Tom Geiger

and the Sears catalog has gotten much thinner too!

I think I remember there being a clear steering wheel in the 1965 Riviera kit as a custom piece.

Lets see... I'm 55 and if I forgot about the 30 odd unfinished projects I intend to finish, and I build ten kits a year, I'd have to live to be 255 years old to finish them all! Then again, I probably buy 25-50 kits a year so I fall further behind every year.

I graduated high school in 1976 and a buddy-0-mine got a job at All American AMC in Keyport, NJ. It was owned by the Straub family who owned many of the dealerships on the highway and gave them different names so it didn't look like they had cornered the market. My friend mainly did dealer prep, but part of their weekly routine was to put all the new cars through the car wash on Route 36 on Friday afternoon and sometimes finishing up on Saturday morning so they all looked spiffy for the big Saturday sales day. I got hired on under the table to run cars through the car wash. We'd drive them with no plates for the few blocks and when the attendants saw it was a new AMC, they just waved you through. I think the family also owned that car wash. I was valuable to them because I could drive a clutch. I was amazed at how many AMC cars were manual transmission in that era. Didn't matter if it was a 6 or an 8, you could get a floor shifter in a Gremlin, Hornet or Pacer. They were peppy and fun to drive, and honestly all drove about the same. I remember thinking it would be cool to have a Sportabout with a 4 speed. My buddy eventually got fired from that job. At the car wash, there were three self wash bays on the side and you had to wash soft top Jeeps in those. The dealership gave you a big warning... the entrance was fine, but the exit was too low for the Jeep. ALWAYS back out the Jeep. Well, my buddy washed a Jeep, absent mindedly hit the gas and tore the roof off a brand new Jeep that he was prepping for delivery. End of job. That dealership property was originally a bowling alley and was converted into the AMC dealership. Eventually it became their Dodge store where I bought my Grand Caravan, Remsen Dodge.... Remsen Straub was one of their sons. Today the building is gone and a Walgreens sits on the site. Progress?

Charlie, we're an NNL and it's all about fun, so we're not going to be category gestapo! If you think it's a wagon, it's a wagon! Actually I think it's a wagon too. In fact I've been looking around for a low mile beauty at a price I can't refuse to replace our aging Breeze.

Scott, I too like those cars of the mid to late 1970s. After all we're the same age! I liked the Pacer design when it came out. It was so innovative for a small company with a limited budget to do something so radical. I've always thought that part of it's failure was that it was an AMC. If that same design was sold as a Chevy, they would have sold much better! Also, it would be fun to think about how well it would have done if GM had indeed sold AMC the rotary engine. I see one on a regular basis as a guy in our model club owns a Pacer Wagon. As for the kits, MPC was a bit lazy on it's annual updates. but they were necessary since they had promo contracts on them. I believe the only thing different on the two years of annuals are the hood and attached grill themselves. So I'm surprised that a resin caster hasn't offered the back dated parts. I still think that Round 2, with their history of TV and movie cars, will eventually sell the Pacer as the Wayne's World car. Then they'll have to tool up the older parts. I've been playing with Chevettes lately and again the only parts that are different are the hood and grilles. So if Round 2 saw fit to reissue this kit, again the entire conversion kit could be molded in 3 parts. One part if they molded the two grill halves with the hood!

Host hotel is all sold out. Spoke with them this afternoon.

I believe it's an AP these days!

It's interesting that RAPTOR is a cool sounding name. But think about it, it's a million year old extinct animal.. wouldn't that suggest old and out of style?

I mainly use automotive paints. I'll buy what I need for a project, and if there's a sale, I'll go and buy a few cans of primer gray and maybe some primary colors like black, flat black, white and reds. I got stocked up good about 4 years ago when Duplicolor discontinued the tall can "Truck Colors". I found them at Ollies for a buck a can and literally bought every can they had that I could use. I think it was like 35 cans. I only left behind blah colors that I thought I'd never use. I'm still working off that hoard. I've recently started to use a few Tamiya colors so I'll buy those as needed at the hobby shop. If I see some cool color I don't have an idea for, I"ll buy it anyway. There are a few Testors colors I'll use.. I like Dullcote and flat black, I buy those at Michaels with my 40% off coupon.

Back in 1981 we saw one of these sitting in the middle of the indoor mall. Instantly we thought it was very cool, in that era it looked like a 4 door sports fastback. We had to have one! So we bought a Nissan Stanza with a 5 speed, air and sun roof as our first family car. It had all kinds of little nice things that American cars didn't have at the time. Even bucket seats were rare back then. Paid $8000 cash for it and kept it a dozen trouble free years. Trading in an American made 1979 Capri that was always in the shop, that was a blessing. After about 12 years we sold it for $2000.

I think most folks just think it's 'normal' because it's been that way for so long in most states. I lived in Europe and moved to New Jersey so I always thought it normal to have gas pump attendants. But when you stop to think about self service from an EPA and OSHA standpoint, there are greater restrictions on the handling of much less volatile substances. I find it interesting that it hasn't been addressed, no doubt due to the deep pockets of large oil companies. I too remember the gas station premiums, mostly drinking glasses and remember collecting the aluminum coins of the presidents? And that was 1968-9 era that I was in the states. Then we moved to Germany in the fall of 1969. The big change I saw between the US and Germany was that older people were gas attendants and even waiters, like it was a real profession, not just something pimply kids did. And that was no doubt what the US was like decades earlier. In Germany they gave full service, and the premium was a sealed envelope full of stamps... collectible stamps, not Green Stamps! That was probably the thing that got me interested in stamp collecting. Every time my father would get gas, I'd get the little packet with about 5 world stamps in it. The one thing about Germany back then was that stores and gas stations kept regular hours and then closed. There were no 24 hour operations. On the Autobahn rest stops they had coin operated gas pumps for overnight travelers. I remember those worked with 10 Mark coins. So when we were on a trip my father would have a sack full of those coins! Then getting back to self serve gas, I've been in PA for 4 years now and it still is odd to me. I dislike watching old ladies pumping fuel. And it seems the stations on the highway near me are in an eternal cold wind tunnel, and although under canopies, the rain still comes in with the wind. I still find it a distasteful experience. Now that I'm back to working in New Jersey, I buy most of my gas there. It gets pumped while I sit on my duff and check my email in the warmth of my car. And somehow that gas is consistently 30 cents a gallon cheaper than PA! (gas tax is 32.9 cents per gallon in NJ and 60.2 in PA. So the pump prices are the same) So the pumpers salary is coming from oil company profits. So if Obama was serious about creating jobs, all he has to do is enact a federal law outlawing self serve. Instantly that would create maybe a million jobs? And since most stations are now owned by big oil, who is flush with absurd profits, it could be legislated to come out of their profits.

Vince, I'm not sure, someone else mentioned them in Philly. When I was downtown for a conference last September I saw open top double deckers, but I didn't take much notice since I saw them from the back. May be later model than the Route Masters, but worth a look. And good enough to take a tour with. First I've never ridden up top of a double decker, and second I've been here for four years and have yet to really investigate the city. Heck we only got to Lancaster to see the Amish because we had Aussie visitors last fall!

And how does Revell's announcement of the Raptor figure into the equation?

I don't like self checkout. From my perspective retail cashiers get paid little enough that these money grubbing companies are looking to automate them, AKA make us do their work for free. Even at our supermarket, they have 4 stations and a clerk standing there like mother hen to fix the constant problems the people are having with the equipment. We all know the motivation is to cut costs, but they have the audacity to say that the self checkouts are there 'for my convenience'. Yea, they think we're stupid enough to believe it. It's one of those Tom Sawyer painting the fence things... next thing you know, they'll expect us to pump our own gas!

I remember cranky old nuns refusing to call anyone by a non-biblical name. So Peggy became her formal name, Margaret. There was one girl whose name was Dale.. the nuns were probably convinced she was going to hell for that! So they tried to give her a new name to their liking. Dale's parents had a fit, so the nuns compromise was to call her "Miss Cook". Those nuns would have a coronary with kids names today.. I refuse to use the self check out. I always go to a cashier. When some store guy tries to move me over to them to show me 'how easy' it is, I tell them I didn't sign up to be a cashier and if I wanted to be one, I would have applied for the job. That usually shuts them up.

Andy since you just started I'll offer up that the windshield is much too low on the kit. It's easy to make it look much better by carving out the plastic up to the engraved window molding line, then rescribing that line higher, using the width of the trim for the measurement. You can see that the windshield top is actually parallel with the drip rail. The kit also has very weak drip rails. I replaced mine with Evergreen round trim.

Man, this gang will argue about anything! As Harry said, there are guys who haven't figured out how to get to 1/25 scale. A lot of them just avoid math because it's supposed to be a hobby and math is.. well, work! And there will always be that math geek who will tell them all that geometry is fun and easy, only making them feel worse. Part of why scale rulers have been used in Engineering are to make work easier and faster, but also to avoid making math mistakes. And a lot of disciplines work primarily in inches to avoid errors in converting feet into inches. I started out drafting piping for process plants. Pipe sizes are always in inches. And any length under 3 feet is always displayed as inches. I have worked with office furniture for eons. When designing space and cubicles, it's all done in inches. So there is no such thing as a 3 foot wide panel, it's a 36" panel... actually it would be shown on a drawing as a 36x72 (if the height was 72"). And one of the major manufacturers, Steelcase actually based it's products on 5" increments. So you'd have 25", 30" and 35" wide panels. No need for feet when adding those up! All I can say is that when I did demos on the 1/25 scale ruler, guys got downright giddy that they could work in scale. And anything that helps guys build better models is okay with me.

Great work! I think I want one of these bus kits! Maybe I'd do mine as one of the open top Philadelphia tourist rides. In fact, I think I'll go down town and take a tour for research purposes! I wouldn't worry about the exterior paint work. Those busses were used and abused. I've heard that the colors on panels varying depending on resprays under poor conditions.

I always woke up early, so I made a tradition of hitting eBay at 6am on Christmas morning. I figured anyone dumb enough to set their auctions to end then, deserved to be sniped!

Charlie, call the hotel NOW. I believe we have a few rooms left. I know that the rooms that were left at last tally only have one bed in them, but they have a couch that someone can sleep on, plus the hotel will give you a cot if you ask. We do sell out the hotel.

It was every mean old nun's duty to break you of that left hand habit! Even if they had to break your hand with a ruler!

I taped it. Is it worth watching?

One time at a show there was a six year old with a perfectly built model that any of us would be proud of. When the kid went to touch the model his father yelled at him, then moved it himself... hey, it was supposed to be the kid's model!

We are one week later this year due to Easter... probably why you went one week early? We generally have our dates set and our lease five years ahead. We just watch out for Easter and Passover. Before we moved the show we were in March, but our new hall has a basketball tournament then, so we moved the show to April. It gets us out of snow season, something you guys don't have to worry about. We never did get a direct hit, but over the years we had blizzards that shut down the state the Saturday before and the Saturday after our show!