Chuck Most

Bruce Campbell (no,no... not THAT Bruce Campbell) owned a couple of Mobilgas service stations, the first of which opened in 1954. After being fired as a mechanic from the local Oldsmobile dealership, he was able to take ownership of a struggling shop on Ash Street (the tree, not Bruce Campbell's character in The Evil Dead series... but these parallels are weird...), he turned the operation around. The Campbell family still owns a number of gas stations across the state, although they're all convenience stores and don't perform auto repairs. From 1966 to 1974, the original Campbell station and the new location just off the 127 off ramp each got a light blue Bronco for snow plowing and parts chasing duties. Both new locations got a 1966 model. The Ash Street location traded in their '66 for a new 1972 model. The 127 stations Bronco was destroyed in a rear end collision in 1970. Fortunately the Bronco was the only casualty, and it was replaced with a new 1970 model three days later. Bruce's grandson Sam tracked down that one years ago and restored it, but the whereabouts of the 1972 and the two original 1966 models are unknown. Two significant things happened in 2021. Ford has launched a new Bronco, and the year marked Bruce Campbell's 100th Birthday, although he had sadly passed away in 2018. Allison Jordan, Bruce's granddaughter and the CEO of Campbell Convenience Stores LLC, wanted to lift spirits during COVID and maybe remind people of happier times. Allie's best friend's husband just so happened to be the sales manager at the local Ford dealership. A Bronco was ordered, and a plan was in place. The Campbell Convenience color is kind of a light blue. The brand new Bronc was resprayed in this color by the Ford dealership body shop staff. Shane, one of the body men, made the half cab and tonneau himself, having a good deal of experience working with fiberglass. He made the top so that the original rear window could be used. Some Campbell lettering and modern Mobil logos were made at the local sign and graphics shop. The plow was an old Western found on Facebook Marketplace. It was torn apart, refurbished and repainted. The plow is fully functional, although the Bronco will never be used to actually plow snow. It's just there for nostalgia, to make it more closely resemble the original Campbell Broncos. The Bronco spent the next year bouncing around to the various Campbell stations. The Bronco proved to be quite an attention getter, and more than a few customers immediately remembered the classic Broncos Campbell used to run. Since then, the plow has been removed and the grille guard and front skid plate have been reattached. Allie uses the truck as a daily driver, with the door lettering and Shane's pickup top still in place. Speaking of, Shane ended up with a decent side hustle making duplicates of the pickup top for sale. Model is, of course, the new AMT kit. The plow is from Moebius. No, you can't push snow with a real 2021 Bronco. The frame will fold like a futon. But it's a model, why not fantasize a little? Paint is Tamiya Light Blue and Pure White. Aside from the addition of the plow, modified top, and scratch built tonneau cover, and some obvious omissions of things like the back seat, it's straight out of the box. I'm still not a fan of the new Bronco, but I felt compelled to try the kit. They're growing on me, even though I think they look more like an updated Scout II than an updated early Bronco.

"It was just too weird to die." That's what Justin Martin says about his unusual 1966 Ford 3/4 ton. While scouting for parts for his 1966 Thunderbird project at Don's Auto Salvage, Justin stumbled across the F250, at first passing it by, but moving in for a closer look once he saw it was a short wheelbase 3/4 ton. Don had gotten the truck as part of an auction. All he knew was that it was owned by a service station and used car lot, and had been cut down for a 6.5 foot bed some time in the early 70s. The plow and one piece wheels were added about the same time. Don had scrapped the other vehicles from the auction in the years since, but he hung on to the F250, because it was such an oddball. Don's best guess was that it was converted to a short wheelbase because the owner wanted something a bit more maneuverable, but still wanted the 3/4 ton axles, suspension, and brakes to deal with the rigors of pushing snow. Don had even considered getting it running and using it to plow his own property, but then his grandson started doing that for him and the truck continued to languish. Justin made an offer, Don accepted, and Justin found himself with yet another 1966 Ford to restore. The truck originally appeared to have been white, with original black paint on the bed. At some point the truck was painted dark green on the cab and hood, but with black fenders, so Justin went with that. Somewhere back in time the engine had been treated to chrome valve covers and an open element air cleaner. Justin left them in place. He also upgraded to a dual chamber master cylinder with a booster and front disc brakes. He bought a set of reproduction hubcaps, two of which had hub cutouts. "Contrary to popular belief, Ford never made those hubcaps with open holes in the center for the hubs, but you can cut your own or buy repops with open centers", says Justin. Justin says he knows they are too new for the truck, but considering that the truck as it exists today appears to be a 1970s conversion, he felt they fit. "And they're the coolest looking Ford truck hubcaps, in my opinion." Justin says with a smile and a shrug. A year and a half after being dragged from it's long term parking spot at Don's, Justin had the finished truck out and about. He's currently doing some research about the truck's past. Apparently it was bought new by a service station in the Michigan thumb area, at some point it was registered to a guy named Ralph Gaylord who may or may not have owned the station, but otherwise, Justin hasn't been able to piece together the truck's past before it ended up at Don's Auto Salvage. The truck had door lettering at one time and Justin would like to find out what that was so he can duplicate it. But in the meantime, Justin is enjoying the truck. And the Thunderbird? Justin laughs. "Still trying to find the stuff I was looking for at Don's the day I stumbled upon this." The model is a Moebius 1966 F100 Flareside set up on the shortened chassis from the 1972 F250. Paint is Tamiya Racing Green and gloss black, with Chrome Yellow used on the snow blade. The paint scheme is similar to a municipal option Ford trucks had at the time, though not on the Custom Cab trim level. The truck itself is a restored version of the kinds of trucks I used to see parked behind sheds and in weed choked lots seemingly everywhere as a kid.

I saw a 1970s Dodge school bus. Of course, couldn't get a pic, but a few miles up the highway I saw this... well... this...

Ben and Frank (the B and F in BFE), have spent the better part of the last quarter century supplying local racers and performance junkies with parts and supplies. For much of that time, their company truck has been Ben's old Ford. His grandfather bought the truck in 1985, with the F250 suspension swap having been completed some years before. The truck served faithfully as a beater for years, including a fraught but profitable trip to Alaska and the Yukon Territory to pan for gold in 1986 and 1987. Ben's grandfather parked the truck in 1992 and Ben got hold of it seven years later. He drove it around as is until 2006, when it was treated to a black primer finish, copper accents, and BFE Motorsports lettering. A new front bumper, roll bar, spare tire carrier, and 1992 F-150 side mirrors joined the party at that time. In 2014 the old in-cab fuel tank was replaced by a rear mounted tank. Then the nasty old bench seat was replaced by buckets taken from Frank's long departed 1988 Mustang. The Alaska and Yukon plates up front were eBay scores, added as a nod to grandpa's old gold hunting adventures. At a repo auction in 2023, Ben and Frank were fortunate to find and successfully win a brand new Roush 511 FE crate motor. While they still paid a bit more than they wanted, they still spent significantly less than what they would have buying directly from Roush. Since the old 390 in the '69 was getting near the end of it's second rebuild, the duo opted to drop the 511 into the "company truck" as the most absurd stopgap ever. Eventually the Roush big block will end up in their Baja themed F100 project, but in the meantime, it lives in their flagship vehicle, providing tons of fun on every parts run. Model is various spare Moebius parts, with an engine top end from the Revell Foose F100. A bevy of bumper stickers and plates came from Gopher Racing decals. Finish is Vallejo acrylics over Krylon black primer and Tamiya Copper.

I like your rendition better than the actual T300 based Ramcharger built for the Mexican market. That one had a Caravan lift gate and was overall just kind of janky looking. ?

I think I used Duplicolor rust primer misted over flat black but I honestly don't remember what I did at this point. I got lucky because for some reason I painted all the blue engine parts except the air cleaner and happened to hit on the same blue I used on the rest. ?

I wasn't talking about that, I was talking about the job you did on them. ?

I almost painted it Grabber Orange since I had no intention of keeping it factory stock anyway, but using a color called White Lightning on a Lightning was just irresistible.

Weight savings. With that being said don't ask why I retained the spare tire. ?

Nice job on a kit that can be fussy, if it's anything like the other Revell 1997 F-150 spin-offs. Can't believe I've never built one of these myself!

Well... -1 for A&N's customer service, I suppose. At my job if I failed to pack part of a customer's order and tried to say they lost it I would probably be transferred to toilet cleaning duty.

I found a photo of an actual 1967 Open Road on a Ford chassis on a site called Canadian Listed. The buyer unfortunately only put up two photos. I thought about painting mine like that one but the color wasn't exactly appealing... I briefly toyed with painting it copper but Coral Blue just kept calling to me so I went with that. Good luck with your Open Road, if yours is even 10% as warped as mine was, you're gonna need it. ? I would actually love to build an original issue of the Open Road. First, because of that old, rigid plastic. And second, it would cheese off the unbuilt kit collector types so bad. ?

Just from the pictures I can hear and smell what would be coming from a real F100 in this condition. (Mostly I'm hearing the clunk of bad radius arm bushings and smelling stray fuel and coolant.) ? The small mud guards are a really nice touch.

Can't even begin to articulate how much I'm not a fan of the new Bronco (or Bronco Sport) but man is that a nicely executed model. You did an excellent job on both. And it's a cool comparison next to the first generation.

My direct boss is American. Believe me.... I'm waaaaaaaaay more disrespectful to him than I am to the folks from Windsor. ?????

Oh, Canada. Always doing things a little bit differently than your perceived unstable hillbilly neighbors to the south. We have Starbucks, you have Tim Hortons. We have Five Finger Death Punch, you have Nickelback. We have a 50 caliber Browning for every day of the week, you have healthcare. You have maple syrup... well, I guess we also have that. And from 1947 to 1968, Canada had Mercury pickups. Change pickups to trucks, and Mercury had them up to 1972. Although the rest of the Mercury truck range went away in 1968, the C Series tilt cab was sold as a Mercury until 1972, for no reason I can discern. Something something something Ford's Canadian dealership network. As you might expect, they're mostly just Fords with different decorations. There are three quick ways to tell them apart if you're ever in doubt... 1. The badging (obviously). Earlier Mercury trucks had completely different grilles, but by the end, the difference amounted to badging. 2. The VIN/serial number. Again, obviously. 3. The accent. Tell the truck your home was damaged in a recent storm. An American market Ford will say "sorry about your house". A Canadian Mercury will say "soary aboot yer hewse". Thanks to Morgan Automotive Detail you can do what I did and bring a little piece of the Great White North to your display shelf with one of his awesome Mercury conversion sets. Not that I have to... I work for a Canadian company, on a clear day I could probably see Ontario, and I've seen every episode of Trailer Park Boys at least once. So I get more Canadian exposure than anyone this far from the border should. But I just had to build a Bumpside Canuk Merc. The 1967-8 version comes with a decal for the hood lettering, and resin tailgate, hubcaps, and cowl emblems. The basic kit was the 68 F250. I had planned to renumber the badges and keep the 3/4 ton specs but I didn't want to maul the nicely molded badges. So it's a half ton now. I used tires from an AMT Ford Courier, and lowered the front suspension a little. The 300 six has a turbocharger and conical air filter from Iceman Collections. Because why not. A cut down AMT 59 El Camino console houses a T handle floor shifter, and I used a later style Ford steering wheel. Why a turbo 300 six, you ask? Why not, I ask in response. Paint is Tamiya French Blue, hence the Quebec plate up front. I did the firewall, interior, and some of the underside in a darker blue to indicate that the truck was repainted at some point in time. On the real truck the vertical grille bars were blacked out. Instead I painted them in matching French Blue, just to do something a little different. I managed to get the Mercury hood decal slightly off center, and while talking the photos I noticed the paint on the left backup light is smudged. And I somehow completely forgot the rear cab cross member. I might fix that and the backup light, but I'm going live with the off center lettering. I worked on this while I was waiting for paint and adhesive to dry on the Motorhome I finished yesterday. Probably a big shock but I like these Moebius F Series kits.

I started this last summer, maybe the summer before. I began with the Moebius 1967 Ford F100 Service truck. It was basically built as a chassis cab, with Monogram dually wheels and a sixth tire from another Moebius kit added. I filled in the mirror locator holes, and whittled down the tailpipe so I could slip a length of K&S aluminum tubing to extend it past the camper body. Yes, the fender badges still say 100. I'm not gonna worry about it. ? On the back is an AMT Ertl Model King Open Road Camper. The Moebius Fords have a reputation for warped parts. This one had a slight bend in the hood. But the Open Road Camper? Reminds me of the Ministry song "Warp City". I managed to get it to more or less fit together, though the door and rear porch don't open and the theoretically removable roof panel is glued down. I did detail the interior a little bit knowing it was going to end up sealed up I didn't go nuts with it. A different number of shims on each corner got the lumpy floor to sit level on the Ford chassis. I lost the side step near the end of the project, so I fabricated a new one from Evergreen strip. Paint is Tamiya Coral Blue and whatever gloss white I grabbed first. The truck interior is a mix of Coral Blue and Black, while the camper interior is Revell brown and ochre, with white bedding. The seats are white with Coral Blue inserts.

When Cory's beloved 1993 Lightning was demolished in a collision, he decided to combine the salvageable stuff with what was left of his grandfather's old 1972 F-100. The engine, rear axle, rear bumper, wheels, seats, and center console were transferred over, and the truck also got a rear fuel tank, tonneau cover, and a Lightning inspired paint job. He did keep the 72s original four speed manual though. Kit is the Moebius Sport Custom, treated to parts from the AMT Lightning. Paint is Tamiya Pure Red and gloss Black.

Ford dropped the Lightning after the 1995 model year, but the ninth generation F-150 continued for one more season. The F-250 and F-350 got to stick around until 1997. I got to thinking, what if Ford had continued the Lightning for 1996, as a way of giving both the ninth generation half ton and the Lightning a proper sendoff? Base kit is the 1992 Flareside. It naturally has the Lightning front bumper. I also removed the cab steps and made rocker extensions from square Evergreen strip. The small chrome Lightning emblems came from a Rays Kits Decals North America F Series graphics sheet. Inside I updated the steering wheel to an airbag equipped version, stealing the wheel and column from a Revell 1990 Mustang. Under the hood I added a supercharger from a Revell Shelby. It sits on a modified dual carburetor manifold. The thought process was to bridge the gap between the real life first generation Lightning (naturally aspirated, Styleside bed), and the second gen Lightning (supercharged, Flareside bed). Paint is Tamiya Italian Red.

AMT reissue. The box says it's a 1994, but the non-airbag steering wheel says it's a 1993, so I'm going with that. The Budnik wheels, tires, and steering wheel are from the custom AMT 1967 Impala. I added a multifunction stalk and gear selector to the steering column. The engine was converted to look like a Clevor (Windsor block with Cleveland heads) with AMT NASCAR Thunderbird heads and valve covers. The custom intake comes with the Lightning kit. The truck is lowered a bit and painted with Testors White Lightning. The Ford oval on the tailgate and F-150 fender badges are from Rays Kits Decals.

Orange one represents a 1981 model and has a Rupp mini bike, an AMC 401 V8, and a '32 Ford front suspension. The green one represents a 1973 model and has a Chevrolet 454, Rat Roaster wheels, tires, rear axle, and complete front suspension. The grille is a DJ that I bought from Motor City Resin Casters probably more than a decade ago.

Extremely nice! May be your first model in a while but you certainly didn't ease back into the hobby. ?

Love it. Bonus points for keeping the straight six. ?

I started this back in 2019. It just kinda languished until I wrapped it up this weekend. The idea was a rod built up around various cast off items found on or around a farm. The body, dash, and pickup bed came from the AMT chopped coupe. Various 1930s Ford components make up the front suspension. Rear axle and springs are 1953 F100. The Mopar flathead six... Let's say it's an industrial version taken from a Massey Harris combine... Wears a finned head from The Parts Box, a scratch built intake and header, and a smashed mailbox as a scoop. It also has a Morgan Automotive Detail prewired distributor. The Cockshutt tractor grille and cast iron style tractor seats came from Maple Leaf Model Parts (?) on Shapeways. Rear wheels and tires are Scenes Unlimited. The bed is filled with a beer keg turned into a fuel tank and milk crate from Iceman Collections. The business end of an old manure spreader was scratch built and added to the back.

AMT body and interior on a chassis from the AMT 1965 Rat Packer Nova. This is the third in a series of "let's use this chassis from a Nova kit under something besides a Nova" projects. ? First was a 1960 Ranchero on the 66 Pro Street chassis, then the 1962 Oldsmobile F85 on a Moebius 65 Nova gasser chassis, and now this. I built the Hudson 308 engine years ago for a rat rod that went another direction, so it finally got used here. The 8 bolt truck wheels with floating hubs were from Scenes Unlimited. Paint is Tamiya Park Green, same color I used on the engine years ago, except that was airbrushed from a jar and the body is rattle can. I stole the side mirrors from a 1970 Super Bee. The side pipe is from a 1953 Ford F100 flip nose.