Art Anderson

Simply put: With perhaps the exception of cars built before say, 1933, photographing the engine in the car for the purpose of creating a decent replica of that engine for a model kit is pretty much a "Fools Errand"--you really can't get images of the ENTIRE engine which are necessary to make a credible model of it (and what is perhaps the most criticized of all model car kit components than the body or chrome? The engine. Art

To my young eyes back then, while I could tell my dad in an instant which "modern" cars were Fords, Chevies, Plymouths and the like, to me as a kid, EVERY car from the years before "The War" all looked alike! It wasn't until I received several books on old cars for Christmas a couple of different years, and began studying them, that I began to understand what appeared to be very subtle differences from one make to another. And yes, I would agree with you that the chinese are very much in a real "hot house" of development, from one of the most "Third World" of third world countries, into a very sophisticated 21st Century industrial and economic powerhouse. In many ways, it's a lot like seeing much of the "evolution" (if you will) that occurred here in the US over at least a century, compressed into perhaps just a couple of decades--talk about a "fast forwarded movie"! Art

Of course, in the era of these cars, Brett, there really was very little that could have been done to make totally different shaped car bodies. Consider that 1932 was still in the era of carbon steel sheet metal, which couldn't be drawn (stamped) into deeply drawn complex shapes (the sheet metal in every one of the cars pictured was actually stamped out in relatively small sections), and further, with the '32 Ford Tudor and the Plymouth sedan, the other cars here have bodies that were still constructed of wooden framing, merely covered with a sheet metal skin. That alone severely limited the styling possibilities. That said, while of course there were just only so many ways to give your company's offerings much in the way of unique styling (save for those automakers producing custom-styled, custom crafted "Coachbuilt" body shells), mostly limited to "signature" features, such as a grille or radiator shape, which was the primary identifier for most makes of cars. And yes, there were copycat situations: The one I think of most often from that era was Packard vs Buick: Packard, from almost their beginning, had used a radiator shell, with a distinct "Ox-Yoke" top surface (EVERY Packard to the very end in 1958 had at least a hint of that identifying shape or line). In the early 20's (before Harley Earl), Buick virtually copied that same shape radiator, which prompted a lawsuit from Packard. The issue was resolved by Buick's simply altering their radiator, removing the "double S curve" at the top to which Packard had objected. And of course, if you look at any 1932 Chevrolet, then at a '32 Cadillac, there was a very direct styling coordination. Harley Earl (with apparently the approval of Cadillac and GM management) had the '32 Chevrolet styled very much to look like a "Baby Cadillac" (which to many eyes it does), and Edsel Ford pulled off the very same thing with Fords, from Model A well into the 1930's, many years of Fords (particularly the Deuce) literally aping the lordly (and costly) Lincoln. There was at least one unabashed case of copy-cat styling though, in the early 30's! The stylists at Briggs Body Company, then the supplier of bodies to Chrysler Corporation (which company produced virtually none of their bodies in-house until their buyout of Briggs, completed in 1954) deliberately copied the stance, lines and proportions of the rather radical 1930-32 Cord L-29 Front Drive when styling the 1930-33 Chrysler and Chrysler Imperial. Probably Auburn Automobile Company, maker of the Cord was not willing to take on Chrysler over this, as the L-29, by 1931, was already a considerable sales failure. I remember asking my dad, probably when I was perhaps 9 or 10 (about 60 years ago now) just why so many of the cars he'd point out from the 1930's (there were still a fair number of them on the road in the middle 1950's) why they all seemed to look so very much alike, and his answer was? "It was a time when very few people even trusted a car that looked "radical"--"We were all (and Dad was in his late 20's/early 30's in the first part of the decade 1930-1940) pretty conservative with what money we had to buy new cars with back then--if a car looked too different from all the others, people really did wonder why they spent so much on styling and not under the hood where it counted (to us)." So, that was a key part of my education as a young kid as to why cars tended to look as they did, and why. Art

The ID of the balding mockup sculptor? (Anyone else recognize him???)? The legendary scratchbuilder, Gerald Wingrove! Art

Very simple, Harry! Given that Model A Fords all had their gas tanks as either the cowling itself (1928-29 roadster, coupe, 2dr sedan and the unique taxicab body) or underneath the cowl panel (1928-29 Fordor sedans, all 1930-31 body styles), that is where the fuel line came through the firewall, and where the sediment bulb was located (which is in the Revell kits, used when the stock engine is installed (remember, Model A, like every other American car at the time of the A's introduction, used gravity feed from fuel tank (Ford in particular) or a fuel reservoir at the top of the firewall in the case of vacuum-feed of gasoline from a chassis-mounted tank, in the days before AC developed the first camshaft-actuated diaphragm fuel pumps. FWIW, EVERY Model A Ford built 1927-31 had as its dashboard, the rear face of the gas tank, with a gas gauge directly in the tank itself, having a magnifier lens which even showed actual gasoline when the tank was full up! Art

Tamiya America handles only a portion of the total Tamiya paint line, i believe. Art

Decals are best applied by positioning the wetted (soaked) decal, still on it's backing paper, OVER the area where you are trying to place it, then SLIDE" the backing paper out from underneath the decal itself, allowing the decal to go down at least very close to where you want it. Decals, particularly large ones, do not slide easily on the painted surface, although often they can be "teased" at least a little bit into their final position. Art

A few questions, if I may: 1) Was the primer used a different brand (or type) than the Modelmaster 1-coat? If so, then it probably wasn't the surface preparation of the plastic, since you say the "primer is on it like a rock". Keep in mind that all lacquers, even those sold by both Testors and Tamiya, do have at least some "penetrating" solvents in them, as that is needed, to not only give adhesion to the plastic model surface, and to allow succeeding coats (primer or color coats) to adhere solidly to the substrate (previous layers of lacquer or other type of primer/paint used). If you used, say, a kind/type/brand of primer sold for either general household or automotive use, more than likely the Modelmast One-Coat solvents could not penetrate that sufficiently (if at all) for a truly positive bond. 2), Did your color coat just flake off "gratuitously", that is without some other physical act on your part? By this I mean, did the paint flake away by merely touching it, or did you mask off the color in order to add another color over it (thinking 2-tone paint scheme here), and then the masking tape pulled it, causing it to chip and/or flake away? If the latter, that could also be a simple matter of either the type of tape used for masking, or even technique. Using a lower-tack (less stickum power) tape can minimize peeling off the original color coat, as some masking tapes are rather "high-tack" meaning they can really grip a painted surface. Also, technique can help a lot here: Many people tend to pull masking tape straight up (at least nearly a 90-degree angle to the painted surface)--this alone can ruin an otherwise great paint job, as such an angle puts LOTS of stress on the bond between layers of paint, even paint on the plastic itself. Rather, learn to pull masking tape off a paint job back--AGAINST itself, as this lets the tape "roll away" from the painted surface, which does greatly minimize the possibility of pulling the color coat off the primer, even if the primer is not the same brand/type of lacquer used. (Been there, done that a lot, frankly). Ordinarily, surface "contamination" shows up very quickly when spraying any paint, most often as "fisheyes", where the liquid paint sprayed on literally seems to "run away" from a little spot or speck, but not always, and certainly this is less a problem with a spray can than it is with the far finer spray from an airbrush--but contamination of the primer's surface can also be an issue. Skin oils on one's fingers, even vapors from fixing a meal on the stove can settle on a surface to be painted. The solution is to remove that (even if you don't seem to see anything) before each succeeding coat by washing with soap and water before each successive coat of paint (be careful about dishwashing detergents, as many of those contain silicones, for that "cleaned down to the shine" but which can play absolute hob with paint adhesion) along with frequent hand-washing with soap and water, unless you are using say, the nitrile exam gloves sold in most pharmacies (those blue or purple gloves used by EMT's, etc.) and your model room is well away from the kitchen. These are some points to take a look at. Art

I always chuckled at that kit! Consider, by 1929, Model T had been out of production for nearly 2 years--discontinued by Ford in early June of '27, replaced by the Model A in late 1927. That said, the Lindberg kit was never a very popular model kit with modelers looking to build that "awesome" model, but was originally offered as a bargain-priced model kit aimed at kids lacking the $2 (back in the 1960's) for a more sophisticated AMT, Monogram, Revell, JoHan or MPC model car kit. It's been reissued a few times since the 1980's, mostly as a nostalgia piece, and as such never really generated enough interest among modelers, and certainly the model car aftermarket to spur any sort of resin parts for making "that different version". Art

And, several were fixed that you never noticed in that pic, and some afterward! i Art

I've never seen any, more than likely due to the fact that only a couple of T-bucket hot rod kits have ever been done in 1/24 scale--Monogram's Green Hornet and their Li'l T are the only ones that I can think of. Or do you mean for use with AMT's '23/'25 Model T kits? That series of kits has been done with both a separate turtle deck and a shortened pickup box as separate parts--and are actually quite plentiful, so likely no resin parts as you seek have been done, at least by any main-stream resin caster. Art

Back to the original question/premise: "Constructive" can be, and often is, a very subjective thing. If it's outright "You should have known to do it "such and so", that's as offensive to a great many people. The best way, I've found, is to either not criticise gratuitously, or at least take it to PM, and that I do very rarely. Art

BTW, in case nobody noticed, the Ferrari kit in question (I have one on my desk!) WAS NOT MADE IN CHINA--but rather in the Republic of Korea, which is where the manufacturer, Academy, operates. Art

That happened with a number of railroads, and a few "trademark trolls". One almost legendary case involved the logo of the former Pennsylvania Railroad (merged with the New York Central in the late 60's to form the ill-fated Penn Central RR). It took a savvy Federal Judge to rule that not only was PRR completely gone, but that it's "Keystone" shaped herald with the letters PRR was a piece of American Heritage by that point in time (the middle 1980's, and therefore in the Public Domain. Pretty much, the use of railroad heralds and names has become a non-issue--virtually all US railroads see them as pretty good PR. Art

And yet, as a regular reader of the former "Cars & Parts" magazine, I read many accounts of Henry Ford's "random acts of kindness" toward total strangers in a monthly feature titled "Ford Country". Someone asked him why he didn't just donate to charitable organizaions, and his reply, according to at least one account, was that "he wanted to see his money go directly to the person with the problem (almost always a medical, or disability-related issue). So, apparently there was more than one side to a very complex individual. Art

Harry, I found the same information after I posted my response. For a very good read on Ford, the Ford family, and Ford Motor Company, the book "Ford, The Men and the Machines" is great. Art

In order to correctly judge any model car/truck subject, particularly the bodywork, against that of the real thing, unless one takes the time to hold the model body in their hand AS CLOSELY as possible to the same angle and eye level of the actual car/truck, it's truly hard to nigh-impossible to correctly evaluate the model as to accuracy. I spent considerable time, on at least three occasions helping judge the tooling mockups for this kit, and trust me, it was not an easy task--but I beliee it to be very, very close to correct. Art

Actually, in a way, it was the reverse! The Dodges were out of Ford shortly after their own startup when they sued Henry Ford for payment of their share of the retained earnings of Ford, which prompted Henry Ford to buy them, and the other original stockholders out, with what was by far and away the largest leveraged buyout in history, until at least the 1950's--making Henry Ford the sole owner of Ford Motor Company (albeit with a few shares each to his son Edsel, Edsel's wife Eleanor, and his own wife, Clara, in order to satisfy the corporate ownership requirements of the State of Delaware, where Ford was incorporated). The Dodge Brother's take from that buyout? Some $25 million and change--not bad for an investment of some $10,000 or so in early 1903, huh? As an aside, I graduated from High School with the only granddaughter of Horace Dodge!. Art

The Dodge Brothers, John & Horace, owned a rather large foundry in Detroit at the time of the startup of Ford Motor Company, and were among the original backers (stockholders) of Ford. Dodge Brothers supplied castings (up to and including engine blocks) to Ford for several years, until Ford established their own foundry. In addition, Dodge Brothers did foundry work for numerous Detroit-area automakers in the same time period. It's well-known of course, that Dodge Brothers established their own automobile assembly line, that beginning in 1915, as a manufacturer of of lower mid-price range cars (Many US Army officers, including General John J. Pershing--commander of the AEF in France 1917-18) used Dodge Brothers Touring Cars as their staff cars). As far as any Fords somehow being "Dodges in disguise"--nope, Urban Legend--as when the Dodges decided to immerse themselves into auto production, they very closely copied the Model T Ford engine (look at a WW-I era Dodge 4-cylinder, the similarities are quite visible indeed!. The Dodges supplied castings and and smaller parts to several other carmakers, including the largest producer of cars prior to about 1905-06, Oldsmobile. Art

And yet, Ford was the first automaker to establish their own finance unit, to finance the purchase of new Fords, and that was, I believe, in 1925. Art

I think you are somewhat mistaken, with regard to things produced under contract for the US govenment, and particularly the military: For starters, vehicles such as the Jeep, were NOT developed by the United States Army, but rather by civilian companies, in hopes of gaining contracts to produce them for sale to the Army. The Jeep, as you may know, began as an RFQ (Request For Quotation) for a light reconaissance vehicle with off-road capabilities in 1940. Any and all comers were invited to submit their proposals, and of course, American Bantam, Willys Overland and Ford did just that, and went on to build prototypes that were tested by the Army's Transportation Corps at Ft. Holabird MD. The Bantam design was the one accepted, a small contract being let to them for a few hundred. Wtih war looming ever closer, the Army decided that Bantam was far too small, and too underfinanced to be a viable builder of truly large numbers of their successful vehicle, so the designs etc. were passed over to Willys, who produced them, with modifications, throughout the war with an even larger number built by Ford. Thus, the design of the Jeep was done by civilian companies, not any agency of the government, and that is why the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Willys' claim of trademark rights. This is also true of the vast majority of military aircraft: Those almost always have been designed and engineered in the private sector, with of course input from the customer, the particular military branch(es) that were buying them--but again, the designs belong to the people and/or companies who designed and built them. In other words, NO different than GM, Ford, or Chrysler continuing to claim ownership of designs, patents and copyrights on all the 4dr sedans and/or SUV's, trucks and vans sold to the US Genveral Services Administration. As a result, don't go producing a model kit of any Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed, North American, or Northrop fighter or bomber, without seeking a license from whichever company owns those rights. Art

Well, consider that in 1908, when Model T was introduced, they sold for nearly $900. What took place was first, the constant re-engineering of production processes, cutting the number of individual pieces of many components, and then simply "economies of scale", wrought mainly by the introduction of the first truly constant moving assembly line conveyor systems, along with various other means of achieving the mass production numbers that Ford did evenually achieve. As a result, by 1925, a bare-bones, stripped down Model T roadster sold for just $290.00 FOB Dearborn, and that after serious inflation brought about by the rather short but fever pitch of wartime production in 1916-early 1919. Art

However, In the US, Ferrari's rights are recognized, and as such, their US agents can petition to have US Customs block unlicensed product. Art

Except that JEEP became a trademark and trade dress way back in 1948, when the US Supreme Court decided in favor of Willys-Overland's registration of the name and design features. Art

Well, having seen several tooling mockups for 1/25 scale model car kits, 3D is still pretty rough, layered. While the layered printing process isn't all that noticeable on straight, flat or vertical surfaces, on the compound surfaces of a model car body, or certainly on suspension components, the layered process often leaves those parts looking as if they were sanded to shape from some sort of wood with very pronouced hard & soft rings of woodgrain. Just my view, of course--but one of these days? Who knows? Art