Mike999

Favorite album art that could have been box art...

What did I get today? A flat tire! At Zero-Dark-Thirty on my way to the weekly flea market. Missed flea market and drove straight to tire store, where I bought the tires just 10 months ago. They honored the warranty with no hassle. Then I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up a Revell '76 Torino. The HL (Anderson, SC) had re-stocked and had some new kits: R2 "Art Box" '59 El Camino, Revell '66 Suburban, and a few others. Ollie's had nothing but the Lindberg "Bull Horn," plus the usual boring Lindberg ships, armor and aircraft.

Great box art, with those tanks and troops in the background. Not such a great kit. "1/32 Precise Scale?" It's bigger than that, closer to something like 1/30, but I guess the boxtop couldn't say "Sloppy Scale." It's also motorized, so it has very little chassis/interior detail. The electric motor took up most of that space. No figures are included. Released in the mid-1970s. For the long-gone "Military Modeler" magazine, someone built this back then and added a ton of detail, including an engine IIRC. It was in a diorama, showing the Mercedes abandoned on the Eastern Front in winter, with one of the back windows knocked out and replaced by wood. According to the Experten on armor modeling sites, this is a 1935 Mercedes of a type often used as a Berlin taxicab. Emperor Hirohito bought one, and had the Mercedes hood ornament replaced with the royal Japanese chrysanthemum. The Experten also say it's highly unlikely any of these were ever used as German staff cars. These kits can bring insane prices on eBay, though a couple sold recently for fairly low prices. If you want one cheaper, there's an even older kit of Hirohito's car released by the Japanese company Paramount. It's identical to the "Kommandeurwagen" except for the flag-posts on the front. Those are easily made. I suspect Fujimi got the Paramount molds at some point, and turned that Hirohito kit into the Kommandeurwagen.

That Mercedes must be made by NGZ. I have one of their diecast Mercedes sedans in 1/35 scale, intended for a modern Middle Eastern diorama. The chassis is even stamped "1/35 scale." Then finally, a few years ago, Diopark released a plastic 1/35 Mercedes W123 sedan (though they didn't call it a Mercedes on the box, but a "German Made Civilian Car"). Just for fun, I compared the NGZ to the Diopark kit. They are about the same size in all dimensions, wheel size, etc.

I can also vouch for t.m. resin. Bought several things from him on eBay, all trouble-free with quick shipping. His '67 Impala flat (non-SS) hood is a very clean casting and costs less than the same Chevy hood from another eBay seller. The only complaint I had is the same thing others have said, and not really a complaint - he sells everything thru eBay auctions. If one of his auctions ends and you miss the bidding, just Follow him and wait a couple of days. The same item will be re-listed.

Der Guber Wagen reminded me of this Revell box art. It always made me laugh. From 1965, I think. The "little old ladies from Pasadena" are yelling at Ed Roth, including one in a nicely-drawn vintage Packard. Looking around the internet just now, I saw that Monsters In Motion sells a resin copy of the Roth figure and wheels from this kit.

The original art for those ARII '58 Cadillacs was great. At least for the 2 convertibles, the hardtop art was kind of blah, IMO. For those who don't know these kits, 3 were released with different tops: top down with boot, top up with convertible top and the hardtop, with the roof as a separate part. These were not options. If you wanted a top boot and an up-top, you had to buy 2 kits. My favorite was the art for the top-up convertible. This art really says "Los Angeles 1958." The palm trees reaching for the sky. That split-level Futurama house, probably in a very wealthy neighborhood. Though sharp-eyed people will notice the Caddy has blue-and-yellow California license plates, which didn't exist until 1969.

I posted this a while back, but for those who missed it...here's a full-color guide to every kit Pyro ever made (I think). They had a huge and diverse product line: cars, aircraft, animals, figures, 1:1 scale guns, etc. etc. http://www.oldmodelkits.com/blog/plastic-model-kit-history/the-kits-of-pyro-plastic-company-an-illustrated-guide/

There's another can of worms. According to Mr. Shunsaku Tamiya himself, founder of That Model Company, it was almost purely random chance. This is from his book, "Master Modeler:" "After the success of the Panther, I thought it would be a good idea for us to produce other tanks from different countries in the same scale. I measured the Panther and it turned out to be about 1/35 of the size of the original. This size had been chosen simply because it would accommodate a couple of B-type batteries. Tamiya's 1/35 series tanks eventually got to be known around the world, but this is the slightly haphazard origin of their rather awkward scale." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1:35_scale You probably know some military models really were 1/32. AIRFIX launched a whole 1/32 line in the 1970s, with the "Rommel" SdKfz 250 half-track, American Lee/Grant tanks and others. For people to go with the 1/32 vehicles, AIRFIX did the very nice "Multipose" line of 1/32 figures. The 1/32 armor line just never really caught on. Though builders still seek out those "Multipose" figures to this very day. Then there was Monogram, determined to confuse things even further. They did some military kits starting in the 1950s/60s sold as 1/32 scale, but were really closer to 1/35: M48 Patton tank, Studebaker Weasel, etc. When 1/35 scale became popular, Monogram re-released those kits with that scale on the box. But they also did real 1/32 scale Lee/Grant tanks, German Pz IV and variants. A whole lot of people got started in military modeling because of those kits and the Shep Paine diorama brochures included with them in the mid-1970s. Until the release of new M48 kits by Dragon and Revell-Germany, the only way to build an early M48A2 "gasser" Patton tank was by cutting out the engine deck of the Monogram kit and splicing it into the Tamiya or Academy M48A3. Those parts fit together fairly well, so that old "Big Pat" Monogram kit from the 50's was definitely closer to 1/35 than 1/32. Some builders have also done detailed measurements showing that.

Thanks for the Palmers. Here's a 4-car set from Palmer's ugly sister, Premier. Though Premier did a couple of not-bad kits: the 1/32 scale 1907 Mack stake truck and the 1/25-ish Corvair Rampside. These 4 were supposed to be 1/32 scale. Something tells me the kits aren't nearly as good as the box art...

Has anyone ever seen this Palmer jewel out of the box?

Santa (cleverly disguised as a USPS employee) came early! Moebius '65 Comet and '72 Ford pickup arrived yesterday. Also some paint & other supplies. Off-topic: the Fat Guy also dropped off an aircraft kit I've wanted to see for decades - the Kitty Hawk 1/32 scale P-39 N/Q Airacobra. With full gun bay, interior and ENGINE detail. I recently sold a Special Hobby 1/32 P-39 on eBay, which made me feel a little better. And the Kitty Hawk kit was discounted. Excuses, excuses...

The kit shown below came in the mail today. This is the V-156F, a version of the U.S. Vought Vindicator used (briefly) by the French Navy in 1940. The kit is by AZUR, a short-run plastic kit maker. "Short-run" often fills me with fear, because those kits can be really hard to build. But in this case, most of the kit is made from the excellent Accurate Miniatures 1/48 scale Vindicator model. The V-156F wings were different, so AZUR provides their own plastic wings, plus photo-etched parts for the complex wing fences. Resin parts include the specific French machine gun for the rear gunner, bombs and other parts. It looks like a nice package, and FreeTime recently had it on sale. (Usual retail is about $65). Here's a review of the kit: http://www.hyperscale.com/2010/reviews/kits/azur084reviewrk_1.htm

I really liked all the Jo-Han "flat" boxes. They really grabbed my attention as a kid. No, I do NOT have this kit, but sure wish I did.

Continuing with the "aircraft in trouble" theme...check out that Stuka! The box art looks like it could be from the Sixties. But this kit is from the early 2000's. It's the first and ONLY kit ever released by a company called "Armor In Scale." The basic truck is the old 1/35 scale GAZ-AA plastic kit released by Eastern Express, Zvezda and other Russian companies. A.I.S. added white-metal Maxim guns, resin ammo chest, rubber tubing for the coolant lines, and other multi-media details. It's a complex little beast. If you want one of these, nowadays Mini-Art makes a much better plastic kit of it on the GAZ-AAA chassis (dual rear axles).

The plot thickens! So does the "Millennium" version, issued in 2000. I just checked one of those in my stash. The linked thread below, from here in 2011, talks about a "Nomad chassis plate" in the Bel Air kit. So I guess AMT corrected it sometime after 1987, when the Bel Air kit was first released. One more thing to watch out for at shows and swap meets... Snake45: "The B-26's markings put it in late summer 1944 or later. Were the Germans still even using Panzer IIIs at that time? I thought by then the standard tank was the Panzer IV, with most Panzer III chassis production going to Stug IIIs and other such vehicles. (I know a tiny little bit about German armor but I'm no expert.)" You're right, AFAIK. A quick Google says the Pz.III was removed from front-line service and used mostly for training etc. after the battle of Kursk. That was the summer of 1943. I'm not an Experten either. But from reading armor-modeling boards, it seems you can never say never about anything to do with German WWII armor.

Charger? That doesn't look like a Dodge! Hard to imagine 2 bad guys chasing Steve McQueen around San Francisco in this thing. AURORA box art from Mort Kunstler, who later became a famous historical painter. There's a lot going on here. The motorcycle cop writing a ticket. The bored date. The cranky driver yelling at the rug-rats harassing him from the fence. And some sort of fence seems to be decorating the shorty pick-up bed of The Charger.

Most people probably know this but maybe some don't: the AMT '55 Chevy post has the Nomad chassis, which is wrong. Gas tank etc. The chassis from the excellent REVELL '55 Chevy looks like a drop-fit under the AMT kit. The REVELL grille is also a drop-fit. I found it a lot easier to grind off the back of the REVELL grille and open it up than the AMT grille. That sounds minor, but makes the front end look a lot better than a black wash in the grille. Oh...box art. Not sure this TAMIYA 1/21 scale Panzer III box is terrible, but weird and fanciful. It almost looks like box art for a B-26 Marauder, which is crashed and looming over the tank. Note the Me-210/410 fighters zooming around. IIRC, that plane was a giant flop that, at first, was more dangerous to its own pilots than to the enemy. The box art also has some early examples of Engrish, with the "Geramn" tank made of "completery formed plastic." But the tank commander seems to be having a good time...

Awful box art, plus an obvious goof. The eBay Anteek & Junque dealers often try to sell these for big bucks. "RARE! HTF! WRONG BOX! ARGLE-BARGLE!" You'd think it was a Honus Wagner baseball card. But AMT must have printed thousands of these boxes before they caught the error, because I've seen a lot of them over the years. I don't think I've ever seen the kit sell for any more than a regular '39/'40 Ford Sedan, though.

Thanks for the comments! Many of those cars are running with Russian truck engines, or parts of them. Every village still has a blacksmith who can modify GAZ or URAL engine parts into...well, whatever you need. Those guys are amazing. We occasionally hired them to weld pieces, or make brackets etc. Sometimes they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Arabic. Didn't matter. A rough sketch and some pointing/gesturing would get the job done. Not sure about trade agreements, but getting car parts into Egypt thru the regular Customs process is horribly expensive. One of our drivers had a Ford Escape. We used to bring parts for him in our luggage, just to avoid the shipping hassles. As I understand it, Egypt forbids the export of old cars like those. Which probably doesn't matter. An Egyptian friend of mine told me he had been trying for a couple of years to buy a '55 Chevy from a farmer. He wouldn't sell it for any price.

Some pix of old American cars in Egypt. I worked there from 2005-09. Most of these cars are not only still running, they are used as taxis every day driving people between villages in the Nile Delta. Sorry about the quality, I took most of these from a moving car. I have hundreds of these, may post a few at a time...

Here's a conversion of that Dennis fire engine to a WWI cargo truck. Link to the build below, on the Landships forum. Somewhere around here I have a really old issue of Airfix Magazine, IIRC, with the same conversion. http://landships.activeboard.com/t33160799/airfix-dennis-3t-gs-truck-conversion/

From Jo-Han's short-lived "Custom Car" series. The custom version of the kit was front-and-center on the box. But the kits still had all the stock parts. The car just looks plain mean and nasty in that art. It reminds me of the '66 Olds Toronado in Stephen King's "The Dark Half."

If by "decorative" you mean "freaking hideous," I agree. To quibble even more, the box art seems to show the Land Rover on "the back roads of the 3rd World." That looks like a jungle backdrop, for the spotless vehicle. Though I guess it could be a theme restaurant, somewhere in the wilds of La Cienaga Blvd...

That's why I made the comment about them not selling. Though that was just based on my own experiences. The LHS's in my area discounted those 1/20 Lindberg kits over and over, and they still gathered dust on the shelves. The same goes for kit swap meets and sales. At one kit show, I bought a shrink-wrapped 1/20 Baywatch Toyota pickup for $2.00. The decals, flotation devices and a few other parts were worth that. Meanwhile...I've seen quite a few 1/8 scale musical instruments over the years, including some great NICHIMO electric and acoustic guitars. And everybody has probably seen the ACADEMY/NICHIMO 1/8 scale Ludwig drum set (complete with "The Beatles" decal for the bass drum). But even in that little niche, scale wasn't consistent. I saw this on eBay just a few minutes ago: the NICHIMO Euphonium Tuba in 1/6 scale: