Tom Geiger

I have no dog in this race... I haven't seen his web page... all I can say is the math presented here doesn't make any sense. Just like offering embroidered hats for a set price and having no idea on how to produce them... nobody produces an injection molded new kit and sells 500 copies. You'd need to produce 5 to 10 times that quantity to break even.

I used to go into Michaels regularly with my printed 40 or 50% off coupons. I never found a kit I needed, so I'd be resigned to buying a can of Testors flat black or dullcote at the discount. It got to the point where I'd find nothing at all to buy! Then I'd look around for some craft lady with a big item in her cart and give her the coupon. At least I made someone's day!

Frank, you don't get it because you are a youngster! Tom Lowe and John Gretzula are old modelers who have bought up all this old tooling out of love of the hobby and the past. They know exactly how to market them with historic box art, new improved parts, new printed tires and such. They are tugging at the nostalgic heart strings and they've got a lot of our aging herd buying kits we already have multiples of just to get the new features! And another thing I found interesting.. as our herd only accounts for maybe 1% of kits sold... I read that the average casual modeler only stays with the hobby a year or two. So if they reissue all the old stuff every two years, it's brand new to the majority of their target market!

And the kits would be $60 each. That ship sailed a long time ago!

As said there is nothing like Tamiya tape! Yea pricy but you get what you pay for. I use the Tamiya tape for the critical edge. Then I butt up cheaper blue tape to it and cover the rest of the model with that! Only use the expensive stuff for that one critical edge!

Lookin' Good Rich! A few thoughts! Those are super long tail pipes! I'll bet they are two piece in real life. On most of my models I'll cut up the exhaust... tail pipe, muffler, front pipe... and then reattach them with bits of straight pin. That's because in some kits they want you to do final placement of their one piece exhaust before adding the rear assembly etc. Doing it my way allows me to fish the parts through and even adjust angles etc before I add glue to the pins for final placement. I agree with you on plumbing... in my old age (and you got me by 10 years!) I'm no longer trying to build show stoppers, so I do the hoses, distributer wiring, and I only do battery cables as far as you can see them from the top. I also will add a brake line from the master cylinder, but again, only sticking downward until it goes out of sight! Keep going! You are near done!

Argh! I had a whole response typed and went to hit "POST" and my left hand went over some key that deleted the entire post! So here I type again... I never had an issue with four door cars. Maybe because I grew up in countries where they were more common due to tax laws that put extra costs on 2 doors as a luxury. Think Europe and Australia. And four door car have been more the norm in the US for the past 20 years or so, so young folks today have no bias. My daughter who is 31 and single bought a Ford Fusion. When I asked she said she wanted four doors because it was easier to get in and out. I do like the photos in the first few posts here, I had been lusting over a '34 Ford Fordor street rod on eBay. I believe that these look better than two doors of that same era since they have that coach look with extra quarter windows behind the rear doors. And I'd buy that car just because it's a bit different than everyone else's street rod. I also had a thing for a yellow and black '56 Chevy 4 door hardtop I saw for sale. It even had a six and powerglide! And it could be had for at least $10k less than a two door! I would have been proud to own that one as well! And a funny story about four door bias... going a ways back, my friend Greg was on the ropes. He had gotten divorced, lost his job, had no car and was living in a Single Room Occupancy hotel. My father had a 1977 Ford LTD II four door sedan that we had collectively put 200,000 on it. He had recently found a similar 2 door hardtop with 50,000 miles on it, so he was upgrading. He had planned on selling the sedan, but hearing Greg's plight, he offered to give him the car, knowing he needed a car to find a job. So I picked up Greg and brought him to my dad's house. He looked at the two cars sitting side by side in the driveway and told my father that he wouldn't be caught dead in a four door, but he'd be happy to accept the two door for free. My father went nuts! He chased Greg off the property!

I'm in the camp of "why on Earth would anyone spend $30k on a new car?" I'm hoping the new Mustang is such a success that the resale value of the current model falls drastically to the $10k I want to spend on a good used car. Note my last dance in this arena was buying a new 1979 Capri RS with V8 for $6500 out the door... and we got $1500 trade in for the '74 Mustang II!

Back when I was selling my 73 Barracuda the first time, I had a young guy and his mother show up to look at it. As they walked around the car, mother was asking stupid questions like if I was offering a warranty on the car (it was 13 years old and was $2000). Junior got behind the wheel and floored it. He grabbed all the gravel where the street met the grass and showered me, his mother and my other cars with rocks and gravel. He fish tailed about 50 feet and came within inches of hitting my neighbor's retaining wall. I literally pulled him out of the car by the back of his shirt, him squirming and flailing his limbs as I placed him down on the sidewalk. He looked at me and said, "I gotta try it out man!" like I did something wrong. It took a lot not to hit him. I advised Mommy that we were done and to get Junior the heck off my property. I wouldn't have sold my car to that clown... and mother thought I'd give him a warranty?

Good thought Frank. Maybe they emptied some national warehouse? Did they ever stock Mini Craft?

America had a rush to the suburbs in the early 1950s onward. Companies like Levitt started building developments in NY, NY and PA on former farmland in the late 1940s, due to the benefits of the GI bill for veterans and the VA backed home loan. A veteran could buy a new home with no money down. Levitt, a master of marketing, included all the necessary appliances with the home package so they would have one affordable payment. My first home was one of the little Cape Cods and my next door neighbor was an original owner who said the original payment was $60 a month in 1950. So the American dream of home ownership was within reach of the millions of blue collar veterans. Levitt didn't just build homes, they built 'planned communities, including building the schools as part of their cost. They would also build the adjoining shopping centers, the birth of the strip mall and supermarkets. Major highways were being built at the time, for instance the Garden State Parkway linked Central New Jersey to the big cities of Newark, Jersey City and New York City. So many families took the plunge to the suburbs and fathers commuted into the city. This also necessitated two car families since the suburbs were spread out. There often wasn't local transit, so wives needed to drive to ferry kids to school and do the weekly shopping. As said in this thread, car manufacturers saw the need for second cars and the compact car was born. And as said, a lot of families had the hand-me-down second car, where the old car was kept when a new one was purchased. I don't believe that cars were considered as costly then as they are today, as many families upgraded fairly often. A normal car note was 24 months back then. And it's fair to say that cars were not of the same quality as we have today. Manufacturers aimed to fulfill that 2 year payment plan and hoped to sell you a new car when that one was paid for. It was common that a five year old car would be rusty and an eyesore. Rayco made a fortune replacing torn seats, many didn't last the payment plan! And when was the last time you saw a car with the entire floor rusted away? That was common in the 1950s and 1960s but wouldn't be tolerated today! My family was unusual since my father was an army officer and was often away for a year at a time. My mother always had a car, and we only had one family car in the 1960s, up until we went to Germany in 1969. My father bought a used VW Beetle to supplement our family car, a 1966 Valiant 2 door sedan. When we returned to the US in 1972, this was actually the first time we owned a house in the NJ suburbs. The Valiant did travel back to the states with us, where it became the second car. My father bought a used 1971 Chevy Belair 4 door sedan as the family car. Once planted in the suburbs, we always had two cars. My wife's family made a similar move from New York to the New Jersey suburbs when she was 4 years old. They moved there with a 1953 Chevy and eventually bought a 1964 Chevy wagon as the primary family car. The '53 became the car her father drove to the train station, where he parked and took the train into New York City daily. In 1971 they got another Chevy wagon and the '53 sedan got junked. When I met my wife they had a 1978 Toyota and the 1971 wagon. My father in law bought Toyotas after that but they always had two.

Cool stuff! Love that one Dan! I've been busy lately but really excited to dig into this kit. I want to do a fruit truck version, probably stock. The molded in fruit was no doubt good enough for the teen age audience when the kit was first issued, but I see it as a good template to make my own from basswood. And I'll dig into a bag of bird seed to find the fruit shapes. Add a bit of paint and you have fruit!

There used to be a joke that the Studebaker (or insert your fav car make here) was the only car that started rusting on the drafting board!

I guess nobody has figured out the source for this hoard? Since it is kits from multiple manufacturers, it has to be someone large at the distribution level... maybe Hobbico?

Another Trabant Universal kit! A dealer on eBay had these for $19.99 with free shipping so I grabbed one, maybe I should've grabbed two! Since I turned my first one into a van, I still need a wagon. The wagon kit seems to be a better starting point for a Trabbie Tramp jeep than the sedan too.

From the dealer's angle, people are so conditioned to look at and trust the Carfax that he will have issues trying to sell that car. As I'm looking for a car and have read more and more Carfax reports, I see it all depends on who was doing the reporting and that people are getting better at it. Where I see ones that just say "accident reported", now I'm reading ones with detail like "right front hit, vehicle driven from scene". where you know it was just a fender bender.

James, the fact that the two attorneys are talking is a good sign. The legal community is small and everyone knows everyone. No doubt they both know the case is stupid and are talking about how to get this done and over with the least amount of grief. Many years ago a bad cop got hold of my 26 year old wife, and when she refused his passes, issued 9 points worth of tickets to a person with no violations on their record at all. For reference, you lose your license for 12 points, so this was over the top. We hired a local attorney who had the right connections. He had clerked under the sitting judge, was friends with the prosecutor and knew the Chief of Police. He came back and told us that the cop in question had a bad reputation already, and nobody involved in the case wanted to move it forward. We went to court and when my wife's name was called, the prosecutor stood up and said "My office will not prosecute this case." The judge knew this was coming and said, "Case dismissed." The cop jumped up and started yelling and the judge told him to sit down and shut up. Classic. They flushed this guy out within a year of this case. They caught him stealing merchandise from a store where he answered an alarm. Let's hope yours goes as well. No doubt this was done with the full cooperation of the judge, prosecution and Chief of Police, because they flushed this cop out within the year.

I was in Puerto Rico this week and there is no shortage of money on the island! I did a fair amount of travel so I saw interesting vehicles on the highways. I noticed a good number of very clean Japanese cars from the 1970s and 1980s on the roads, as well as really bad looking versions of the same. There was no rust, but sun fade and peeling clear coat seemed to be the main issues on cars. The sun is brutal! There were also Ferraris, Lotuses, new Corvettes and exotics parked at our hotel and restaurants in San Juan. A red SSR spent Friday evening out in the hotel front circle near the entrance.

I've been away this week so I thought I'd comment on the last few posts... I agree with JB that clubs that put out a Tuner/Sport class one year, with no advance notice, and then proclaim it 'didn't work' when nobody knew about it in the first place. They never gave it a chance. Maybe there were guys who saw it and brought models the second year, only to find the category gone. In best practice, they would have partnered with interested parties ahead of time to assure that there would be models in the category. Once you have a little flame, it can grow into a fire! I also agree with your comments on judges (or the modeling public) making snide remarks about models based on subject matter. Heck, judges need to be on their best behavior to appear impartial and represent the show / club, but we all know there's folks who just don't know how to act in public. In my early days of entering contests, late 1980s-early 1990s, I caught plenty of flack for building mind stretching subjects like a '32 Ford with a VW chassis under it, and gasp! junkers and beaters. I had judges make those snide remarks to my face. Things like they 'disqualified - didn't even judge' my '32 Ford because "it was disrespectful to Ford"! Never mind that it was probably the cleanest build in their Street Rod category. I once had a judge tell me my '59 Chevy convertible beater was "a waste of a kit". So I put these cars away. About 10 years later a buddy-0-mine urged me to bring the '59 out again. I showed it that season and won something at every show! Minds had expanded quite a bit in those 10 years. Today I tell this story about these two models and people don't even believe it. But the thinking was that narrow 25 years ago. And about judges... one of the big gaps in our hobby is that we don't have any overseeing board that sets judging standards, qualifies judges etc. Every show is a c-rap shoot, sometimes the same show year to year. With no qualifications, often judges are just club members who got roped into it, the guy with the enormous ego, or even attendees they've grabbed at the last minute. I got out of competing a long time ago since it really didn't mean anything. Other hobbies (Antique cars -AACA, Stamp collecting - APS) have national / international standards and judges who have apprenticed for years before being allowed to judge. For instance, I used to display a stamp research project, and I could go to any show anywhere and my points range would be near the same. I would earn a silver award, didn't matter if it was New York City or San Francisco. But back to the subject at hand. Yes, there are tons of younger modelers out there that we haven't invited into the family. I talk with a guy (who is one of us) who works part time in a hobby shop in NJ. He tells me that he gets plenty of young guys in the shop. He says they don't complain about price, they are happy to buy a Tamiya kit for $60 and then spend another $60 on supplies and Pegasus after market stuff. Too bad we haven't pulled them all into our hobby circuit, they are the future!

I'm HOME! It feels good to be in my own home (and my own bed) after a week away on business. I was running a week long conference for 65 people in Puerto Rico for my large pharma client. I was worried because things there run on "island time" which means stuff like meals and rented busses show up when they feel like it. Also in my preplanning, I was calling restaurants asking about bringing a group of 50 or more people and they'd never get back to you. So there was plenty of nail biting that things would work out. Things did fall into place and the conference was considered a great success. I flew home yesterday and slept until 10am, still tired after 7 days of working from 6am until 11pm. But it was worth it!

http://public.fotki.com/modelcitizen/11_car_reference_library/light_commercial/caprice-nj-state-tr/ Geoff- Here's a few photos I shot back in the days of film. My neighbor was a NJ State Trooper. I didn't get the interior but I believe they were all bright blue. You may get lucky at the US eBayMotors site, if you check for Caprice police cars. Sooner or later someone will have a good photo spread of the interior. I have a decal sheet for the NJ Trooper car, but mine has more of the details. Note the round logo on the rear of the 1:1 car. That means it was assigned to the Garden State Parkway. The plates on those started HA for Highway Authority. The cars assigned to the NJ Turnpike had plates that started TP. And there were other plates for the troopers who had other duties, including being the local police for small towns in south Jersey that didn't have their own.

An interesting aside. I've been at an international conference for work this week. We got into a conversation about cars and I asked our colleague from China what he had... Buick Regal! Of course a locally made car by GM of China, but same car we have here. The Chinese like American cars, which can prove to be a good thing in the future!

Well, I'm working in Puerto Rico this week. (Had no transportation issues so this isn't an airline rant) I'm running a conference this week that starts with breakfast at 7am (which means I need to check it at 6:30am) and it runs through dinners ending late in the evening. The only free time we were supposed to have was this morning until 3pm when we opened our registration desk. The guy I'm running the conference for pings me at 8am... we need to go over a few things... and then we worked all the way until 3pm! Argh! So much for any chance of getting in a swim. The worst part? We're surrounded by people on vacation! And it's hot as heck here!

Apparently the government motor pool doesn't report it's every move to any database. Most of these have blank histories prior to them being brought to a public auction. That's why I started this thread, to ask if that's normal and legit.

I knew my boss liked this... and he wouldn't last long! He ordered it the other day, to be delivered to our hotel in San Juan for our conference. Don't think we really need it, but we have a new toy and it will be fun to have around.