Revell/Model King '57 Ford police cars

[Daddyfink]

The Tijuana Police decals are enough for me to buy this kit! With or without the supercharger!

And just in case, I live only 15 miles from Tijuana, that is why I want them! Revolucion Patrol, here I come!

[Aaronw]

Are any of the police parts of any particular interest to emergency vehicle modelers? Anything really nice that we can't grab from some of the other kits out there?

I remember when this was first announced and sprue shots appeared it looked like the police special parts were kind of generic and uninspired, hoping maybe that changed over the production cycle.

[Danno]

Are any of the police parts of any particular interest to emergency vehicle modelers? Anything really nice that we can't grab from some of the other kits out there?

I remember when this was first announced and sprue shots appeared it looked like the police special parts were kind of generic and uninspired, hoping maybe that changed over the production cycle.

I haven't gotten my hands on one yet, but based on Charlie's pictures, these are my impressions:

• The beacon looks pretty good.
• The radio control head seems to be okay. The early test shots made it look considerably oversized, but Charlie's measurements make it closer to accurate than preliminarily indicated.
• The siren is hard to tell from Charlie's pic. The early info indicated it was badly formed, but I'd have to see one to reach any conclusions.
• The antenna doesn't appear to be well done. It's not bad for the typical representation of a later antenna, but it's not period-correct for mid-50's.
• The spotlight is not a spotlight.
• The decals are generally generic, which isn't all that bad. The upholstery and factory doo-dad decals are great! Nice to see all the 'POLICE' and 'SHERIFF' and 'FIRE DEPARTMENT' lettering. The 'Mayberry Sheriff' stars are great for TV car builders. And I like the nod to 'JUSTIFIED' with the 'HARLAN COUNTY SHERIFF' markings, but the rest are sheet-wasters in my mind.

I'll weigh in with my "official" 2-cents worth after one of these kits lands in my hands.

[Agent G]

I just received mine in the mail and really haven't looked at it all that closely. I do like what I see so far. More tonight.

G

[Matt T.]

Sad to see the NYPD and SFPD markings gone since the preview artwork, but that's just business I guess.

Danno, I can't find the Harlan County nod. Where is it??

[Rob Hall]

Looks like a neat kit..got it a couple days ago but haven't sat down to closely grok it yet.

[niteowl7710]

I picked on of these up from the LHS on the way to work last night only to find that about a third of my chrome police parts runner must have been sticking out of the tank as the runner and most of the rotator base have no chrome plating to speak of in any way...

Revell Quality Control - Taking Strides to Remain Mediocre!

Edited August 22, 2013 by niteowl7710

[charlie8575]

I picked on of these up from the LHS on the way to work last night only to find that about a third of my chrome police parts runner must have been sticking out of the tank as the runner and most of the rotator base have no chrome plating to speak of in any way...

Revell Quality Control - Taking Strides to Remain Mediocre!

Gee, aside from a couple of little flash pockets, mine was actually done pretty well. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Charlie Larkin

[niteowl7710]

Gee, aside from a couple of little flash pockets, mine was actually done pretty well. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Charlie Larkin

Yeah mine has some nice flash excess too, which goes more to my point. Why is this brand new kit so flashy. Actually the last several releases from Revell and Moebius have had really unacceptable levels of flash. I'm not talking about molding lines, but rather literal thin flashes of plastic connecting parts to the runners. No pride in manufacturing I guess, and whomever is actually packing them when the get stateside apparently aren't inspecting them before sending them out.

[Danno]

Sad to see the NYPD and SFPD markings gone since the preview artwork, but that's just business I guess.

Danno, I can't find the Harlan County nod. Where is it??

It has a silver 5-point star over the silver words "Harlan County Sheriff." Located in the upper left corner of the law enforcement/fire service section. To the left of the Texas-state-map-shaped 'Border Patrol' markings; above the "Franklin County Sheriff" and "Mayberry Sheriff" markings.

[SteveG]

Are any of the police parts of any particular interest to emergency vehicle modelers? Anything really nice that we can't grab from some of the other kits out there?

I remember when this was first announced and sprue shots appeared it looked like the police special parts were kind of generic and uninspired, hoping maybe that changed over the production cycle.

The beacon looks like a Federal Beacon Ray JR 15-A. The siren light resembles a Federal 77-L.

I'm not sure on the radio yet, maybe a Motorola Twin-V. The so called spotlight looks more like a package shelf style lamp. I don't think the first three have been in a car kit before although some of the early AMT annual Truck kits had something I recall being similar to the Beacon Ray.

I really wished some of the other agency specific decals Sean had drawn up made the cut.

-Steve

[SteveG]

It has a silver 5-point star over the silver words "Harlan County Sheriff." Located in the upper left corner of the law enforcement/fire service section. To the left of the Texas-state-map-shaped 'Border Patrol' markings; above the "Franklin County Sheriff" and "Mayberry Sheriff" markings.

My decal sheet doesn't have either the "Harlan" or "Franklin County" lettering on it as shown above. Glad to see the California "E" plates still made it through. Also looks like the "Mayberry Sherriff's" star was altered too.

[Matt T.]

Mine neither. Those became just "County Sheriff" in production.

[Danno]

Wow. That's very interesting. I was told this was the final artwork. But that was pre-production. Obviously, things changed . . . again.

Sorry for the false alarm.

[Luc Janssens]

Got my kits the day before yesterday and I'm wondering if the border patrol car version needs Texas license plates and Mexican for the south of the border version?

Really too bad that licensing killed the other versions, I'm guessing the price per unit would've skyrocketed into the unsalable range.

Still a great kit to have and the box-art by Sean looks fantastic.

Anyway ordered a Gofer licence plates decal sheet, maybe I find the plates there....or does anyone know of other planned aftermarket sheets for this and other 50's police cruisers?

TIA

[Danno]

I don't know about new sheets, but several of the older Chimneyville sheets contained markings for some agencies that were consistent over the years from the 50's through the 70's. Some of those would work.

And another thing to remember about vintage police and fire vehicles: In the 30's to 40's and somewhat into the late 50's, many county and municipal agencies ran rather simplistic markings . . . because they were cheap. The markings ranged from hand-lettered jobs done by a local sign painter to mail-order badges of a generic nature obtained from suppliers who printed up only a couple of different logos that could be made unique by adding the town or county's name.

Especially in the 30's through the mid-50's, many departments may have only had the words "Police" or "Fire Department" or "Sheriff" emblazoned on their cars. They figured if you were in the town of Podunk and saw a "Police" car, you should darn well know it's the Podunk Police Department's car. No sense in spending a bunch of money (sign painters charged by the letter) for frills.

The unique and sometimes wild markings to which we've become accustomed only began evolving in the very late 60's or early 70's, and have only become commonplace in the last thirty years or so. It was only the really big or really rich agencies that were into custom graphics before then.

In short, there's nothing wrong with building a plain, black or white, or black & white, or just about any other color 57 Ford with the word "Police" on the door and calling it done. It would be as accurate as anything. It's your model, your town, build it as you see fit.

[Agent G]

Mine will be a Chicago PD car. White roof, black body and red rotator.

To be accurate it will look similar to this:

CHICAGO

256

POLICE

The word "Chicago" is in a semi circle over the car #. I just need someone with a ALPS printer to do it for me.

G

[niteowl7710]

Pursuit Plastics did a line of decals during the "Golden Age" of the 90's of mostly Philadelphia area agencies, but did have individual sheets for NY, NJ, PA, MA & DE State Polices that included multiple sets of markings to build cars from every decade from the 1940's through the present (1998).

Now finding those decals is the fun part since PP went under after a few years.

Edited August 24, 2013 by niteowl7710

[ScaleCentral]

Pursuit Plastics did a line of decals during the "Golden Age" of the 90's of mostly Philadelphia area agencies, but did have individual sheets for NY, NJ, PA, MA & DE State Polices that included multiple sets of markings to build cars from every decade from the 1940's through the present (1998).

Now finding those decals is the fun part since PP went under after a few years.

http://www.policecarmodels.com/puplpode.html

[niteowl7710]

http://www.policecarmodels.com/puplpode.html

Nice to see he got some of the back inventory he was looking for, that's not every sheet they did, but it's most of them. I bought a bunch of their stock when they closed, but that's the most NOS I've seen in probably a decade.

[Aaronw]

I haven't gotten my hands on one yet, but based on Charlie's pictures, these are my impressions:

• The beacon looks pretty good.
• The radio control head seems to be okay. The early test shots made it look considerably oversized, but Charlie's measurements make it closer to accurate than preliminarily indicated.
• The siren is hard to tell from Charlie's pic. The early info indicated it was badly formed, but I'd have to see one to reach any conclusions.
• The antenna doesn't appear to be well done. It's not bad for the typical representation of a later antenna, but it's not period-correct for mid-50's.
• The spotlight is not a spotlight.
• The decals are generally generic, which isn't all that bad. The upholstery and factory doo-dad decals are great! Nice to see all the 'POLICE' and 'SHERIFF' and 'FIRE DEPARTMENT' lettering. The 'Mayberry Sheriff' stars are great for TV car builders. And I like the nod to 'JUSTIFIED' with the 'HARLAN COUNTY SHERIFF' markings, but the rest are sheet-wasters in my mind.

I'll weigh in with my "official" 2-cents worth after one of these kits lands in my hands.

Thanks, I was debating whether to bother with the PD kit or just grab a standard. Nothing spectacular, but the kit also isn't a whole lot more expensive so I'll grab the PD kit.

[Aaronw]

I don't know about new sheets, but several of the older Chimneyville sheets contained markings for some agencies that were consistent over the years from the 50's through the 70's. Some of those would work.

And another thing to remember about vintage police and fire vehicles: In the 30's to 40's and somewhat into the late 50's, many county and municipal agencies ran rather simplistic markings . . . because they were cheap. The markings ranged from hand-lettered jobs done by a local sign painter to mail-order badges of a generic nature obtained from suppliers who printed up only a couple of different logos that could be made unique by adding the town or county's name.

Except for the short "Police Services" era of the mid 1970s the San Francisco PD has used the same style markings for most of their motorized history, so a modern set of SFPD decals should be very adaptable to this kit. Only problem is I think the SFPD was running 4 door cars by the 1950s. Wonder when we may see a 4 door from the resin casters...

[Danno]

Except for the short "Police Services" era of the mid 1970s the San Francisco PD has used the same style markings for most of their motorized history, so a modern set of SFPD decals should be very adaptable to this kit. Only problem is I think the SFPD was running 4 door cars by the 1950s. Wonder when we may see a 4 door from the resin casters...

Denver PD is another of the rare agencies that has stayed with the same markings since for-almost-ever. Their current color and markings theme dates back to at least the early 50's. (I just don't know how much farther back it goes.)

A rare concept.

[charlie8575]

It's nice to know some of those decals are still available. As finding the Mass State Police decals that are correct is turning into a bit more of an adventure than I would like to embark on, unless I can figure out how to make the decals.

I did see Rhode Island is available, and I'm going to try to contact the Rhode Island State Police to see what I can find out.

I might also check into New Hampshire or Vermont.

Charlie Larkin

[Ron Hamilton]

Here are my plans for the '57.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYjopSL8KBw

and yes it will be a fordor,

'nuff Said.