O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicle May 30

I just received a beautiful highly detailed model of the 1952 Chrysler SS Gia show car by BoS-Models for $38.95. It can be found on the American Excellence website. This model appears to be made by NEO.

I have an orange version of the '54 Jeep wagon coming from a supplier overseas that I found at a really good price.  It will be perfect for my layout, so 1950s!.

I received the Jeep today.  On-line (Amazon) it looked orange and white, but it is red and white.  No matter, the Neo model is quite nice.  It looks so good, so late 1950s.  I love it.

That is a really good looking vehicle, Lee.

Art

I envy people modeling the postwar era (I model 1943, so I have a pretty tight timeframe for autos), I'd love to have a Tucker parked somewhere on the layout. I love that Willys (FYI, it is spelled Willys, but it's pronounced like, "Willis," not "Willies" like most people think), I have a 1944 Willys MB Jeep in my garage so naturally I have a soft spot for much older Jeeps.

It's amazing what you can do with $10 die cast cars with a little paint and a can of dullcoat:

Or slightly out-of-scale Solido firetrucks, modified to look like WW2 GMC GCCW trucks:

While modeling 1943 gives you a wide selection of vehicles prior to that, many of them

are from (expensive) Brooklin and (not cheap) Rextoy, which last is now found used.  Many of the models available are large, open, luxury classics, almost as rare as the Tucker, so I can't use them on the streets of "Podunk".

The 1950s gives you more low cost options, that is for sure.  I do have some high end Broolin and American Excellence stuff, but a lot of them are $10 and below range and look good.  

The Jeep cost a  pretty penny, but it was worth it. 

Good point. I live pretty close to the Lemay car museum, where they have a Tucker on display. They also sell 1:43 models I couldn't justify the cost for, about 150 each. I think they're Brooklyn.

But yeah, wartime backwoods south would never have anything but much older cars, trucks and delivery vehicles alongside Army stuff. No cars will stay in out of the box condition before going onto the layout, though. Also, they have to have period-correct license plates, even with the right county codes...

Wow! You are a stickler for accuracy.  I generally make my own plates on a color printer, but only get the state correct.  

BTW - given your photo and forum name does the p51 refer to the P-51 fighter? My Dad was a pilot in WWII - mostly B-25s, but after the war with his 2500 HP pilot rating he got to fly P-51Ds with the Air Reserve and always said it was the high point of his pilot career - and that it ruined car hot rodding forever for him, since it was impossible to compete.

I model mid 50's early 60's which had some great cars. I would love to see some Ramblers, Hudsons, DeSotos, Dodges, Plymouths, Fords, Chevys in the late 50's and early 60's that don't cost an arm and a leg. Anything over $20 seems a lot for 4" of toy.

Ditto to MilwRdPaul!  I would also add that those cars not be convertibles.

Tom B

Yep, used to volunteer for various warbird groups. My avatar shot was of me sitting in a P-51D, in the background is the tail of a B-17. I am wearing all original WW2 flight gear in the shot and I actually flew on this bird 3 hours after this shot was taken, in formation with said B-17 and a B-24. We buzzed an Air Force Base and buzzed the civlian tower several times, in formation and in trail (we went first on the last pass, full throttle). Best 90 minutes of my life! Best thing is it didn't cost me a dime, got the ride for free and even hitched a ride with one of the B-24 passengers going back to the airport we left from.

BTW, my first name is Lee, too!

Unfortunately, Dinky Toys had few U.S. models, but Ted Maurer is having a D.T.

auction this next weekend.  Two of those shown, the Pyymouth station wagon, and

a Studebaker stake truck, I once used on my childhood layout (I never saw a prototype of that particular Stude)

You mean this model?

Here's a real one:

That is a Studebaker M Series truck, they came  in 1/2 ton to to 2 ton models and were built from 1940 through 1947.

If you look closely, you will notice the cab is the same one used on Studebaker US6 WWII trucks. Most of them went to Russia.

Nope, P-51, that is a later model, and I have seen a number of them, including pickups, but the Dinky Toy version's prototype has eluded me.  (might be one in the Stude museum in South Bend)  Richard: I can't tell from the military version whether

it resembles the Dinky Toy version.  If I ever thought about it, I would root through

the boxes of vintage Stude catalogs in an old car show, such as Carlisle.  My cousin's

husband's brother was a major Stude collector, but I never saw his collection.  He

passed and last I heard, each daughter kept an Avanti.  I don't know if he had any

pickups or other trucks.  Luckily there is a pre-war Stude pickup in 1/43rd, and

Matchbox made a few of the less well known pickups, but I like a lot of pickups

on my layout, and pre-war Chevrolets have been ignored by model makers.

Here is an M series pickup.

The hood and fenders are different on the military version but the cab is the same other than the pop open windshield.

Ertl did some 1930 Chevrolet trucks and Gearbox did a nice 41 Chevy pickup.

An interesting fact about the Studebaker M series pickup is the front & rear fenders are interchangeable.

That M series Stude pickup was available as early as 1940??  I would buy one in 1/43-48 if available.  I have the U.S. Model Mint 1937 Stude pickup to go with assorted others such as Matchbox International and Reo (Which Mack rebadged as the Mack Jr.) pickups.  (don't want nothing but Fords, which is the most prolific model available)

U.S. Model Mint also did a 1952 Stude R-5 pickup.  That and a great many different

Stude models by Brooklin are on the bay.  Ertl offers no prewar Chevy pickup and just a larger 1930?? (hood louvre pattern is wrong) Chevrolet truck.  Nobody else offers

one, either, and only a Brooklin 1937 Chevy coupe is common, although I thought

U.S. Model Mint? or somebody offered a 1937? Chevy sedan.  With Buick available

from Brookin for most of the 1930's, I'd think it wouldn't be a G.M licensing problem.

But now that both Olds and Pontiac are defunct, there are Brookin models of

1930's versions of those...however Buick is not defunct, so Chevrolets.....????

There are later 1950's+ Brooklin Chevrolets. (in the 1960's I noticed there were all

these old car nuts running through the bushes looking for Fords, and old Chevies

could be bought a lot cheaper, so maybe this is a continuation of that oversight)

The mass marketers are going to concentrate on sales volume. that's mostly "57 Chevys, Ford mustangs and Pontiac GTOs etc.  Brooklin, Neo and some others go after the collectors market. That usually comes with a premium price and higher quality.

Thanks for the memories, Not sure of the year of this one, but in the early 60's I had a 41 Studebaker pickup with a push bumper for my service station truck in Stratford, Conn. It was a great vehicle.

Add to that, '53 Eldorados and Tuckers...also top-down convertibles. Some of my "neatest" models from NEO and Brooklin are station wagons ('55 Chrysler, '54 Chevy and Plymouth, '48 '57 and '58 Buicks, etc.). The latest offerings from "upscale" makers are Dream/Show cars from the '50s.

And while interesting historically, many are truly hideous!  And at the cost, I passed on all of them. 

Have you seen the 1952 Chrysler SS by Ghia on the American Excellence website? I would buy a production car if one were available (for less than $60K). The model is beautiful as well for $39.

This is the one. Mine is metallic blue. I have the Dual Ghia also.

Changing the subject slightly, and keeping this "defeat" by the Germans away from Richard's great the D-Day thread from yesterday, I had wanted an early Corvair for the layout for some time.  I found this old Franklin Mint model used for a fair price.  The gaps in the doors are monstrous so I decided to pose it with them open, etc.

So here is a first-gen Corvair - America's attempt to build a compact car powered by a horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine, like the . . . well you know, doing what too many of them did, sitting by the side of the road with a thrown fan belt. The lady is seriously P.O.'d, the men are feeling inadequate since any real man would know how to whip out his pants belt, twist it just so, and fix the engine until the next gas station.  

My wife had a '60 Corvair before I met her, and says this little vignette has truly captured the joy of owning one.

I owned two Corvairs and never threw a fan belt. They were fine as long as the tension was set correctly. Many chronic Corvair problems, including that one, were caused by the fact that Corvairs were different, and owners and mechanics didn't bother to learn what they needed to know. A mechanic used to working on water-cooled cars would check the belt on a Corvair and say "good enough" when in fact it was loose. Unlike a conventional car, the belt on a Corvair went around a corner, and for that reason it had to be kept tighter than one that went in a single plane. 

The Corvair was a great car in many ways, but the production technology of the day was not up to mass producing the engines as designed. The chronic oil leaks that plagued the car happened because GM simply couldn't mass produce aluminum castings that wouldn't warp. They were also a pain to work on, which caused a lot of mechanics to take short cuts, further aggravating the problems.

If I had a third bay in my garage, I might well be looking for a Corvair - a Spyder or Corsa convertible with the turbo engine, preferably in midnight blue with a white top and interior.

I recall early on that GM had a recall or upgrade with a modified tensioner for the fan belts, it was so prevalent.  

My wife had real problems with hers - and not just the fan belt - bad oil consumption and stalling/refusing to start - all sorts of other things, too, she says, but that was long before I knew her.

I didn't like the first gen Corvair styling or the meager amount of power initially. But I always wanted a second-gen turbocharged hardtop.  I came close in '68, but I ended up getting one of the first Camaro V8s instead - it came down to one of the other and a V8 . . . well.  It turned out to be an extraordinarily good car for me . . .  

All the hoo-hah about Cirvair's rear suspension never concerned me - I thought Nader was wrong.  I drove lots of Spitfires and they had swing axle rear suspensions.

The '60 Corvairs had a lot of teething problems that were fixed on the 61's. And you are correct, they did modify the tensioner to help keep the fan belt in place. I don't remember if it was an actual recall or just a service bulletin. I think they did install the upgrade for free. The Corvair was an all-new idea for GM and the first model did not have the benefit of real-world experience.  Chevy could not do the kind of road testing they did on the big cars, with major components hidden in current-year sheet metal, because the Corvair didn't look like anything else. The only road testing they could do outside the proving ground was with a couple of 356 Porsches fitted with Corvair engines. And, of course, these test cars were driven by engineers and maintained by factory mechanics, so they never had the fan belts adjusted by 18-year-old gas station attendants. As General Eisenhower famously said, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. 

The 67-69 Camaros were great cars - that's another one I'd love to have. My mother had a '68 painted an absurd color of metallic lime green with more stripes than a zebra. Fortunately I usually got to ride in the front and my little brother got stuck in the back seat, which was not spacious. I didn't ride in it that much anyway, because by then I had my own car (a '62 Corvair). 

Never had a Spitfire, but I did have GT-6 briefly...too much weight in the front... could have been overcome, but I didn't really like it as well as the Datsun 1600 Fairlady roadster I had at the same time. The Triumph sure looked better, though and ran in a straight line like a rocket.

The best "Spitfire" I ever drove was a GT-6 that a friend and I converted to convertible.  We bought a front-clip Spitfire and used the cowling windshield frame, and top mechanism, etc., and lots of welding and grinking.  We worked hard, too, to move everything we could as far toward the rear axle as possible.    It was one innovation after another but eventually it looked "factory." It was a very sweet car without as much cowl shake as we expected (we did weld in some reinfrocements) - never understood why the factory did not do that.

My brother's wife owned two Corvairs, trading an early one, maybe 1960, on

maybe a 1965...I never heard any problems from them about theirs, and my

mother bought a new 1962 four speed coupe that she drove until she wanted

a new car in 1967.  The only problem we had with it was the lousy may-pop

two ply tires.  We blew a tire on the Interstate, swapped ends into the median,

jacked the car up on the grass, put on the spare, and drove on home.  Oh, on

another trip when she was following me, I was in another car, the speedometer cable

went out on her Corvair...I disconnected it on the lot of an abandoned gas station, on that same Interstate, and replaced the part the next week.  Those are the only problems she had..none with the fanbelt, and we heard about oil leaks but never noticed any.

I owned a new '65 Corvair convertible, which had the new styling. The only "negative" was having to have the rear wheels allined now and then. Traded it in on a new '67 Mustang because my new wife could not drive a stick shift.