Tom Geiger

The most important part is that you made it with love, for your mom.

The good part of this thread is that with Revell and Moebius giving us regular surprises, anything is possible! More than at any other time in modeling.

Once again Fox New's car articles look like they were written by a female summer intern with a one hour deadline. There is a guy in my model club who had a Superbird back in the 1970s. Note that dealers pretty much gave these away since they were near sales proof. In fact some dealers took the nose and wing off them to sell them as Roadrunners. He had the car for years, and sold it for a pittance once the nose rusted through on the bottom. And what are these worth today?? As said, any of the cars we see selling for big dollars today had to be stored and cared for in the past 30-50 years. That cost would dwarf any return you may get today.

I have a few of the SJS pieces. I have the Studebaker Champ pickup, the ice cream truck and their phone company truck body. A funny story... back then my inlaws asked me what I wanted for a present. I thought it would be fool proof to take the SJS order form, fill it out and hand it to them. All they needed to do was write a check, mail it and wait for the package. Instant present. My inlaws were very old school and believed all the cautions that Readers Digest warned them about. One of those was not trusting companies through the mails. So my mother in law called up SJS to inquire. She no doubt grilled him about her apprehensions about mailing a check and maybe not getting product. She convinced him to send her the kits and when she received them she'd mail him a check! I don't picture any mail order company doing that, but it somehow worked out and I got the kits for Christmas.

I'll go with Brett. Who said they will make announcements? They never promised anything. And I can only imagine what it's like to try to get a new kit to market. Dealing with a bunch of outsourced functions, from design, to tooling to production. I been there in my own career, and sometimes it's difficult to get them on the same page as you... even though you are paying them. And then add in the licensing wrinkle, that could take any unknown length of time, since every company has their own way of doing it, and they aren't working for you so you are at their mercy.

Does it have to be decals or will this sheet do? I was fortunate to find two complete mint condition sheets at a show about 20 years ago. I had to have them because I had them as a kid! One has remained the way you see it, the other one I've been using on my builds, most notably on the cars in the Olde Kustom Kollection!

I love that light commercial sheet. Here's two police cars I've done with decals from that sheet so far. I'm planning a taxi from that sheet right now!

SE LTD has / had a resin '58 Dodge pickup that looks pretty good. I think a company called SJS did a '55 in resin many years ago

Great build and in my favorite category! Sorry to hear it's no longer with us. I'm sure you could build another one, and even make it better next time.

Me thinks the moderators need to cut the newbies some slack. This board can be perplexing until you figure it all out.

Cats??? You couldn't mean model boxes since you are supposed to recycle those!

White walls look odd on the street today. Back when we bought our '99 Breeze for my daughter, it came from a friend's father in law, who was a car guy in his 60s. It was his wife's car and had been polished within an inch of it's life. And it had white walls AND a chrome exhaust extension on it.

Yea! Summer of 1976. My 2 buddies and I would go cruising. We'd each chip in a dollar for gas, get 6 gallons and cruise all night on it. Didn't matter who drove, my '66 Valiant, my friends '70 Maverick or '66 Mustang. All six cylinder cars, that still didn't get anywhere near the gas mileage of current cars. We'd get quarts of Miller and Bud for 65 cents and we'd drive around, each with one on our lap. Try that today!

Lookin' good Rich! I'm always up for some modeling as a spectator sport watching you build! I bought a pack of those Radio Shack diodes maybe 20 years ago and still have a good quantity of them. And suddenly your model will get radio reception because of it!

Great job on the Mustang! I think your build looks great, subtle and the way many of them rolled off the assembly line. I don't have any issues with the kit myself. I own one and will build it without going nuts over the roof and other small issues.

I was thinking about that myself. I am just learning to do paint masks and they are a pain in the tail. I see the glass nicely painted on diecast, would modelers want to have the glass predone with the black edging from the kit manufacturer? That would mean perfect tampo print every time!

I always meant to do that. I even bought the kits to do so! But procrastination wins for me once again! I can't wait to find this kit here in the US.

I've always used Testors flat black from the spray can. I spray a little bit into a small paper cup, then brush it onto the grille. I wait a few minutes for it to become tacky, then I wipe the grille off with a Q-tip with a little turpentine on it, for the above result. Note that the red lettering was done the same way.

cool oldie! I'd clean it up and keep it 'as is'. It's just one old time capsule from our youth. And that's the fun of it. Yes, some of these are ugly to our learned eyes today, but that was the style and fad back then. So ugly is part of the charm. My interest in the old customs goes back to seeing Dave Shulkas's original Bobtail Cat Valiant that was on the cover of Car Model number one in 1962. It was a mess, covered with gunk and blown apart. My friend Al Raab took on the task of restoring it and since I collect all things Valiant, I was called upon to donate some parts, which was an honor. Upon examining it there were a few things I noticed. First how crude the build actually was. This was a very well known model in it's day, so it stands today as a benchmark of how far our craft has come since then. Second, I had collected a bunch of old Valiants and was always perplexed as to why several had the rear of the body lopped off. Upon seeing the Bobtail, I knew why. Those builders were following this build from the article in the magazine, and the reprints of the article AutoWorld would send out with the kit! I found it interesting how much influence this had back in those days. So I decided that those bobtails also deserved to be restored. And off we went into the Olde Kustom Kollection!

An evil thought... would the AMX and Javelin be future subjects for Moebius? Cars with a good race history that could be issued in multiple versions... that may solve the whole thing!

Stick around! We also like to whine about the Aussie dollar being on par with ours! We liked it much better when it was 50 cents US!

Very nice Carl. I've always been partial to this body style because my father bought a new '66 Lemans 2 door hardtop with a four speed. His was midnight blue with a white bucket interior. The only car he treated himself to!

I'll agree with Bob. I too know Norman and he's one of those guys you can't think of anything bad about. He will forgo attending shows when he's behind on orders because he says it wouldn't be fair to take a day off from casting to the guys waiting for product. A thoughtful guy indeed and a good friend to the hobby.

I believe cars will have lights. Will cars of the future allow owners to drive them when wanted and be self guided when needed? Kind of like an airliner? And same with lighting, an airliner has marker lights when in flight and only hits the headlights when landing. I think marker lights will be needed to be visible to other cars and pedestrians at night. It's kind of scary when a hybrid car sneaks up on you now without sound, imagine them without lights!

Porscheman gave me this worked over R&R 1960 Valiant wagon body and interior at my club meeting last weekend. It looks okay but... Some numpty did a number on it, doing who knows what. It was built poorly to begin with, no prep at all and painted blue right on top of the resin. Wheel wells sanded flat, body sculpture lines ruined and all the drip molding gone from the drivers side. Then he stopped! I already have an R&R '60 wagon so it wasn't worth attempting to restore that. I thought about turning it into a sedan delivery, but the sanded body side ended that. Then I got an idea. (Like I needed another project) Enter one Revell glitter metallic 1962 Valiant that has seen much better days. Assembled without any paint and junk glued all over it. I bought it many years ago for $5 so it was time to do something with it. Note that I did strip the blue paint off the wagon prior to cutting. The first generation Valiants went from 1960 to 1962 and shared the same body. SMP did the 1960 that the wagon was based on, while the '62 is a Revell kit. The glitter thing was Jim Keelers brainstorm on how to sell kits in a second mid-year run. They did it once. As you can see, the big difference, aside from trim, between the cars is the tail lights. I did a ton of measurement checks and the two cars lined up very nicely for kits from different manufacturers back in the dark ages. So I started cutting... I didn't take any progress shots, but this wasn't an easy task. The Revell car pretty much has the characteristic of cutting clear plastic windshields. So it was prone to shatter, which it did a couple of times. Then I started cutting the resin which was soft but brittle and yea, I fixed a few cracks on that side too. I went slow and took off a little material at a time. I finally got it all cut and set and it fit like it was made for it. All the posts lined up and everything fit pretty well. Here's the two wagons together. I guess I'm going to need to build both of them to display together. And an 'up on wheels' shot. I still have a lot of trim to add with round stock, but I'm well practiced on that. And there will no doubt be a bunch of clean up from the junk that was originally glued to our '62. And the good news is that the '62 has an open hood and a slant six engine. I am very pleased with the results of my afternoon!