Mike999

I have a resin body that must have been mastered off that '53 Pontiac. No idea who made it or where it came from. I got it long ago in a package deal with a box full of old resin bodies: a '50 Studebaker, '54 Ford 4-door and some others. Most of these are molded in a flexible, rubbery kind of resin in strange colors. The Pontiac is blue-green, the Stude and Ford are black. They probably date back to the 1980s or early '90s, when the resin re-casting industry was just taking off.

Just got a model of the "Doctor Killer," the Beechcraft Bonanza V35 in 1/48 scale. An aviation magazine recently ran an article about "The 10 Most Dangerous Aircraft" and this was one of them. Minicraft also makes the F33 version with the conventional, non-V tail, which seemed to fix most of the Bonanza's stability problems. All these Minicraft civil aircraft kits have been around since the 1970s. Older versions included figures wearing bell-bottom trousers, Afro hairdos and other Seventies gear. I don't know if those are still in the box. Minicraft has added new Cartograf decals with civil markings for US, Canadian, British and German aircraft. Plus extra number decals to make your own registration numbers. I got this one from HobbyLinc for less than 20 bucks.

I'm gearing up for an eBay sale and pasted your advice at the top of my "SELL" list. For the first time, I'm going to list everything as Buy It Now instead of an auction. This is an experiment, since I usually do auctions only. I won't list anything as auction AND Buy It Now. It's pretty obvious what happens with that, since I've done it myself: somebody will place the minimum bid just to remove the "Buy It Now" option, hoping they'll get the kit for that minimum bid. Those MPC annuals aren't the only great old kits that go dirt cheap. I remember a seller at a kit show a few years ago with a stack of the Revell '97 Ford F-150 pickups. He had trouble selling them for $5 each. Same with the AMT/ERTL '96 and '97 Ford Explorers; you'd think the police car fans would snap those up. Round 2 would probably make a ton of money if they re-popped some of the SnapFast pickup kits. Especially the '96 Dodge Ram Dually, and the Chevy with the camper/bed cap. The Dodge Duallys always seem to go for high prices on eBay.

Got this in the mail today, along with some other off-topic 1/35 scale stuff. It's the Mini-Art Type 170v Lieferwagen "Beer Delivery Car." Yes, it comes with the crates and beer bottles, which are even molded in clear green plastic. You'll notice the words "Mercedes-Benz" are nowhere to be found. Heller did this same vehicle in 1/24 scale, and it goes in and out of production. It was last re-issued in 2006, according to Scalemates. I've seen it built as a hot rod and as a weathered surfer van. Like all Mini-Art kits, it has an engine, detailed rear compartment and an insanely detailed chassis. Sometimes I think ICM and Mini-Art are in a contest, to see who can make a 1/35 scale chassis with the most parts. I'm thinking of mounting loudspeakers on top, some control panels/amps in the back, and building it as a WWII propaganda truck.

Heh! Years ago at an aerospace company, I got an interesting job assignment. My boss asked if I would drive a box truck from Los Angeles to Utah with another guy, pick up A Thing, and drive straight back to L.A. No stops other than fuel. The boss gave us an envelope and said: "Do not allow anybody to open the back of that truck, not even the police. If they try, show them this." Coming back, we had to stop at Agricultural Inspection on the CA border. Sure enough, the duty officer wanted to open the back of the truck. I gave him the envelope. He read the letter inside and said, "OK, this is above my pay grade. Go on thru." We couldn't wait to see that letter. It was very short and basically said: "If you have any questions, call this telephone number." The number was in Washington, DC and belonged to An Agency that owned The Thing.

I just posted this in another thread, before I saw this one. I'll repeat it here: HobbyLinc has 4 of the Hasegawa 1966 kits in stock right now, the Buick Wildcat, Chevy Impala, T-Bird Lowrider and the Cadillac. The Chevy and Buick have the resin female figure in the box. All the kits are priced at around US $40. http://www.hobbylinc.com/cgi-bin/s8.cgi?cat_s=&str_s=hasegawa+1966

Hooray! Another Zombie Thread claws its way out of the grave! ☠️ HobbyLinc has 4 of the Hasegawa 1966 kits in stock right now: the Chevy, T-Bird Lowrider, Buick Wildcat and that Cadillac. The Cadillac is $42.39. http://www.hobbylinc.com/cgi-bin/s8.cgi?cat_s=&str_s=hasegawa+1966 And here's a 2018 thread about the history of the kits:

Had to run some errands yesterday, and noticed that the Hobby Lobby closest to me had re-opened, after all stores shut down a few weeks ago. The store is operating on reduced hours, 10 AM - 7 PM IIRC. Decided to go in and check the model section. (I wore a mask, as I do everywhere in public these days). The only new thing I saw was the Revell Visible V-8. No new car kits, and quite a few empty slots waiting for re-filling. Even worse, no Special Virus Clearance Sales. ?

It's been reissued a few times, but not as often as the Coupe. I believe the pic of the "Touring Street Rod" below was the last re-issue of the Phaeton, and that was a few years ago. This version does not have the stock engine or wheels. But those can be stolen from the Coupe, if you want a stock Phaeton. I also forgot to mention the '30 Ford Woody. It was never issued as a stocker, only as a hot rod with a small block Chevy V8. Here's an old thread about the Monogram '30 Fords:

They were, back in 1960 IIRC. Hawk itself reissued the Cable Car several times, and so did Testors when it got the Hawk molds. I expect it to come out in a Round 2 box any time. It's 1/48 scale, so it could be filled up with "O" gauge railroad figures. Overall a pretty nice little kit, but it tends to have a lot of flash and be molded in garish plastic colors. Mine is molded in a bright green. If Round 2 does reissue it, they probably wouldn't use these vintage anti-Coke decals:

Guilty here too! Just checked. I have 4 of the '30 Coupes and 2 Phaetons, 1 unbuilt and 1 built that I'll probably rework into a jalopy. The hardest kits to find were the Cabriolet and the Yellow Jacket. Found the Cabriolet "Special Interest Series" version at a kit show for a reasonable price. Found the Yellow Jacket not long ago, with almost 2 complete kits in the box but some gluing.

Here's one that just sold on eBay Apr. 2. From the company "Accura Models," which I've never heard of. It got 5 bids but only sold for $26. Which makes me wonder, since it's a full kit and not just a body. The box art looks great, but it shows a real vehicle. I was wrong about having a WC-53 body. I have the S-Model full kit, bought at a swap meet years ago. The body-only conversion was made by ADV/Azimut in France. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-35-Accura-Dodge-T214-WC53-Carryall-Resin-Kit/274318955317?hash=item3fdeaf1335:g:5rYAAOSwf11efRUB

They do exist in 1/35 scale, but only in resin. Several companies make full kits of the Carryall, or resin bodies to fit the Italeri and Skybow chassis. I just searched on "resin 1/35 scale dodge carryall" and got a few results. I have a Carryall resin body picked up many years ago. This is one time I'd prefer just a body to a full kit. I hate working with resin chassis parts like leaf springs and tie-rods. If they're in scale they're fragile and break very easily. The Czech company Bilek has released several different versions of the old WC-54 ambulance kit: a Signal Corps radio van, a nice Military Police version with a resin roof rack, and some others. I keep hoping they'll step up and do a Carryall body, either in plastic or resin, and add it to the ambulance kit.

Well, here's a mystery, on that "still in business." A week or so ago, I went to order some Doozy items from HobbyLinc.com. I had copied their stock numbers before, so I know they were on the site. Every single Doozy item had disappeared from the HobbyLinc website! They didn't show as "Not In Stock." They were completely gone! The whole Doozy page had disappeared. But I checked just now, and...they're back! HobbyLinc doesn't have that neat antique cooler in the OP, but they have vending machines, the pay phone, dogs and cats and some other stuff. I guess that means I have to place another order quickly. Before they disappear again. Mumble... http://www.hobbylinc.com/cgi-bin/s8.cgi?cat_s=&str_s=doozy

Good find! Kit Archeology: here's the original (and great) box art for that kit. It was first released by the Japanese company Peerless-MAX, way back in the 1970s. On the box, one WC-56 is towing a water trailer. The water trailer was included in this version of the kit, and a cargo trailer was in the original issue of the Peerless-MAX WC-51 Dodge Weapons Carrier. When ITALERI got the molds, they removed the water and cargo trailers, and boxed the two of them as a separate kit. Cheapskates! New 1/35 kits of the Dodge family were done by Skybow of Taiwan in the 1990's. AFV Club later got those molds and put their name on the box. Those kits have engines, unlike the Peerless and Italeri kits. One Dodge vehicle that Skybow didn't do was the WC-54 ambulance. Some dedicated builders take the old Peerless/Italeri ambulance body, and swap the chassis of a Skybow kit under it. Here's a comparison of the Italeri and Skybow WC-51 kits by armor kit expert Cookie Sewell. He mentions the Eduard photo-etch set for the Italeri kit, which replaces clunkier parts like the grille bars with thin etched metal. If you want to try that, it's Eduard Item No. 35610, "Dodge WC-56/57 Staff Car for Italeri Kit." http://www.kitreview.com/reviews/wc51beepreviewcs_1.htm

This thread, a little lower on the page right now, might help. It has some great downloadable garage signs and lots of product boxes etc. If you can find a supplier willing to do it, you might be able to have some of these converted into decals. Or make your own decals. I don't know of a source for exactly the kind of decals you're looking for. I'd like to find some myself. Even the 1/25 scale garage/tool kits don't seem to include many realistic markings for tools, tool boxes etc. One other idea: check model railroad decal sheets. I have a couple of HO scale sheets with various safety/warning signs and the like. They're pretty big in HO scale but would be pretty small on a 1/25 scale lift or jack. I recently used some on a 1/32 scale fork lift ("Hard Hat Required" etc.)

Great job! Especially on a kit that old. The rotor rework is fantastic.

? I wondered if that was the case with these "tour cars" in Prague. Or if they still have their vintage Praga engines and running gear. This one caught my eye because it has the same body style as a certain model car kit: the Heller Citroen Normandie, with the steel front and wooden rear.

The Beach Boys at the Clemson University field house in spring of 1968. Their opening acts were Strawberry Alarm Clock and Buffalo Springfield. (!!!) That was a really strange concert tour, according to the book "Heroes & Villains" by Steven Gaines. The Beach Boys paid for it themselves and it was a disaster. Martin Luther King had just been killed and many other things were happening in the spring of '68, mostly bad. Many venues cancelled the Beach Boys shows and the band lost a ton of money.

If you're building that 1/35 scale Berlin Wall, you might want some East German border guards. This is the only set of East German figures I know of in plastic, with their unique uniform and helmet. A few resin East German figures are available, but a single one of those will probably cost more than this whole set. ICM #35321 GDR Army Motorized Rifles. You can also find it in an Alanger box, kit #35203, called "DDR Infantry." An eBay opportunist has the Alanger set for $28.99 right now, but be patient and you should be able to find it cheaper. A few years ago I bought that Alanger set on eBay for $4.99 + shipping.

Bumping, I also wonder if the show is still on. It's one of the few shows in my area, so I hope so.

If you weather your Trabant model, be careful with the rust. Most of the body wasn't metal. "The Trabant had a steel unibody frame, with the roof, trunk lid, hood, fenders and doors made of Duroplast, a hard plastic made from recycled cotton waste from the Soviet Union and phenol resins from the East German dye industry." (Wikipedia). That led to a problem when the re-unified Germany started scrapping Trabbis (after discovering their 2-stroke engines put out more pollution than a big Mercedes). The bodies couldn't be junked the usual way, because crushing and burning the Duroplast released toxins into the air. They finally came up with a clever solution: the Trabbi bodies were chopped into small pieces and spread on icy roads in winter.

You're welcome! Sprue Brothers show it as "In Stock." That's mostly an armor/aircraft store, so our members might not hang around there much. Also saw it at some other places, but SB seems to have the best price. The kit does not come with any figures. It does have decals for the artwork shown on the box. Sorry to hear about your Dad, that's rough. https://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/afv35317.htm

One of the first 1:1 Palmerisms and you could buy it! That is, if you were willing to pay a Cadillac price for a tarted-up Chevy. The 1956-57 Chevy El Morocco. A real example of Parts Bin Engineering: the "Dagmar" front bumpers on some El Moroccos were reversed 1937 Dodge headlights, the taillights were from a 1955 Dodge, and other parts came from all over. Many people thought it was a bad idea, especially General Motors. But since we live in a crazy world, today the El Morocco is a bona fide collector car that brings big bucks at auction. https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2014/05/01/cadillac-taste-chevrolet-budget-1957-el-morocco-sells-for-140000

Krylon Color Master Satin Black. At least to my old eyes, it hits the perfect "semi-gloss" spot between Flat and Gloss.