Art Anderson

Bill, Your research is correct. The Utility Sedan was a carryover of the earlier "Business Coupe" concept, that being a "salesman's car". As such, the 150 Utility Sedan didn't even have window risers in the rear, from my research several years ago, the quarter windows were permanently fixed in a closed position. There were but two engine options available as RPO's, the 235 cid inline 6, and the baseline 265cid V8 with 2bbl carburetor (the engine that was painted yellow). Transmission options were 3spd stick, and Powerglide. Radio, heater and defroster were extra cost options, interior appointments were sparse. Even sound-deadening insulation was pretty much non-existent, to drive the costs down to a low level. Art

For comparison, this link shows a '40 Ford 1/2 ton Panel Delivery, which is based on pickup truck sheet metal and styling, unlike the AMT sedan delivery, which is a deluxe passenger car based vehicle (and only rated at 1/4 ton, BTW) http://farm1.static.flickr.com/207/5277878...9f25847de_o.jpg Art

Ed, Interesting you should mention old truck wheels! I have mastering for the Ford 1.5/2-ton 5-slot, 5 lug offset steel truck wheel, as used by Ford from 1929-52 (along with Chevrolet, Dodge, Studebaker and International Harvester!), and the 1928-early 1929 single (not capable of being "dualed") 6-slot, 5-lug Model AA truck wheel already. In addition, I just got done spending approximately $300 to bring my old Sherline lathe back into action, and later this spring, plan on adding Sherline's excellent vertical mill to my workshop. One of the projects when I get that machine tool will be a TT truck rear wood wheel, possibly doing it with both the 33" high pressure tire, AND a solid rubber tire version. As I write this, I am in the midst of turning out the parts for the Marmon-Herrington Ford AWD front axle units from clear acrylic plastic, expect to have several of these done in a day or two as well. FWIW, all my references, and my own eyeball observation of TT Trucks is that they used the standard Model T passenger car wheel up front, the front carrying very little more than it would have in a passenger car, the vast majority of cargo and body weight being nearly balanced over the rear wheels, so likely I'll not be doing a specific front wheel for the TT. Art

Now, I gotta do some digging! I have, buried in my stash, a fairly mint pair of Philips 66 S & P shakers, that Mom was given at the State Fair WAYYYYYY BACK WHEN. Art

Looks so fine, Ed!!!! BTW, Photobucket lost your pic of the S&P shaker gas pumps, can you put it up again? Art

YEARS ago, I made my first attempt at resin casting, a set of wheels and tires for a USAC dirt track championship car (Watson Offenhauser front engine, from the early 60's). To cast the wheels and tires, I used simple liquid latex rubber to get the mold surface, then backed that up with DAP Silicone II bathtub sealer, for both halves of each wheel, front and rear. (Note, latex rubber will not work at all well with urethane resins, such as Alumilite!). For resin, I used Envirotex, which is a clear coating resin still found in places like Michael's or Hobby Lobby. Envirotex is two part, thin consistency, but it does cure to a flexible texture. I learned that I could put the wheel/tire halves on a cookie sheet, and by baking them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, once they cooled, they were as hard as a rock. It was a very simple matter then, to face off the back sides of each part, and epoxy them together, then file and sand the seam down the middle of the tread. Worked well enough to take "Best Scratchbuilt" at the 1985 IPMS Nationals in Indianapolis. Art

Sorry, but conventional soldering techniques do work with Zamak, which is the white metal alloy that Hubley/Gabriel/JLE Scale Model used, Andy. The problem with Zamak always will be the flux used, not so much the heat. There was, at one time, a soldering flux called "SALMET" (meaning "solders all metals"), which Walthers (the model train folks) and hardware stores sold. If you can find this stuff, then yes, a large soldering iron will do the job. While I have no pics of the project, I soldered the body shell of a Hubley Duesenberg Dual Cowl Phaeton with this stuff back about 40yrs ago, for the guy who owned the real thing in a town about 20 miles from me. Surely, SALMET, or the same stuff under another name, is still available, but I haven't found it anywhere (who solders stuff other than say, copper plumbing, anymore?). That said, at least with those old Hubley kits, structural integrity isn't a problem, considering that the body shells are held together with self-tap screws. Products such as JB Weld Epoxy, and any of the catalysed putties will handle any filling of seams, and self-etching primers make painting this metal a breeze. Art

I believe that Big Rod was the T-bucket with the turtledeck. Monogram put out a series of parts packs for the Big T right after that kit was released, and most all those parts made it into the other variations: Big T, Big Drag, Big Rod, and Big Tub (this was a touring car body). Art

Probably most of that tooling was saved, at least for years. Some were modified, particularly those that were made into "Saturday Night Stockers", still others saw some welding up of details, then were reground for the next year's version, IF the changes weren't that major. One thing to bear in mind though, and that is, AMT Corporation, as with MPC, was a company in business to make a profit, and to store, AND maintain suddenly obsolete tooling, particularly given that likely no one seriously believed that most of that old 1960's product would ever have enough popularity down the road, 2-5 decades in the future, probably didn't make much sense, no way that any inordinate expense for that could be justified at the time. Back in the 60's, with the possible exception of some Chevrolet, and a very few Ford kits, the rather young market base at the time lost interest in this year's cars just as soon as the new cars for the next year hit the showrooms, and their model kit brethren began showing up on hobby shop shelves. In other words, come January 1960, very few of us wanted a 1959 Anything 3in1, we WANTED, and badly so, the NEW 1960 kits--so the leftover 59's on hobby shop shelves simply gathered dust, took up space, until they got shoved into the back room, or upstairs, to be brought out to pile on the tables in annual summer sidewalk sales--and even then, not all of them got sold, even at steep discounts. AMT tried reissues of older annual series kits, those simpified "Craftsman Jr" and similar kits, mostly sans any optional parts, and given that the concept never was seriously repeated, says a lot about the limited demand back then for such product. Still, it is possible, I would think, for someone to dig out some of those old molds (and an awful lot of them still exist), pay the bucks to rehab, perhaps retool missing sprues, and reissue them once again. But the key here is that such has to be profitable, which at best (for most of them) is questionable, otherwise it would likely already have been done. Art

For those of us old enough, it's wise to remember that when AMT kitted the Sedan Delivery back in the middle 1960's, they utilized their already-in-production '40 Ford coupe/'39-'40 Ford Tudor sedan kit--the body and interior unit are simply tooling sections that could be inserted into the original tool, which dated from 1960. Given the way this series of kits was laid out way back then, with a one-piece fender/running board unit, it's not surprising that there are fit issues--both the coupe and the Tudor have the same looseness around the rear fenders. But that was then, this is now. There is a much bigger issue with this kit than just the sloppy, early 60's fit of the body, and the hood. That is simply that in order to utilize the coupe fender unit, they made the sedan delivery body too narrow in its rear portion. Where the sedan and coupe in real life, do use the same rear fenders, the sedan delivery (and the woodie station wagon as well, which used sedan delivery rear fenders) body comes out to just past the crown of the rear fenders, and does so all the way back to the rear end of those fenders. I measured the kit body once, compared it to a photo-spread of a 1:1, and determined that the body shell is almost 6 scale inches (approx 1/4" on the kit body) too narrow in the cargo area, the body tapering rather sharply from the windshield header back to the B-post, with a somewhat "football-shaped" planform between the B-post to the rear of the body itself. The rear door appears to be about 3/16" too narrow as well, based on my study of the proportions of the rear of the 1:1 car itself (photo feature was in a mid-1990's issue of Collectible Automobile). To widen the body shell for a more correct appearance will require splitting the body shell from just behind the top of the windshield all the way to the back, and then making several "pie cuts" along the sides of this cut, removing slivers of styrene to give clearance for making the centerline cut parallel to tapering back in a bit from the B-post back to the header over the rear cargo door. Any and all filling of the resulting gaps can be done by using bits of .040" Evergreen sheet styrene, and I was planning to use gap-filling CA glue to make this a quick-setting deal, to get the shell corrected without having to wait days between steps. With the excellent Revell '40 Ford convertible kit out there, that's the one I would use as the base kit, just adapting the modified AMT body shell to that cowing (bear in mind, the sedan delivery does use the coupe/sedan windshield, not the convertible unit), and then gluing the Revell rear fenders to that body to eliminate any gaps (the real fenders are bolted on tightly, with a 1/4" bead welt between the two sheet metal surfaces. The rear load floor is raised above the driver's seat floorboards, so that it is flat all the way back, but high enough to clear the frame kickup in the rear, and the inner fender panels, part of the actual steel body, are straight up and down, and follow the shape of the fenders themselves, but intrude into the interior only enough to clear the inner sides of the rear wheels. Otherwise, the chassis and all the other sheet metal, including the Deluxe level dash and steering wheel, and the Deluxe hood and grille, are correct for the Sedan Delivery (it was never done as a Standard trim car), and the car was also continued unchanged for 1941. Long post, but hope it helps a little bit. Art

Whaaat????? No drag or ski boats? No Unlimited Hydroplanes? Hmmm! Art

I hate to be a "wet blanket" here, but Jimmy Flintstone's '59 Cadillac hearse and ambulance are meant to be direct drop-on conversions for the AMT Ghostbusters Ecto-1A. As such, it is going to take TWO Revell '59 Cadillac Eldo's to be able to stretch that chassis long enough to fit the hearse body--they are loooonnngggg! Also, the Flintstone body shell, just as with the AMT Ecto, and the much later Polar Lights Ecto, has only the inner stubs of the tailfins as part of the body shell--the rest of the fin, along with the taillight bezels, are separate, glue on parts. While the AMT/Ertl Ecto-1A hasn't been around for a lotta years, Polar Lights very similar Ecto-1 has (released in 2003), and the chassis from that will fit the JF body shells. Also, if Jimmy didn't include the interior, Polar Lights interior will fit, and can easily be modified to the hearse configuration. Another minus with the Seville is that it has the "exclusive to Eldorado" cast aluminum wheels (cast aluminum brake drum centers with chromed steel rims--same concept as the Pontiac 8-lug wheels of 1961-65), which would never have been seen on hearse nor ambulance. AMT's Ecto has chromed wheels with baby moons, but the Polar Lights version, being from the first Ghostbusters movie, has the correct chrome wheel covers for ANY 1959 Cadillac save for the Eldorado's and Eldorado Brougham. Just some thoughts to help you out if a stock hearse is what you want to build. Art

R&CM was a great mag, in fact it was the benchmark that Gary Schmidt used when he brought out SAE 30 years ago (and that Kalmbach pretty much lost). The articles were all first rate, no silly stuff there. R&CM was actually an expansion of very popular Rod & Custom In Miniature section of Rod & Custom which began in earnest in 1961. However, the costs associated with a magazine devoted to model cars, in the business environment out in LA in the 60's, apparently precluded any real profitability, so in early 1965, it went back to being just a model car section in R&C, finally fading away within a year or so. Art

Well, there were several engines used down through the years for Midgets. Of course, everyone thinks of the Offenhauser, which started out at 91cid (1.5 liter) in the late 30's, then got poked out first to 110cid, then finally 120cid (Offenhauser did build up two 75cid turbocharged Midget Offies for mechanic Bob Higman of just south of Lafayette here, Larry Rice tested one at about 10mph OVER the highest lap speed recorded by a USAC Championship Car in 1976, gearing up for a 100-lap midget race on the one mile oval at Trenton NJ that was ultimately cancelled. The Ford V8-60 was used, of course, loaded with speed equipment, as was the Drake (built up by Dale Drake, the "Drake" of Meyer-Drake, postwar builders of the Offenhauser engines), which was a water-cooled modification of the Harley Davidson 74. Also, the two-cycle, two-cylinder Elto outboard boat motor was used, particularly on short quarter mile tracks. In the middle 1960's, Midget car owners began working with the 170cid Ford 6 from the Falcon/Mustang, and the Chevy II 4-cylinder. Sesco, an engine building company started sawing 327 Chevy small block V8's in half, using the left cylinder bank with Hilborn FI to create a killer of a 4-banger. Then, in the late 60's, the "Popcorn" era began, when the VW aircooled flat four became the engine to run. And, in 1975, Bob Higman was given two of the very first Cosworth Vega engines for Midget duty. Higman mounted one of those in a chassis of his own build (he was the most prolific winning chief mechanic in AAA/USAC Midget history by that point, and Kurtis chassis were not only long in the tooth, but becoming hard to find), and Pancho Carter delighted in pulling wheelies on the straights of just about every track the car showed up at. Today's Midgets look very much like their Sprint Car big brothers though, very little resemblance to the midgets run years ago. Art

After more than 56 years, I still have these two, built by my 8yr old hands (with help from a never-before-built-model-cars dad's help) in late summer 1952: Art

One thing to consider is, too, that ordinary lead/tin solder melts very easily, and heat travels down brass rod or tubing at Interstate Highway speeds (or so it seems). With solder, it's the lead content that makes it melt at lower temps, the lower the lead percentage (and higher the tin content), the more heat it takes to break a previously soldered joint. I've even found 90% tin, 10% lead solder at that "Lobby" place, along with all manner of low temp silver solder at Radio Shack. That said, there are some options. About 5 years ago, there were introduced a number of manufacturers started coming up with hand-held (in the palm of your hand!) butane torches. I have one of these, the Micro-Jet Solder It , which uses as its butane tank a refillable version of the ubiquitous Bic lighter (but without a flint). This can be filled from Micro-Jet's own refill cans, or the Ronson butane refill cans available most places. The flame pattern is about that of a small pencil, and it's hot enough to use high-silver content silver solder. One of the real advantages of using silver solder is that this solder takes about 20% more heat to melt out a previously soldered joint than it does to solder it in the first place. The Solder-It uses a thumb trigger to light, just press the trigger, and a pelouze igniter lights it up, SNAP. Let off the trigger, and it goes out. Now, if you really want to get crazy, there is an old standby, that's been on the market for perhaps 40 years or so, the Microflame Oxygen-Butane Torch. Don't let "Torch" scare you off. The flame pattern on this is about the size of a #2 wooden pencil point, and it is "bright blue hot" (about 4000 degrees hot). This torch uses butane and oxygen from little steel cylinders that are just like the CO2 cylinders available for home cocktail bartending. The kicker is, of course that this torch does use a fair number of these cylinders pretty quickly, at the rate of 2 oxygen cylinders to each butane bottle. However, the real advantage of this one is, it can be used to braze (join with molten brass), which gives a joint as sturdy as the material around it (Jairus, that would be perfect for a sprint car chassis that is gonna take a lot of tumbling, bouncing crashes!) Back some 30 years ago, when I was at the height of my passion for replicating cars from the various starting fields at Indianapolis, I bought one of these units, and after a few tries, proceeded to scratchbuild some 6 or 7 Indy car chassis, from the tubular chassis era. So, there are some options. Also, if using a soldering iron and lead/tin solder, a lot of strength can be achieved by "fishmouthing brass tubing or rod stock before making Tee joints, and with a bit of tedious (but very beneficial to the model) work, drilling 1/32 inch locating holes in the sides of 1/16" tubing, then using some 1/32" brass rod stock to make locating pins (just insert into the joining butt end) will also make for pretty solid joints. Lots of options for soldering small model parts, even chassis. Art

I've never seen the 1:1 in person, but IIRC, the publicity shots from 1964 showed it in red, perhaps even metallic or pearlescent red. Found this vintage shot of the car, at a construction site, and it's definitely red! http://www.desoto58.com/dreamcar/ford/cougar/cougar64b.jpg Art

Of course, the old scrapyards are disappearing at a pretty rapid rate already. Time was when the midwest here was heavily dotted with small, one-owner yards, filled up with 40's to 60's cars, mostly left to sink into the sod up to their frames, just rusting away. These are going away quickly as their owners age, even more so as they pass away. This bill would be a financial windfall to places like these, filled with more or less unsaleable old cars, that otherwise would have gone to the crusher for the wholesale price of scrap metal--and steel scrap prices are WAY down right now, due to the glut of steel on the market already. I can see real problems with giving vouchers for such cars turned in as well: Government vouchers have a rather checkered history--getting them can be easy, but cashing them in can be a whole 'nuther ball game--especially if payment is predicated on Congress' passing the necessary appropriation bills to honor them. But, I think there is more: This sort of thing has been tried before--in 1931-32, first several automakers, following the lead of Henry Ford, tried buying up old clunker used cars, to send them to the smelters, for new steel to make new cars, and thus boosting (hopefully!) the then extremely anemic new car sales. It didn't work, period. Only a relative handful of the aged fleet of cars went to their last reward under those schemes. In 1942, the War Production Board instituted a whole series of scrap drives across the US, everything from paper, to rubber, to glass, brass, copper, and you guessed it, old cars. WPB was empowered by the legislation creating these scrap drives, to force junkyards and scrap dealers to sell out, but only some of them did. The famed Allender collection of antique cars, in Detroit, was targeted by WPB to force their scrapping, but Mr Allender did prevail, in that he was able to keep his vast collection more or less intact, by giving up all the tires on them for scrap rubber. There was a flurry of photo-op moments, showing some personage donating their luxury car to a scrap drive, the most memorable one being Mrs John Whitney of Kentucky, who had her chauffeur driver her pristine Duesenberg Model J Limousine to a scrap drive at Ft Knox. Guess what? The commanding general there, grabbed onto that car as soon as Mrs Whitney was out of sight, put tires back on it, and proceeded to use it as HIS staff car, until she got word of it, and raised a HUGE stink. The Duesey was then scrapped. But, by and large, those scrap drives didn't eliminate all that many old cars from either junkyards or off the street. The Depression-era mentality seems to have been to hang onto things--"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" was the operative phrase. But, this proposed legislation is ill-conceived, and more "feel good" than "do good", and I will oppose it as well. Art (Who hates symbolism over substance, every time it raises its ugly head!) On another note, somewhat related, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is proposing a set of draconian regulations that, if implemented, could well drive any private aircraft over 12.500lbs out of the skies, and that includes such planes as warbirds, old restored airliners, and even a good many general aviation planes. Bad policy, BAD! AA

IIRC, there was but one Pinto converted to a flying car, by having mounts installed in the roof for securing Cessna 182 wings, and flying struts, along with an empennage and engine nacelle. That test unit crashed, killing the test pilot and co-pilot, and the project was not revived afterward. In addition, there were a couple more experimental flying cars built, and test-flown, the first one (which predates the Aerocar in this thread, BTW, that being the Convair Air-Car, by the maker of the famed B-24 bombers of WW-II. Convair's was a very streamlined subcompact sedan, purpose built, which also suffered a test-flight crash, after which, Convair backed out of further development. In the 70's, about the time of the flying Pinto, there was another experimental flying car, built around a Honda Civic, but that project never went anywhere. The claim made regarding the Molt Taylor Aerocar shown in the opening post in this thread is absolutely correct. Molt Taylor, a Seattle-area designer, developed this concept, built 5 or 7 examples over the time period 1948 into the late 1960's, but was never able to raise the capital to go into even limited production. However, the particular Aerocar in this thread had an FAA Airworthiness Certificate as late as 1995 or 1996, when it was flown from Seattle WA to Oshkosh WI for that year's annual EAA fly-in. Of all the flying car ideas, Aerocar was the only one that was completely that, a wheel-driven flying automobile, in which the same engine provided both power to the pusher propellor, and for ground travel, to the wheels. For driving, the empennage section of the vehicle, along with the propellor, were removed, along with the wing panels and their struts, and strapped together into a "trailer", which when hitched to the back of the car itself, made an entire unit that rolled down the highway. Taylor advertised that setup for flying, and teardown for driving, took only about 15 minutes, and if you didn't want to take your wings and tail with you, you could just park those parts, as an un-hitched trailer, either at the airport, or in your own garage or home hangar (South of Kokomo IN, on Indiana SR-25, just west of its intersection with US-31, there is a subdivision development, laid out along that state highway, with a grass runway about 2500' long, the idea being homes for private pilots, AND their airplanes--Aerocar was envisioned for that sort of living). The Aerocar in the pics above is painted in the colors of the one owned and flown by the late comedian, Bob Cummings. Cummings flew his plane in the trailers for his daytime TV sitcom of 1958-about 1960, "The Bob Cummings Show", with long time laundry detergent spokeswoman, Rosemary DeCamp. The colors are those of the vitamin supplement company who sponsored Cummings' TV show. So yeah, the story board in the picture is correct, it is the only flying car around. As for the plastic "model", that is actually a promotional toy produced by Gladden Industries, of Port Huron MI. It's 1/24 or 1/25 scale, and was made to be played with, it sets up and tears down just like the real Aerocar. These were made in acetate plastic, like almost every plastic toy in the 50's, for the shatterproof qualities of acetate, but with the same warpage characteristics of any pre-1961 AMT promotional model car. Art

Hmmmm, how original! Didn't somebody suggest that very thing, just above, a few hours ago? Art

Harry, If you do a parts count of any old AMT (or whomever's) 3in1 customizing kit of the 60's, you will note that the parts count in those boxes is approximately that of any popularly priced model car kit tooled since the early 1980's, just that those custom parts and little accessories in those old classic kits of yesteryear took up space, added to counts, where today that very similar parts count is all details for the factory stock version alone. But, a disclaimer as you suggest? Talk about "shooting one's foot off"! As one with more than 30 years in the retail game (almost all of that in the hobby field, BTW) I can only say that anyone who reads that sort of negative "disclaimer" as you put it, is more than likely to put that kit right back on the shelf, and move on. OK, so they move on, get something else that doesn't shout out so negatively, but in the meantime, a company such as Auto World simply could not succeed in selling those old kits to anyone but us older, balding and greyhaired coots who remember those glory days, and don't care one whit about the limitations of model kit tooling of nearly half a century ago. Imagine if you will, had Ford or GM pointed out say, in the early 80's that the Crown Vic or Caprice you were looking at in the showroom was like "Sorry folks, you just think you are looking at a modern car, but in reality, it's just the same old, same old, 1950 technology, just wrapped up in new sheet metal, with a few pollution controls because we gotta do that, and some really nice looking vinyl and plastic trim for to make it look pretty". That would have hastened the situation those companies find themselves in years ago. I appreciate informative advertising, that is truthful, just as much as the next person. However, advertising, be it in print, a TV commercial, or on the packaging, simply needs to be positive, to be upbeat, to convince me, you and the other guy too, that this is a product we want to buy. Remember those great box art paintings from the 60's, from the likes of AMT, Johan, MPC? While the top and ends of the box showed the complete car that could be built, in either stock, racing or custom versions, the side panels of the box called out the parts and features inside, remember? That was something that spoke very positively about the kit inside, while not leaving any doubt as to what was actually there. That is a feature that could, with relatively little added cost (particularly in this day and age of computer-generated graphics, or even photgraphy) be added to box art, and would not only enhance the anticipation of the buyer, but at the same time, tell the truth about what is inside the box, but without any sales-killing negativity. If the kit in question has say, a separate frame and separate suspension parts, show them, but if it has only a pan chassis with molded on details, show that too. That's the secret, show the product, and the contents of the box, warts and all. Let the person considering the purchase make up his own mind, without putting thoughts, particularly negative thoughts, in his head. At least, the manufacturer will have given the consumer some credit for having at least a miniscule intelligence, while at the same time, satisfying the more informed as to just what to expect. By about 1972 or so, domestic model kit manufacturers almost universally were feeling the hands of the likes of Ralph Nader, and his "Raiders", who were going after each and every manufacturer of consumer goods in this country, over perceived untruths in advertising/packaging (a little known truth about Nader is that he became a multimillionaire over out-court-settlements with manufacturers, hardly the mythical, altruistic crusader, but that's another story for another time!), even the Federal Trade Commission (funny though, Tamiya, Hasegawa, Heller and the like drew a great big bye in all that malarky, a perfect example of "favoring" the import, while crunching on the domestic manufacturer). With this consumerist drive and the almost meteroric rise in costs, photographic box art became the norm almost overnight. For some of us, building box-art models became almost a business. With this came the first disclaimers (other than "unassembled plastic model kit, paint and cement not included"), especially once Monogram engaged the legendary Shepard Paine (known for his diorama work) to build, paint and weather examples of their aircraft and armor kits. But, AMT was so scared that anyone might misconstrue their box art, that they refused for several years, to even allow me, or Dennis Doty and others, to use Bare Metal Foil instead of Testors 1146 silver for chrome trim. Why, they even for awhile, specified no chromed bumpers and grilles, and NO GLASS, preferring to highlight those details by hand or airbrush on the transparencies used for printing box art. For a brief period in the late 70's, Revell took to having their box art builders do cutaway versions of a number of their model cars--cutaways in the manner of 1:1 automakers, with the cut edges of the bodywork painted in red or yellow, to show that the model was done up, cut away, to show the interior, the engine, all that stuff. I managed to convince Lesney-AMT to let me do that for them, on a pair of Peterbilt OTR tractors, the conventional, and their cabover. And, in 1998, I managed to convince AMT Corporation to allow me to use chromed bumpers and grilles, install glass, and use, horror of horrors, Bare Metal Foil to pick up all the chrome trim. And, guess what? I don't think any consumer ever complained a bit, as the photographer was able to edit down the glint. In 2004, as a way of promoting "what was in the box", I tried, until I was blue in the face, to convince the woman then heading up AMT/Ertl model kit development, to go back to using at least photographs of the significant components of the kit inside that box. This fell on deaf ears, as RC2 management would only allow about $500 to create the box art, they deciding to use an outside professional photographer to create the image(s) on the boxes, rather than just pull someone with photographic skills out of the 50 or so on staff in their offices in Dyersville. Contrast THAT with our situation at Playing Mantis, where our in-house graphic arts guy, in conjunction with the Polar Lights manager and those of us in Johnny Lightning product development, learned to take perfect photo's of the product for placement on boxtops and packaging. Oh, and talking about "Truth in Advertising", nothing goes farther off the deep end than Lindberg's (both when owned previously, AND the "New Lindberg") when they tart up boxes holding those old, crude and very inaccurate Cords and Auburns, by showing a studio photograph of a concours-winning REAL car on the box, not a hint of the old, hopelessly outdated model kit inside. No, the box art photo or illustration NEEDS to show exactly what is inside, with no added verbage needed. Again, let the buyer decide, from honest pics. Just my .02 worth on that one. (Oh, and with regard to selling price--IF Auto World or others were to start seeing immediate sales in the neighborhood of say, 50,000 units per year of any reissue, for which all the tooling costs have been amortized, I could agree with your thought that older stuff be offered at a lower price. However, there are significant costs associated with pulling down a really old tool, putting it back into the lineup--but those reissues most generally don't see more than 15-20 thousand units total sales, meaning that even the much lower costs associated with reissuing existing usable tooling are spread across a much smaller number of kits, hence a significantly higher unit cost. Just because the tooling has existed for years, and was paid for decades ago, that DOES NOT MEAN that just popping that die block into a mold press results in found money, with windfall profits. Speaking as one who's been there in more ways than one, it just ain't so.) Art

I remember sirens like that! When I was in college, in Fairfield IA back in the 60's, that town had the only fire department in all of Jefferson County. It was used, as much to summon volunteer firefighters as for any other purpose--there not being all that much concern about nuclear attacks in the land of cornfields, and the concept of using them to warn of a tornado hadn't hit yet. But, you could hear that siren for 15-20 miles. Art

Gee, Back in the 70's, when I was doing builtups for AMT Corporation, 96 hours would have been like living in the lap of luxury--several of those cars were done on a 24hr turnaround time! Art

The 37-41 Willys Americars are all the same car, only the front clips changed over those 5 model years. Only in the 1942 model year was a new body added, that being a new sedan body, which looked very much like a '41 Chevy sedan, but event that rode on the very same chassis. Art

Just a thought here: It might work best if whomever teams up to compile such an article work from collective memories and research, rather than one person try to concentrate on any one brand of kit. There's a lot more to the history of this hobby than just the often dry relating that "this company did such and such at so and so time". I see our hobby as something unique to the Baby Boom era that is still with us today--not many other widespread activities that we kids did back then have that continuing history, the continuum of popularity among the original participants, nor the addition of younger and younger builders as the years go by, as does the model car hobby. Just a couple of pennies worth. Art