art

Frankly Harry, in your scenario, the only form of box art that box art photographs could show and be completely truthful would be photos of the raw parts trees, instruction sheet and decal sheet (if any). Simply because that's what the customer will find inside the box when opening it. In today's litigious climate, it could even be hazardous to use a photo or painting of the real car, because no matter what disclaimers are printed, SOMEBODY someplace is going to allege having been mislead (and you gotta know that places such as LA and San Francisco have lots of lawyers willing to go after even a model kit company. No matter what restrictive instructions are given the builder of a box art model, there will be someone out there to claim that he or she (or their child) tried to build the thing, and it didn't come out to look anything like the builtup pictured on the boxtop, plain and simple. Art

I have a Sherline lathe that I bought new in the spring of 1981, still use it, but need to do some upgrades to it (one thing about Sherline, whatever they upgrade, they make fit all their older products!). I've turned a couple hundred parts on this one over the years, with great results. In 2009, I took the plunge, bought a Sherline Mill, and I have to say, it's one FINE piece of machinery. If one is going to make the investment in machine tools such as these for modeling, make it a "one time buy", and go for the best you can both afford and give house-room to. You won't be disappointed. Art

There is no difference in width for the front fenders on a '51-51 Ford F1 compared to the '48-'50. What is different, besides the grille motif, is the shape and width of the grille opening (now you know why Revell made the lower part of the forward area of their '50 Ford pickup front fenders a separate part!). And no, I never seriously considered doing this particular grille conversion as a transkit. Art

I was in an unusual situation for 1962: Graduated from HS on Thursday, June 2, by 1pm Sunday June 5, I was waving goodbye to my parents from the entrance to Howard Residence Hall, Parsons College in Fairfield IA, ready to start the summer trimester there. Now, I'd love to say it was 8 trimesters (2 years 8 months) and out, but it wasn't. My folks agreed to pay for the first two years (4 trimesters) of college, after that it was up to me (two sisters coming right behind me, 2 and 4 years younger). It took 4 years of study, and 4 years gathering up the $$ to pay for my Jr and Sr years, but I did receive my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Administration on Saturday, June 6, 1970. Oh, and did I mention that I built model cars all the way through college? Art

Even a good number of those "iconic" kits/promo's of the 1950's and 60's have their accuracy problems. SMP/AMT 1959-62 Corvettes with grilles and front pans more representative of a chipmunk with its mouth full than the appearance of the actual car; 1959-60 Chevies that had a lot of accuracy problems; JoHan '58-60 Cadillacs that were deliberately way out of proportion lengthwise and an arbitrary actual 1/8" too narrow (3 scale inches)--due to a requirement to fit a standard size promo box from GM themselves. Those are model cars that come to my mind. A lot of those so-called inaccuracies (and every one of the model companies pretty much went through the same thing) happened, more than likely as patternmakers had a learning curve, particularly in those days of hand-carved wooden tooling mockups. Some inaccuracies happened due to the simplified nature of most model kits back then--the long-popular AMT Trophy Series '32 Fords are full of them, even their '36 Ford grille is not correct (the actual grille curls inward at the bottom, the AMT grille doesn't). I took the opportunity at this last weekend's Goodguys at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to do some walkaround pics of a '40 Ford sedan delivery--a lots rounder, fatter body than the AMT kit represents (but then, AMT made that body shell to drop on their existing '40 Tudor Sedan fender unit). Several 1960's kits also suffered, to some degree from asymetry--in a few cases it was almost like "The left side knew not what the right side was doing". Now, modern-made, 21st Century state of the art model car kits and their body shells should be a lot more accurately done, no question. But again, it's a matter of the "learning curve" where shapes and contours are concerned--a computer knows only what information is fed into it--GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out was how I heard it expressed in 1969, Computer Science in college back then). Then, there was the matter of buyer interference, the "buyer" being the mass retailer, even hobby wholesale distributors. When model companies had to deal with enforced retail price points for their product, AND very tight (and often shifting!) deadlines for delivering production kits of new subjects, then development and tooling costs, along with extreme pressure to get the new kit into the stores really got in the way. Now that the model companies really aren't "tied" to the often unyielding demands of say, Walmart, they can take the time to get it far more right than say, 15-20 years ago. One more thing to consider here: Our memories of model car kits of years, even decades ago, while they might not have been perfectly done by today's expectations, were exciting enough to our collective younger eyes and hands that we viewed them as perfect when looking back nostalgically. That's why I frequently maintain that the only way to judge the accuracy of a model car kit is to go all the way back to the real car, compare to that, but given that few pictures of real cars in magazines and books really give all the information with which to objectively judge accuracy of a model. Art