Moebius Hudson & Chrysler 300

[Rick R]

Not to say though that there are not body style options.

I recently got a Highway 61 '53 Hornet Convertible (1/18th scale) that is a true vision of automotive class. If the Mobius kit captures the shape as well, it's expected it'll take about a minute for a resin caster to whip up a boot, a good 'uptop' and maybe a continental kit, though I think the Ckit would ruin the flow of the car.

More likely I'll ramp up a couple as early Nascar racers, just a natural given the history of the cars. They will be a big hit and I'm thinkin' it'll get a lot of respect and business, raising the bar of the hobby yet again just as the 'better-tech' AMT kits and the Galaxie Chevies did in the late 90s. At least this time we don't have the spectre of 'diecast fever' tugging at our wallets!

[Art Anderson]

Not to say though that there are not body style options.

I recently got a Highway 61 '53 Hornet Convertible (1/18th scale) that is a true vision of automotive class. If the Mobius kit captures the shape as well, it's expected it'll take about a minute for a resin caster to whip up a boot, a good 'uptop' and maybe a continental kit, though I think the Ckit would ruin the flow of the car.

More likely I'll ramp up a couple as early Nascar racers, just a natural given the history of the cars. They will be a big hit and I'm thinkin' it'll get a lot of respect and business, raising the bar of the hobby yet again just as the 'better-tech' AMT kits and the Galaxie Chevies did in the late 90s. At least this time we don't have the spectre of 'diecast fever' tugging at our wallets!

Just to make your life a little bit easier here: The Hudson is being mastered in both Club Coupe and CONVERTIBLE form with correct convertible interiors and a top boot)! (In real life, Hudson, when faced with an order for a convertible, simply diverted a club coupe off to the side, and the top was cut away!) In addition, a grille, interior and trim parts are being done, so that the cars can be built as either 1952 or 1953. A full detail NASCAR Fabulous Hudson Hornet is in the works as well.

Art

Art

[Art Anderson]

That's interesting, Art. I'm a structural engineer, so I understand completely about the body.

And after looking at some better Hudson photo's than in my mind, I see a chop might not look that great anyway considering the rear of the roof. Ya gotta admit, though, there's a lot of '49 Mercury in that body design.

Well, since the original styling of the Step Down Hudsons began in 1943-44, at the height of WW-II, and what became the '49 Mercury styling wasn't begun until sometime in 1945, I think it may be the other way around! In either case, futuristic designers such as Norman Bel Geddes were depicting large, very "Jelly Bean" cars, trucks, airliners, even ocean liners in their futuristic artworks "predicting" life in Postwar America once Victory over the Axis Powers was achieved (Bel Geddes' paintings of future scenes in the US in 1960 were frequently published in LIFE Magazine 1943-45). Even Chuck Jordanm, the VP of GM Design in the years when the '92 Chevy Caprice was being designed built, as a young college student, a model car for the 1947 Fisher Body Craftsmen's Guild National Design Competition, a "jelly bean car" having the lower body lines very much like the Step Down Hudsons, but with virtually the same smooth flowing roofline of the Cadillac Silhouette Concept car of the late 80's, AND which appeared on the 92 Caprice, right down to the side window shapes. In short, those wartime futurist concepts were at least experimented with by virtually every automaker in the US, some (the Hudson that is our topic here, the '49 Mercury and Lincoln, the '48 Futuramic Oldsmobile, '48 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special, 1949 and 1950 Buicks, the "Pregnant Whale '48-'51 Packards, and the '49-'51 "Bathtub" Nash's.

[horsepower]

PL did do a few things right in the automotive kit arena. The vintage funny cars, Herbie VW and Ghostbusters ECTO-1A all were good kits. The vintage NASCAR kits were less so, but, to be fair, they were workable.

Unfortunately, what most people think of when PL car kits are mentioned are the press-fit kits, which, for the most part, were a disaster. However, as I understand it, those kits came about during a time when the company was in the process of being sold. There were a lot of corners cut, and the kits didn't turn out like the people who designed them wanted or expected them to. Art, obviously, could speak to that much better than I.

It's also worth noting, I think, that Tom Lowe, the man heading up the AMT/MPC resurgence, used to own Polar Lights.

Wasn't the Polar Lights Ecto 1 just a repop of AMTs kit?

[highway]

So, be a little bit more patient, OK? On that other, non-magazine-supported forum, Dave posted a few pics of the International LoneStar--and it's a stunning project already, and those are first review pics sent from the mockup shop (of course, that one is done from CAD files provided by Navistar--no such reference info exists for the two cars from the 50's).

Art

Here are the pics Art referred to of the International Lonestar mock up, I'm sure as fine as this truck is looking in the development stage, the cars should be just as nice!!

Here are some pics of the kit from another fourm

[Art Anderson]

Wasn't the Polar Lights Ecto 1 just a repop of AMTs kit?

Not quite! PL's Ecto 1 is just that, the vehicle from the first movie, AMT/Ertl's is the Ecto 1a, from the second movie, and there are differences.

Art

[Art Anderson]

I just got done perusing the pics of the revised '55 Chrysler C300, and Whoa Mary! Lotta stuff to like in it! They have for sure nailed all the greasy mechanicsl stuff, both under the hood and on the chassis. A few tweaks are needed with the body shell, and I can aready see that this is gonna be one of those kits that will shout out "Yer gonna buy me today!".

Art

[mopargreg]

I just got done perusing the pics of the revised '55 Chrysler C300, and Whoa Mary! Lotta stuff to like in it! They have for sure nailed all the greasy mechanicsl stuff, both under the hood and on the chassis. A few tweaks are needed with the body shell, and I can aready see that this is gonna be one of those kits that will shout out "Y

Art

Can you point me to the pics of the chrysler 300. I cant wait for this car. Going to be great

Thanks

Greg

Edited May 8, 2010 by mopardevil

[Art Anderson]

Can you point me to the pics of the chrysler 300. I cant wait for this car. Going to be great

Thanks

Greg

No pics available for public viewing yet--that is Dave Metzner's and Moebius' decision to make, not mine. But, unless I miss my guess, Dave will post up pics once the mockups of the Hudson and Chrysler are through the entire final approval (to go to steel tooling) stage.

Art

[chopper]

man i can't wait for these kits to come out, me and bill stillwagon would have some wild creations not mention ideas.

[horsepower]

I just got done perusing the pics of the revised '55 Chrysler C300, and Whoa Mary! Lotta stuff to like in it! They have for sure nailed all the greasy mechanicsl stuff, both under the hood and on the chassis. A few tweaks are needed with the body shell, and I can aready see that this is gonna be one of those kits that will shout out "Yer gonna buy me today!".

Art

I can see some nice customs from this one, can hardly wait. If I can just get the LHS guy to order a couple of these, which will be next to impossible if Horizon Hobbies doesn't carry them ( this place is R/C Airplane oriented, & it takes an act of congress to them to look at another wholesaler.)

P.S. thanks for the replies on the Ecto kits.

Edited May 15, 2010 by horsepower

[charlie8575]

Wa "jelly bean car" having the lower body lines very much like the Step Down Hudsons, but with virtually the same smooth flowing roofline of the Cadillac Silhouette Concept car of the late 80's, AND which appeared on the 92 Caprice, right down to the side window shapes. In short, those wartime futurist concepts were at least experimented with by virtually every automaker in the US, some (the Hudson that is our topic here, the '49 Mercury and Lincoln, the '48 Futuramic Oldsmobile, '48 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special, 1949 and 1950 Buicks, the "Pregnant Whale '48-'51 Packards, and the '49-'51 "Bathtub" Nash's.

Too bad the Caprice doesn't look as good as the rest of them! I have a 1991, and I always thought they were a bit odd looking. Mine's a wagon, though, so the extra roof helps the shape a little.

Charlie Larkin

[Joe Handley]

I can see some nice customs from this one, can hardly wait. If I can just get the LHS guy to order a couple of these, which will be next to impossible if Horizon Hobbies doesn't carry them ( this place is R/C Airplane oriented, & it takes an act of congress to them to look at another wholesaler.)

P.S. thanks for the replies on the Ecto kits.

Shouldn't be much of an issue, Moebius is carried by Horizon and Great Planes/Tower Hobbies.........I'm going to be soooo friggin' broke when the Hudson and 300 kits come out

[Chuck Most]

The Hudson might make a really killer sled...

I might need to stock up!

[Eshaver]

Thats interesting , a Hudson with a Carson top............. Ed Shaver

[Chuck Most]

Thats interesting , a Hudson with a Carson top............. Ed Shaver

Yeah- since the stock Hudson roof kind of looks chopped already, I thought I needed something a bit more obvious!

[Art Anderson]

Yeah- since the stock Hudson roof kind of looks chopped already, I thought I needed something a bit more obvious!

On characteristic of those wartime "futuristic" car designs (particularly those which appeared on the pages of LIFE Magazine beginning in the middle of 1943 or so) was their very high beltline styling, not at all unlike say, the cars from GM and Chrysler starting about 1941. A couple of cars carried that look to perfection, the 49-51 Mercury and the "Stepdown" Hudsons 1949-54. Even as a 16yr old, with a newly minted provisional driver's license, I had to reach my elbow up to rest it on the window sill of either one of Dad's Hudsons, the '53 Hornet Club Coupe or the '54 4dr Sedan. Correspondingly, the roofline was no taller than any comparable car, it just looked that way, same with the Mercs mentioned.

Cars in that era were designed for the adults of that time, and hats were definitely in--not baseball caps either! No selfrespecting adult (at least white-collar) man would be seen in public without a highly crowned felt hat, broad brimmed, either Homburg or Fedora (straw hat in summer), and your mom would not go out of the house without a hat either. So, if fairly tall headgear was the fashion, the cars they bought had to pretty much reflect that as well. By 1952 or so though, automobile beltlines came down, low and wide was in, but rooflines had to remain up there except for the sport look of say, a convertible or it's "steel-top-welded-onto-a-convertible-body construction--the same lower roofline began to prevail. Beltlines really came down with the ultimate in "Forward Look" Chrysler products, the 1957's.

While we can do anything we dream of in styrene, in real size fact of life, a Stepdown Hudson didn't lend itself at all well to major customizing, due to the construction of the body--those were unit bodied cars to end all unit bodied cars. Look under the skin of one, and what do you see? Virtually a truss bridge design, with very stout roof pillars, a perimeter of girders around the roof at the top (which is what made Hudson produce convertibles by cutting the top off a coupe, but leaving that very wide windshield header, due to it's structural design. Even the lower body echoes this steel bridge design. The "frame" if you will, was as "perimeter" as perimeter can get--the main frame rails ARE the rocker panels, and they extend, in thinned out form, OUTBOARD of the rear wheels, which is why one never saw one of those cars without its fender skirts--pretty ugly behind the skirts, believe me.

So why do I, and others call these Hudsons "Step Downs"? Very simple. In other cars contemporary with the Hudson we are talking about, with their body-on-frame construction, the floor pans were atop the frame rails, if anything, no more than say an inch or two below the door sills, but with the Hudson, when you climbed in, you literally "Step Over" the frame rail, then DOWN a good 6 or 7 inches inside, the floor pans are that low. Hudson's ad agency made a lot about this characteristic--you rode IN a Hudson, not ON it, as with other cars. And that was the secret of it's superior handling, it's road manners--Hudsons had a center of gravity much lower than any competitor.

Art

[Art Anderson]

This just in!

The tooling mockups for the '55 Chrysler C-300 are in the air as I write this, from China to Indiana! In the next week or two, I will be assisting Dave Metzner, along with a couple of other very well-known scale modelers in reviewing this for still-needed corrections, but I can say this, it's going to be an exciting car as well! We will probably see a few small body corrections that need to be made, but having seen preliminary pics of the project all along, believe me, they got the greasy bits and parts very, VERY right--inside and underneath, this one just looks awesome indeed!

It's gonna get very, very interesting, methinks!

Art

[LDO]

This just in!

The tooling mockups for the '55 Chrysler C-300 are in the air as I write this, from China to Indiana! In the next week or two, I will be assisting Dave Metzner, along with a couple of other very well-known scale modelers in reviewing this for still-needed corrections, but I can say this, it's going to be an exciting car as well! We will probably see a few small body corrections that need to be made, but having seen preliminary pics of the project all along, believe me, they got the greasy bits and parts very, VERY right--inside and underneath, this one just looks awesome indeed!

It's gonna get very, very interesting, methinks!

Art

I can't wait.

[Jon Cole]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Art.

[jjsipes]

Just knowing that they are actually in the works as we post is enough for me right now. We we would all love to see pics but, we know what the cars look like and by the comments from Art, these will be great kits. Can't wait for them but as long as they are great kits, I can wait.

[Chuck Most]

To go back to something that Art was saying earlier about hats and rooflines...

remember the ugly, bolt upright postwar Mopars? One of the things K.T.Keller said in their defense was "The styling won't knock your eyes out, but it won't knock your hat off, either."

Then, of course, Chrysler went on to produce some of the swoopiest and lowest-slung designs of all time!

[Art Anderson]

Ahhhhh I knew I should have clarified that.... Wasn't intended to mean "Post the pics" more like "will the pics be available for preview to the masses?" I can understand why Modius wouldn't want prelims leaking out due to possiible piracy or raising false hopes. Just would be nice to know when the rest of us unimportant lowly peasant builders (you know... those of us that give up our hard earned money to the manufacturers to buy the kits and keep them in buisiness) will be able to at least cast our unworthy eys upon them.

It's also just not smart to let out pics of a tooling mockup before it's been finalized, and every effort expended to ensure that it's as well and accurately done as possible. Dave, as with the three of us who've volunteered (or were we "persuaded"? ) to lend our help in the development of these kits, is probably now as knowledgeable about the shapes, contours, dimensions and details of both the Hudson and the Chrysler as any model elsewhere on the planet (and, Dave Metzner is a recognized modeler, awarded more than a few times at IPMS contests, and is well-known for his figurine modeling), so the last thing any of the 4 of us would want would be for there to be a p*ssing contest about this or that detail or shape.

Every tooling mockup, anywhere, goes through at least some revision, errors (hopefully small) almost always appear in the first get-go, which is why just about every model company out there worth their salt has a staff of knowledgeable people to review the mockups, compare them to the available references, check and recheck. Then, the mockups (particularly cars or trucks) must pass muster with the licensor, the company that produced/produced the actual vehicle, for their final permission to "go ahead" to tooling and production. Time was, that was little more than a "wave of the hand", but more and more, we see serious reviews by auto manufacturers, who more and more want to see a model kit that is a very close representation of their product. This is particularly true with Detroit's Big Three, and most assuredly European and Japanese carmakers (wonder if a Toyota pickup kit should have steering rods that break without being asked?--OK, being sarcastic here!). In times past, I have had to deal with a very large German automaker who insisted that the model I was developing for my employer be German/European spec, not US spec.--it does get that picky sometimes.

So, be patient--I believe Dave is gonna share pics of these mockups when they are ready for tooling, and I don't believe you folks will be disappointed.

Art

[John Goschke]

Really looking forward to these two kits! They're both great cars. It'll also be good to have a Twin-H Hudson engine to rob for other projects along with an early Hemi.

For my money, I don't care so much about the rest of the "greasy bits, four screws and two wire axles are fine with me as long as the bodies and interiors are right!

[Art Anderson]

Well,

On Tuesday morning, I along with another very well-known model car builder, will have a face-to-face meetup with the tooling mockups for the Moebius '55 Chrysler C-300. From everything I've seen in pics so far, it is shaping up to be one really neat model car kit!

Art