Dave Metzner

If you have customer service requests for Moebius Models Please contact our Customer Service via e-mail at customerservice@moebiusmodels.com I generally cannot help you as I'm just the product development guy. I'm located in Northern Indiana while our offices and warehouse are in Florida... I rarely have very many production kits here, and usually only get them after they're in the Florida warehouse. To be truthful all I can do if you contact me is pass your request along which only slows down the process. Thank you. Dave

I think that the 54 Interior is similar to the 53 except the dash which was new in 54.. I have photos of a 54 coupe that has same upholstery pattern and door panels as the 53 - I'm thinking that the only real difference in the interior of that car is the dash and It's alot different than the 53.. The body is a different story - only thing that a 53 and a 54 have in common is the roof and doors - Maybe trunk lid everything else is different - Chassis and mechanical components are same for 53-54...

Those things on top of the front fenders are just chrome trim pieces - Not lights... Just chunks of chrome... I checked a bunch of pics of real cars - see them on 1951,52 & 53 Hornets I have pics of a 49 Step Down Hudson and it has similar pieces of chrome on the front fenders

Looking today like we finally have resolved the last body shape issues..Hopefully we'll get back on track quickly... Right now I'm guessing shipment between end of December and end of January - arrival in stores between end of January and end of February... Maybe a little sooner if everything really falls into place - Right now the only thing holding us up is the body everything else is 99% of done Yes the Chrysler name will be engraved on the nose and the Chrysler 300 logos on the rear fenders. Dave

Still working on one particularly stuborn body shape issue - We've had a second test shot for about 3 weeks - sent corrections to the factory they've sent back 3-D files of the body which do not resolve that issue. Sending more information to them now in hopes of fixing this last problem... IF they get it right I may have a third test shot within the next 3-4 weeks - If that's right then we may have kits shipping by end of the year. The major re-work of the Hudson which delayed it by several months also affected schedule for the C-300. My best estimate for kits on store shelves is Mid-late January 2012 if we get the shape issue we have resolved quickly. Sorry it's taking so long - Dave

Monfort is a Colorado based beef packing company - far as I can tell they ran Kenworths - Google Monfort - and click on images - there are a couple pics of their big rigs... Dave

If you'll click on the top photo it ought to come up in a larger size and the label is readable.. It says "DO NOT DRILL HOLES IN OR WELD TO FRAME FLANGES" I'm no expert on big trucks but I think that this kind of warning appears somewhere on the frame of every big truck - Messing with the flanges of the frames on these vehicles is pretty much a No-No as the flages provide alot of the stiffness of the frame members Ive scoured my photos of the two trucks I shot and find no other labels on the frame. There are coolant spec labels and a fan warning label on the right side of the radiator of the Blue truck, They are NOT on the second truck I photographed - Another label that I see is a NO STEP on the tops of the fender parts which are attached to the frame - I think that these are some sort of plastic or fiberglass and I'm sure they will not take kindly to someone standing on them!

This is a truck we photographed in December 0f 09 The Blue truck, below was shot in July of 09 May be other warning labels this is the one I found in my photos Dave

Working on a couple projects - Hope that we can make announcements in October...

Here's a new MaxxForce 15 sitting on a pallet the blue color is visible in this photo hope this helps

Here's a shot of the hood hinge in place on one of the test shots.. double click on this pic to see it full size Radiator was not in place here I was still trying to figure out assembly sequence when this photo was taken - radiator should be in place when you fit the hood Hope this helps, Dave

Tim Flock drove more than one Hudson Hornet - I have several photos of at least two different cars - one is plainly a 1951 - it has the side chrome lower on the door than the 52 with a different shaped rear window and the shield shaped tail lights that sit up on the rear fenders - and from some of the photos I have at some point it seems to have lost some of the side chrome trim all together - there are also photos of the 1952 - those photos show a basically showroom stock 1952 - with the chrome spears as they appear on Sean's model..... Yes it is accuate and correct for all of the chrome trim to be in place on the 1952 car... It seem that there are more pics of the 51 than of the 52 out there...

Yes Hudson due to ship from factory within the next two weeks - C-300 could ship as soon as Oct 20-ish... Alot depends on test shots that should be on the way to me in the next 2 - 2 1/2 weeks... Stay tuned... I'll try to let everyone know whenever I find out... Dave

'52 and '53 bodies are virtually the same - only exterior difference is the grille and hood ornament... tail lights and rear window are the same.. 1951 has shield shaped tail lights and different deck lid chrome - different shaped rear window - different chrome trim on body sides - different shaped parking lights - lot less chrome around roof and side windows...We tooled both '52 and '53 grilles and hood ornaments as well as both 1952 and 1953 interiors - as they are significantly different... The Tim Flock car that Model King is releasing will be a 1952 I know of at least one aftermarket body that's in the works right now... and also know that there will be several others - Dave

All but one of our kits to date have been molded in the same factory - it's in Guangdong Province just North and a little West from Kowloon.... BTW Revell's current factory over there is within a mile or so of ours and Round 2 runs all of their kit production in the same neighborhood.... No way around it right now.. almost everything sold by US Domestic Kit mfgrs comes from the same one or two square miles of China...I guess that Revell still shoots some really low volume stuff in Illinois but only stuff that is too low in volume to pay for shipping the tools to China.. However anything like car kits would be produced there these days... For those of us who still build styrene airplanes - China is biggest location of factories - Checkoslovakia still has Eduard - Some - not all Tamiya is still done in Japan -Last I knew, they were producing lots of kits in the Phillipines - Airfix has started running production in India! ( the 1/24 scale Mosquito kit is produced in India)I guess it's less expensive than China? Wish it were practical to produce kits here, unfortunately that's just not possible. Truth is that full blown model kit tooling had not been done in the US for several years before the exodus to China-- most of the new tooling was being done in Windsor Canada by two tooling shops within a mile or so of one-another - all US manufacturers were having tooling made there then delivered to their manufacturing facilities - even as late as 1997 or 98....At the time I was at Playing Mantis we made a trip to visit one of those shops -at that time they were doing tooling for Revell /Monogram, Testors, and AMT/Ertl... I wonder if they're even still there...

First; Let me say that we're very gratified at the response that our Hudson Hornet kit is getting... Second; let me point out that no one has seen a finished production kit yet - Not even me! The Red and Cream car that's on my Smugmug site is a second test shot not even a final test shot - there has been a third test shot since that one and some changes have been made to it for production. For those of you who have been waiting for the last year and a half THANKS for your patience... Final approvals have been given for last few tootling tweaks,Decal sheets done, instruction sheets sent to the printer and as far as I can tell production will be starting shortly! Latest best estimate for shipping is for kits to leave the factory on or about 8/15- that ought to put them on store shelves by mid September... Dave

For what ever it's worth.......Art Anderson worked on Johnny Lighning die cast product line at Playing Mantis NOT the Polar Lights model kit line. Art did NOT design any Plastic kits... The Dodge Coronet, 1964 GTO and 2004 GTO were all designed by John Mueller, I did the Ford GT... Art Helped review test shots of some of the Polar Lights kits along with a couple other Johnny Lightning guys I was the brand manager for Polar Lights - I was responsible for those kits...NOT Art. By the time we got the 2004 GTO done I think that the quality of the product was really prety good - RC-2 bought us out before the Ford GT was done although I worked for them part time while that project and a few others were finished up. RC-2 killed the New Mustang project we had started and it never got beyond a quotation stage... As for the chassis of the new Hudson you'll have to spend quite a bit of time looking REALLY close at a finished model to see how the rear axle actually attaches to the chassis... Unless you plan on displaying your finished model upside down it seems like a pointless complaint... I have one sitting here that's finished I can't see how the rear axle mounts...And the pins on the headlight lenses are gone for production kits... Dave

Latest news: One last set of Hudson test shots is en route to me now. I have every reason to believe that the last few minor details will be dealt with and we can tell the factory to crank up mass injection! Instruction sheet and decals are all in the works and should be done shortly... Box is done.. I hate to keep saying it'll be a few weeks later than the last time I posted - right now I think we can expect shipment from the factory in early August.. arival in stores by early September - I'm really sorry that this is taking so long... Thanks to everyone for being patient... On another subject - we finally got the last body shape issues worked out on C300 and tooling revisions for the body should be under way...I'll try to post more information as soon as I see an updated schedule for it... These two cars have been a learning experience for us - hopefully new projects will proceed at a better pace... there were mistakes made on these that we won't repeat again! Dave

Second test shots are en route to me now.....if we can stay on schedule kits ought to ship from factory Mid July... that means kits on shelves mid August - C300 ought to be about 45 days or so later... if we don't have schedule slippage.... it's harder to make predictions on C300 as we're still tweaking a revised mock-up of that body!

55 C300 current schedule says shipping from factory 8/30/11.. I haven't got a second test shot yet so consider that date to be written in pencil and subject to some slippage... The second batch of Hudson test shots are on the way to me now... hopefully everything has been revised and we can get it into production in the next few weeks..If all goes well that kit ought to ship around middle of July from factory.... Stay tuned...........

There are two areas of the Lonestar that seem to be causing some confusion. #1 The eight mold tabs along the bottom edge of the cab - those shuould be removed - they are not locators just tabs left from the injection process. I intend to instruct our factory to remove these before packing parts in next production run! #2 Window installation: the windows are all designed to fit into the cab from the inside! Will include added instructio notes to make this clear on the next production run of kits Thanks, Dave

Once more, as I said there are choices that are made in the design of any model... there comes a point when some "nice features" won't be added. That was the case with LoneStar and will be the case with the next kit we produce... To be perfectly honest when we started this project - almost 2 years ago - we looked at some of the newer kits that are on the market and followed their engineering practices for some parts including the fuel tanks. Yes we could have made the lights along the bottom edge of the cab as separate chrome pieces and we could have added separate chrome inserts for the hood sides, we could make separate tools for the red lenses and the amber lenses and four piece fuel tanks, separate tools for steer tires and drive tires and probably at least a half dozen other items that would have been nice ways to do things. We could make this 300 part kit into a 350 part kit pretty easily...(4 piece tanks - adds 4 parts - separate chrome parts at bottom of cab & sleeper adds 4 more pieces - lets add chrome inserts to the hood sides - 2 more parts - Now the 306 part kit is 316 parts!) I can keep adding neat features to this thing until it's way more than 350 parts... The fact is that some things just didn't get done as separate parts simply because we looked at the other kits on the market and tried to do something ALL NEW that would be able to compete with them at a reasonable retail price I think that we did that pretty well...If we dropped the ball here I'm sure we'll figure out how to pick it up on the next project or the project after that... Dave

I am well aware of the four piece fuel tanks in earlier truck kits however at some point choices get made to make some things in fewer parts.. Since there is really almost no way to see the seams in the tanks on the finished model without turning it upside down (Something that I don't do very often with a model as big as this one) we went with two piece tanks.. On the first test shots the air cleaners were only two parts with a seam right thru their tops - after a suggestion that those would be better with separate tops we did change them.... On the two first test shots that I built & painted I simply hit the tops of the air cleaners with a file and chrome foiled them - doing the same with the tanks would be pretty easy... If we do something with exposed fuel tanks in the future we may do something different on the part layout.. Dave

So far so good! Really too soon to tell for sure.. we're encouraged by the reception that the kit is receiving. We're very pleased that the first container of kits was sold and we had a good start on the second before the first ever got here.. Should get second test shots of Hudson Hornet by mid May and second test shots of C300 maybe 45 days after that.. Dave

Good News! The first container has arrived and cleared customs so kits are shipping to wholesalers now... Should start arriving on store shelves and other retail outlets within the next week - 10 days or so! 1st container is sold out - second one is already en route... Should have enough for now....