Tom Geiger

Here's our first year 1979 Capri RS with the Ghia package. This was a V8 Auto car with TRX suspension package. We bought this new and honestly it was the worst car we ever owned. Problem after problem, and we finally traded it in when it was 2 years old. But it was pretty and fun to drive! Just a mechanical nightmare. Photo is the parting shot when we traded it in on a 1981 Nissan Stanza hatchback that became our first family car. The Stanza was trouble free for over 10 years.

Yes! The water gets into the joints and expands as it freezes, gently pushing the parts apart. Ancient trivia- When lived in Germany in the early 1970s, they were still trying to get rid of all the WWII era bunkers that still were around the country side. You couldn't blow them up or bull doze them since they were built to withstand all that. What they found was that they could fill them up with water over the winter and the ice would push the walls apart.

Very nice wagon. I cannot remember the last time I saw one of those.

Cool. I have that kit and didn't realize it's full detail! I'll have to pull it out and give it a go. Back when we lived in Germany, my father had a red mid 60s Beetle as our second family car. The funny part was that it was a US spec Beetle, that an American serviceman had bought in the US and shipped back to Germany when he got stationed there. Army officers are allowed to ship a car to Europe and back home again at the end of the tour. So we shipped our trusty '66 Valiant (this was the fall of '69).You had to wait a month or better for the car to arrive, so we grabbed up the Beetle upon our arrival and it was our only car for awhile. Upon leaving Germany, the Valiant was shipped back home, so the Beetle was once again our only transport for the remainder of our stay. My father wanted to have it until the last day, so as a lot of folks did, he was just going to leave the Beetle at the BOQ with the title and keys to be given to some lucky inbound serviceman. It was expendable. He paid a few hundred for it three years earlier. The last week we were there a guy approached me and asked directions. I asked him if he was new there, and then asked him if he wanted a car. I sold him the Beetle, to change hands on our last day, for $200. I was 14 at the time. My father was so impressed that he let me keep the money! My father's office in Pirmasens, Germany. Our Beetle is to the right of the entrance. Dark colored with US spec rear bumper next to the '67 Chevy. The half car all the way to the left was the unit's '70 Ambassador staff car. The unit also had the Econoline van. The rest of the cars were owned by US servicemen. Some got shipped back to the US and others were abandoned there.

We no longer report numbers. Let's just say that 4 years ago we printed 10,000 parking spaces. And we ran out this year!

John! You didn't go to the Revell booth and see that they are reissuing that Lancer this year? Just kidding! I have a couple of those ready for their next mission myself. Just be sure to look at some photos of 1:1s and fix the top of the windshield! Whatever else you do is fair game and I do know you have a warped sense of reality!

Thanks Paul, it was nice to meet you in person. Per your description on this board, I saw a guy in a lime green shirt and approached you! Glad I did! And SOMEBODY is pretty modest here... SOMEBODY won an award at NNL East.... just sayin'

Hey Rich! It was good seeing you this weekend. I guess you are at Tom's house at this point. Does he still have the silly grin on his face?

Hi Jonny! I believe we need pictures of a '73 Buick Century wagon! That is just too cool. BTW, the sub theme for NNL East 2014 is Station Wagons! Start saving your pennies, it will be worth the trip to New Jersey.

James - I was rockin' with you right up until the interior photo. You are doing a great job on this car, so I have to say that the interior just doesn't look right. Interiors don't rust and get dirty, without any fabric tears etc. For reference, go to eBay Motors and look at some of the beat up cars for sale. And go look at Hollywood Jim's 1950 Olds interior. I don't mean to criticize, but you were doing such a good job on this car, you need to work on the interior. I'm pretty good at this, so I'm happy to offer suggestions. If you need more interior parts to play with, I have a few parts kits of that car. I'd be pleased to mail you whatever you need, no cost at all!

We do have that in our hobby, it's called GSL in Salt Lake City. It's 4 days of talks, model display and contest, museum tours and a small swap meet. It's only attended by a few hundred people, but influential people in our hobby. The ladies craft market is much bigger than our hobby. Consider that chains like Michaels and AC Moore have huge stores coast to coast to service this market. A show like this is professionally run and no doubt turns a good profit. If we had that potential, someone would be all over it! To start something like that from scratch would be an investment of over $50k, with no guarantees of even breaking even for years. NNL East has talked about doing a Friday of seminars. We just hadn't had the steam to get it started. Lord knows we have the talent coming to do a kick ass program!

Kris- of the two Revell Trabant kits, the newer one is better. The early one was a curbside and the new one has full engine detail. With the early ones, if you are buying one at a show, check to make sure the roof pillars are intact and the roof is straight. It's a very weak assembly and gets crushed easily and often in the flatty box it came in.

Hey, when folks that run other shows have come, we've invited them to come in with us early and watch the whole process. In fact I did a presentation of the inner workings of NNL East at GSL a few years ago. There are no trade secrets, we're all in this one together. We have a lot more issues to handle than most shows, mainly due to the sheer size of the show and numbers of models, vendors and people we process. We keep serious counts, track timing and have a whole set of metrics we work to. And we beat the tar out of ourselves at our post show meeting every year! I don't get Semi-NNL? We are the ONLY NNL that has official permission from the original Toledo crew. And with that was the promise to stay as close to their formula as we could, and we honor that. We only charge for admission, not to display models. We give out a very limited number of awards (actually 6) as plaques not trophies and try our very best to keep it a non-competitive, friendly and sharing environment in the spirit of the original group's intent. Some of the 'other' NNLs have taken the name but have done their own thing. Some are pretty much people's choice contests with many awards, charging a per model entry fee and handing out real trophies. There are some that say that 'nobody would come if there weren't a lot of trophies'. And there are other shows that originally called themselves an NNL and later changed their name once they saw they weren't following the formula.

My oldest surviving models? Since I lived outside the country and it was tough to get models, mine usually got broken down for parts for my next great idea. So I never had a whole shelf of finished models. Once we moved back to the US I did buy and build a bunch, but I left it all carefully stored in my old bedroom closet at my parents house. Termites got into that closet and my father threw it all out when I was in my 20s. And I wasn't all that concerned about it in those days. My best survivor is my favorite Mini Cooper that I've had since I was 12 (I'm 54 now). This is diecast and was sold as a finished model that I've seen in the US, but it also was available as a prepainted diecast in Europe. I had seen The Italian Job which got me into the Mini, but yellow and black were my colors, so I held out until I found one in the right colors. Those tires are lettered by me with Testors white that somehow dried and the hood was brush painted Testors lumpy black. I thought it was cooler without the grill and I painted the interior and installed orange felt carpet. It has always been on my shelf, so it's survived all these years. When I was in high school it was the subject of our one frame animation movie. and here's one that survived the termite closet. I started this Anglia in my teens and it got just this far. Paint job stunk and I did zero body prep so I don't know if it is deserving of getting finished this way or stripped and redone in the scheme I meant to build back then. I remember that I wanted to make myself a street car instead of a drag car. There is another engine and tires in the box too. And of course you notice the color scheme. I also have a Revell Porsche 914 and a few Airfix 1/32 kits from my life in Europe.

The official NNL East Swag Van is loaded and ready to go! When I say 'loaded' I really mean it. The Grand Caravan is stacked right up into the high top and it's squatting. Thankfully we'll be leaving a lot of it behind in NJ! We've got some really neat new stuff this year. We have a special NNL East logo goody bag that everyone gets, NNL East pens, NNL East license plates and a special NNL East logo gift that will be given ONLY to people who display models, so bring a few along! And we have cool full color buttons, with designs going back to 2009, to make up for the few years we didn't have buttons. We did the retro thing for guys who have collected the whole set. And T-Shirts as always. Super cool shirts you can wear to club meetings, shows and weddings! We also have our complimentary NNL Eats Barbecue on Friday night at the host hotel. So be there after 6pm. We hired a very cool barbecue company to make it happen. For up to the minute details, hit the website at: http://www.nnleast.com/contents.html

The one thing you'll find is that the neither company has the full line of Testors paints, only a limited generic retail like selection. Do note that there's a whole world of paints beyond Testors and many of them are more cost effective. For instance a lot of us use automotive paints, mainly Duplicolor sprays. I use the Duplicolor gray primer as my main primer. I love their color sprays to use over that because they come out well much more often than Testors ever did. These may appear to be more expensive than Testors, but they go on sale at a variety of auto parts stores all the time. I bought 25 cans at Ollie's junk store for $1 each two years ago. I still have plenty. There are other alternatives too. Folks here use cheap sprays from Walmart and Home Depot. I like to vary my flat blacks, so I have a few different brands that dry to different tones. I don't buy Testors brush bottles at all. I try to spray everything I can to get better results. You can tape small parts to a styrofoam block and spray them. I mount a lot of things on toothpicks and straight pins to paint this way also. And when I do need to brush paint a little bit or do touch up, I spray a little bit of paint into Dixie Cup small bathroom cups. These are great because they're cheap and you can just throw them out when you're done.

Great bit of family history. I wouldn't change a thing. Put it back in the case and enjoy it.

thanks for the plug Dan! And ya know, a couple of your guys defected to NNL East last year! The good part is that we're both doing FREE BARBECUE!!!!

I remember that the Deerborn Police had a few Lincoln Town Cars donated by Ford. Also, Montvale, NJ, home to Mercedes Benz of USA had a couple Mercedes SUVs, all with a donation slogan across the back panel. Volare- A while back Randy of Perry's Resin said he had the 4 door sedan ready to cast since they were big cop cars in Canada. I guess he never got around to casting them.

You know, sheets of white paper with glue on the back, like address labels. You can type, print or write on it, peel it off and stick it to the show parking space slip. Some guys do this. And some use their address label where their name would go.

Great job so far! The detail work may not get noticed by the herd, but at any show when a real Porsche guy sees it, he will go nuts! And that should make your day.

Get the Earth Tones set. That's what I use for a lot of my weathering and rusting. I've had the same set something like 10 years or more, so the investment goes a long way.

I once bought an NOS Studebaker fender from Newman and Altman. They sent it in the original Studebaker package, but heavily taped huge chunks of styrofoam on each corner and wrapped it in bubble wrap. Then they put the factory package inside another box... and UPS STILL managed to nearly bend it in half. UPS tried to worm out of a claim saying it was improperly packed.. come on guys! This is a heavy metal car fender! You had to run it over with a truck or something.

Kinda foggy memory going back but I think I remember someone doing watermelons from small jelly beans. Shape would be right and you just have to detail paint 'em. And remember, when doing a truckload, only the ones on top really need to be detailed nicely. And a bit of ancient trivia since you brought up pumpkins. The above truck was actually inspired by a farm stand truck that was displaying pumpkins. I originally was going to put the pumpkin load on it. I was building it for my club's annual contest at our December meeting, so a friend suggested a Christmas theme. And the rest is history!

"I'm pretty sure I'll come back, I've always read here on the forum that most people do return after a break! Recently I had an almost finished 70 Camaro model, nothing was going right in the final assembly. So I lost it and I threw it across the room :lol:" One of life's lessons through model car building is when things go wrong, instead of getting mad, learn to take a deep breath and just walk away for the evening. Wait until you are in a better frame of mind and try again. You will find that the problem that had you mad, has an easy solution you just didn't see because you were upset. Believe me I know. I was pretty hot headed and learned to calm down this way!