Art Anderson

Time was, 4-door body styles were little more than "parts cars" when it seemed that all any rodder or restorer wanted was a roadster, touring car, perhaps a coupe. Finally, the increasing scarcity of those popular and sporty body styles pretty much forced newer entrants into the hobbies of street rodding and restoration to look for good, solid examples of other body styles. Art

I can hardly wait for Windows-12 autodriving to crash!

Tom Lowe's Playing Mantis (Polar Lights was a department of that company) reverse-engineered such former Aurora kits that they offered--those were not from original Aurora tooling. I was told, perhaps 20 years ago by the late Bill Lastovich that Monogram did in in fact buy pretty much all of Aurora's plastic model kit tooling, only to scrap the vast majority of it in the deep recession of 1981-82 in order to fund new product. It seems that Monogram's people found that very little of the Aurora lineup met their then-existing high standards for accuracy and parts fit. That's all that I know about it. Art

Several of the mahogany decals were undersized by a small fraction of an inch--just enough to show a sliver of the tan base color. I used a Micron Artist's drawing pen with a .25mm tip, Raw Sienna in color, which was close to the base color of the decals, just drawing in over the expoxed base color areas on the panels. The pen did the trick, as any missing wood graining there was very insignificant. Art

Pretty much, all '41-48 Ford body styles used the very same chassis and front clip sheet metal. AFIK, the only body panel shared between the Sedan Deliveries and Station Wagons of those years were the rear fenders--Ford Woodie Station Wagons of the era used the sedan delivery rear fenders. Art

AAM made a '48 Ford sedan delivery body back 20-25 years ago. It was made to fit the IMC/Testors '48 Ford coupe kit though. I've not seen one done for the Revell '48 Fords though. Art

Just be sure to give the work done with artist's oil paints plenty of time to "dry". As I noted above, oil paints do not "dry" by evaporation. Rather, the linseed oil combines with the oxygen in the surrounding air, hardens in that manner. Depending on how thick the oil paint is laid on (in the case of wood graining, it should be quite a thin layer), this can take anywhere from perhaps 3 days (I allowed the Merc body to dry for three days). Also, linseed oil will penetrate enamel, particulary Testors (no matter how well dried it is), soften it, but even that will go away as the linseed oil oxidizes. Art

Merely for convience, and nothing else, I used 3X5 file cards to mix the oil paint. It didn't really draw all that much of the linseed oil out though. I used a professional grade artist's oils, Winsor & Newton. The stuff is actually very creamy in texture, which made it streak very, very nicely. Art

This is how I did the wood framing on my Revell '49 Mercury Station Wagon: First a bit of background: Ford woodie station wagon bodies were all built using hard maple for the framing (from Ford's own forests in Upper Michigan) and various plywoods for the panels. On the '49-51 Ford and Mercury wagons, these panels were formed from layers of veneer with the outer surface being Honduran mahogany, molded into shape in large presses, with their maple framing being done by laminating strips of maple and then forming those into the curves required, again in large presses. As a result, virtually no end-grain was visible, certainly on a 1/25 scale model. The finish was marine or "spar" varnish, which is a light amber in color, and darkens somewhat with exposure to UV light. So, how to replicate this? Given that freshly cut hard maple is a light buff color, I airbrushed the wood paneling and trim areas of the body with Testors 1141 Gloss Tan, and gave that several hours in the dehydrator to dry thoroughly. After experimenting with both artist's acrylics and artist's oil paints for giving a woodgrain effect, I settled on the oil paint, mixing just a little bit of Burnt Umber into Raw Sienna for color, and then using those little foam "eyeshadow applicators" found in almost any cosmetics department, I simply streaked the oil paint on over the tan paint. Now, artist's oil paint is simply pure linseed oil mixed into the pigment, and linseed oil does not dry by evaporaton, but rather by oxidation, and that takes 2-3 days even in just thin streaks as I put on the model--so patience is a virtue here. Once the oil paint was dry, I laid on the kit decals for the mahogany panels, and found that several decals are a bit undersized. Using a Micron artist's drawing pen, I was able to color in the gaps around the edges of the decals. For the varnish, I used Tamiya Acrylic Clear Yellow, which was brushed on, with a fairly large brush. I didn't worry about brush marks, as the real wood on those cars is somewhat varigated in shade, and the Clear Yellow gave some of that. And that's all it took! Body, with tan basecoat and the oil paint woodgraining added: Finished body!

These may have been described already: AMT first announced their 1927 Model T kit as a ROADSTER, not the Touring Car. MPC announced, at the HIAA Trade Show in Chicago, in January 1966, a model kit of the 1928 Miller 91 Race Car, which won Indianapolis that year with the legendary Louie Meyer (later of Meyer-Drake Offenhauser) but never produced it. AMT, in 1972, announced a 1/25 scale 1922 Ahrens Fox piston pumper fire engine, again not produced. Revell actually tooled up a 1/4 scale Chevy 283cid V8 engine, full visible, even ran test shots, but the kit was never released for sale (The Model Car Builders Museum in Salt Lake City has a nearly complete set of the test shot parts!). IMC's 1/25th scale Lola T70 Can Am car very nearly didn't make it--it was announced at HIAA (forerunner to today's iHobby) in 1967, but the kit did not arrive until 1970 or 1971. AMT's Peterbilt 359 "California Hauler" was first announced at HIAA in 1967, and re-announced in 1969, and again in 1969. IMC showed sample kits (built) of their Dodge Tilt Cab semi-tractor in 1969--AMT again showed their promotional painting of the Pete, and apparently were shocked into action to tool it up at long last! Monogram Models did all the design work for a Waterhouse-style Convertible Victoria version of their 1932 Cadillac Model 452 V16 kit, but never tooled it up. JoHan was strongly rumored to have been working on a 1932 Pierce Arrow V12 Dual Cowl Phaeton kit in their Gold Cup Series of Classic Cars, but it never did see the light of day as a kit. AMT also did all the pattern work for a circa 1974 Porsche 911 coupe (I saw the 1/10 scale tooling patterns on my first visit to their Troy MI facility in 1975, but again, they decided not to tool it up for production! And, AMT Corporaton seriously considered doing a 3in1 Customizing kit off of their 1957 Ford Custom 300 Tudor Sedan promo back in 1957-58, even shot several tests of the body in styrene, but again, never produced (Modelhaus did their resin off of one of those rare test shots!). Art

Yes, JoHan (as well as the other two major companies tended to do convertibles by simply making a new tooling insert that eliminated the top behind the windshield, which was pretty much OK on GM convertibles through 1964-ish when hardtops were almost always convertible bodies with a steel top welded into place. However, starting about 1965 or so, GM's hardtops began to veer away from that earlier concept with the advent of fastback hardtop styling. Art

I believe that November date is way too early--test shots haven't been completed yet. Art

Only one possible problem, however: Virtually every JoHan Cadillac promo or model kit 1959-into the 70's was tooled undersized, both foreshortened in the front clip and trunk areas, and many of them were as much as an actual 1/8" (3-inches in 1/25 scale) too narrow as well. That may complicate your results a bit. Art

Mike, I think it's more a change in American travel habits over the past 50 or so years: In 1953, when Corvette first hit the streets, going on any trip longer than a single overnight generally meant at least one large suitcase (two if you were married), with a woman having a smaller travel or "train case" holding all her personal appearance bits and supplies (cosmetics, etc.). Bear in mind that back years ago, traveling overnight almost always meant dressing in one's Sunday best, and that back in the days before permanent press, wash & wear clothing. As our travel habits have evolved, the need for so much luggage space has dropped considerably, as has trunk space in most all cars. Art

So far, so good! Interesting build of a not-all-that-accurately-nor-well-done-kit (I've built perhaps a dozen of this kit, in various markings from the several years in which the Model 6 Eagle was still competitive). It's not an easy build to make look good, but you are coming along very well! Art

Only one problem: The Phantom V was a much larger car all around than the Silver Cloud. Art

I'm not altogether sure that AMT's designers back in those early days really considered "interchangeability" all that much when they started out with the Trophy Series, but it sure did turn out to be very much the case. Had such interchangeability been planned from the get-go, it seems to me that it would have been advertised from the get-go, and yet I think the first "advertising" mention was in an early "column" by Bud "The KAT from AMT" Anderson (no relation BTW), but that was at least a couple of years after the introduction of the '32 Ford roadster and coupe, and the '40 Ford kits (1959-60), in which time a number of us older teenaged kids pretty much discovered that such swaps were at least possible, even with a bit of extra work on firewalls or inner fender panels. This "feature" (if you will) may well have been the inspiration for George Toteff when he left AMT to start MPC, and eventually cooked up the idea of the "Switchers" series of kits though. Toteff was an early designer at AMT, and was credited with coming up with the multiple slide core mold concept for one-piece body shells, among other things. Art

For my money, this dash cannot be beaten! 1932 Duesenberg Model J dashboard: It had it all, for its time (and really for modern times as well!) Tachometer, speedometer, gas gauge, temperature gauge, ammeter, chronograph (very sophisticated Swiss-made clock) oil-pressure gauge, and probably the very first to feature "idiot lights" (two red ones on the left--one to tell the driver it was time for an oil change (back in the days of primitive oil and only superficial oil filters, every 500 miles) and the other to tell the driver when it was time to add distilled water to the battery. On the right were two green lights, one indicating that the generator was working properly, and the other flashing on to let the driver know that the engine-driven Bijur lubrication pump was sending oil to all the chassis lubrication points every couple of hundred miles. All that contained in a cast aluminum dash, with damascened (engine-turned faceplate), first introduced in 1929. Art

If there's one problem with the Lesney-AMT '70 Challenger kit, it's with the convertible. They did the folded top as if it were stacked up on top of the body, where in actuality, Challenger and Barracuda convertibles were among the very few whose folded convertible top completely disappears below the surface of the body--the top boot being almost completely flush with the bodywork. Art

Wikipedia shows that Pontiac offered the 8-lug wheels as an option, beginning in 1960, discontinued after 1968. Art

Those parts should fit pretty close. Art

Hot rod parts for a Model A won't fit a Model T engine, unfortunately--there are just way too many differences--too numerous to list here. However, if you want a really bitchin' T racer, look no farther than the hop-up equipment from AMT's '27 T--that has the ultimate conversion: A Frontenac DOHC 16-valve head, intake manifold and carburetor, as well as a set of exhaust pipes. That setup could boost a stock 22hp T 4-banger up to nearly 150hp in cometent hands! (hint, one of those engines finished 5th at Indianapolis in 1924, against a field of Miller and Duesenberg 122cid pure racing engines! Art

The Model A roadster pickup body is a good bit wider than any T body shell, in addition to having a "tumblehome" shape (inward curvature going toward the body sills) that T C-cab's didn't feature--those have very flat body panels. Art

Uh, I seem to recall that yes, there were reproduction bodies in fiberglas back now at least 50 years ago--in fact, I think the first fiberglas '32 Ford Roadster body shells (albeit rather crudely done) came along by 1963-64. But in any event, the AMT C-cab should be most workable--if you need to taper the sides inward toward the cowling, that should be very easy to do, and BTW, not all C-cabs seem to have had doors (or else they were discarded sometime over the years.) Art