Car Model History in My Hands!

[Karl LaFong]

Great score!  I would have thought they were long gone.

[tim boyd]

On 4/19/2019 at 1:54 PM, Snake45 said:

Tim, I've been going through my library of old Car Models and ran across the pics of your 4th Place Dodge the other day. You wuz ROBBED!  You shouldn't have gotten 4th, you should have gotten 3rd! And the model in 7th Place should have been 2nd--of the Top 25 shown, it was the ONLY model that looked like an actual, real-world 1968 funny car. IMHO your model was second only to Jim Keeler's famous Dodge Fever among the other 23 "Funny Cars from an Alternate Universe," as its engineering and craftsmanship were superior to the rest. 

BTW, I'm up to reading the June 1970 issue and just saw that another funny car model of yours (a Charger) won First Senior and Best Detail at a big MPC contest in Flint MI. Do you still have that one, too? Does it need restoration or is it still in good shape? (That's a NICE model, BTW.) 

Richard.....thanks for the comments on that old Dodge Funny Car entry......long, sad story about that one.  Bottom line it's been a pile of parts in a box for just over 50 years.....BUT at the end of January I started repairing and restoring it.  I'm not about 75% done.   I'll post the whole story (including the sad part) here when I'm done.

As for the 1969 Flint and 1970 Detroit contests, the Charger I still have and it is in pretty good condition for being nearly 50 years old and after having been shipped back to me with NO packing materials after the 1970 MPC National finals!   The Detroit show 'cuda's chassis was repurposed under a new Mustang body and its in great shape (and displayed in my Fotki photo album).  The original 'cuda body, built in just a couple of weeks to be ready for the '70 Detroit contest, self destructed within a month.  I too just started restoring that one by removing the 30+ coats of paint.  I'll start working on it in earnest after finishing the other one. 

Thanks again for your comments and interest!   TIM 

[ChrisBcritter]

Richard, have you seen this? It looks awfully familiar like from the early magazines. Maybe a clone by another builder?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BUILT-VINTAGE-DOMINATOR-1940-FORD-WILD-CUSTOM/401756076250?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D79056721d777456a93ac6d08efb19c29%26pid%3D100033%26rk%3D7%26rkt%3D8%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D283461303378%26itm%3D401756076250&_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042

Good luck,

-Chris

(tried to PM but the box is full?)

Edited April 30, 2019 by ChrisBcritter

[oldnslow]

Wasn't the magazine built called the Crusader ? That's one of the first custom models that I really liked .

[George Bojaciuk]

I still have most all my article cars. I donated my Yenko Camaro to Roy Sorensen for a benefit auction. The '68 and '69 GTOs were traded to a friend. Later, I got them back, with the '68 having white lettered tires vs. the redlines. It's a good thing they came home....the friend died and his brother put all his stuff on eBay. All the cars have held up well. A '69 Camaro resto that appeared in Scale Auto is 47 years old now, after the resto. When I look at them, I smile...then feel quite old!

[Snake45]

9 hours ago, ChrisBcritter said:

Richard, have you seen this? It looks awfully familiar like from the early magazines. Maybe a clone by another builder?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BUILT-VINTAGE-DOMINATOR-1940-FORD-WILD-CUSTOM/401756076250?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D79056721d777456a93ac6d08efb19c29%26pid%3D100033%26rk%3D7%26rkt%3D8%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D283461303378%26itm%3D401756076250&_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042

Good luck,

-Chris

(tried to PM but the box is full?)

Interesting! Thanks for the heads-up. 

If that wasn't  in the magazine, it certainly could have been. There were a lot of things in that vein in there in the early '60s. 

[Mark]

There were a bunch of those Crusader builds done back in the day; the various model car magazines' contest coverage articles are loaded with them.  None really match detail for detail, for two reasons: none of the builders had access to all of the same parts that were used on the original, and the article itself doesn't specify every part used.  The latter was done on purpose: the CAR MODEL writers didn't want builders to copy their car exactly, but instead just use the article as a jumping-off point to building their own creations.

Contest coverage from back in the day includes a lot of attempts at copying the "El Matador" '40 Ford coupe also.  AMT owned that car for a while, I think I read somewhere that they briefly intended to make a kit of it back then.