Tom Geiger

Per the Mustang IIs... 4 cylinder with a four speed was a neat little runner and had plenty of pep. I drove my bro-in-law's '78 Pinto with a four / four speed for a whole summer and it was just a joy to drive and absolutely reliable. When I met my wife she had a Mustang II coupe with a V6 automatic. Again a great car to drive, never a problem. In 1979 she just had to trade it in on a new Fox Capri. Now that car was nothing but trouble. To add insult to injury, she had traded in the Mustang II and someone right near her house bought it. We had to see it there for years as a reminder!

How about in a hobby shop? Many years ago a small group of car modelers were in a Brooklyn, NY hobby shop one Saturday morning. A new guy came in and wanted to get into the conversation, and no doubt impress everyone that he was indeed a 'big fish'. So he spins this story about how his models are so good that he won Best of Show at NNL East. He continues on that the judges were very impressed with him and he won a trophy the size of a floor lamp. He then tells them that he's best friends with John Slivoski, who was president of Tri-State and ran the NNL. What was wrong here? John Slivoski was one of the guys he was telling the story to and everyone else there knew it. Everyone just held their tongues and let him go on. Eventually he left and there were howls of laughter. Facts - This guy probably hadn't even entered NNL East. The show as NEVER awarded trophies nor are there judges. And John didn't know this guy from Adam!

Yea, bodies of people who make stupid remarks!

I used to own a very nice 1973 Plymouth Scamp. Every time I'd take it to a show there always was at least one loud mouthed jerk who would matter of factly tell me that I had wasted my time and money on a nothing car and if I had spent that same money on a Mustang or Camaro I'd really have something.

I found this in the bottom of a junk box at the Liars Show last Saturday. All parts are there, including some of the broken windshield frame. Good news is that both fin tips are intact, which are usually the first thing to go on these.. never been painted or sanded, price $5 for a decent parts car / rebuilder. 1/24 scale Volvo. It's missing a headlight on the left side but otherwise complete and it's dirty like it's been sitting in a junkyard a while. But who would pass it up for $2?

Vinyl! I still have tons of vinyl and have two digital turn tables. When everyone was tossing their record collections, I'd take them and buld up my collection. At this point I have every rock album I ever wanted as a kid.

Wow! A blast from the past. That has to date back to the mid 1990s. Glad you enjoyed it.

Since we seem bent on moving large things... here's flight 1549, the one Sully landed in the Hudson River. It was towed over to the New Jersey side of the river and needed to be moved through some pretty dense city areas to get it out of there...

Looks good Sam! I'm sure a huckster was available in 1940, or a body company would offer it since it was a popular vendor truck. For the tarps, I would suggest using masking tape. Take the tape and spray the glue side with Testors Dullcote. That takes the sticky away leaving you with nice thin material with a pattern on it to work with. I use it all the time for things like this. It's also how I make my seat belts.

And the pronunciation of the word DECAL. I've heard at least three pronunciations... dee-cal The way most folks say it deh-CAL enthuses on the second syllable. A guy in my club says it this way and will 'correct' you mid sentence, as if he's going to convert the entire hobby to his way. deckle (as in heckle) Maybe a Western Canadian thing?

I have bought maybe a half dozen boxes. All of them were cool old box art, and pretty much the product of opportunity. I saw them at a show cheap, etc. The one I actually bought on eBay was the original 1968 release of the Revell '57 Nomad kit. You know, the Nomad beach scene. I took it to GSL and had Bob Paeth sign it for me. Now one of my treasured possessions.

I have a ton of kits that were bought for kit bashing as you said. I have a bunch of '41 Plymouths for the chassis and flathead six. These will go under / into 1950s Plymouths and possibly Dodges. I have at least 6 of the AMT '70 Chevy to use in restoring my '68s and '69s. All bought cheap at shows and club meetings. There are also kits that fall into the 'good to have' category. When I see these at shows for $5 or $10, I just grab them for the future with no immediate plan. And those $5 kits are expendable. If someone on the board needs a part to finish a build or progress a project, I don't hesitate to crack the plastic on one of those to send them those parts. This summer I did a bit of organization and worked on my parts boxes. I bought more plastic tubs and when I realized I had a dozen Revell '50 Ford pickups, I took the unsealed ones and just dumped the contents into the tub labeled for that kit. Now I have a ton of parts to play with on a kit that I love to fiddle with.

That's a cool video I've seen before. Shows how tough those old cars had to be since there weren't a lot of finished roads back then. I'll bet that Dodge hosed it off and sold it as a new car!

And there's even a small Ford Fiesta Van. I couldn't swipe the photo so the link to their page is here: http://www.ford.co.uk/Commercialvehicles/New-Fiesta-Van

All three of your builds are very nice and well represent the 1:1 cars!

I don't get it. eBay and Paypal go way overboard to guarantee deals for buyers. How did you not get reimbursed by them??

I don't mind "build", the one that drives me crazy is "make" as in "My hobby is making models" or "I made this model". It just doesn't sound right to my ears. I much prefer "I build models".

With the requests for reissues we must remember that the tooling for many of these annuals would be in the last version sold, the newest year car. For instance, everyone would like a '76 or '77 Volare, but the tool is no doubt the square headlight 1980 version that we wouldn't want. Same with many of the others including big bumper Pintos etc. where the earlier versions are more desirable. We saw that recently with the reissue of the Gremlin and big hood AMC Pacer. But the good news is that the tooling is in the hands or Round 2, who does understand that doing a bit of modification on old tools can pay off. For instance, I fully expect to see a Wayne's World low hood Pacer sooner or later. Why? Because Tom Lowe is the master of TV and movie licensing and that kit would sell big time. And the only thing that needs to be redone is the hood. Same with the old Chevette kit. Last version was the 1980ish Bear Bait with the full width chrome grill. I'd actually want the older style car with the split grill inset into the hood. I recently laid out both versions and again, the only difference was the grill. So that one could be restored for minimal cost. For me? I'd love to see Revell reissue the old Monogram Land Rover! We haven't seen it in a very long time and it should sell well.

I found it interesting that everyone was sweating the day that vehicles would be imported from China and India, but nobody even noticed when they snuck a Turkish van into the country!

I know that any kit that Revell or Round 2 have the tooling for will be reissued again in the future. And a year or two from now I'm likely to see that same kit at a swap meet for $10.

Okay Blair's in so here I go... I GET rat rods and yes they were the reaction to the over monied end of the hobby. Hot rodding got to the point of checkbook building. I was the guy with the primered '56 Chevy that I never did afford to get painted the way I saw it in my head. and in the same way that cruise nights developed as a reaction to those same high end cars at car shows, cruise nights became the 'bring what you have' and have a good time. Nobody said I had to keep my primered car in the garage until it was done. Bring it out, enjoy it and share it with other like minded folks, it was welcomed at the cruise night. Which led us to NNLs. Again the contests got to be high end shoot outs, so a group countered against it with a non competitive model car event. And what has become our most popular venue in this hobby? NNL style shows! People feel comfortable bringing out models they enjoy but might not be up to cutting edge competition. And it's all good. There are things in the automotive field that I do get, those that don't trip my trigger but I understand it and then there are those things I just don't understand. I think Harry summed it up pretty well. What don't I get?? People who are into exotic cars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis. You never had one, you'll never drive or have one, and the kind of people who can afford them and drive them wouldn't give us the time of day. So why??

I have 45 unfinished projects and started 7 more!

http://public.fotki.com/ModelCitizen/model_cars/model-car-shows/the_liars_show/liars-model-car-cha-6/ Hey Tom! Above is an album of photos I took at the show yesterday. Had a great time! There were also a few other albums posted by folks on the other board...

Wow Erik that has to be the newest Chevette in captivity. And if anyone is going to build their kit, there are over 200 detail pictures at that auction.

Al, after I just screwed up the paint job on my Caravan, I'm giving up and I'll just drop off my kits at your house for paint. It will be just like going to the dry cleaners with my clothes!