Chuck Most

These were fantastic looking highway tractors, even in brown it seems! Very nice job on this one.

You might be right on- I do have to confess I've never really paid that much attention to Walmart's rigs, having worked for Meijer and all. Since I actually started watching out for them, though, I've noticed quite a few more of them- I've even spotted the one in the photo a few more times since.

Love how it looks in those colors- they really jazz up the otherwise plain-Jane Road Boss. I wouldn't let Keith Moon behind the wheel with it parked that close to the pool, though...

I was reading an article by noted AMC historian Pat Foster on Nash and Rambler police vehicles, and this car was mentioned. One officer was quoted as saying it would be perfect for parking enforcement duties, and went on to suggest that the car was so small a female officer would be able to easily drive it, thus saving the precinct money and freeing up the male officers for the more serious work. Yeah, that was what the gist of what this particular cop said. Ah... very politically correct times, the '50's.

X2. I'm actually messing with the idea of getting good at soldering so I can just make up my own mirror brackets, so I don't have to live through the headache of messing with kit mirror brackets like these.

I've been disappointed a few times, but the biggest one for me was when I got the reissue of the AMT '50 Ford convertible a few years back- during the twilight era of the RC2 ownership. I was expecting flash and maybe a few warped parts, but this thing was just silly. It was absolutely riddled with molding errors, and a couple of short shot parts for good measure. The body was so bad I knew I couldn't get a decent result trying to fix it. Best of all was RC2's refusal to try and make amends- emails and snail mails regarding the matter went unanswered. So, the kit went in the trash (I didn't even bother trying to save anything from it) and the next time I needed a '50 Ford drop top I just sought out a Millennium Edition version, which, though still fairly rough, was a much better quality molding than the later reissue. I actually stopped buying RC2 products for a while after my experience with that turd of a kit, though I went back when Round 2 took over.

Snagged a few more...

A few more pics I've "rediscovered" moving my stuff from Fotki- the White Freightliner would be an easy one to do with the AMT kit- the newer non-White Freightliner might be too, but a little less easy. Either would be fun, though.

It brings you about two winter's worth of firewood. At least, that's what happened with me.

I called him once just to say hi. Well, and to order his altered-wheelbase how-to DVD.

Thanks guys. Like I might have implied- the actual process of building this one wasn't pleasant, but I'm happy with how the model came out. Just don't expect another Road Boss from my workbench anytime in the near future.

By middle of the mitten, are we talking St. Louis or therabouts?

The old MPC second-generation Ford Econoline van is pretty nice too, if you can track one down. MPC was really pushing hard for 1:20 scale back then, and later when George Toteff was in control of Lindberg in the early '90's he tried it again, resulting in the kits Matthew just mentions. I can back up everything he has to say about them, and throw in that, because of the "oddball" scale, you can usualy score a sealed example for relatively cheap. They're about as good as any of the modern light truck kits from other manufacturers of the time as far as detail and overall accuracy goes, just in a larger size. In fact, that's really the only major gripe most modelers seem to have with them- the scale itself.

Very nice! I personally think the mud looks about right, like it just drove off the site and down a short stretch of dirt road before it hit the main highway.

I know a guy who had a project like that going on, but he was using the 1:16 Revell Pete. I'll have to get back with him and see if he ever made that work.

Great detail, and that paint combination just plain knocked me out. Nice!

That it did. Wrecker boom and a few other added-on accessories aside, it appeared to be otherwise stock.

I actually started this last year- added the front fender extensions and cab extensions, did the bodywork and paint, and installed the grille and headlight bezels before it went back in the box for a year. This might be the worst-fitting kit I've built in a while (not worst of all time for me though), but once I had it all figured out I was pretty pleased with the end result. I always hear of the old timers talking about building models and then blowing them up with firecrackers. I never did that as a kid, but there were a few times during the building of this one that I got to thinking if there's really ever a bad time to start... It is mostly box stock, with the exception of the front wheels (cast iron spokes from a Diamond Reo) and the mirrors (from a Ford C-600, after the kit's passenger side mirror mysteriously walked away during the project). The paint is White Argent Silver, the color used on White's line of farm tractors- eventually the plan is to pair this up with a Loadcraft lowboy loaded with a John Deere tractor... let's just say a 1:25 scale farmer came to his senses and decided to trade up from that green monstrosity. Some '70's style WFE logos and dealer markings will likely end up on the doors once that happens. I was going for a simple, basic look... a little on the plain side, but not quite "fleet spec" plain. I won't say I nailed the look was after, but it ended up better than I expected. All in all, not the most fun to build kit ever, and the resulting model isn't the finest looking semi tractor on my shelf, but despite all that (or maybe because of it?) I'm still fairly pleased with the outcome. Anyway... Here it is as of now.... I added the turn signals and side markers, as well as some door markings for a fictitious "Great Lakes MM-Oliver-WFE" dealer. The Great Lakes graphics came from a Monogram Porsche rally car, the others are from Bossen Implement.

The Modelhaus wheel and tire set would be the closest thing out there- those are what I used on my Michigan State Police '97 Ford. For some reason Don lists each year separately (1992,1993,1994,1995,1996, 1997 instead of as just '92-97) but they're all the same set. Those wheels and tires were actually carryover from the previous generation LTD Crown Vic.

Great piece of work on this one, ESPECIALLLY for a first-time scratchbuild. Can't wait to see what you cook up next.

The 108" hood looks great- a little less cumbersome than the 122" BBC setup the kit has. Some semis look great with long hoods, I guess for me the Road Boss just isn't one of 'em. I wasn't in any big hurry to build another Road Boss, but now I'm thinking I need to give that 108" hood a try on one.

Just might be the best color combo I've seen on one of these yet. Very nice.

As far as the AMT kits go, you picked a pretty good one to start with. This one's actually a pleasure to build compared to some of them.

I typically build day cabs, but even so I might pick up a couple of these.

While I do hope Moebius can work out deals with other manufacturers, more Class 8 Internationals would be just fine with me. If in the end it came right down to a choice between only the WorkStar and PayStar I'd be happy either way, but I'm personally leaning toward the WorkStar, mostly because that might open up the possibility of a MaxxPro MRAP. Yeah, I doubt that Moebius would do a 1:25 MaxxPro, but with a WorkStar kit you'd have a big chunk of usable parts to start with if you wanted to roll your own, and there's the sliver of a possibility an aftermarket conversion kit would appear. I'd love to try it out. I'd also love to do one as a snow plow, and I'm thinking the guys who build fire apparatus would love to have one. Even barring that little flight of fancy altogether, you could do any number of variants on the WorkStar kit, and even a few more Military (non MaxxPro) variants, no matter how Moebius chose to outfit the kit (ie dump truck, highway tractor, etc.). I'm pretty sure somebody like Dave Carey would jump in with extended and crew cabs for it. Then again, quite a few possible building subjects a modeler could wring out of the PayStar, as well. I think the WorkStar is just a bit more flexible as far as possible applications, thinking in terms of both how Moebius will equip their kit and what else is possible beyond that, once the modeler decides to have a little fun with the subject. Even if Moebius released the kit as just a tandem straight truck it would make more than a handful of people happy.