Art Anderson

I believe the first quarter of the 20th Century, 1900-1925. That was still the era of almost unbridled entrepreneurship in this country, and virtually every town or city of any size had its share of blacksmith shops, even machine shops--a blending of which was all that was necessary (along with some $$ of course) to set up a factory to build automobiles. Most makes of cars back then (well beyond the already establishing major companies) were in a sense, makers of what became called "assembled" cars--meaning that they outsourced at least certain major components, principally engines and transmissions, and as things progressed, body shells (GM, for example, produced none of their own bodies until the Fisher Brothers (name became Fisher Body Division in the middle 1920's, with Lawrence P. Fisher having been President and later Chairman of GM back then) merged into GM. Chrysler Corporation built none of their own bodies until the buyout of Briggs Body Company in 1954. Ford outsourced most of their closed body styles well into the Model A and early V8 years as well. But, in a very real way, those early years were still the era of "Build a better mousetrap, and the World will beat a path to your door!" thinking. Couple that with the simple fact that not until the middle 1920's did there exist a true integrated network of Federal highways, even some states in the Midwest and West not even having state highway routes until then. That meant there was virtually no intercity nor interstate truck transportation readily available, and railroad shipment of built cars was somewhat erratic and certainly expensive (Ford could only ship perhaps 4 Model T's in the then standard 36' wooden RR boxcars of the day!). So, it's little wonder that in so many small cities, even a few rather small towns, that some enterprising person would decide that his future rested on being the next automobile manufacturer. Of course, the vast majority of US automakers did not survive--many of them lasted no more than 4-5 years, some failing after fewer than a dozen cars. And of course, today, of all those startup automakers, the cars they made simply do not exist, or if they do, it's a rusty chassis here, a few vestiges of a body shell there, or an obscure engine laying around--their marques long forgotten in the dustbin of history. And yet, for some of them, a pristine example still exists, in a museum someplace. Art

I was very intrigued by the aircompressor I saw at the Towe Ford Museum in Sacramento in 1998--it was a Ford flathead V8, with every other cylinder converted (through the use of ingeniously designed cylinder heads) to compressing air! One head had spark plugs in it's front and rear cylinders, the opposite head using sparkplugs in the two middle cylinders. While it would have run quite well, with a regular, evenly paced firing order and exhaust note, it had to have been one vibrating SOB! Art

AMT Corporation's management people told me, in the late 1970's, that their all time sales leader, to that point, was not a model car kit--rather, it was their original sized "USS Enterprise", from the original series of Star Trek. Originally, they did the tooling in aluminum, figuring the kit to be a one or two year "one hit wonder", but within a year or so of its release, several tools had been cut in hardened steel, and it was produced in the millions by the end of AMT as an independent company in 1978. Art

Monogram's Big T, even given that it was the first of that company's exciting 1/8 scale car kits, really didn't outsell anything 1/25 or 1/24 scale, due to its price--something like $9.00 when first issued (that's 4.5 times the price of a then 1/25 scale AMT kit, in an era when most model car kits, indeed the majority of plastic model kits in general, were bought and paid for by kids themselves!) AND it's sheer size. In addition, Monogram's entire lineup of 1/8 scale model kits in the 1960's came and went pretty quickly--the market seemed to fill up, and that was it. Art

That, I believe, was MPC's hype, quoted. I would submit that it will be hard for any model car kit mfr. to equal the overall production numbers of the original AMT 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air HT, which was first released about February 1962, and remained in AMT/Lesney AMT/AMT-Ertl continuously through 1996. That is quite likely the longest continous "production run" of any model car kit, bar none. Art

Charlie, yes it does include all companies formed to produce automobiles, from the very beginning of the US auto industry by the Duryea Brothers in Springfield MA in 1895. Of course, I like remembering that some 500 of those automakers existed at one time or another, here in Indiana! Art

One New Year's Day, more than 10 years ago, I wasn't going out anyplace, just stayed home, and just for giggles, I sat down with calculator, some automotive history books, and tried to calculate the sheer number of US makes, models (primarily body styles) and years of automobiles produced just since 1900. Of course, I didn't capture every make of car produced in the US across that period (there have been more than 1500 makes of cars produced in this country over history), but still the final number came to more than than 10,000 possible model car subjects. Now, to someone, somewhere, each one of those cars is/was an icon--their most favorite car of all time. But, there are relatively few that have achieved such status across a truly wide number of model car builders/enthusiasts, and most, if not all, have been kitted at some point or another since the beginnings of plastic model car kits in 1950-51. With race cars, of course those are much fewer in numbers, even counting the seemingly vast numbers of factory built cars that have been converted into racecars over the past now 114 years-- and there, the racing cars (of all manner and classes) that have had any sort of wide, let's say universal, appeal is of course much more limited (after all, not all car enthusiast love race cars, and certainly not all model car builders build scale models of them either). The trouble with race cars is, with the exception of only a small percentage of all that have been built and raced is, once their time in the Winner's Circle has passed, the memories of most of them fade fairly quickly from public consciousness. Even in the heyday, at the literal apex, of any racing series, only a minority of people ever got really enthused, the massive crowds at Indianapolis, Daytona, LeMans, or any National Drags notwithstanding. Certainly today, with our Nation's population gone well past 300 million souls, only a small percentage even bother to read such motor racing news stories that appear on the sports pages, or for that matter, tune to a TV channel showing even the most major of racing events. So, the visibility of race cars among the general public isn't, and probably never has been, as high as some would like to believe. In addition, with just about any major racing series one can imagine, almost no cars remain exactly in the the same configuration, certainly the same paint and graphics, as they appeared at the start of the season--no, they almost always change, literally from one racing weekend to the next, all season long. It's pretty similar with the majority of TV or Movie cars--over the years (over a century now) hundreds of cars have appeared in nearly starring roles in motion pictures, and on television, and yet just a relative handful ever got remembered by large numbers of viewers. Over the lifetime of this hobby of ours, there have been a number of cars recreated in model kits that were "stars" in Hollywood. Many have been done, for sure, but most rose up and flamed out, not hard to understand, due to the fleeting nature of fame in the entertainment business. Of those TV/Movie cars that have been kitted, most seem to have been modifications of a model kit of an otherwise factory stock automobile, some of course having been tooled from the ground up as scale models of Hollywood props. And, given that such subjects have very much the same limited time in the spotlight for real, it's not surprising that their original time of popularity among model builders tended to be rather short (a few, of course, have been reissued in fairly recent years, but that's another story for another time). At least one that I can think of (it's one of my favorite kits of brass era cars still), the MPC 1914 Stutz Bearcat, was first done as the .30 cal. machine gun toting car from the quickly failed TV series "Bearcats"--but went on to enjoy several reissues as just a stock '14 Stutz Bearcat. Others came and went, faded to almost oblivion--a few never to be produced again. So, "Iconic" is a very relative term where cars, and particularly model car kits are concerned. The rather trite statement "Everyone (insert here "that I know") wants one, is a comment that really cannot be supported. Consider that, for example, funeral directors will say readily, that the average person knows even closely, perhaps 300 people over the course of their lives, "everyone I know" is a very small number of people in the overall scheme of things. And, the farther back in time/history any car of any sort is, the less likely it is that it would make a truly saleable model kit today. These, and perhaps more reasons (or barriers, name your poison here) are what makes the selection of that next model car subject, by any manufacturer, truly a risky BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH shoot folks! Art

Yes--Ford produced Model T engines all the way out to our entry in WW-II, in part due to Henry Ford's insistence that replacement parts be readily available for the Model T (and subsequent cars as well), apparently in his mind, in perpetuity (Ford of Canada continued to offer the 21-stud 85hp flathead V8 through the late 1980's as well!). Another major reason for such longevity of production was the use of Model T, Model A and flathead V8's for industrial purposes (saw mills, feed mills, even small narrow-gauge railroad locomotives--primarily in logging) for years, even decades after the cars they were designed for had ceased production. Ford wasn't alone in this, either. As late as 1960 (possibly later), Chevrolet was still cataloging parts for virtually every era of Chevrolet engine ever built, all the way back to the early 'teens, now a good century ago. Art

All of this thread is interesting, of course, but let's take a look at some numbers that really tell the tale, as to which car was truly the best selling car of all time. Some things to ponder here: 1) The number of cars on the road. 2) Yearly automobile production. 3) Percentage of annual sales achieved by the best-selling car in a given year. 1) By 1910, there were 458,500 automobiles on the road in the US, far more than in any other single country on the planet. 2) Ford Motor Company sold 32,053 Model T's that year. By 1912, and the opening of their Highland Park MI plant, Ford had a production capacity of 26,000 cars a month, or in excess of 300,000 cars a year, and by year's end, fully 75% of all cars on the road in the US were Fords. In 1914, Ford sold 308,313 Model T's, all produced in Highland Park. (GM very nearly went bankrupt in 1912, Ford announced the industry's first rebate --$50 to each buyer of a new '14 Model T if the company sold at least 300,000 cars that year, and Ford sent out a $50 check to each new 1914 T buyer, my grandfather got one of those checks). In 1915, the US automobile production to over 800,000. The number of cars in the US reached 2,000,000. In 1915, Willys-Overland was the 2nd largest US automobile company, producing 91,780 cars. In 1916, US automobile production passed the 1 million mark and Ford sold 734,811 Model T's. (by 1917, the total number of cars on US roads was 4.8 million, the rest of the World combined had just 720,000 cars. 3) In 1921, Ford held what was to be the largest share of the US market of any automaker since--some 61% of all cars built in the US were Model T's (GM had just 12%, and once more, was nearly driven into bankruptcy). By 1924, the production of the Model T was just shy of 2,000,000 cars, and held the highest market share of any car, all over the World, with more than 50% of all cars everywhere being Fords. I would submit, that while other specific models of cars have surpassed the production figures above, as the worldwide production and sales of cars grew since 1924, no single model of automobile has ever achieved anything like the percentage of total production (in the mass production era which still goes forward) nor the market penetration and market share achieved by the Model T Ford. And all of this happened in a time when there were vastly more companies/makes of automobiles than at any time since. Art

Harry, In a sense, with the advent of "envelope" style body shells in the late 1940's, there were panel lines, and then there were panel lines: For example, the really prominent panel separation lines pretty much are those which surround parts that are either movable (hood, deck lid, doors) and those the are the edges of sheet metal panels that are solidly attached permanently together, and the joints between a tulip panel and the adjoining rear quarter panels are almost always at least pinch-welded together in 1950's through at least the 1970's practice. Given that this would be a bad place for rainwater to leak in, from what I have seen (certainly on my '59 Chevy Biscayne) those two seams were filled (early on) with body lead, but not necessarily ground and smoothed out for a "one-piece" appearance. However, those panel separation lines on my '59 were truly very faint indeed, perhaps no more than 1/16" deep, with the surface of the lead being rounded as if it were formed that way. That's a panel line that would barely show up if properly done on a 1/25 scale body shell, even if it could be done properly. Sometimes, but not on all model car bodies, the mold separation lines between the mold portion that creates the roof, and upper surfaces of the front fenders, the cowling, and the entire rear deck have had to be placed pretty much where the separation line between cowl and front fenders is on many cars. That would be pretty hard to do, put a mold parting line on, or in that panel line, and have be anywhere near correct, or ever decent looking. This is not always the case of course, but it is a very possible scenario. Just looking at one of my Revell '59 Impala Convertible kits, and here's what I see that was done, and what is missing: The body shell has, of course, the door and trunk lid lines, with the trunk lid lines cut through (across vertically) the chrome trim cap strips on the fins where they create the lip of the trunk itself. The rear valance is clearly scribed in, across the back, around the rear corners, and into the lower rear of the rear quarters. There are separation lines engraved between the rocker panels and the front fenders. Missing are the separation lines between front fenders and the cowling, and demarking the front valance below the front bumper (interesting that they got it right in back, but not up front). Also missing is the short seam at the front corners of the "hooding" over the headlights, which is quite visible on the real car, until you realize that this is precisely where the mold parting line between the upper mold surface and the front mold has to be, for proper separation the mold slides to demold the body. Here's a pic of an unrestored, very faded, surface-rusted '59 Impala Sport Sedan (flat roof). The separation line between rear quarters and tulip panel does not show at all in this image http://www.ctcautoranch.com/Parts%20Cars/Chevrolet/Full%20Size%2058%20-%2066/Full%20Size%2058%20-%2066/1959%20Chevrolet%20Impala%20Parts%20Car%201/1959%20Chevrolet%20Impala%20Parts%20Car%201%203.JPG On other cars, where that may not have been as finished off as Fisher Body Division must have done with 59's, it is quite possible that in restoration, the restorers have filled and ground down tulip panel joints for that "Concours" look, be it right or incorrect. With any older car subject today, it's more than likely that those researching them for a newly done model kit, are going to be working with restorations, as opposed to "survivor" originals. In product development, the staff person(s) who will go out, photograph the real things are pretty much stuck with what they can find, within the limits of budgets (not very often do they go clear across the country to do that!). With those almost "iconic" annual series 3in1 model kits of the late 50's on through the end of such kits, in order to have the promotional model body shells done in time for "new car introduction" (and back in the day, within days, or at most a very few weeks after next year's new models were in dealer showrooms, the promo's were showing up. Now, with the development of any new model car kit taking at minimum, at least 9 months or so, those cars were referenced off of photo's of either styling clays or pre-production cars, along with such drawings as the styling department might be comfortable letting out of their studios--and styling clays almost never have fixed panel lines carved into their surfaces--just the movable ones of doors, trunks, hoods and any other hinged panels (probably not even the panel line between front fender and rocker panel either. So there, I think you have it: There are panel lines, and there are panel lines. Many are quite visible as mentioned, others may be either partially or completely filled and smoothed down to invisibility. As a bit of trivia here: On every 1959 and 1960 Chevrolet, the rear quarters are joined to the back fascia (the rear panel of the trunk area) at a 45-degree angle, but you never see that panel line, do you? Not until you duck your head down, look at the underside of the rear corners of the "Bat Wing" fins do you see any at all! Fisher Body workers leaded in the seam on top of the fins, smoothed it down flush, and did likewise on the upper surface of the quarter panel where it forms the outline shape of the taillight area, up to just where the sheet metal curves outward to form the underside of the fin! There is almost no body lead on that part of the seam, and the edge of the filled area was often quite ragged in the bargain! No model company has ever created that bit of detail either! Art

Of course, one might consider the rather thin cross section of a lot of modern model car body shells. Given that a lot of rocker panels, and rather prominently so on even such as early Camaro's, could well present a cracking or breaking problem were there a recessed panel line, vertically at the bottom edge of the body shell. Consider that in the demolding of a model car body shell, while the generally-used 5 sliding core molds simply back away from their respective styrene surfaces, the body shell itself must be pushed (that's what ejection pins in the tooling do, BTW) off the larger core mold that creates the inner surfaces of a one-piece styrene body shell. Enough "tumblehome" (the curvature inward on otherwise vertical panels) in that shell, the solidified styrene body shell has to literally flex outward to come off that core mold. As such, that does create stress on the plastic, with the result being that a vertical groove which of course creates a weak place in the otherwise solid body shell--which in some body shapes could well crack, or even break significantly, the body shells. So, there quite probably can be an engineering issue that has to be considered. Art

I feel that a lot as well. However (and trust me on this one), once Detroit began producing chrome plated bumpers that moved beyond making bumpers that were little more than simple curved partial round or channel section steel bars, going instead to bumpers requiring multiple die strikes to wrap them around body corners, with bulbous, rounded ends, it's just impossible to mold such complicated bumper shapes in plastic injection molded dies without mold parting lines in highly visible areas. Now, of course, it would be possible to tool say, 1955-early 60's Chevy "California" bumpers in multiple sections just like the real ones, with separate bumper guards--but imagine the squeals of dismay from a lot of modelers at having to assemble all those fiddly parts, without getting a glue smear on the plating, or even scraping just that little bit of chrome off the plastic in order to have the added component adhere solidly. It's mostly one of those things which, in tooling up a model car kit with readily assembled parts that's almost unavoidable. Art

Knowing the folks at Moebius as I do, I think I can say that, business wise, they aren't that stupid! Art

IMO, your last statement couldn't be farther from the truth, period!

Not all true, sorry

Yup, for all of perhaps 2,000 kits sold or thereabouts. Unfortunately there are a great many cars I'd like to see in model kits (Tuckers are up close to the top of the page BTW), but sadly, many of those subjects simply would not generate nearly enough sales nor revenue to amortize the tooling. Art

A long-standing, good and valid formula here: You CAN paint enamels over dried lacquers (even if the lacquer still smells of lacquer thinner) as enamel paints use solvents which are "non-penetrating", that is they don't penetrate into styrene plastics, nor will they penetrate (dissolve or swell up) a coat of lacquer. A simple set of phrases will help: Enamel over plastic (of course) or enamel. Lacquer over lacquer, but NEVER lacquer over enamel. Water-borne enamels over both oil based enamels or over lacquer, but NOT the reverse. Art

More like it's pretty much out of proportion. Art

That shipping system was put in place by I believe, the Southern Pacific Railroad, with the cooperation of GM, but never really did take off. It was necessarily limited to cars of a length that could be accommodated in an upended fashion within the constraints of railroad clearances--for example, there are many rail lines in the northeastern US that to this day do not have the necessary height clearance for the now ubiquitous 85-foot long, trilevel automobile carrier cars used on all railroads for shipment of new cars (those same lines can't handle Amtrak's high level passenger cars either, for the same reason). The 85' trilevel cars were originally derived from the 85' piggyback flatcars which began showing up in freight trains in the late 1950's, and had the same advantage as the later trilevel auto racks: They could be loaded (and unloaded) in fairly long strings of railroad cars, by use of folding ramps at each end, which allowed semi-trailers to be backed down a cut of as many as 20 flatcars, dollied down and secured for travel, the driver simply driving his tractor forward to a small loading dock. Trilevel auto racks can be loaded and unloaded in much the same fashion, of course the new cars driven forward down a long tunnel of autoracks to be chained down for shipment--their drivers simply getting out of the cars, walking to the end of the car, and climbing down a ladder to go back to the loading dock for their next car. Rail yards and even factory loading areas simply didn't have the space for large loading platforms to which those new Vega's could be driven, or rolled to, and then onto their individual tilting ramps in a side-loading rail car. As such, the experiment was ended fairly quickly, with only a couple of hundred of that type of automobile carrying rail car ever being built. Art

I think very questionable, Harry. "Kids" don't necessarily go after, for example, TV or movie cars as model kits--I can recall quite well, from my young adult days working in a very large hobby shop here back in the years 1963-73, that model kits of TV or movie cars that were used as props on screen generally sold rather poorly, particularly in comparison to model kits of cars more readily seen in person (and those of all stripes!). What I do see in your post, and indeed threaded through this and the other model building forums I read and/or post in, is a "dream" of being able to somehow entice younger kids (say, the pre-16 age group) into taking up our hobby, which many of us have enjoyed, at least off and on since we were their ages. This is something that model kit manufacturers have tried numerous times over the years--"Make kits that kids will want to build, and watch them flock to the stores to buy them". Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, this is a ploy that has almost never really worked to any great extent. That said, I can well imagine that where a particular computer game car subject is already available as a model kit, a licensed (there I go, that profanity called "licensing" again!) version/release might well generate some additional sales. However, were I in the Product Manager's position in any model company, it would take a ton of persuasion, more than likely from upstairs, to get me to set a development team working on such subjects on my own, or by my persuading upper management to approve such--given that in a position such as that, my income, indeed my very job would be on the line with every new kit project undertaken. Too many klinkers, or even one really BAD decision--well, I'd be wise to have my updated resume' ready 365 days a year. Art

You might substitute "will dish out the price" for "can dish out the price" when discussing such as a resin kit. All purchases of things we buy for our own pleasure are the result of a conscious decision to part with money for something we really want and like to do or have, not a necessity we must take care of. As for the "skills to work with resin", just as with injection-molded plastic kits, there are resin kits and there are resin kits. In both venues, there are model kits that seemingly defy even the most skilled builders, and yet there are also kits that almost seem to "fly together"--having built my share of both styrene and resin kits, I think I've seen more than my share of each frankly. In all this thread, I see the "bottom line" as a matter of the popularity of any automotive subject in the model car marketplace. For sure, of the literally thousands of makes, models/body styles, and model years of just American cars produced since 1895 when the Duryea Brothers began producing cars, there have been all sorts, from highly popular and desireable ones, to those which just somehow didn't appeal to enough real car buyers for them to succeed in the marketplace. It's pretty much the same with model car kits--there are those which are highly sought after, wished for by thousands. But on the other side of the coin, there have been far more real car subjects which may appeal to smaller numbers (and often much smaller numbers, BTW) of builders that they just really don't have the mass appeal which would make them popular enough for any company to invest well up in 6 figures to bring to market--that's where resin kits come in--to fill, satisfy that niche. For a lot of modelers, the necessarily higher costs to produce a single resin kit really isn't a tough decision, while of course, for others the expenditure of perhaps 3 times the price of a comparable (yet different subject matter) styrene kit is a major purchase, one that might call for some real decision making. Art

Quite probable that the companies making promotional model cars were having to work off of automaker-provided pictures of approved styling clays, which for the most part had only the essential panel lines modeled into them (hood, trunk lid, doors, gas filler door). Art

Except that promo is a 1954 Plymouth, not a '53 (had a couple of them when was 10-11 yrs old, and that was back in 1954-55). Also, I don't remember ever seeing 1954 Promo's being sold in 1957, unless they were unsold leftovers with 3 yrs of dust on them. Art

The ordinary range of plastic cements, from pure liquids, to liquids containing a bit of cellulose, to the thicker, syrupy tube glue (such as Testors in the orange tubes) all are based on so-called "hot" solvents which actually dissolve the mating surfaces of polystyrene plastic (the plastic most commonly used in molding plastic model kits), which causes the two pieces to blend slightly together at the joint. They dry (or "cure" solely by evaporation. CA (short for cyanoacrylate) glues, commonly called "Super Glue" doesn't rely on evaporation to do its job, but rather it's a family of adhesive that goes from liquid to crystalline quite rapidly, triggered by a number of causes, most commonly pressure between the two parts being glued, moisture, temperature, along with the introduction of finely divided powders such as talcum powder or baking soda. CA glues come in a range of viscosities, from the extremely thin liquid grades found in the checkout lanes at "big box" retailers, to medium to thick viscosities found in hobby/craft shops and some hardware/home improvement stores, to even gel consistencies, and most recently even "flexible CA glue" designed for use with fabrics. There is a widely held notion out there that CA glues simply cannot, and should not be used for the assembly of clear or plated parts on a model kit. However, I've been using a commonly available medium viscosity CA glue for a good 25 years for a great deal of model car assembly, and use that almost exclusively for attaching clear parts (windshields, back windows, side and vent windows) into finished body shells, as well as ALL "chrome" parts. What is needed there, to prevent the "out-gassing" which leaves that smokey, cloudy film around the glue joint, is a liquid chemical "accelerator" which kicks a medium (almost always much slower setting) CA glue from liquid to solid in literally seconds. What is vitally important with accelerators is that they not attack painted, plated or raw styrene surfaces, which many will do. However, I found, back in the late 1980's, a brand of CA accelerator that not only does not attack painted or raw styrene surfaces, but itself is a slower evaporating, non-solvent liquid, which when sprayed on the CA glue joint, literally wets the surrounding surfaces, which prevents the vapors of the CA from creating that foggy appearance. I use just one brand of CA glue for almost all clear and plated part assembly: Goldberg SuperJet, which is available in many R/C oriented hobby shops as well a directly from Tower Hobbies. In addition, a company, Bob Smith Industries, has produced since the late 90's the brand of CA Accelerator I use: "Insta-Set", which comes in small transparent spray bottles (they package it in several sizes, along with offering 8-oz refill bottles as well). This accelerator is a blend of synthetic hydrocarbons and aromatic amine. Bob Smith Industries (BSI) also makes a range of applicator "nozzles" that slip-fit directly onto Goldberg Jet and SuperJet bottles, my favorite of which is their "BSI-345", a polyethylene (soft plastic) long needle tip (capillary tubing) which is perfect for applying CA's in tight areas, as well as tiny drops where needed. Again, a lot of hobby shops carry these, which are also readily available from Tower Hobbies. Art

Hubley also produced the 1960 and 1962 Country Squire wagons in 1/24th scale plastic. Also, AMT produced a 1961 Buick Special station wagon in both promo and 3in1 kit form, as well as the 1962 Chevy II wagon. AMT produced both 1964 and 65 Chevelle station wagons as well. Art