Ramfins59

Today I received a response from Carol Holthaus to my email offering them the use of the '58 Dodge promo body that I recently acquired to make molds for including a '58 Dodge in their product line. Carol advised that Don has a straight '58 Dodge body and is currently working on a '58 Dodge kit for their product line. She did not give any estimation of when this might go into production and into their extensive list of products. I'm sure that a LOT of people will be happy to hear this news, and I'm sure it will be well worth waiting for.

I got a reply from the Modelhaus in response to my email about using this promo body to make molds so they can have a '58 Dodge in their product line. Carol Holthaus thanked me for my offer and advised that Don has a straight '58 Dodge body and is currently working on a '58 Dodge kit. I'm sure that a lot of people will be happy to hear this news. They did not give any estimation of when this might go into production and join their product line. I'm sure it will be worth waiting for.

Yeah Ray, it happens every so often and as you said, usually at final assembly time when you then have to sand or cut something to make it fit, which causes regluing and usually repainting (touchups) too. Don't worry Ray, you're not alone.

Yeah George, I'm hoping everyone enjoyed that little story. It wasn't so funny at the time, but looking back on it kind of makes me smile. Mike, It's not that I don't like Ramblers, it's that there aren't many models in plastic of 1950's Ramblers (I only know of the JOHAN '59 Wagon, which I have in my pile), and the only resin pieces I'm aware of are Nash Metropolitans from Modelhaus, which I have yet to buy. If anyone knows of more Rambler kits available, please speak up.

You've got another winner there Al. You really are a fast worker.

Thanks a lot fellas, I really appreciate it. Jim B., that's a great suggestion. I'll have to work on that.

Tom G., thanks a lot. I'm really hoping that you're right. I'd really hate to see this car start to "smile" after I got it finished. Tom V., thanks a lot old pal.... with the beany baby fish and magnetic letters LOL. By the way buddy, the fish was on the front seat.... and I've already done a model of a '59 Dodge... remember the black one? I keep getting outbid on the ones I see on EBAY, and I haven't seen one for sale at a show in over 10 years. By the way, I did send an email to Modelhaus asking if they might be interested in taking some molds of this car to put in their product line before I do any more work on it. I'm waiting to hear back from them.

Thanks so much for all those great pictures Tom.

Thanks a lot Johann. I don't really set out to look for and build "obscure" cars, but it just seems to have happened that way lately because of my desire to build as many cars for each year of the 1950's that I can. Aside from all the actual kits of 50's cars that are made there are many promos that also fit into those years for the cars that are not made in kit form, providing they can be found in good condition and not warped. I've only purchased promos in good condition for my "Class of" builds for each year. The fact that they might seem to be "obscure" to me seems to be mainly due to the fact that not many people want to take apart a "good" promo and redo it. What I can't locate in either kit form, or as an old builtup, or a promo, I'll buy in resin. I especially like Modelhaus' stuff but I also have my eye on a few other resin casters products. Of course a lot of the promo's and resin kits can be pricey so I try to space out my purchases as my limited budget permits. Right now I have a pile of kits and promo's of 50's cars to last me well over a year. Of course there are always more new kits coming our way and EBAY always has a good deal here and there if you can get lucky. Unfortunately from about the 1955 year and prior there are not really a lot of kits, promo's or resin offerings out there. I have whatever plastic kits that were made, a '55 Pontiac promo, and the '55 Olds diecast that I recently finished. There are a few resin offerings but not the extensive choices available for 1956 and up. I'll keep plodding along and try to knock out as many 50's cars that I can get my hands on., I've finished a bunch but I've got a whole lot more to be built and to buy. Wish me luck.

Thank you all very much guys, your kind comments are greatly appreciated. Phillip, next time I'll put up a warning at the beginning of the thread to put on some shades before looking...LOL..

OK John, here goes, Back in the late 90's when I owned my '59 Dodge Coronet, it was my daily driver. One day I drove another family car to work instead. When I got back home from work I noticed that I had left the driver's side front window open. It was a hot July day but I went over to close the window for the evening. When I looked into the car there was a dead baby sand shark about 8 inches long on the passenger side of the front seat..!!! Plus, there were about a hundred BIG black flies buzzing around in the interior (feeding off the dead fish). It appears that one of the neighborhood idiot kids thought it was funny and he threw the baby shark in the car that his dad had caught while on a fishing trip off Long Island (where I lived at the time). The fish was stuck to the upholstery as it had apparently baked in the hot sun most of the day. Obviously I was INCENSED over this and got the fish and all the flies out of the car. It took over a month to get the smell out of the car using Lysol, Febreze, air fresheners, after shave and whatever else I could think of. My "friend", Tom Valenta, took the opportunity to play a trick on me after this incident. I was at a LHS "Happy Hour that a friend who owned the shop had every Friday night. My older daughter called the LHS hysterically crying, telling me someone hung fish from the Dodge's antenna's and put the words U.S.S. TUNABOAT on the side of the car. I'm thinking spray paint on the side of the car and more dead fish hanging from the antenna's and I jump in the family car I drove to the LHS and drive home at top speed. I get there to find 2 beany baby fish on string hanging from the antenna's and magnetized plastic, colored letters on the side of the car spelling out U.S.S. TUNABOAT. Immediately I said to myself, freakin' Tommy, as I knew only he would do something dumb like this with his crazy sense of humor. Sure enough he admitted doing it, knowing it would freak me out..!!! From that day on all my friends and guys in the LIARS Club called my Dodge the TUNABOAT. As an ending to this story, one day a few months later Tom and I were at a local cruise night with our cars (Tom had a '67 Pontiac LeMans) and my younger daughter was with us. She was in High School at the time. A kid walks by my car and says to his friend "That's the car that had the fish thrown in it." I grabbed the kid and asked him how he knew about that. He said he knew the kid that did it. I asked him who it was and he told me. My daughter said she knew the kid from High School and he lived a couple of blocks away from us. Well, I stewed about this for a couple of days trying to think of the best way to handle this kid. I could go kick the you know what out of him, but that would probably only get ME in trouble. I eventually wound up calling the local Police Precinct and spoke to a detective explaining the whole situation. I told him that I would just like him to go to the kid's home and confront him and his parents about the incident, without pressing any charges. The detective said "We don't really handle things like this." I said that all I want is for him to go and put the fear of God into this kid, otherwise, I might have to go and take matters into my own hands over it, and, he may not like what happens. I said I'm trying to handle this right, like a "good citizen". Needless to say, the cops did go to the kid's house and confronted him and his parents over his little shenanigans. The kid saw my daughter in school a few days later and said to her "Why did your Dad have to call the cops.....I got SO GROUNDED...!!!" My daughter then told him he was lucky that I didn't kill him for messing with my car. I don't think that kid ever even st foot on my block again after that. So that's the story of the U.S.S. Tunaboat.

Sorry John......it's not big enough LOL.

George, funny thing you called the cars "Tuna Trawlwers"... I've got a funny story to tell you at lunch today about a "Tuna Boat".

Best Model Car Parts doesn't have the '60 Pontiac gauges listed in his line.

Welcome to our plastic playground Don.

Thanks very much everyone, I appreciate all your encouraging comments. ChrisBcritter, I actually thought about emailing Modelhaus and asking if they might be interested in taking a mold from this body, but I thought it might be too "forward" of me to do that. Maybe I will send them an email anyway. The body is in primer right now. I've already built one '59 Dodge promo back in the late 90's when I owned a real one. I built it as a mild Custom, painted black, the way I thought I originally wanted the real one to turn out but unfortunately that never happened. I've been trying to pick up another '59 promo on EBAY but keep getting outbid.

What a great looking car Al. Geez you work fast...!!!

Thanks John and Kerry. John, I think I'll be doing this car stock and the colors will be yellow and black. You're right about the seemingly strange color combos on Chrysler's cars back then. Remember the baby BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH brown and tan colors on my Dodge..?? I usually download a bunch of Googled reference pictures of each car that I'm building a model of along with the color charts for that years' car so I'll at least get the colors close on the model. Sam, you're right about those cars being BIG. The '59 Dodge Coronet that I had was 18' 2" long and just over 6' wide. My younger daughter used to play the upright string bass in high school and her bass would fit, laying down on the back seat.

Thanks Charlie. I kind of agree with you, however, I'm kind of partial to the '59 Dodge myself...... only because I used to own one. I've got a Modelhaus kit of a '57 Dodge which I'll eventually be getting around to working on also. I've got a very large pile of 50's cars yet to build, and an even larger pile yet to still buy. I keep saying, so many models... so little time. Yes Ray, the Modelhaus bumpers and grille are chrome plated resin pieces.

This guy's stuff has been on here before. He takes amazing pictures of diecast cars and diorama scenes.

Welcome to our plastic playground Jordan. Check the website for Model Roundup. They've got all the stuff you'll want. www.modelroundup.com

Brett, my wife picked up 3 1/43 scale models of the cars from Cars, also for our 2 year old grandson (Doc Hudson, Lightning McQueen, and Mater). They are snap kits that I will put together and give to him, but, so far, all of the snap-together models that I've given him, he's broken pieces off within 5 minutes..!! I realize he's only 2 and it doesn't upset me at all. I think I need to start giving him sturdier cars and trucks like TONKA...LOL.

Thanks a lot guys. I've looked for one of these for quite a while but an unwarped one was almost impossible to find. This one is about the straightest one I've ever seen. It looks like it had the beginnings of that famous Johan smile when you look at the very tip of the molded on side trim spear which has a slight curve upwards. Hopefully it won't get any worse as time goes on. Not much I can do about it if it does. As a side note, I've looked on Wheat's Nostalgia's website for loads of different promo's for different year's cars and he's just nuts with his prices, especially for all the warped stuff that he shows. The halfway decent stuff that he lists on EBAY is priced crazy too. I'm almost ashamed to say that I paid $73 for this Dodge promo and was lucky to get it for that price. Now I don't think I'll ever go that high on anything again. No way will I ever pay high 3 figures for even a straight promo. But, that's just me. Obviously someone is paying those high prices or they wouldn't be listed that high.

Thank you very much Oscar and Gene, I appreciate your kind comments. Geno......wipe your chin..!!

My new project on the bench is a 1958 Dodge model. This is a promo that I picked up on EBAY that is in great shape. I googled some reference pictures for color choices and picked yellow and black. Here ls what the promo body looks like after I sanded off the mold lines. I got replacement grille & bumpers from the Modelhaus. I gave the grille a blackwash with the Detailer after I took these pictures and also gave the headlights a thin coat of acrylic white. I will probably put some clear headlight lenses over them to make them look better. I also got a resin '59 Dodge interior from Modelhaus as they advised that the '58 Dodge promo body needs a shallow interior bucket to fit properly. I had to sand down the outside edges to get it to fit right as it was just a smidge too wide. Don Holthaus recommended that I use their '57 Dodge dashboard & steering wheel because it is almost the same for the '58 Dodge. All the interior pieces are sitting in Westleys Bleche White in preparation for paint work & detailing. This should be a fun, quick build as it is a Curbside, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone build a '58 Dodge model. It will be a neat addition to my "Class of '58" build group. Thanks for looking in on this new project and hopefully you'll follow along for the ride.