Tom Geiger

into the audience

Nice line of cars! I'd love to get that Dodge! People don't realize those were made in Spain. I have an HO scale one. I see there is one eBay seller from Spain. Average cost US is $45 plus $16 postage. Not bad!

You have to admire that he only takes in the orders he believes he can fill instead of just blindly accepting orders and money without any plan! Ron is a stand up guy. I bought a Falcon wagon from him at Toledo

and the problem is that you need to sell many more times that to pay for tooling. Watch what Moebius does as a niche / boutique manufacturer. They get several versions of a vehicle to market over time to make it feasible. I wouldn't say never, as surprising things happen now a days as new manufacturers pop up out of nowhere! Moebius would be a company to watch for this subject matter as it does fit their MO. I do find it interesting how people campaign for cars that models do exist if indeed you just have to have one. As pointed out in this thread, old original kits are out there. Old built ups of original kits are out there. Set up an eBay search agent and you'll get emails when they are listed. And as said, there have been resin copies available, and we get that old whine of how much they cost vs a new plastic kit. Then we have the threads where we all whine about the cost of new plastic kits! No doubt that the day a manufacturer does actually come out with this kit, there will be people whining that it should be sold at Ollies for $8! ?

How many of you watched the "Undercover Billionaire" series on the Discovery Channel? It was an 8 part series, you need to watch the episodes in order, where a self made billionaire was dropped off in a city where he knew nobody, had no contacts, with $100 cash and an old pickup truck. His goal was to provide for himself and create a million dollar business in 90 days to prove the American Dream was still alive. It's well worth watching, and you no doubt can DVR or watch on demand. Anyway, after watching the series, I noticed that the locale of Erie Pennsylvania was only a half hour off my route home from Toledo on Sunday, after attending the last NNL Nationals. So Bill and I were up to trying the best ribs in Erie! And to see the restaurant that was created during this series. Here's the famous Underdog BBQ that won the Erie Rib Festival for both best rib and best sauce! And you can't find fault with the car parked outside! Where you are greeted The best ribs in Erie! Straight from the slow cooker with nice rub on it. There's two of their sauces, and their own Underdog lager beer! I only got half a rack because I had their smoked wings prior! Here's me with their swag. Yes, I did buy a t-shirt. How could you not? And here I am with Cowboy Mike, the pit master! He was a major player on the show and was there on Sunday. A truly nice guy who talked with everyone and thanked us profusely for coming! Behind us is the smoker they made for the Erie Rib Festival on the show. And that's Mike's Harley. He drove off right before we did, so we followed him until our first turn. and that's what I had for dinner on Sunday!

Great start! That must be every bottle of Tamiya paint in Ireland!

Guys, when you look at ancient show cars, dream cars and even production vehicles, you are looking at them with 2019 eyes and experience. Of course they look dated and frumpy to us! To appreciate their place in history, you'd have to go back to the set of experiences of the average person in that era... people who had never heard of a Mustang, Camaro or Barracuda. People who were caught up in the new jet fighters and were very excited to see styling cues like fins and tail lights that looked like jet exhausts on their cars in that specific era. I remember when the Fox Mustang first was unveiled in 1979. It was so different than the Mustang II that we were excited. In fact we ran out and bought a new 1979 Capri right away. People were stopping us on the road asking what this new cool car was! I look at that same car today, with the knowledge of car designs since then and it looks old and dated to me. And that's how it goes! This car was monumentally futuristic and space age in 1954. Read the attached article to see the futuristic elements built into this car... remote control, experimental Goodyear light up tires to see why this car is significant. I'll bet those poking fun at it didn't read the article!

Hey Bill! A funny thing... I went to the last NNL in Toledo this past weekend. And look what I pulled out of a junk box! I will most likely use your bed sides for my Steinbeck truck project, I'll save this box for another build! Note the rest of the body is trashed. Custom hood is okay but someone cut the doors out poorly, the door is way small in the opening!

or California dreamin'

Come on Bill! Get er done!

Very nice! Love the six!

Hey Charles- Welcome! Your story is pretty typical for us guys! Most of us started as kids, quit for years and rediscovered the hobby later in life! Your paint brush story triggered memories! I remember buying three 15 cent containers of Testors paint, wanting three colors rather than two colors and the bottle of thinner! I had one 10 cent brush, so I'd paint one color, then plunge the brush into the second color and paint on the side of a model box until I had worked out all traces of the first color! That brush was toast at the end of the day. Then I discovered my mother's stash of Q-Tips and painted with those! At least they were disposable!

From the day I bought my Geo Tracker in 1991 I had people telling me it was dangerous and I was surely gonna die! That was from all of the hype about the Suzuki Samurai and I got tired of explaining that this was a bigger model with less chance of rolling over. I still have it, and never even had a close call with it. The most dangerous car I owned was probably the 1963 Studebaker Lark 4 door sedan. My dad had one when I was a kid, so I bought it for old times sake. At the time I realized that Newman and Altman sold nearly everything I'd need to restore the car so I planned on redoing it as a police car. I bought it in the 1990s, and upon stripping it down we realized that not only was the bad paint job done maybe in the 1980s but the entire car was rusty and someone merely smoothed over some body putty on it. The roof was barely secured at the front. Both A pillars were rusted through at the tops, plus the entire drip rail (yea it had a drip rail over the windshield which wasn't a bad idea) was formed of putty. Both B pillars were already gone at the bottoms and had been riveted in place and puttied over. Upon removing the rusty front fenders we could see that the entire cowl was rusted through and the fenders weren't even attached at the upper rear edges. The floors had appeared solid, again the entire floor was cheap metal riveted in place, puttied over and painted. On the underside, the car had a thick spray can undercoat to conceal this as well. It was evident that this car would fold like a pretzel if hit. And likely to explode into parts on the highway. Thus we abandoned the restoration. It sat in my garage for many years still completely broken down, no nose, no glass, no interior and we had chemically stripped it down to bare metal so it had a patina of rust over the entire body. Push came to shove and I tried to sell it as a project car. I had paid $500 for it and had bought $2000 worth of parts including NOS doors, bumpers, front nose piece and fiberglass fenders. After a few times advertising it as a project, I went and listed the parts. That got action. Turns out the local Studebaker chapter sent it to all their members and I wound up making over $4000 just for the parts. Someone even came and cut the rear quarters off of it. My only rule was it still needed to be on 4 wheels and rolling so I could get rid of the carcass. Right before I was going to have it towed to the junkyard, I gave eBay one last shot... 6 cylinder engine and auto trans for $600, not expecting anything. It immediately went on the Buy It Now! I gave the guy the entire rolling monstrosity and he paid a friend of mine to tow it to his house. He was doing a restomod on an old Studebaker pickup and my 75,000 mile drive train was going into this. I never saw the end result. The parts went to a bunch of nice projects. My favorite was the fiberglass fenders went on a drag car in upstate New York. The guy who bought them had a brother who lived local to my house in Pennsylvania (I advertised it all out of my old house in NJ) and picked them up at my office. I do have a photo of the final product. I still have the nose piece, and all of the trim for it. I intend to do wall art with it someday. At least I was wise enough to realize this car was toast and not put it on the road, except for the ride home! The day I drove it home. Cowl completely rusted through Entire front header and A pillars were rusted through and filled with putty You could get an amazing array of parts for this car through the Studebaker Drivers Club dealers, especially Newman and Altman that bought out the entire Studebaker factory (they were the original Avanti II producers) and their parts inventory. Studebaker never did inventory or threw anything away. This is the entire nose piece. I still have this and will make wall art out of it someday, using the old trim pieces. I sold all the NOS ones. "Vanity" dashboard (that thing sticking up is a mirror) below the drink holders was makeup compartments. New repro tail lights NOS Original headlight trim Parts like this entire grille in original Studebaker boxes! I had 4 new doors, each in a burlap bag with Studebaker stenciled on it. Trunk lid emblem NOS 4 brandy new door handles and here she was on the way out!

Thanks Howard! It was good to see you as always! And it was great meeting Rob Hall face to face! I've known him at least a dozen years on line, so it was nice to meet him in the flesh! It was wonderful how many people came to this event from far and wide. I met many people for the first time, and missed others, only realizing they were there in going through the photographs of the models! It truly was a magical weekend! Bittersweet, as it was the last time!

A fun model! I think you know that there is a 1:1 Dodge A100 Mystery Van hitting car shows

Duh! Yes I checked and I did buy the set from you. I guess I'm good to go now! ?

You have one shot each at GSL (last one 3 yrs from now) and Toledo NNL (last one is Saturday!)

Those wheels send a shiver down my spine! Many years ago I lost an entire finger nail to a metal spoke wheel (no power steering) recoiling on my '65 Barracuda! Ouch!

farted very loudly

They look very nice! Somehow I got on their email list. I get notices of each new product which includes photos. The address these come from is hobbydesign385@gmail.com Drop them a line and they'd most likely be happy to put you on their list!

thistles and rat fur

I don't have a photo, but I believe some do exist. My father was a photographer, but most of his stuff was on slides. I have several huge boxes stored, but haven't dug into that Pandora's box of my life just yet! Lap belts did exist in the 1950s. Ford offered a safety theme in 1956 that included lap belts, padded dash and safety dash. It was lost on car buyers back then! My father was a US Army officer and the army had put safety first a long time ago and he believed in seat belts. All of our cars that I remember had them, beginning with the '62 Lark!

I saw something on Facebook today... Okey Spaulding will have a few copies of some of his kits at the final NNL Nationals this coming weekend. He will have a number of the Corvair pickups, and a sprinkling of a few other kits. Someone asked him if he'd sell now, and he said to contact him for whatever is left over after the show.

Oh, a question... Bill are you planning on doing a 1960ish Chevy long bed box? Or do you know anyone who does one? (Before I start sawing plastic!)

Dave, is there a setting for family appropriate ads only? I am seeing some naughty ads showing adult toys and dress up!