Tom Geiger

It was in the eighties here in Eastern PA yesterday. I celebrated by working out side the whole day. I changed plugs on two cars and did a tune up (I guess that's what changing the cap and rotor is called these days) on the Tracker. It had been running rough and I couldn't remember how many decades old that and the plugs were. Interesting find... one of the plug wires had come loose and was just sitting on the plug. Found our problem Houston! Then I got out the leaf blower and blew winter out to the back of the property. I over did it, I get going and lose track of time and overall effort. So I'm a bit sore this morning. I pulled my monster of a snow blower outside and was about to drain the gas... then I thought better. That was a sure way to guarantee more snow! So I put it back in battle ready position to ward off the snow demons for the rest of the season! After all, we do need good weather on the 26th for that silly little model show!

Go to that auction place model car category and type in "Renwal" . I did last evening and nearly the whole series popped up. They are out there!

Looks good. I was on the New Jersey Turnpike yesterday and saw a newer Chevy Suburban towing one of these pickups on a trailer. The pickup was no doubt headed north for a restoration, it was completely apart. But cool to see!

Scott, I'm not negative. I'm one of the greatest cheerleaders for the model companies. I defend them all the time on the boards. But I'm a realist. And having an engineering and business background, I enjoy learning and watching the business end of the hobby too. I do know a good many people, and I hear a lot of information from people inside the model companies, hobbyists who work with them and sometimes second hand. I've heard what works and what doesn't. I know the current strategies of the model companies. So when someone asks "why don't they do a ???" I can pretty much answer it. I do agree that we have game changers on a regular basis. Moebius popped up out of nowhere and is doing kits nobody would have thought we'd ever see. Now Meng shows up with a modern Ford pickup, who would've thunk? So there are a lot of things that are possible today. And I'd love to be proven wrong!

Yes Scott, I'd buy them too. But I take the 58 in your signature to be that you are the same age as me (1958). But we are few in numbers. And half of our herd would hold out and pray that these got to the closeout store before they'd buy. I'd rather have Revell not lose their shirts on these, they have way more important work to do!

I don't think it would be wise to release this series today. I don't believe these set any sales records when new and they fall into that "a few $$$ sales on eBay doesn't translate to selling 5000 copies at regular kit prices". I remember seeing those on the shelf when I was a kid, and I wasn't interested. They are also pretty crude as kits. The appeal is very limited.

83 degrees and sunny here in Eastern PA! I've been outside most of the day, doing my chores. Already changed the plugs on the Breeze, and came inside to get the correct spark plug gap for the Tracker. Pep Boys is a funny place... ask for a part for a 5 year old Dodge Caravan and they tell you it's obsolete... but ask for a rotor and cap for a 1991 Geo Tracker and they had it! Amazing!

Congrats on a great show!

Insiders joke, Art Anderson is a modeler who lives in Lafayette, Indiana and is usually on the board here.

I have the kit and I agree. The building walls that do come in the kit are very plain and have no surface to them, as if built from sheet stock by a beginning modeler. I'd have to do a lot of work to them to make them look real and interesting. The only things that are worth while in the kit are the lift and accessories. I've heard before that the gas pumps are out of scale but cannot confirm that.

Whoa! I'm really liking your finished model! I do have the police version with the cut down doors but I'll have to keep an eye out of the regular version to build one of those Saigon taxi cabs!

Even Gas Monkey would do a better job than that!

GSL is one of those things you need to do once. We all say "maybe someday" but it will remain that unless you get off your duff and make it happen. Back in 2001 I had lunch with Bill before one of our club meetings. We talked about going to GSL one day and then Bill shared that his 50th birthday would be that week. That evening I got to thinking, and I called Bill. I just said "We are going!" We both cleared it with our wives and we went! It felt great. And once we went and the cool things that happened there, we just had to go back. And new cool things happened each time which just fueled us to go the next time. Things like having Bob Paeth sit down and tell you what it was like to produce your favorite 1960s kits at Revell. One year it was having a beer with Tom Daniel. And the year I kept Don Emmons company when he had a late dinner after a long day at the museum! So we went 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009. Then life got in the way with my job related move from NJ to PA kept us from going in 2011 and then the loss of mentioned job kept me away in 2013. We were talking today about going again next year. As far as costs, we aren't rich guys but we thought it important to go. Figure with air fare, hotel and meals, it will cost a bit less than $1000. Can you save $10 a week in a jar? Do that for the 2 years between GSLs and you'll have $1040 saved! Easy as that.

I've always enjoyed seeing the Cuban cars. Such resilience and imagination to keep things running. I get a kick out of those articles that there are millions of dollars worth of cars there. These cars are so worked over and so worn out that they wouldn't be worth much at all, except in a closed market like Cuba.

Looking forward to meeting you Dan. There are so many Canadians at NNL East that we've joked that Canada must be closed for the weekend!

Hmmmm.... looks a bit familiar! Back in the last century when I started this, some know it all told me it was impossible because no company would have done a stretch on a unibody. I didn't know a lot then, and got discouraged so that was part of what made it sit for a long, long time. Then once the Internet became useful as a research tool, I found photos of 1:1s of similar cars. So it's back on the bench. And this Nunrunner shows that it was done on unibodies successfully! And as for the Nunrunner, I agree that once they've gone this far with the mechanicals, it should have the body finished to match! I would have left the bench seats too. Note the heavy rust on the bottoms of the two center doors. Those would have been the ones fabricated by the body builder so they probably did no rust proofing inside those doors. Shame Shame! And I agree that this was probably just another airport limo and it looks like it sat out in a field for at least a decade.

Dave's deal was with the old owner. He had an exclusive on the mold for a period of time for his investment. That kept him to keeping is expenditures to what could be recouped within a run or two.

My wife and I tag teamed it when we had our first daughter. She worked full time for AT&T during the day and I had an opportunity to run the evening CAD shift with a 10% shift differential. So she'd go to work days and I'd be home with my daughter. I'd cook the 'big meal' during the day and eat it for lunch. We had a baby sitter who would get off the school bus and come right over so I could leave for work at 3:30 pm. My wife was home by 5:30 every day and would eat the dinner I made earlier. I worked 4-12 and would get home about 1:00 am. Some nights I'd do the grocery shopping on my way home. That was cool because the supermarket was empty. We did this schedule for 4 years! People would ask how we did it, but after a short time it just seemed normal! And for reference - that daughter is now 30!

It must be old stock that they either had or just got from their wholesaler. Round 2 will reissue the cars that Model King did since the agreements with Dave are long expired, and with the former owners. They won't be doing them with a Model King logo on them. Part of their not wanting to do kits with third parties is that they wanted to build strong branding and adding other names on the boxes diluted that in their minds.

Got this very cool 1970s Polistil 1/25 scale Mini Cooper in full rally gear! I'd been watching these for a long time and finally got one that was complete and in the box for $29.99. They don't show up all that often and are usually in the $100 range, and many of them are missing things. I do have one I got years ago as a parts car for my other Minis that looked like it was buried in a sand box for a decade... In the beginning... there was this one Mini. I got this as a kid in Europe. This one came as a prefinished diecast kit. I wanted it in yellow so I waited, and passed up a bunch of white and red ones, until I found it. It has survived in my collection all this time. Note the white lettered tires, and the interior even has orange felt carpet. I had painted the hood with Testors lumpy black and removed the grill because that's the look I wanted back then. Today, I wouldn't change a thing! Then once eBay came around, I found this parts car and imported it from England for a few key parts. As with most of my life, once I got it I saw it wasn't bad at all, so it got restored too. Then I found the Holy Grail of Polystil MInidom. Again on eBay, a mint in the display pack, 1970 era Mini just like my original. I never put those stickers on mine since they looked hokey even to a 12 year old me! And that original sandbox car? I can't help myself. It's currently being built up. Right now it's in primer. It gave up parts I needed for the other ones, like tail lights, a headlight and door handles, so it will be built as a model with parts from model kits. So with the Mata Grosso, my Polystil Mini collection is complete! Yea right..

welcome Martin! You're from Perth... build hot rods... you must be an associate of the great AB!

Nice work! It's interesting as you go around the country that we all call our favorite beverage different things. Here in my area we call it "Soda", in some areas they call it a "Coke" no matter what brand or flavor... And I've never heard of the brand "Holly" either, must be a local thing, and no doubt someone's favorite.

I think they got folded into Waste Management, many companies did! Those are really cool trucks. What did BFI want them for? Was there an event? Display at corporate office?

The Palmer Ferrari ??

Argh Andy! If you only learned to pour resin a few years earlier! My parents did buy me the orange Chopper, but when it got stolen it was up to me to replace it. It wasn't my fault it was stolen, it was parked in our building basement where it was supposed to be. The kid upstairs forgot to lock the door. He was made to say "sorry" and he was off the hook. I saved the $65 (yea I remember exactly how much!) by washing cars and mowing lawns a dollar at a time. I had saved the money and had given it to my father for safe keeping. The military PX wasn't that good and only had various things sporadically. Not seasonal or with any rhyme or reason. Stuff just showed up when it did. So I would walk past the PX on my way home from school every darn day and look for bikes. The day that my Chopper was there, I told the staff that it was "MY BIKE" and I'd be right back with the cash. I ran all the way to my father's office. He drove me back and we got the bike.