Tom Geiger

I've stopped saying never since I've been amazed at some of the kit releases and announcements of the past few years! I think I remember that the Liberty Classics piece was too small. I believe either Franklin or Danbury made a nice model of this truck. There was also a resin by SJS Resins many years ago!

I had a friend who wouldn't be seen dead driving a four door car. My father had come into my grandfather's low mile Crown VIc so he wanted to get rid of two cars. We had two 1978 LTD IIs, one being my old 4 door sedan that had over 200,000 miles on it and the second one being a very nice coupe with low miles. My father had bought it at a police auction and was planning on driving it until he came into the Vic. We figured we'd get $500-750 for the sedan and around $2000 for the coupe. My buddy had fallen on hard times, and aside from being close to homeless, he didn't have a car. So he had no way to get around to find a job. I knew him since I started high school so my father felt sorry for him, and decided to give him the 4 door for free. So here's this dead broke guy looking at a free car... he comes to my father's house and sees the two cars... his first remark to my father? Well, he wouldn't be caught dead driving that 4 door, but he'd take the coupe for free! Oh, my old man went crazy on him! Clear chased him off the property! End result? We sold the 4 door to some guy for $1000. It ran well and there was nothing wrong with it so the guy wasn't scared by the mileage. And I did see it on the road over a year later!

My second car was a 1970 Impala sport coupe with a 350. I sold it because of the cost of putting gas in it... back when gas was 50 cents a gallon! Back when my buddies and I would go cruising, we'd each chip in a dollar and put $3 worth of gas in the car. Any of our 6 cylinder cars did fine, but that Chevy need double that and nobody would pay up! I sold the car to another young guy,one who had a floor buffing business and all his equipment fit into that enormous trunk! A while later I was at the junk yard, came around a corner and there was my car! The entire left side of it was wiped! I later saw the guy and he said he hit ice on the highway and rode the guard rail. Tough end for a good car!

What? Bred Delp was replaced on tour with a guy they found on You Tube who sounded exactly like him. I saw a double header of Boston and Styx a few years ago and both bands were great and sounded just like the old days. Boston IS Tom Scholz, the electronics wizard who created the Boston sound. Being at that concert and seeing him do the long guitar pieces with his eyes closed and totally in the moment was great!

I've just come across this thread. I've been bummed ever since I read about it last evening, and that's all that's been on the news and talk shows all day. I always loved Robin Williams. One of my favorite moments was in "Moscow on the Hudson" where he played a Russian guy who had come to America. My favorite scene was when he went to the supermarket and discovered the coffee aisle. Funny stuff. We actually got to meet him a long time ago. Back when I worked for large company number one, in the days of excess, they'd throw a huge family day event and hire celebrities and such to emcee the day. One year it was Robin Williams and I believe we have a photo of him and my daughter somewhere.

Many years ago there was an article in Cars and Parts about that. They called the guys who held onto a car for years, "interim owners" who saved the cars from getting scrapped so someone could restore them someday. I know the article made me feel better. I had cars I kept indoors for 25 years and never got to restoring. I sold them on to guys who were very keen on restoring them immediately and seemed to have the resources to do so!

I was a car guy from birth. When I was three I had my Uncle John follow the city bus, stopping at every stop and watching who got on or off. Later in life he laughed that the bus driver probably thought he was crazy. Since my father was in the military, we lived all over the world giving me a different perspective of cars than the average American kid. But my father settled down in NJ for me to go to high school in one place. My dream was always to drive a car. In NJ you could get your learners permit on your 17th birthday back in 1975. I believe I got mine the very first hour I was eligible. I took the day off school and my grandfather took me to motor vehicle first thing in the morning. I owned a lawn tractor that I mowed lawns with since I was 14, and a buddy who was a year older had let us drive his car around a bit, so my grandfather thought it was a miracle when I just got in the car and well, drove! My first car was a '66 Valiant with a 225 slant six, that I drove to high school. My friend Greg had a 1970 Maverick, but he was always destroying cars so he went through a long list of them. My friend Mark started out with his sister's hand me down, 1962 Chevy II, brush painted white with no floor what so ever. One time when we got pulled over drinking, we literally put the beer on the ground and pulled the floor mat back. Once he saved his money, he got a 1966 Mustang with a 6 cylinder and three on the floor. My friend Larry had a 1966 Tempest, GTO clone. He was the one of us with mechanical ability so he put a 389 in it and it was no doubt the fastest of my crowd's cars. My cousin George had a 1959 Plymouth Belvedere 2 door hardtop, flat six with the push button tranny. Later on he traded it for a '55 Chevy 2 door sedan that was a total piece of rusted junk. There were a fair amount of interesting cars in my high school lot. One kid had a nice 1970 Mustang, another had a pretty beat 55 Chevy convertible. Charlie had a nice '56 Chevy and when I saw him at our 35th reunion he said he still had the car. One girl had a Corvette because her dad was the local Chevy dealer. My German Teacher had a first generation Celica, my first taste of a Japanese car. He used to give me rides home from school and would nail it and wind out each gear for me. I always liked Celicas from that day forward. And of course there were the high school antics. One day I was sitting at the curb waiting for my sister. Part of the deal of driving to school was that I had to transport her. A dumb jock walked up, stepped up on my bumper and proceeded to walk across the freshly painted hood of my Valiant. I instinctively threw it into reverse sending him flying. He sprained his wrist in the fall, and the school nurse wrapped him up. Those were the days of no cops, no insurance claims. But being high school, I was the one who got in trouble. I got banned from driving to school for a week. But I gained a lot of respect in school for that one! We always wanted McDonalds breakfast but you weren't allowed to leave school even if you had study periods. We had two dean of students, a nun and our gym coach. I'd find one of them, tell them I forgot my gym shoes and get permission to go home for them. Of course the shoes were already in my car, so I'd rush to McDonalds and buy everyone's breakfast order. I'd leave the food in the car, and come back into the school twirling my shoes. Then someone else would sneak out to my car and retrieve the food. We got away with that one more than we should've! There was the time that a clueless female teacher sent Eddie the cut up out to her 1961 Plymouth for a book. Our classroom was on the front of the school, facing the circle that the busses used. All of a sudden a '61 Plymouth comes flying through the circle with the horn blaring. We were all laughing our tails off. And the teacher? She scowled and didn't even recognize her own car. On Eddie's second pass, she pulled the shades down! He showed up a short time later with the book. He said he parked the car at the opposite end of the lot. Wonder if she ever noticed?

Ah, but every great idea involves parts from a kit you don't own! Murphy's Law of Modeling!

Their thoughts at the time? They were in the toy business. The product was aimed at kids, so the accuracy we demand today wasn't even in their realm of thought. It was basically a 3D puzzle for kids. The kit didn't even include clear glass. They also thought that toys had a limited run life, so once they put a kit out for a season, they figured all the kids had it, so they would try to redo the mold into a new variation, thus the Ranchero. They had no idea there would be a collector market someday. Also note that the multi piece body was because that's all the injection molding machines they had at the time could handle. They hadn't developed the ability to make the deeper tools such as one piece body shells.

That's funny Scott. But as kids we hoped we'd see through girls clothing! And as far as the Rembrandt Company, I wouldn't know where to get my glasses today. Their 285 Market Street address is now a parking garage for their minor league ball team field.

Amen! Pain sucks! I'm glad you posted a picture otherwise we might not have believed you!

Here's the official Auto World Auto Cutter! I bought this as a kid and it's a low mile unit as I quickly found it useless. I found it in my father's garage hoard since he never threw out anything remotely useful.. from the same man who gave away my Raleigh Chopper. So I decided to take a trip down memory lane and document it photographically. I even went for a brand new eXacto blade. So with my best grammer school modeling technique I gave her a try on some poor sacrificial body. It slid through that plastic like butter, more like a snow plow than a fine surgical instrument. And here's the results. Not even remotely acceptable, even to a sixth grader in 1970! Dismal failure! But did we go screaming back to Auto World? No, somehow we thought it must be our fault since it appeared to work fine in the drawing in the ad! So the Auto Cutter goes into the 1960s Hall of Fame along with such fine products as the X-Ray Vision Glasses. Yea, they didn't work either!

Odd and interesting. I'm not sure if I like the clear door panels, I think I'll fear masking off the glass. You only get one shot at screwing that up. And four door cars with operable front doors only screams Matchbox car. I do like the two sets of wheels, but cannot think of anywhere else I could use the 3 luggers. Of course we will buy one when the situation allows. Thanks for the pix

Oh yes we have! A few years ago I saw what appeared to be a commercially done package called "Phaeton" (it had chrome logos of that on it) on a PT Cruiser. It was the full padded top with the wagon side windows covered, which made it look like a hearse for midgets. The window frames were painted black as if they weren't there. Scary!

I have a Patent Pending in their mailer box .

I'm at work now or I'd post photos... I found my auto melter when I did the final clean out of my fathers garage. I sacrificed a body to do a demo

I had a bit of a messed up childhood. My father was a US Army officer so we lived all over the world. When I was 10 in 1968 my sister, mother and I lived in New Jersey because my father was in Korea. My grandfather and I would often spend Saturdays together, We'd take the long walk to Two Guys where we'd have lunch and buy either a model kit or a Hot Wheels car. Life was good and I averaged about a kit a month from those visits. In 1969 he got orders for Pirmasens, Germany. The military PX didn't have any kits at all, they barely had Matchbox cars and supplies of any toy item were sporadic. That left me to go downtown to German stores. There was a hobby shop in town, but right after we got to Europe the exchange rate went from 4 German Marks equals a dollar, to less than two! Everything in town became twice as expensive. There were American kits in the store, AMT and Revell as well as Revell of Germany. But these cost 20 marks, which as around $10 a kit! I was always earnest and looked for ways to earn money. I got the job of sweeping the stairwell in our 4 family house for $2 a month. I also mowed the lawn for $2 a week. And I'd hustle and wash cars for $1 each. I worked pretty darn hard for my money! My one connection was the AutoWorld catalog. I'd spend hours pouring over that book and writing out potential orders on loose leaf paper. My typical order was a kit, the brush paints I thought I'd need for that kit, and something extra like the AutoWorld Auto Cutter, other tools or decals and such like the old license plate sheet. And every time I'd come into enough money to fill one of my orders, my father would write a check in exchange for my cash and I'd place that order. It took something like 90 days to get that order! So I usually had several orders in my queue of anticipation. The weeks when I thought an order was coming, I'd walk past my father's office on my way home from school every day. That's where we received our mail. I'd buzz the big secure door and the GIs watching me on the camera, would often squawk on the intercom, "No Thomas, there's no package for you today!" On days when I did get a package, some of them were as excited as I was.

Yea I hear you can get like a case of kits for the cost of a bag-0-weed!

Yea, it was beyond my understanding as a kid how stuffing an extra half a sandwich into me would benefit those starving kids! Still haven't figured it out.

Back in the late 1980s I built this '32 Ford Vicky from the AMT kit. It was built for contests and quality wise it was worthy of competition in that era. But Man, did I set off a controversy. People weren't as enlightened to out of the box modeling as we all are today... When the tilt nose got opened, there was nothing there! Just a proper steering column, master cylinder and spare tire. The gas tank is up in the tilt nose, and it was even plumbed. The radiator cap was the gas cap. The Deora bucket seats are hinged and tilt forward. There is a scratch built baby seat in the back. And the engine of choice? VW Beetle! The entire chassis was redone VW as if this was a Ford VIcky fiberglass kit car. The dashboard and door panels were even VW, and the wheels are Porsche items. Man did this car set off a poo storm! Guys at shows would actually get angry and yell at me. There were contests that refused to judge it. At one show a very well known person in the hobby told me it would never place because it was unrealistic. "Nobody would ever build a car like that", and we had a big laugh because the first in class at that show was a '39 Chevy with a Ferrari drivetrain. Somehow that wasn't only acceptable, but was enthusiastically rewarded. At another show where I watched them give out trophies and ribbons to models that weren't even wired and one in particular that wasn't even painted under the hood, I confronted the promoter who told me they 'disqualified' my model since it was wrong and disrespected Fords. Another told me I would've placed but I forgot to put in a battery. The guy was speechless when I told him it was a VW, the battery would be under the rear seat! There even was a cable from the starter that went through the firewall. In those days I would go to shows with John Slivoski and we'd laugh like idiots all the way home as my Vicky would never place, and would get odd remarks. I had built the model to make a statement and man did we get reactions. We'd never get mad that it didn't win anything, we thought it was pretty funny. Then we had the wind knocked out of our sails! The Vicky placed third in Street Rod at Masscar! That ruined our perfect losing streak. Today? I bring the car out from time to time and people like it. How attitudes have changed!

You are right Dennis, the cost of things are relative to the economy at that time. I bought kits with my own hard earned money in the late sixties and the 1970s time frame. I used to mow lawns for $2 and wash cars for $1 each. Today kids want $20-30 to mow a lawn. I don't think I even owned a $20 bill back then. I do remember gas being down in the 30 cents a gallon range, but it was 50 cents a gallon by the time I was driving in 1975. I had a job delivering pizza and was lucky to make $20 an evening from a meager salary plus tips. Every evening started by putting 10 gallons of gas into my old Valiant.. yea, $5 was a quarter of my take for that evening so it hurt. I remember the days when we feared that gas may be $1 a gallon someday! I remember one self proclaimed expert telling me that it couldn't happen because gas pumps would only register 99 cents. Ha! They figured that one out quickly.

Here's two photos (sorry for the fuzzy one) of the Mark II promo in 1/25 scale. 1955 and 1956 DeSoto promotional models. The '55 was a one year car and is rare. The '56 tool lived on for a long while so that promo was sold for many years, as late as the 1980s. So they are fairly plentiful. These came with glass and no interiors. A company called Best Resins made resin interiors for the '56 and I believe the '56 Plymouth promo also. Long gone though. I am told that the Moebius '55-'56 Chrysler chassis fits under the '56 DeSoto body very well... I think that Modelhaus did a '56 2 door and convertible, maybe they'd sell the interior.

My grandma used to tell us kids, "You'd be whining if you were the first person on the bread line!" Of course the depression era reference was way lost on us 1960s kids!

Here's the one I object to... argh! I don't like the black bumper rub strips, but add chrome to it and yuk! I don't mind the photo Luna Jammer posted of the early model since that one has smooth bumpers.

Yea... I didn't get copied on that memo either! I like PT Cruisers! It took me a while to warm up to the convertible model. I thought it looked like they just hacked off the wagon roof, since the sides and back are pretty much the same. I thought it would have been much cooler with a 1930s bustle back (think Anglia back!) But I have since agreed I like the design and am on the lookout for a nice, low mile and way too cheap example! I am kinda glad they didn't do a second generation PT Cruiser. I do like the later model smooth bumper look better than the original car, with the black spot bumpers. I hated when aftermarket people put chrome covers over those! But I do think that later model look is perfect. I cringe that they would have ruined that on a second gen... in fact I was worried that the Dodge Caliber may have been considered the successor to the PT. What I would've liked was seeing the PT produced a few more model years. They never got to the van version, although Chevy did with their HHR. The van version would've been cool. And I would've liked a few years with Mopar muscle car colors... they never really got past a bland color pallet except for some of the Dream Cruisers. In reality, the PT still had a few years left in the program, but that got sacrificed to save the company. The production capacity in Mexico was needed for the Fiat 500 line, part of the Fiat takeover that has saved the Mopar future! I don't know if the Fiats have been successful enough to justify the loss of the PT and it's potential, but I can say that my daughter's Fiat 500 Lounge Convertible has been flawless and she loves it dearly!