Art Anderson

What is "uninteresting" to one modeler (even groups of modelers often is the be-all-and-end-all of model car kits to someone else, another group, perhaps even a different nationality. As others have said already, car subjects such as American luxury cars (of the 50's and 60's, kitted in those years) very much were sales "dogs" back in the day--those never saw very large production runs. Had it not been for the fact that the tooling was already done and paid for as promotional models, chances are they'd never been produced as model kits. For the first 25-30 years of this hobby, it was one that drew primarily boys who were old enough to dream about driving a car someday but too young to have a driver's license. While it is true that back in the 50's and 60's there were adults who bought and built plastic model car kits--they were not the driving force as to what was popular, sold well. It was kids who did that, and they (we) did that in spades. For that reason, model kits of 60's Cadillacs, Imperials, even full-sized Buicks, Mercury's, Oldsmobiles simply did not sell in numbers even close to Fords and Chevies. For that matter, model kits of Plymouths and Dodges didn't either, not until at least the mid-1960's and the coming of muscle cars and of course, Super Stock drag cars. Model kits featuring Nascar options didn't sell very well outside of the southeastern US, simply because NASCAR was not nationally televised "flag to flag" outside of their home region. (the same is true of model kits of Indianapolis cars too from those years--they sold well enough in the midwest, but in much of the rest of the country, only so-so. In short, the kids we all once were, back then, far preferred buying and building models of cars we WISHED our dad would buy--sporty, flashy, fast cars; and tended to walk right past models of cars that looked like our parents or grandparents actually drove. With model car kits in those days, it was very much like the real thing: "You can sell an old man a young man's car, but it's very seldom you can sell a young man an old man's car" I think. That's perhaps the primary reason that models of Lincolns, Cadillacs, Imperials, AMC's, full sized Oldsmobiles, and Buicks bring good prices today--they are a lot scarcer subjects than what you see on store shelves (or even swap meet tables at times). It's true, of course, that recent years have seen newly tooled kits of such as 1950 Oldsmobiles, Hudsons, '55-'56 Chryslers, '57 Ford Custom 2dr sedans (even the upcoming '57 Ford Del Rio--that's us now grown up 50's and 60's kids driving the demand for those--I will submit that had any of those been tooled up 50-55 years ago, they'd have failed badly in the marketplace. And certainly, Revell Monogram took a bit of a risk introducing their '59 Cadillac Eldorado kits back in the early 1990's, even though the real cars themselves were drawing big auction crowds and high prices--would that truly translate into model kit sales, making the tooling investment worth it? They did succeed, of course. And yes, Hudsons, first generation Chrysler 300's, '57 Ford Tudor Sedans have done well, due to a changing interest among those once-kids/now middle aged adults. And who knows? Perhaps someday down the road, there could be a similar mass interest in the once-unpopular car kit subjects that were poorly recieved back in the 1960? Stranger things have happened (and no, I'm not predicting anything--so don't ask--this is just my personal opinion!) Art

I generally order my BMF direct from Bare Metal Foil Co. Decent pricing, and fast shipping. Art

I built that '71 Cuda from Monogram when it first came out, had very little problems with the valances--I simply glued them in place, then with a bit of filing and sanding (I seem to recall ia quick swipe of putty on one end of the front valance joint), sanded it out, primed and painted it--came out looking quite good. I note that for hte most part such complaints are about kits that were designed/tooled 30-55 yrs ago or so--lots of anomalies that we don't expect to see in a newly tooled model car kit today (but then, what do I know>) Art

Frankly, In my more than 40 yrs of using BMF, I've never had a problem removing any adhesive residues. Generally, I can simply wipe it off with an old cotton Tee shirt, or if not that--it goes away when I wax the finished model, and that's after the foil's been applied and trimmed. Art

Even the ad rates for major car magazines are way off the charts for model companies anymore. Art

I think it's interesting to look back, and remember that electronic video games and the earliest of the rechargeable electric RC cars came about just as the last of the "Baby Boom" generation was "coming of age", discovering girls and real cars. Bear in mind, that "Boomers" were the huge generation that drove the marketplace for model car kits from the late 50's onward, and that generation (demographically) is considered to have ended in December 1964 as birth rates dropped dramatically (the last of the Boomers graduated from HS in 1982, by which time the wholesale closing of public school buildings was going on in many areas of the US due to an ongoing decline in the population of school aged kids (except in those areas experiencing large growth due to a long-running "population shift". But, as late as the mid-1980's, the mind set of the hobby industry, particularly the plastic model side of things, was still that model kits were for kids! However, quietly, there was a change underway in the demographics of the model car hobby (I was there, behind the counter to see it happening). The very late 1970's saw the beginnings of small local model car contests which weren't being run by hobby shops or sponsored by model magazines, but by the then newly forming (or in a few cases a long running model club here or there) model car clubs, with a new feature: Swap Meets (something that IPMS/USA chapters and indeed the National Organization were doing on the model aircraft/armor/ship scene, as well as the National Model Railroad Association (think HO trains here). I opened my hobby shop on July 1, 1984, and within a few weeks I was fielding phone calls and even walk-in adult customers asking "Are there still model car kits?" "Do they make them anymore?". Couple those inquiries with the resurgence of Monogram with their newly developed line of 1/24 scale model car kits, the slow return of AMT kits from Ertl, JoHan's "USA Oldies" series, and MPC still hanging on--AND the newly (for most US car model enthusiasts in areas away from the West or East Coasts, and this hobby was off and running again. With all that in mind, it's very hard for me to see any time period since say, 1983-84 as having been a "Dark Age" of model car kits, especially when until just recently with the resurging availability of many older AMT and MPC model car kits to store shelves and the entry of newly formed brands of model car kits in these past few years; far from it. All it takes to understand this, is to take a serious look at any large, well-stocked model car kit department in a really good hobby shop, and realize that the vast majority of the model car kits you will see were developed and brought to market in the last 30 years. Just as with any other interest, model car kit introductions (new kits), and even the model car building "population" has seen its ups and downs, "hills and valleys" if you will for reasons which I don't fully comprehend, but it does seem to have a pretty constant following out there, otherwise there would not be the regular introduction of newly designed/tooled model kits that we see nearly every year. Consider also, that the population of just the United States is more than double what it was in 1958 when AMT Corporation sprang those first 3in1 Customizing kits on us 112-14 or so kids and a passionate, serious hobby was born. What was once a hobby dominated by school aged kids is now an adult hobby, and I don't see that ending any time soon. Art

Seriously though: Isn't there room enough in this great hobby of model cars for all manner of interests as regards era, makes/models, even the nationality of the real car? I always thought there was, but then what do I know? Art

Uh, consider that just since 1990, there have been more new model car kits introduced than at just about any other era in the history of this hobby. Now, whether they are subjects that any one person might want or not--is the question, I think. Art

MOst likely due to cost considerations, and also due to the sad fact that much of the old AMT and MPC model kit tooling is in considerable disarray, due either to not having been sorted (all those little inserts may well be there someplace, BUT where?), or modified in some way, and nobody available to piece it all back together again. Art

I submit that a real barrier to kids 'getting into" this hobby is the simple fact that in VERY few places kids have ready, independent access to a hobby shop. When most of us were kids growing up, there were local stores within walking or biking distance from home, where we kids could go, on our own, and shop for a model kit. And that without having to encounter 4-lane thoroughfare streets with no sidewalks, limited places to cross, or at the worst, a reasonably short bus ride downtown (my experience from 55-60 years ago). Today, it takes Mom or Dad to drive a youngster to a hobby shop (or even a Michaels or Hobby Lobby), and that leads to another problem: Often a parent, while well-meaning, will discourage a son (or even a daughter) from buying a model kit, with the worst reasoning of all: "You won't be able to build that thing!" (or words to that effect)--or "save your money!". This sort of thing is perhaps the worst barrier to a kid wanting to try something new. And yes, there is also the change in what activities grab a kid's attention. For us, an interactive "toy" back in the 50's or 60's was first that electric train set (or fast forward a few years to a slot racing set), perhaps a Gilbert Erector Set, and finally, a model kit which we could build either straight out of the box, or exercise our own "creativity" and try to build it the way we thought it would look cool. Today, "interactive" means RC, or all manner of digital gadgets which even the creators of Dick Tracy et.al. could never have dreamed up. And, of course, the "organized" activities for kids today, sports and just about any other sort of planned, adult-managed stuff play a huge part in being a barrier for younger kids. None of them existed to anywhere near the extent that they do nowadays. Couple that with double-income families, single parent households, and "latchkey" kids, again, more barriers. And last, but not least is the spreading out of kids--where once most neighborhoods were rather densely populated with kids of the same age as we were--today your nearest playmate (or best friend even) could be a couple of blocks away--with the intervening homes being occupied by childless adults, kids either considerably older or younger, which can make it hard for the sort of camaraderie we kids of the 50's through at least the 70's to benefit from. Sad, but true, of course, I think. Art

Which is 1/16". Art

After a couple of false starts (including the firewall attempt above, I decided it was time to shift disciplines from ruler and calipers to my vertical mill, and see how that would work on the thin plywood: Answer, perfectly! So, I decided to mill the wooden dashboard from the same 1/32" plywood stock, using a couple of small dental burrs from my stash of those. In doing a new one, I also learned from further research that those Model T dashboards were rectangular, not the trapezoidal shape that ICM tooled the plastic dash, but not a problem--just reworked the front edges of the plastic bodywork so that a rectangular panel would fit. The moldings around the outer edge are a blend of styrene rod stock and half round, set in a milled step around the edges of the panel (could not cut as deeply across the top and bottom edges, due to the outer veneer layers having their grain horizontally which would have meant the real possibility of splitting and breaking. After staining the wood, I added the styrene moldings, then foiled them. I used Tamiya Clear Yellow, which gives the look of amber colored varnish on the wood, and a pretty convincing brass shade to the foil:

And, after all these years--still no '27 T Roadster (although that is what AMT Corporation originally advertized--but came out with a touring car instead! Still wishing! Art

It's 1/25 scale--any box art stating 1/24 is a misprint. Art

To add a bit to Bill's (and other's!) excellent advice, you might think about cutting the styrene patch to as precise a fit as possible, so that it just "slips" into the space you want to fill, and from stock thick enough so that it "stands out" from the surrounding surface a little bit. This is where I like to use gap-filling CA glue, needle files and sandpaper sticks. Once a patch is installed this way, I use flat needle files to dress it down flush with the adjacent surfaces (file across the glue joints--the original part can be your guide here). I make my own fine sanding sticks with bits of basswood (but craft sticks from the likes of Michael's or Hobby Lobby work well too, just be sure to select a stick that itself is truly flat, not warped!), and glue a piece of 400-grit wet-or-dry sandpaper to that, then when the CA glue is dry on your sanding stick, trim the sandpaper as close to the edges of the wood, and you have a miniature body shop sanding board! if need be, CA glue a piece of wood to the back side of this sanding board to make it easy to hold between your fingers. With this, you can sand the entire patch panel area smooth and flush with the surrounding body panel, and a thin CA glue joint generally will make the use of any putty only minimal (in my experience, anyway!) Art

I spent a good bit of time this weekend making a real wood dashboard (A bit of explanation: Brass era Model T's had no metal "firewall", wood dashboard--for decades, stylists and body engineers used the term "dashboard" to denote what we models and most car nuts refer to as the "firewall"). On the real '08-late '14 Model T's, this dashboard was made from a solid wood filler block, with cherry veneer on both sides, which was then stained a dark red, before being varnished, the varnish back then not being water clear, but a golden amber color. Model T enthusiasts often refer to those early T's as "Red Board Cars". I started with some Midwest Products 1/32" Danish aircraft plywood, which in this thickness is 3-ply, and as close to the thickness (in scale" as anything else available. I chose the plywood simply because even basswood (which can be had this thin) could have a tendency to warp, and in any event could be far too fragile to withstand all the cutting involved without splitting or breaking. I used the ICM kit's dashboard as a pattern, drew around that with a very thin pencil (lightly so as to not permanently mark the wood), then cut it out with a razor saw, the wood clamped in my trusty miniature bench vise (hint: A layer of masking tape on each jaw surface allows tight clamping without any worry about marring the wood!). Simply by matching up the drawn pencil lines with the top edge of the vise allowed me to use the top of the vise as a guide for a razor saw--that meant only block sanding the edges to get them smooth. The opening in the lower center was cut using my cordless Dremel with a 1/8" carbide cutter, and carefully using that to "carve away" the excess wood in this area--that oval shape at the upper left corner of this opening is the clearance hole for the steering column, made a bit extra wide in order to clear the hand throttle and spark advance shafts. There are two rows of 4 holes drilled in the center just above the engine opening. These are for the terminal connections of the ignition coil box (a Model T Ford used one coil per sparkplug--wires from the timer on the left lower front of the engine were loomed, and ran back along the inside of the right frame rail to the back side of the dashboard, where they went up and the individual wires brought through another hole (not yet drilled) then spread apart each wire to supply power to it's particular coil. The lower row of holes are for the individual terminals, again one for each plug, and a high tension, heavily insulated lead running from there to each plug. The birch plywood color took some figuring out. Since the real wood is cherry, I found a Minwax stain marker in Cherry, and for a backup picked up a Red Oak stain marker, but that turned out to be not needed. As Ford used a red cherry stain, I experimented with some Tamiya Clear Red over the Minwax Cherry stain, but while the color looked OK, it just wasn't quite there. I found, at Michael's, a Prismatic ink marker, Crimson Red, which I ended up using on the bare wood after all the cutting, sanding and drilling, and followed that with two applications of the Cherry stain, which darkened in the grain, and gave the wood a pretty decent representation. To tone down the bright red even more, after I make the "brass" molding around the sides and top of the wood panel, and foil that, Tamiya Clear Yellow will get the call to turn the foiled styrene into brass as well as darkening the reddish brown stained surface.

Back 50 yrs ago, it was AMT lacquers (those behaved very much the same as today's Tamiya and Modelmaster lacquers) which were excellent. However, I got into building 1/25 scale Indy car models with a passion, which made the AMT line more than a bit inadequate. Fortunately, I had a NAPA store close to where I worked, and I discovered that their rattle cans of Martin-Senour acrylic lacquers were stocked under that adage "It ain't old till it's sold" which meant I was finding cans of the stuff going back several years! By then I was used to decanting spray cans into my airbrush color jar, and adding just a touch of lacquer thinner to that before spraying. Ever since, I've used both automotive spray touchup lacquers (preferring whenever possible to use the small touchup bottles--generally I can find a much greater variety of colors that way), and thin that with generic lacquer thinner (Kleen Strip is what I use nowadays). It does take a lacquer primer, and as I airbrush every body shell, the brand of primer doesn't much matter. Art

You can "hone" a slightly dulled #11 blade against a piece of glass--old time modelers did that years ago. Art

OK, as 1908-late 1914 Model T's had a full width dashboard made from solid wood with cherry veneer on both sides, finished in a red cherry stain with varnish, I decided this one needed a real wooden dash as well. It's made from Midwest Products 1/32" (yeah, that thin!) Danish birch aircraft plywood, cut to match the shape and dimensions of the kit's styrene dash. There will be a half oval cutout as hinted by the penciled in curved shape, which is more accurate than the kit's styrene dashboard, which simply has a large rectangular opening (all my research into the real cars shows this shape). This plywood dashboard will have its edges bound in thin, narrow Evergreen strips (which in the end will be BMF foiled and painted with Tamiya clear yellow to represent the brass trim on the real one), and have holes drilled for the steering column, all 8 ignition terminals (both into the individual coils--Model T had a coil for each plug--and the output terminals for the sparkplug leads. There will be a hole and bezels for the bulb horn line to its "trumpet", and a pair of notches to capture the windshield frame brackets.

There's been some progress! The body shell (all individual panels of it) is assembled, and I have to say, I've NEVER seen a multi-piece body as precisely engineered and molded as the ICM '13 Model T Roadster--everything fit like a glove, once the sprue attachment points were dressed down (used a home-made sanding stick made with a piece of basswood with a bit of 400-grit sandpaper "flat glued" to it with CA glue), so nicely that no filler will be used anywhere (not that Ford leaded in any body seams on Model T's (they didn't!). Note that the firewall is not yet installed--see below for a bit of a surprise)

Bill, you are quite correct--this kit as it stands is far more accurately done than it isn't. It is, however, a model of a specific KK 500C, which car exists today in it's 1955 race form. And yes, it can be used to work up any of the Kurtis Kraft 500-series chassis/body cars--from 500A (think Bill Vukovich's 1952-54 Fuel Injection Spl), all the way to a 500K (the first rear drive Novi--which qualified at Indianapolis 1957-59, then again in 1963--one was the high tailfin version driven by drag racer Art Malone that year, who did respectfully well in the race). In addition to the Novi Auto Airconditioning Spl from 1957--Tony Bettenhausen--I also reworked this kit into Sam Hanks' 1957 winner, the George Salih built laydown Offy "Belong Exhaust Spl., driven to victory that year by Sam Hanks). A great old kit! Art

Strombecker's Indianapolis Racer was, IIRC, pretty much a ficticious car--not meant as any particular race car. I still have a couple of the kits, left over from my 18 years of concentrating on 1/24-1/25 scale Indy cars (long story there for another time). Merit was a British model company, and did only Grand Prx/Formula cars, never doing an Indianapolis car per se', although their Alfa Romeo Grand Prix car could be worked up as an Indianapolis entry--at least one was entered at IMS. Their Maserati GP car is a postwar car, much smaller in size and engine displacement than the supercharged straight 8 8CLT that was driven at Indianapolis by the legendary Wilbur Shaw to Victory Lane in 1939-40. As mentioned before, the Aurora Famous Race Car Series began as a set of kits produced by a company called Best Plastics. For the most part they are rather undersized, a couple are just plain inaccurate. Of the ones that can be worked up respectably, the 1920 Monroe Spl (Gaston Chevrolet up) , the 1922 Murphy Spl (Jimmy Murphy bought the 1921 Duesenberg Indianapolis Car that he won the first post-WWI French Grand Prix with at Lemans in the summer of 1921, replaced the Duesenberg 183cid Straight Eight with a brand new Miller 183 straight 8, changed the radiator to one made by Miller. Both of these cars can be made fairly accurately, with some stretching and reshaping of the tails, as well as adding much more accurate wire wheels and tires. The same is also true of the Best/Aurora 1931 Bowes Seal Fast Spl--it needs considerable lengthening in the hood area for a true straight 8 car, and the cockpit needs to be widened out considerably, along with the tail lengthened. Hawk also produced a Grand Prix Car that could be worked up, accurized a bit into the 1947 Don Lee Mercedes Spl. It's a 1939 Mercedes W-163, a supercharged V12 car, but the display engine supplied in the kit is far too plain, and a good bit to large to fit in the body (it's a "pit side" model), again needing much more accurate wire wheels and postwar Firestone Champion racing tires. Art

First issued in 1956--built one when I was 11 yrs old, while listening to the '56 Indianapolis 500 on the radio.

Also, using a piece of true plate glass helps! At each stage of a build, that allows one to see if all 4 wheels do indeed touch the surface. This problem can happen at any stage of a build, from assembling the front and rear suspensions, to a slightly warped chassis (you can check the chassis for "true" right there on that plate glass before you even add anything, and if there's a problem, a twist, take care of it right then, Then, assemble the suspension on--if there are brake drums or at least backng plates in the kit, test the chassis with suspension and those parts in place against the glass. The same goes with adding wheels and tires--check the assembly again for straight and true. And last, it's not a bad idea to test fit the body shell--many modern model car kits have bodies which fit tightly on and around the frame--make sure that nothing is interfering, and you might also check the body shell itself against the plate glass (the rocker panels should lay flat against the glass with all but a few subjects (due to their styling). It's also a good idea to test fit the body onto the chassis with the interior assembled in place--there could well be a bind here, or something sticking up there which can cause the entire car to twist slightly out of shape. Just some thoughts on this old issue--any of us who've built model cars for any period of time have experienced this. Art

Great description! FWIW, from their inception in 1949 at GM (Cadillac Coupe de Ville, Buick Roadmaster Riviera, Oldsmoblie Holiday) it's said that Harley Earl, GM's legendary VP Of Styling, insisted that "hardtops" were "Sport Coupes", the later 4dr hardtops became "Sports Sedans" in the GM lexicon. I was a kid back then, and I distinctly remember people calling those Sport Coupes "Hardtop Convertibles" and in a real sense they were just that--Convertibles with a hard steel top welded on. To carry that theme even farther, early hardtops (from most if not all makes) even had chrome plated "bows" on their headliners, again to carry over the image. As to why very few kits of 4dr hardtops (AKA Sport Sedans), it was pretty simple back in the 1960's--2dr hardtops were what we kids and teenagers WISHED Dad would buy, being disappointed at just another 4dr (no matter the practicality issues in those baby boom years). The Johan Cadillac and Oldsmobile 4dr hardtop kits were a tough sell in hobby shops back then, likely for that very same reason, Any model kit of one likely would be met by an awful lot of modelers crying "2 doors too many"--even though others would be as pleased as punch. Art