Tom Geiger

And since Teslas came up... here's me with a couple of cars. We had dinner with the Tesla side of the family the other evening and they brought both specimens. The silver Model S is my cousin's car. It's about a year old at this point and I remember posting to the board about my experience in driving it. The red Model S is my uncle's car and is brand new. This is a new all wheel drive version. I got to drive it, and it has neck snapping acceleration! It's a bit faster than the original car. The silver car is registered in PA (no front plate) and the plate reads "Tesla 85" where my uncle lives in Maryland and his plate simply reads E-LATED.

Add in a Modelhaus resin kit that was mastered by George Ellis from my club. All of these are further nails in the coffin of a Tucker kit idea. A lot of the demand for that car has been satisfied by diecast and resin already. Then again, crazy things have happened in the past few years. I wouldn't complain at all if some strange new company from Latvia suddenly showed up with a full detail Tucker kit. Then the topic would be complaining that the kit cost over $30 A while back someone was pitching a new kit idea to me. I told them that the specific car was already made by Danbury Mint and there was a Modelhaus resin too. He told me I didn't understand... he wanted someone to come out with a plastic kit so he could get one at Hobby Lobby with his 40% off coupon! So.... some company should invest a few hundred thousand so you can get the kit on the cheap for $20???

Joe, it's one of those I-phone posting things!

So sorry to hear about your loss Joe. I lost my 14 year old Ted last fall. I still miss him every day!

Thanks Wayne! I've already done so. I lived in Germany for 3 years. And the guys on the stamp board went over it pretty closely!

Art is totally correct in the above statement. Just watch both Moebius and R/M and how they have to maximize their new tools over several to many versions to make it viable from a commercial standpoint. Our market just isn't what it used to be. Per Scott's question, the 1/24 diecast market was much, much larger than our 1/25 kit market in recent times. And the makers were more enterprising than the model companies, I remember seeing Danbury car ads in Australian car magazines. It simply is that ANY car guy could buy a Danbury or Franklin Mint vehicle and instantly have a very nice replica of a car they admired. And that audience is many, many times the numbers of guys who would sit down to build a model of that same car. Danbury and Franklin did put a big dent into cars from the 1950s (as well as other eras), so there are wagons and 4 doors that we'd never see in plastic. They are easy enough to buy, or for the modeler in us, easy to find on the 'bay in damaged condition as the basis for a model project. And we've seen some dandy work folks from our herd have done to build credible models out of diecast cars.

Great project and project ideas! There's nothing like building a model of a vehicle that you have history with!

Chrysler was always the smallest of the "Big Three" US automakers. You will always find more Chevys and Fords than Dodges because of the numbers originally produced. If you are serious about finding a Dodge pickup to bring back to Europe, do your searching in the dry US states like Southern California, Texas, New Mexico and the like. Dry climate states. Forget the East Coast since we have wet cold winters with lots of salt being spread on the roads. Our vehicles just rust away! And as always it's more expensive to buy a clean, nicely restored truck.... but much cheaper and less hassle in the long run!

I too would have liked to see the seminar, but it was scheduled at 2pm on Saturday when most of us were at the museum.

Fred, you are closer to Salt Lake than I am! There's no model show that isn't but one plane ride away! Go for it!

When my Jaguar got hit, the offender's insurance company totaled the car (one fender and bumper of damage) and offered me a small percentage of the car's value. Take it or leave it, and they wanted the car. So I told them to take a hike. That was during a tough time in my life when I couldn't take on another project, so I lost out. Otherwise I would've had to take them to court. Today, insurance companies are in the business of collecting up and selling damaged cars as a profit center. That's why you see truck loads of cars with minor damage on them. All from people swindled out of their cars.

Because that would be logical! Even Ikea gives you a couple extra screws in the bag! I recently was screwed by the decal sheet in the Revell of Germany Trabant. The decals on the wheel hubs are microscopic and you are centering them onto the curved wheel hub. Of the four decals, I lost two of them... literally lost as they are so small. One of them got stuck to the back of my finger nail! They could've easily put eight of them on the sheet at no extra cost. PS- Don't worry about me, a buddy of mine gave me four extras he had since he didn't use them on his kit. He saw how tiny they were and decided no way!

And now for the brief commercial-- The International Model Car Builders Museum is a magical place! Mark Gustavson and his team have spent the last 30 years researching the history of our hobby, finding and contacting the builders of influential models of the past and often acquiring those for the museum collection. In short, many of the iconic models, those that appeared in magazines and contests in the early years of our hobby are in the collection and on display. These are models we remember reading about as kids, and influenced the styles we built and how the art progressed over time. A side story... when I first got back to the hobby as an adult, I wanted to build a project of all eight of the Nascar Compact Class Valiants, so I ran an ad in Scale Auto Enthusiast Magazine, "Valiants, Valiants Anywhere?" wanting to buy Valiant models. I got good response, and it being 28 years ago the models weren't that expensive, and people often just mailed me old built ups and parts kits for free. The puzzling thing for me, was that every third first generation Valiant model (1960-62) had the rear end lopped off. I had no idea why, until a long time modeling friend of mine brought me Car Modeler Issue One, which featured Dave Shuklis's Bobtail Cat model. The most striking feature is that Dave had cut the rear off the model. Mystery solved, and that demonstrates how influential the magazine cars were to the average modeler back in 1962. And back then, little did I know that I would participate in the restoration of the Bobtail Cat and be able to actually hold it in my hands! (Al Raab did the restoration, I provided parts from my extensive Valiant parts hoard!). Look above at the photo of the Dave Shuklis models and the Bobtail Cat is the red Valiant up front. So again, the museum is full of valuable historical memories! As such, this collection needs and deserves the full support of the modeling community. The museum is perceptually in fund raising mode, just barely keeping the collection in it's space and intact! They need your support! The museum is currently a fantastic day for those of us fortunate enough to attend GSL and get to Salt Lake City, Utah, but the fact that this is all of our history makes it relevant to all of us. There are plans to create a virtual museum online, where folks from around the world will be able to tour the collection and learn this valuable history. And that all comes down to funding. The Tri-State Scale Model Car Club and NNL East are enthusiastic supporters of the museum and we are brushing off our Grow The Hobby Challenge to clubs and shows world wide. In our original challenge, we pledged that we'd donate $1 per paid NNL East show admission to the museum. We have done this for about the past ten years. We hereby challenge the hobby to match this pledge. A dollar per admission allows every show to donate to their own scale and ability. But if every show we know participated the museum would be greatly funded and would be able to move forward on projects that would greatly benefit our hobby. Clubs that don't have shows could do a fund raising event, like a donation auction, at a meeting once a year, donating the profits to the museum. There are many clubs and individuals who do support the museum now, and that's the very reason why it exists. Still there's much more we can all do. Do we have who will answer this challenge?

Fabrizio - I was pleased to meet you at GSL, and see your fantastic work in person. My favorite is the Janice Joplin Porsche, first for it's uniqueness and flawless execution, and second because I was able to watch you build it step by step here on the board! It certainly earned your GSL award! Congratulations!

Cool Rabbit! I hadn't seen one of these in years until a week or so ago. I saw a 4 door version (later model with the square sidelights) riding on a trailer behind a pickup. It was in poor shape, so I imagine it was on it's way to a restoration. At least I hoped so!

I cut one similar to yours in this photo. Same idea, to do a chopped pickup. Only I left the quarter windows and just added plastic to fill where I tore off the turtle deck! And that's as far as I got on that build!

Not a model but with all the aerospace models above it fits right in... I just got this, a real original flown Graf Zeppelin postcard. What makes this one special is the US 65 cent Zeppelin stamp. I just love history I can hold in my hands!

It was great meeting you all this week!

Too much stimuli, models all around and message boards with great ideas! I can sit at my bench and spot a dozen promising new projects without leaving my seat! That's why I started my annual Christmas Model Car Amnesty Build. I take a long suffering project and I force myself to drive it through completion. So each year I finish one model to the dozen or two I've started!

In New Jersey that's what it looks like when you cut off all the rust!

Thanks John! See photo above, the camper body came about in building the purple pickup some 10-20 (lost count!) years ago. It was sitting in the junk box and often in my paint booth using it as a paint stand all these years. One day I held it up and thought I'd do something with it. So it's pretty much a project from scrap. Less frugal guys would've tossed the van body (missing both ends) years ago! I haven't had time to build at all this year. The start of the year also starts the heavy NNL East prep period, and I went to GSL on the tail end of that. With all that behind me, I might just get to sit at the bench.... once my yard gets set up for the season!

Oh good, Art beat me to it! I think the numbers were something like 500,000 kits being a normal run in the 1960s, where 50,000 today is a run away success! Note that Moebius earned every sale of that Hudson and all of those different versions were what it took to justify and make a profit off a new tool in today's market.

Das right.... Dan would know since we spent the weekend together! That's me doing the NNL East awards this year... John Papp sent me the photo. I figured no sense in hiding!

Fabrizio it was nice meeting you at GSL! Always good to be able to put a face to a name as well as shake a hand!

Home Depot sells good strong moving boxes in small - medium - large that are perfect for moving or storing models. The price is right $1-2 each depending on size.