Coming soon....Model King 1957 Police car kit!

[mikemopar70]

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!

I need it!!

[Danno]

Doh one problem with the kit... it's not a 4 door!

Actually, in the 50's, far more police cars were 2-door sedans than 4-door sedans.

Besides, the body & roof were the same. If you really need a 4-door, you can move the B-pillar and rescribe the doors ... voila! 4-door sedan. Or, just wait for the inevitable resin body.

[Danno]

What extra police specific parts are included that are not with the Custom kit?

The early Federal beacon, the fender-mounted sirenlight, and the spotlight shown on the box art are indicated as kit parts. In addition, talk has it there will be a Low-Range VHF whip antenna, a period-correct radio control head, a shotgun, and perhaps some additional interior goodies.

We're waiting for a "sneak peak" pic from someone who knows for sure ... hint, hint, hint.

[martinfan5]

When will our LPP have these Dan?, I know I told him I wanted one

[dmk]

OH MAN!

I need about a case of those decals. I wish I'd have waited to build my NYPD Ford now.

Looks like I need to but a few of these.............................

G

Same here. I'd love to have just that decal sheet.

A Ranchero version of this kit would be way too cool.

Edited December 17, 2012 by dmk

[martinfan5]

Wow, that is a really nice decal sheet

[Dr. Cranky]

I think it will be worth it just for the extra police parts.

[1930fordpickup]

NICE !!!!!!

[S. Svendsen]

I'll take a picture of the parts and post it when I get a chance. The only parts not shown in the illustration is the radio unit. There's no dog or shot gun.

[Danno]

I'll take a picture of the parts and post it when I get a chance. The only parts not shown in the illustration is the radio unit. There's no dog or shot gun.

Thanks!

[Danno]

According to the '51 Ford the State Police have, it was a blue globe, Wayne. I would say you can use that and be fairly safe.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeopzls/policecars/id11.html

Charlie Larkin

Hey, Charlie & Tom,

I perused that website ... very interesting photos! Thanks for sharing it.

But, I have a question ... not being from MA ...

What are they referring to when they noted that "Metro" cars were a different color and had different lighting schemes, etc., before being repainted to MSP colors "in the merger." What was "Metro?"

Thanks

Edited December 17, 2012 by Danno

[charlie8575]

Metro was the Metropolitan District Commission.

The MDC was a patronage haven that Gov. Weld began the elimination of in 1990 with discontinuing their own police department, merging them into the Mass. State Police.

The MDC finally disappeared completely in 2003 under Gov. Romney, merging its activities into the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which oversees the reservoirs and public water supply that gets water into Greater Boston.

The MDC's original function was to oversee the major reservoirs (the Wachusett and Quabbin) and to help maintain the parks around The Emerald Necklace, which is a series of Olmstead-designed parks ringing the western border of Boston, as well as the Towns of Brookline, Milton and Dedham, and Cities of Cambridge and Newton.

Over the years, the MDC became a haven for unemployable poltical hacks and in-laws, and many of these people had salaries that would make anyone sit up and take notice; sadly, the police force was the worst of it, and with the large pays, came a lot of shady dealing and plain unethical/illegal activities.

Wikipedia has a pretty good write up on the MDC Police. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defunct_Massachusetts_Police_Agencies

A more complete history is here. http://home.comcast.net/~mmrubino/site/

Charlie Larkin

[Danno]

Wow.

Thanks. I had never heard of it before. Figured there was a story ...

[niteowl7710]

Did they even do away with the non-commissioned M.D.C. Rangers?

[Austin T]

Drooling over those two pictures,what colors did the border patrol units come in ?

[tomsheehy]

According to the '51 Ford the State Police have, it was a blue globe, Wayne. I would say you can use that and be fairly safe.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeopzls/policecars/id11.html

Charlie Larkin

That 51 Ford belonging to the Mass State Police was restored in recent times. The correct split domes are not made anymore and originals are very costly. When they restored it, they used a solid blue dome. To be period correct, a model needs to have a split dome, blue to the front, red to the rear.

EDIT: Whoa, brain spasm....the 51 Ford has a siren/light, not a beacon. Yes, the light is blue to the front. It looks like the beacons started in Mass SP around 1957, as the 57s on that page have them. Those had the split domes.

Edited December 19, 2012 by tomsheehy

[Matt T.]

Sean & Dave, GREAT work on the box art & decals! What great packaging. This Revell '57 Ford is my "kit of the year" for 2012, and this police version will take it up a notch from there. Thanks Model King!

[charlie8575]

Did they even do away with the non-commissioned M.D.C. Rangers?

As near as I can tell, the M.D.C. Rangers ended up being merged into the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which already oversaw the other state parks, beaches, etc. D.C.R. is actually the merger of several agencies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Conservation_and_Recreation_(Massachusetts)

A very good write-up on how the whole thing works.

Charlie Larkin

[bigphoto]

According to the '51 Ford the State Police have, it was a blue globe, Wayne. I would say you can use that and be fairly safe.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeopzls/policecars/id11.html

Charlie Larkin

I was diggin' the "Tommy Gun" in the 1981 pic!!

[Agent G]

Always brings back the line from "The Departed" "So you want to spend the rest of your career dressed like you're invading Poland?"

Love the boots.

G

[Scalefinishes]

I am not sure if the colors change over the years, but Scale FInishes has the MSP blues ,

Here is the link, its the second drop down menu on the page

http://www.scalefinishes.com/emergency.html

To my knowledge, MSP has never changed their blue. In fact all three major US automakers now offer MSP Blue as a color option for their police vehicles.

[Colonel32]

by the way, does this Model King company have a website? Can't find any, only results are stores that sell their models.

[S. Svendsen]

Model king doesn't have a website

[S. Svendsen]

Here are photos of my completed box art model showing the new police equipment. There are more photos at the link...

http://www.svensworldofwheels.com/57_ford_police_page.html

[Danno]

Beautiful kit ... and beautiful build-up, Sean.

I'm excited about the kit, but I've gotta say I'm disappointed in four things.

(1) The Sirenlight looks odd and toylike. The mounting pedestal is too far forward and seems too large in proportion to the main housing. Cutting about half the height (from fender to main housing) off the pedestal, then repositioning to behind the vents will make it look right. But it's too bad we have to modify the police-car-specific parts right out of the box in order to make it look right. And, unfortunately, there will be a bunch of these kits showing up everywhere, looking like toys with the unmodified kit parts (Sirenlight and spotlight; see next item).

(2) The "spotlight" is not a spotlight. It is a fixed-pedestal-mounted sealed beam lamp. Spotlights look like this:

On the 1957 Ford, the spotlight shaft went through a bracket on the outer curve of the top of the fender and through the dashboard, with the handle falling between & below the door pillar to the left of the steering wheel rim.

The exterior bracket/mount was like this: (Seen on a Thunderbird; note the shape of the spotlight head is different than the simpler, more common police design; this deluxe style includes a built-in rear view mirror.)

(3) The radio control head captures the look of the period Motorola Twin-V radio control heads, but it is way oversized. It appears to be nearly as wide as the glove box door on the model. It looks (in your picture) more correctly sized for a 1/20 or 1/16 model. It looks good ... but it's too big.

Here's a pic of a '55 Chevy with the next generation of Motorola control head. The Twin-V control head was not appreciably larger; this view shows the relative size in comparison to the dashboard of a similar car.

And, by the way, where's the speaker? Is there a speaker box in the kit? The Motorola speaker box is shown here under the dash at the passenger door.

(4) The absence of a well-engineered whip antenna, along with the absence of the speaker box.

Having said that, I'll still buy all the kits I pre-ordered. The concept is great. The decal sheet is exceptional. The beacon is right-on (although it's too bad a Federal emblem wasn't included on the decal sheet). But I'm just a little disappointed to see this potential "home run" fall just short of the fence. The issues are not deal-breakers, but there was such a chance of hitting a grand slam homer with this one.

There will be a ton of out-of-box builds of this kit on contest and show tables, with a lot of people looking at them and thinking, ''something just doesn't look quite right."

Again, thanks for the previews! And, again, congratulations on a beautiful build-up. Congratulations to all of you on Dave's team for getting this good a cop-car kit to the market.