Art Anderson

Over time, there have been a good many 4dr American cars done either in styrene, or as resin conversions. However, as a general rule, plastic model kits of 4drs seem to have suffered from the complaint of having 2 doors too many. What makes those old JoHan 4dr HT Oldsmobiles and Cadillac Fleetwood 6-window sedans rare isn't that they were so popular that they all were grabbed up back in the day, but rather that they were so universally unpopular that JoHan made probably just one production run of maybe 15-20,000 units of kits like that, off their promo tooling, and hobby shops had a terrible time unloading those--kits like those were "Sidewalk Sale" fodder for several years after they'd been released. The model companies (AMT, MPC, JoHan and PMC) did promotional model cars according to the wishes of the various automakers' sales/marketing departments' whims, after all, it was Ford, GM, Chrysler, AMC and Studebaker who were picking up the tab for them. There was a time back in the day, when car dealers didn't have the mega-floor plan deals they have today, allowing for upwards of a hundred or more new cars on their lots--so a wide variety of promotional model cars helped salesmen illustrate much of what was available, along with enticing Dad to trade by giving his son(s) scale models of a car he wanted to sell their old man. Eight-twelve year old boys back 55 years ago didn't much care if the model car dangled before their shining eyes was a hardtop, convertible, 2dr sedan, 4dr sedan or a station wagon--it was a scale model car, and it looked cool. But, when it came to building model cars, kids (and face it, back then, we kids were the driving force in the hobby!) wanted to build the top of the line, the hardtop, the convertible, with all the flash and dash those cars embodied, and besides, nobody was customizing family sedans back then, no sir! It's been just 24 years since AMT/Ertl took a big plunge, modified the tooling from their long-running '55 Chevy Nomad kit to create---GASP!--your great-aunt Matilda's '55 Chevy Bel Air 2dr sedan. But, would a 4dr version of that kit have generated the same level of excitement in the marketplace? I think not--not very many Pro-Street '55 Chevy 4drs out there. Drag racing? Again, I think that would have drawn a chorus of yawns. I think, based on my experiences, that when a model company looks at a new subject to tool up, they have to look at numerous criteria, not the least of which being "how popular is this car in the real world?" Revell-Monogram was apparently persuaded that the '92 Chevy Caprice would be a good subject, after all, didn't every modeler want a police cruiser? Yet, that kit laid a pretty big egg for them, so I have been told, until they modified the tooling for the far more interesting '95 Impala SS--and that one sold extremely well, so I have been told by sources within Revell. You see, where once our hobby was populated with a heavy majority who wanted cars that spoke "glitz and glamor", performance, "the car Dad SHOULDA bought!", all of that; now we are a widely spread, very fragmented marketplace, modelers with interests as widely varied as the sheer number of different cars that have been produced over the past 115 years or so. And that, while neat, also means that we are a much more difficult target on which to score a bullseye with any new kit release. With all this in mind, to me it's little wonder that the larger companies (well the largest company, Revell) takes aim at the biggest identifiable segments most of the time--and cars with 4drs pretty much don't make the cut--they apparently feel that the aftermarket is where it is for those subjects. Don't get me wrong here, I've done my share of 4drs over time, like them, station wagons too, but I do not see a very wide market for them. Art

Well, On Tuesday morning, I along with another very well-known model car builder, will have a face-to-face meetup with the tooling mockups for the Moebius '55 Chrysler C-300. From everything I've seen in pics so far, it is shaping up to be one really neat model car kit! Art

Hearses tend to be the most formal of formal cars, frankly. As a result, they have tended to be very conservative in color in most cases, black, dark blue being very prominent choices. Interiors tended to be luxurious, both up front in the driver's compartment, and in the back, to surround a casket. If one looks inside a hearse, there's not a lot to flock--the flooring in back is usually a linoleum or similar smooth material, with the rollers and safety locks in the floor for securing the casket in chrome plating. Side and front walls more often than not were done in vinyl done to look like fine leather, but on occasion, such fabrics as crushed velvet have been used. In the side, quarter and rear windows, curtains made from velvet, generally having a tassel fringe would be very correct, the fabric bunched and stitched to represent drapery. As for vinyl tops, yeah and nay. Some funueral directors liked them, others preferred "slick top" hearses, the roof painted the same as the rest of the body. Art

For me, it was in late summer 1960, when I wanted, as a 16yr old, just one more '60 Impala HT kit, and NONE were to be found in any of the myriad of stores here locally. So, I decided then and there that I would buy a minimum of two of each new kit I bought, and I would buy any model car kit (2 of them) if I had any inkling that I might want to build it at least someday. There have been kits which I have purchased serious multiples of over the years--for example, I built little other than Indy cars from 1966-85, trying to cover all Indy 500's from 1911 forward. Given the relatively small number of 1/24-1/25 scale kits of Indy cars that had been produced up to that time frame (less than 15, IIRC), that meant serious duplication of purchases. Other subjects have intrigued me as well, back then, even up to today, and as a result, I have many subjects in multiple kits. At one time, for example, I had over 50 Monogram Kurtis KK-500 Indy roadsters (with a razor saw, files, putty and sandpaper, there are more than that which can be built from that old but legendary Monogram kit. Similarly, the MPC/AMT 1914 Stutz Bearcat can be used as a starting point for most of the starting field at Indy in the years 1911-about 1914, including Stutz car #1, "The Car That Made Good In A Day" (Indianapolis 500, May 30, 1911). So, over time, I acquired at least 25 of that kit, and still grab one when I see it at a good price. Monogram Duesenbergs also fit in that category. A model car kit here, a model car kit there, pretty soon you are talking about a lot of model car kits! Art

It's also just not smart to let out pics of a tooling mockup before it's been finalized, and every effort expended to ensure that it's as well and accurately done as possible. Dave, as with the three of us who've volunteered (or were we "persuaded"? ) to lend our help in the development of these kits, is probably now as knowledgeable about the shapes, contours, dimensions and details of both the Hudson and the Chrysler as any model elsewhere on the planet (and, Dave Metzner is a recognized modeler, awarded more than a few times at IPMS contests, and is well-known for his figurine modeling), so the last thing any of the 4 of us would want would be for there to be a p*ssing contest about this or that detail or shape. Every tooling mockup, anywhere, goes through at least some revision, errors (hopefully small) almost always appear in the first get-go, which is why just about every model company out there worth their salt has a staff of knowledgeable people to review the mockups, compare them to the available references, check and recheck. Then, the mockups (particularly cars or trucks) must pass muster with the licensor, the company that produced/produced the actual vehicle, for their final permission to "go ahead" to tooling and production. Time was, that was little more than a "wave of the hand", but more and more, we see serious reviews by auto manufacturers, who more and more want to see a model kit that is a very close representation of their product. This is particularly true with Detroit's Big Three, and most assuredly European and Japanese carmakers (wonder if a Toyota pickup kit should have steering rods that break without being asked?--OK, being sarcastic here!). In times past, I have had to deal with a very large German automaker who insisted that the model I was developing for my employer be German/European spec, not US spec.--it does get that picky sometimes. So, be patient--I believe Dave is gonna share pics of these mockups when they are ready for tooling, and I don't believe you folks will be disappointed. Art

As a kid, back in the early-mid 50's, we didn't yet have TV at our house, but we did have a monstrous Zenith Transoceanic multiband console radio. With some dial twisting on the FM band, I found that I could pick up the sound track broadcast from Channel 6, WFBM (now WTHR) in Indianapolis, then the NBC affiliate there (also the home station of legendary sports and racing announcer Tom (Iiiiiiit's a neeeeewwww traaaaaack record!) Carnegie). It ws neat to listen to just the soundtrack of those old half hour shows such as the Lone Ranger, and imagine the scenes as they unfolded. Those early TV series were done using many of the sound effects tricks of radio drama's and sitcoms, believe it or not (this was when television broadcasting required two separate, hopefully sychronized broadcasts simultaneously, one for the picture, the other for the sound track). In addition, our local commercial AM station continued carrying most of the existing radio drama's on Saturday and Sunday evenings. I grew addicted to "The Scarlet Pimpernel", a serialized tale of a hero character in France at the time of the French Revolution. Like Kodiak, I too used to listen to WHO out of Des Moines in the middle 60's, as a college student out in Iowa. Art

Actually, Those Revell National Model Car Contests rode on the backs of local hobby shops far more than on Revell themselves. Your local hobby dealer had to sign up, and buy the promotional/trophy package from Revell. Now that worked pretty well for the first couple of years, 1963 and 1964, but by 1965, slot car racing had pretty much turned the model car scene on its ear in many cities, and interest waned in local hobby shop contests, which was the first round of the Revell contest series. In addition, the local hobby shop owner had to send in the winner from his particular contest to Revell, and in those years, very few of them knew how to pack a model car so that it would not get crushed in the mail (UPS had yet to become truly national in scope and service then), so many models arrived at Revell busted beyond saving, and many hobby dealers flat refused to send in an entry for fear of that very thing happening (our's here in Lafayette was one). A close parallel was the Aurora National Model Motoring HO Championships, which began with local races, then regional, with the championship race on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (back when Carson had dark hair, and Ed McMahon was reasonably slender). That promotion lasted but 2-3 years, then Aurora pulled the plug, probably figuring that the marketing results weren't worth what may well have been a considerable cost to them. One problem with "single kit brand" contests simply is, they were almost always biased, if not limited strictly to, the kits of the particular manufacturer, and thus entries were also limited, given the tendency of modelers then toward a particular brand, which may well not have been the sponsor of the event. At any rate, by perhaps 1966, the concept of a hobby shop putting on a model car contest pretty much fell by the wayside, and until MPC stepped up to the plate with their traveling series of contests at major custom/hot rod shows in the 70's, there just wasn't any contest scene to speak of in most cities. That said, I remember fondly the 1962 Bell Auto Supply (a regional association of Mom & Pop auto supply stores back then) here in Lafayette. That's still the record for numbers of entries of any model car event I have ever seen, with entries starting to be accepted at the store in February, closed off finally at closing time on the last business day of April--nearly 3000 model cars on display ALL OVER THE STORE, in every glass case (!) and filling both huge entryway show windows (the front door was 15' into the building, with a wall of plate glass on either side). The Webers tried for the same level of interest in the winter of '63, but only a hundred or so models were entered in that, the first year of the Revell-Pactra National Model Car Contest. Interest just didn't develop here locally after that. Art

This just in! The tooling mockups for the '55 Chrysler C-300 are in the air as I write this, from China to Indiana! In the next week or two, I will be assisting Dave Metzner, along with a couple of other very well-known scale modelers in reviewing this for still-needed corrections, but I can say this, it's going to be an exciting car as well! We will probably see a few small body corrections that need to be made, but having seen preliminary pics of the project all along, believe me, they got the greasy bits and parts very, VERY right--inside and underneath, this one just looks awesome indeed! It's gonna get very, very interesting, methinks! Art

On characteristic of those wartime "futuristic" car designs (particularly those which appeared on the pages of LIFE Magazine beginning in the middle of 1943 or so) was their very high beltline styling, not at all unlike say, the cars from GM and Chrysler starting about 1941. A couple of cars carried that look to perfection, the 49-51 Mercury and the "Stepdown" Hudsons 1949-54. Even as a 16yr old, with a newly minted provisional driver's license, I had to reach my elbow up to rest it on the window sill of either one of Dad's Hudsons, the '53 Hornet Club Coupe or the '54 4dr Sedan. Correspondingly, the roofline was no taller than any comparable car, it just looked that way, same with the Mercs mentioned. Cars in that era were designed for the adults of that time, and hats were definitely in--not baseball caps either! No selfrespecting adult (at least white-collar) man would be seen in public without a highly crowned felt hat, broad brimmed, either Homburg or Fedora (straw hat in summer), and your mom would not go out of the house without a hat either. So, if fairly tall headgear was the fashion, the cars they bought had to pretty much reflect that as well. By 1952 or so though, automobile beltlines came down, low and wide was in, but rooflines had to remain up there except for the sport look of say, a convertible or it's "steel-top-welded-onto-a-convertible-body construction--the same lower roofline began to prevail. Beltlines really came down with the ultimate in "Forward Look" Chrysler products, the 1957's. While we can do anything we dream of in styrene, in real size fact of life, a Stepdown Hudson didn't lend itself at all well to major customizing, due to the construction of the body--those were unit bodied cars to end all unit bodied cars. Look under the skin of one, and what do you see? Virtually a truss bridge design, with very stout roof pillars, a perimeter of girders around the roof at the top (which is what made Hudson produce convertibles by cutting the top off a coupe, but leaving that very wide windshield header, due to it's structural design. Even the lower body echoes this steel bridge design. The "frame" if you will, was as "perimeter" as perimeter can get--the main frame rails ARE the rocker panels, and they extend, in thinned out form, OUTBOARD of the rear wheels, which is why one never saw one of those cars without its fender skirts--pretty ugly behind the skirts, believe me. So why do I, and others call these Hudsons "Step Downs"? Very simple. In other cars contemporary with the Hudson we are talking about, with their body-on-frame construction, the floor pans were atop the frame rails, if anything, no more than say an inch or two below the door sills, but with the Hudson, when you climbed in, you literally "Step Over" the frame rail, then DOWN a good 6 or 7 inches inside, the floor pans are that low. Hudson's ad agency made a lot about this characteristic--you rode IN a Hudson, not ON it, as with other cars. And that was the secret of it's superior handling, it's road manners--Hudsons had a center of gravity much lower than any competitor. Art

Hobby Lobby, just as with vitually every big box chain store, goes through several store "resets" every year (I believe HL does resets twice a year, January and June. This is a time when they get ready for the next, upcoming selling season, and while the Christmas Holiday season is still 6 month off, that is what they are preparing for, as holiday merchandise has been ordered already, and a lot of it will be coming into their warehouses in the next 4-8 weeks. Hobby Lobby probably doesn't restock what train stuff they carry once winter is past--for their market, which is largely beginners in that area, trains are a winter time thing (and that's a long-standing tradition BTW) so naturally they would let that stuff run down. Model kits, on the other hand, have a pretty good run in summer, once the late spring yardwork gets done, then dies off for them in late August/through September, as school starts up, people try to get in that last warm weekend before cooler fall weather sets in. Art

Very well said, Harry! There is, however, another piece of the equation when comparing a model car kit with say, armor, aircraft, or ships, and that is the complexity of the tooling. Very few kits of military subjects (armor, aircraft or ships) require the very complex tool that it takes to mold a model car kit body shell, which is a slide-core mold, rather than a simple two-part, open and close tool (called a left-to-right opening tool). That alone can account for a major difference in what other parts can be included in a car kit, due to the size of the tool base(s) required. A tank hull, on the other hand, can be done with the simpler molds generally, due to its less complex shapes, and aircraft fuselage almost always can be done in two halves, even the more modern ship hulls might require only a three-way slide core mold (a model car body almost always requires a 6-way slide core mold). In addition, very few pieces of armor require the inclusion of an engine or transmission, which leaves mold space and tooling $ for more in the way of "added on" details for the exterior, most of which will be pretty small, even "fiddly small". Art

Mnogram's 1/8 scale offerings came about at a time when plastic model building was barely into its adolescence, first with the 283 Chevy engine kit and that spawned a whole series of "Big" subjects (Big T and variants, Big Deuce, Big Jaguar, Big Corvette, and much later, the Transam and the '82 Camaro), but with the exception of the new kit introduction time, they really never sold all that well, except at Christmastime. I think the big trouble was (besides the necessarily high price) that the 60's was still the era of the 1000-1200 sq ft subdivision tract house, with small rooms and still fairly large families living in them (4 kids and parents in a 3 bdrm house for example, leaving limited space for large things). Lindberg also did several 1/8 scale kits, trying to cash in on what Monogram started. Renwal had their 1/12 scale kits, AND their 1/4 scale Visible V8 with a Visible Chassis to go with it. And of course, Pocher began bringing out their line of super-complicated, hyper-expensive 1/8 scale car kits toward the end of that decade. The Japanese companies were enamored with large scale car kits also. Also, Ideal Toy Company had a limited series of 1/10 scale car kits. AMT dabbled with 1/12 scale, with their '37 Cord 812 Convertible Coupe (Sportsman). Retailers didn't much like the large scale kits though--they took up an awful lot of shelf and/or wall space to display, and tended to gather a lot of dust for about 9 months a year--the retail hobby shops tended to be a lot happier with "normal" sized kits and the boxes they came in, as they could generate a lot more sales in smaller increments a lot faster. In truth, I think, relatively few modelers ever built more than one or two of those giant kits (Oh I know, someone is gonna jump in on this thread, tell us that he's built them all--but he will be the exception). Also, those large scale kits require a lot more in the way of production facilities, multiple molding machines, multiple sets of dies in order to produce them, which necessarily kicked up the price needed to cover those costs as well. It's kinda too bad really, because yeah, there is just a ton more that can be done with say, the Big Deuce, of which I've built 4 over the years since it was first released in 1964, but even that is an exception to the rule--three of them I built for other people, but I still have the 2004 reissue kit, SOMEDAY!. And no, very few of those larger scale kits were merely scaled up versions of 1/24 scale model kits--in reality it tended to be the other way around. Monogram did the Little T and the Little Deuce, based on the drawings done for their 1/8 scale big brothers, perhaps others as well. When Monogram did their 1/12 scale '57 Chevy Bel Air, they had no smaller kit of that subject worthy of the name, as an example. Big's nice, sure it is, but not always the best investment in model kit tooling, it appears. Art

Not much need for color pics, as US Navy staff cars back then were USN gloss Gull Grey, which is in the Model Master enamel military paint rack. The interiors would probably have been charcoal grey, non-standard for the 160 in '56, and black and light grey for the '57 interiors. All other colors under the hood, and on the chassis would be the same as for any Chevy of those two years. All US Navy lettering (on the front doors only) was black. If you need to know what parts of the interior were what colors, feel free to ask me, I will dig out that information. Art

Well, I can assure you that 4 people reviewed those mockups yesterday, one of them being Bill Coulter, whose name has graced Model Cars Magazine several times over the years. It did happen, and the plastic kit will happen. It's just that I do not have any say in when pics of the mockups will be posted anywhere online. That decision will be Dave Metzner's, and he's very likely to do so in the very near future, so just tie a knot in the end of your rope, and hang on, OK? Art

Pics I must leave for Dave Metzner to put up, if and when he feels ready to do that. You will not be disappointed though! Art

Still shooting for November/early December. A handful of minor corrections needed were noted today, and next week it goes before the licensor (Chrysler Corp owns the rights to Hudson), and perhaps a week or so after it gets back to the pattern shop, hopefully tooling begins immediately. Art

I just got home from reviewing the tooling mockup of the Moebius Hudson Hornet kit, and as the title above says, OMIGAWD! This is the first time I've seen a tooling mockup for a 1/25 scale model car kit done in 1/25 scale. The standard industry pattern has always been to do these mockups in 1/10th scale, then pantograph them down to 25th scale, to eliminate any gaps between parts and such, make it easier for the patternmakers, but not this one! It is, without a doubt, the finest bit of scratchbuilding in styrene I have ever seen in my entire life. Details crisp and clean, body perfect (they nailed the shapes--the only flat panels anywhere are the side windows). Under the hood sits the legendary 308cid, 270hp flathead 6, dual carbs, carb linkage, all the fittings and little extras--all a modeler is gonna have to do is add in the wiring, and nail it. In short, it is simply impressive. Art

2.4 liter engines, maximum of 6 cylinder, any configuration (inline or Vee), TURBOCHARGED. Should get interesting! Art http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html/story-137172.html

McLaren Orange, as used in their Can-AM and Indy racing days (early to mid 70's) was a unique color, formulated especially for McLaren. No less than Johnny Rutherford gave me a quart of the real stuff from the team garages in Gasoline Alley in 1976, the last year that a McLaren appeared there in team colors (The Hy-Gain Antenna M-16D). The actual paint has almost a color-shifting quality to it, appearing as a bright orangish yellow in direct sunlight, but indoors, or on a cloudy day, it appeared as a darker, almost burnt orange shade. MCW Automotive Finishes down in North Carolina catalogues a matching McLaren Orange in automotive lacquer that is very, very close (my lacquer came from a paint supplier in the UK who supplied Team McLaren). Hope this helps! Art

Mercury was started, in 1939 as a mid-price range car, to compete, most likely with Oldsmobile, then the lower end of the mid-priced GM cars, to give Ford buyers an upscale choice without having to spring for a Lincoln Zephyr or the even loftier KB series. For 39-40, Mercury was its own car, albeit conventional Ford underneath, but with unique styling (no sheet metal sharing between them and Ford yet), a wheelbase some 6" longer. Those were at least a moderate sales success for Ford Motor Company, as they gave Lincoln dealers a lower priced car to sell alongside the Zephyr. For 1941 though, Mercury shared its body shells with Ford, while retaining the longer wheelbase (6" longer in the engine bay area) and considerably up-trimmed from the level of the lower priced Fords. This continued through 1942, and 1946-48. Styling of what became the 1949 Mercury began in 1943, as Ford and others could see the light of victory at the end of the tunnel that was WW-II, so preparations for postwar cars got underway. This body styling was at first considered for Ford, but as the car developed, it became apparent that it would be too large, too heavy and a bit too pricey for Ford to compete with Chevrolet, so a smaller car was designed in a hurry to become the "shoebox" Ford, the larger design becoming the Mercury, and the lower line Lincoln series. As Ford prepared an all-new body design for 1952, Mercury (as well as Lincoln) became once again, a larger version of a Ford, longer trunk, longer front clip, and in the case of Lincoln, a lengthened body shell, but with a ton of interchangeable parts, the unique styling touches of the '52-54 Mercs and Lincolns notwithstanding. This same pattern was repeated for 1955-56, a longer, more luxurious and more powerful Ford, basically. Next up was the 1957 Mercury. With engineering of the greasy stuff very common with Ford, and of course, the upcoming '58 Edsel Citation series, this new Mercury was very unique, sharing very few components or parts with Fords. Mercury continued for '58 with a facelifted car, then an all new body shell came along for '59, and was heavily facelifted for 1960. But, 1960 was the end of the line for a unique full-sized Mercury. From then until 1967, all Mercury's were badge-engineered Fords, until the first generation Cougar, which while Mustang-based, was longer, heavier, and more luxurious than the ponycar, and shared no sheet metal with Mustangs. Basically, Mercury gave Lincoln dealers something less expensive to sell, to get people into the showrooms, and at least expose them to the luxury Lincoln, much like Cadillac dealers often co-marketing Buicks alongside the "Wreath and Crest". Chrysler did the same thing, most Chrysler dealerships were co-branded with Plymouth, Dodge being their free-standing money-making marque. Increasingly, just as with Oldsmobile, Mercury was seen as the car for the middle-aged and elderly, and as the late Harley Earl once observed, he could "sell an old man a young man's car, but he could not sell an old man's car to a young man". With Lincoln developing a younger image with the very popular 1998 and later Town Car (elderly buyers tended to hate that one for several years--too rounded, to jelly-bean like for their tastes), and the 1986-98 Mk VIII series based on the very successful Fox Platform Tbird shells, and the 1999 LX, Mercury simply could not get sales traction anymore. Once Lincoln moved into SUV's and sports performance mid-size sedans, the handwriting was on the wall, Mercury would not survive, but many writers seem surprised that the marque lasted as long into this century as it has. So, Mercury, once known as the customizer's favorite sheet metal canvas, with flashes of brilliance and high performance, slowly, like Oldsmobile, became just another example of Detroit "badge-engineered label slapping". Art

For starters, eBay is still an auction site, plain and simple. As such, it's affected by the winds of the economy, in very much the same manner as "estate auctions" at your local auction gallery, or even Barrett-Jackson, Mecom, or Kruse where the subject matter is real 1:1 collector cars. That said, there are "flukes" at times, particularly in the world of scale model kits. One factor that many don't understand is, right now it's nearly the end of May. Of all the months of the year, May can be the very slowest when it comes to sales of model car kits, be they old, desireable, collectible kits, or new kits in your LHS. Now, I know that I'm writing this to be read by serious model car enthusiasts who build and build and build, regardless of the month, the time of year, the seasons; but trust me, after 30yrs time spent behind the counter working in hobby shops (or otherwise being closely associated with them) the vast majority of model car builders (whom we seldom if ever see!) do take up other activities as spring blends into summer. This is just as true with adults as it was when we were kids--outdoor activities take center stage, be they baseball, swimming, riding bikes as kids; or yardwork, sprucing up the homestead, grilling out on the patio or deck, or going on vacations. All this affects the interest in looking for old model car kits on eBay (or at shows and swap meets) just as it slows hobby shop sales to a mere crawl compared to say, October through April (in my experience), so a bargain in a MIB '63 Galaxie Convertible kit doesn't surprise me a bit. Auction prices are a function of how many people are bidding on a particular item, multiplied by how much the most passionate bidders are willing to spend to get that kit. In May through perhaps September, there will be fewer really passionate buyers with the money to spend, than say in the middle of the traditional model car building season--the dead of winter. The same is true of model car shows and swap meets--summer shows in general can be "dead zones" compared to those in the fall, and in late winter, both in numbers of visitors and entrants, and in the sales that vendors there can expect to experience. Now you mention being shocked that a built, and highly modified AMT '59 Ford Galaxie 500 into the more mundane Fairlane sedan would close at $300, you seem shocked at that. Perhaps you aren't aware that there are a handful of very skilled modelers (Paul Hettick out in SoCal comes to mind here) who do not only fantastic conversions on older model car kits (Paul, BTW, is the builder behind many of The Modelhaus' fantastic resin kits of major conversions which make it possible for model builders to have great model kits of cars that the model companies never did--nor never will--produce in kit form). In addition, their work is such a level as to attract collectors who have the money to bid up their kind of work. While the dollar figures are massively different, a "Hettick-Built" model car can have the same panache in our 1:25 scale world as the works of Picasso, Rembrandt or Van Gogh enjoy in the art world. Paul, and the rather small group of master builders like him, have a following that goes beyond the vast majority of the rest of us--I suspect that many buyers of his (and the work of others like him) probably don't build, but they do appreciate fine work when they see it, and love adding unique, high quality scale replica's to their own collections. In a way, that's kinda how Franklin and Danbury Mint have sold hundreds of thousands of their high-end diecast miniature cars and trucks over the years, and still do, in albeit reduced numbers in our current economic climate. The world of promotional model cars is also different than that of model car kits: Promotional models tended to be taken home, played with by kids back decades ago, not hoarded by the caselot, although there were some back in the 60's who would buy a case of each new one at the then $2 pricetag, store them away in a safe place--by doing so, those astute collectors of 40-50 yrs ago have been able to reap the harvest of their far-sightedness. As for the Corvette promo you mention, of all promotional model cars of the 1950's through the end of such promotional model offerings in the mid-late 70's (dealer promo's, that were available only from participating new car dealerships), Corvettes are La Creme de la Creme--they have a rabid following, not only from say, promo collectors, but even more important, Corvette enthusiasts, and yes, those old Vette promo's (and BTW, virtually none of those promo's can ever be reissued, their tooling got turned into 3in1 model car kits for us builders, as soon as the promo production runs were finished each year) can and do fetch serious money. The same is true of the MPC promo's of Mopar Muscle Cars--particularly Barracuda's, especially the '70 models, which were offered back in 1970 in each of the Hi-Impact colors--a full set of those, pristine, un-played with, unfaded, perfect chrome can almost buy you a new car today, and that regardless of the current recession. With really collectible, fairly rare stuff, it tends to counter the economic cycles sometimes: In 1980-83, investors with cash to invest, but not wanting to be battered by the stock market, discovered muscle cars, which only a couple of years before were merely "used gas-hog cars", and quickly bid up the prices on such cars that in the late 70's could be had for a couple of grand apiece in Grade 1 condition, to tens of thousands, almost overnight. The same thing happened again, during the 1990-91 recession--again, same sort of investors, same sort of available cash, same sort of stock market doldrums--collector car prices drove upward again, only to fall off in the late 90's as those same speculating investors left the collector car thing to go back to stocks and bonds. So, nothing of what you wrote surprises me, not one bit. Art

Hmmmm, Nick! Now that I like, and Kudo's to your Mom for driving, keeping kids safe on the way to and from school! Now, you see, I have this assortment of Johnny Lightning 1/24 scale diecast '04 Ford E-250 cargo vans (I had a big hand in designing those for JL--'nuther story that one), so I got the test shots, have several of them in Coca Cola markings--now you have given me some ideas, if I ever get a certain 1904 Knox truck finished. Art

The AAM '40 Ford Station Wagon was a project by the late Lee Baker, master builder of Classic Cars and early Ford V8's (those were Lee's real model car passions!). As far as finishing the Woody, less wood graining work is actually better: Ford, through 1940, used hard maple for framing up station wagon bodies (every Ford woody wagon used wood cut and shaped by Ford's Iron Mountain Michigan factory, from wood cut in forests owned by Ford, the '40 station wagon being the first to actually be produced start to finish by Ford/Iron Mountain) and birch plywood for the panels. Neither of those woods has a pronounced grain to them, both being very blonde in color when newly finished, darkening only with age (spar varnish, as used back then, turned a darker amber shade as it aged in the sun). Modern restorers and rodders tend to stain the wood to bring out some of the grain, that certainly was not the case through 1940, both woods when new are very nearly the same color. So, only the slightest hint of wood grain is all that is needed, and that is best done by dry-brushing with a very fine bristled paintbrush, then covered with one of the "yellowing" clear coats we all otherwise hate. If doing the woodie stock, some color tips: The roof material was a dark chocolate brown, not black, as were the inside door hardware "boxes". Seats were a medium brown vinyl artificial leather. It was in 1941 that Ford edged away from birch plywood, birch by then becoming scarce in the forests in Michigan's upper peninsula owned by Henry Ford. For color contrast, as well as availability, Ford transitioned that year to "southern gumwood" which has a reddish color very similar to that of Honduran or African Mahogany, both woods very popular among powerboat builders, such as Hacker and Chris-Craft (Bob Gregorie, Ford's chief stylist, was first and foremost, a pleasure boat designer, but worked at Ford to pay the bills). Southern Gumwood does have a very pronounced grain to it, along with fairly broad, prominent light and dark bands of this color. This is the veneer that Ford plywood station wagon panels used all the way to the end of woodie wagon production at the close of the 1951 model year. Along the same time frame, Ford did transition from hard maple to ash for the framing, and ash does have a much more prominent grain to it, prone to darkening in the soft rings of the wood. From 1941 through 1948 (the last year of completely wood-constructed wagon bodies at Ford, the roof material was color matched to the sheet metal color of the fenders and front clip. Art

About the only thing common between a '48-52 Ford F1 Panel Delivery and the '53 is the flathead V8, all the sheet metal is different. Unfortunately, I never did even consider a '53-56 Panel though. Art

As Terry Jessee points out, making your own long Chevy/GMC pickup box from that era is simply done, with two beds. The difference between the short bed and the long one in real life is exactly 18" (18mm, or .720" in 1/25 scale) divided thus: 12" (12mm or .480" in 1/25 scale( ahead of the rear wheel arch, 6" (.240" or 6mm) behind the rear wheel arch. The latter stretch is actually best made about 1/4" behind the rear wheel arch, as this allows much easier blending of the bottom edge (which angles upward toward the rear), the front part of the stretch will need no such adjustment. One of the beauties of the MPC tooling is, that it's incredibly precise, as perfectly identical side to side as any pickup box has ever been done. I found when doing mine for resin casting master use, back in 1990, that it was far easier to cut the entire floor away, thin down the bottoms of the inner wheel tubs to leave just a thin flange around them (already shows there in the kit bed,BTW) and then replace the kit floor with a sheet of Evergreen 3/32" ribbed siding stock, that is an almost perfect replacement, and will require no splicing whatsoever. Simply replace the rear sill with your own, or salvage the sill from the kit bed section that you will otherwise discard, either way works. Just pay attention to alignment, make sure the bed sides are straight (this is where extreme care in making the cuts for splicing as square and true as possible--the old Carpenter's advice works here--measure twice, cut once!). With due care in making the cuts and splices, only a bare minimum of putty work will be needed to hide the splices (I actually reassembled my long bed conversion using gap filling CA glue, a few licks with a needle file, a bit of block sanding with 400-grit, a touch of polishing, primed it, perfect!). Of course, the chassis will need to be extended 12 scale inches, which to be accurate, needs to be done just aft of the frame kickup (that starts right behind the rear wall of the cab) in the level area. As a reminder, 12 scale inches in /125 scale is .480" or 12mm), and the drive shaft & exhaust system need to be lengthened by that same amount. One of the easiest, and quickest conversions I ever did in my life! Art