Convertibles or Sedans?

Sedans. I like daily drivers not showroom exotics.

I try to keep convertibles to a minimum, because there are fewer of them in real life, as well as the reason you noted about needing a driver.  Because of that, most of my convertibles are parked.  But, as in real life, parking space is limited. 

I also prefer sedans since there were far more of them on the road than convertibles. Just my preference though!

I like regular people cars, sedans mostly becaue then I dont have to add a driver and its a pain to find a person with driving arms then I have to cut the legs off. I dont like the fact that most of the people on my layout are driving around in hundred thousand dollar cars

Actually, I buy very few "O" vehicles because of the wildly-skewed "convertible/sports car/Ford/Chevy/Jaguar" products that are offered.

 

I personally don't care for convertibles much in real life, so...but looking at many layouts

it gives the impression that everyone drove/drives Cadillac convertibles, wee Thunderbirds, Corvettes, Mustangs, Jaguars and that blasted 1957 Chevrolet! 

 

Would a (nominal) O-scale station wagon or two hurt? An ugly or not so ugly family sedan?

A little brand/make variation? Plastic would be fine. 

 

But, this d/c car thing is driven more by those people who collect 'em, and not by RR's

like me who just use them - even paint and "weather" them. 

 

Not much chance of things improving, so I'll buy few little autos.

 

I couldn't agree with you more. On my layout I prefer the more "common" sedans of the fifties.... Fords, Chevys etc. I own several '57 Chevys but I refuse to pt them on the layout... a ' 56 Bellaire in two tone aqua & white or red & white, slightly weathered would be more my choice.

I also try to skew away from the convertible/luxury cars.  The problem is just what has been stated above that most people are collecting them and want the hot cars.

 

I have made pretty good friends with my local hobby shop owner and what is interesting is that when we "kick the bucket" most of our wives are going to head directly to the hobby shop and find out how to get rid of all this junk in the basement/attic.  My local hobby shop guy takes on these projects and helps find ways to dispose/cash-in on the items.  All of my cars have come from estates.  Priced like - take them all for $50.00.  Average price is around $2-3.00 per piece and 85% are still in the original box.  At that price I can just throw the ones I don't want in a box.  So if you are looking for more vehicles.....

 

Sorry guys, it's going to happen to us all.... 

I enjoy hardtops and sedans and paint them to match the cars my friends and families drove back in 1963.

Azgary

Hard tops for me.  Of all my O sized vehicles I own, I have three that are accurate enough to real cars my father owned.  One of those is the only convertible I own In O.

I have more convertibles on my layout because there seems to be more of that type available on the market at the price range I want. That is fine with me as I feel they look good. I don't have much parking space so I just add some figures to my on the road cars. By the way Brian I have that same light blue and white Chevy convertible made by Franklin Mint. That one is one of my favorites as it has great detail and an opening hood so you can view the engine.

I make an effort to have a realistic cross-section of normal, everyday cars set up on the layout, but I admit I have a few more convertibles and sporty cars than would normally have been the case on the streets of a small town.  My favorite, a '53 Oldsmobile Fiesta, is below.  I bought it for the reason I always do: it was just so good looking. 

 

I am not sure what portion of cars in the 1950s (the time period I model) were convertibles or roadsters, etc.  I'd estimate fewer than 10% but I really don't know.  I did a quick count just now of the cars parked on my downtown Main Street: 41 total, of which 11 are convertibles with their top down (17%) and four with their top up (10%).  That seems two to four times what it would be, but again, I'm not sure . . .  

 

 

 

 

Edit: Interesting that you brought this up now, Passenger Train Collector.  Today is a non-demographicially normal automobile day here in central North Carolina - just a perfect blue-sky-with-puffy-clouds day in the 70s.  What they sometimes call a Chamber of Commerce Day.  It brought out scads of restored converticles.  We saw a mid 30s Buick, a fantastic '70 Eldorado, 'a TR-4, a number of old 'Vettes, and a '60 T-bird, in addition to a zillion Miatas and modern stuff, all with their tops down.  Maybe the day I'm modeling on my layout is like this day.

As an admirer of cars both from a performance stand point and also as 'sculpture' I have quite a few - mostly common models probably 50 - 50 mix of convertible/sport and regular sedans and trucks. As Lee is so adept at creating a wide variety of scenes with his cars and characters, (he's my hero ) I like to have scenes/dioramas with the vehicles featured as well.  

Here's a few from our earlier layout

I love convertibles in real life, but I try to have at least three or four sedans or coupes on the layout for every convertible. Top-up convertibles aren't as conspicuous as if the tops are down. It's a substantial effort to find a good variety of period-appropriate closed cars and I've spent more money than I'd prefer on Brooklin and the like just because the less expensive models tend to be convertibles, sports cars, and luxury models. Kind of ironic that it's cheaper and easier to find a racing Ferrari than a Buick station wagon. (NEO makes a nice '57 Buick wagon, but it sells for at least $69.99.) 

 

I'm mainly into steam era, which makes it even harder to find cars. About the only thing you can find in ordinary, working-class cars without spending Brooklin money is a '32-'34 Ford, and mostly what you find is a coupe or a roadster rather than a sedan. I'll probably pick up a Buick sedan from White Box; that's a nice one and reasonably priced. You can get reasonably priced 30's Packards and Cadillacs from several makers, but not Chevys. 

 

I also model European trains and I've found quite a few nice 1930's European sedans.I just unpacked a four-door Citroen by Universal Hobbies that I picked up on the Bay for under 20 bucks, shipped. Often the Euro-prototype items go cheap on eBay because not too many buyers are looking for European sedans. It will look good next to the station when the MTH Orient Express pulls in. 

 

 Some mid-30's taxis. Chrysler Airflow by Rextoys, Ford by Solido, a different Ford by Rextoys. I think the Solido is actually a French Ford prototype, but it looks fine with American cars.

 

Model B Fords - Roadster by Ertl; pickup and sedan by Eligor. The sedan is excellent for a steam-era layout; I have a few of them in different colors. Not too expensive.

 

Three Packards by Solido. These can be found on eBay for around $20 plus shipping. The victoria also comes in a top-down version.

Love the yellow Pontiac.

 

I love convertibles! My last layout though was modeling winter and particularly the Christmas season so convertables especially with the top down look out of place.

these are some of the vehicles that occupy the parking lot at the Elizabeth City Station in the 1950's.....

Oh boy...this continues the discussion on model cars for the layout posted weekly, and

I see I have many others who vote the same way.  Since I much prefer coupes as daily drivers (1:1 scale, refuse to buy anything else), my layout may be overinfested with

coupes, but as many above, I avoid open cars as uncommon and unrealistic (I am

modeling high altitude...cold!..Colorado).  However, in the early days of motoring,

closed cars were much more expensive than roadsters and tourings, with the wind

blowing through the isinglass side curtains, and that hot brick on the floor that didn't do much with sleet blowing in your face.    Many of those early open cars stayed on the road through the Depression,   So I COULD have more open cars, but prefer the unexotic and nonclassic closed cars (coupes, sedans, coaches,and a few woody wagons).  How many Hispano-Suiza and Isotta-Fraschini dual cowl phaetons would have driven through crumbling Colorado mining and lumber camps in 1940, or even before the 1929 Crash?   Not too many.  Like many above, I would like a MUCH better mix of all low and medium priced makes.

I wanted to paint a 1955 Oldsmobile 4 door sedan to match my friends first car. With no 1/43 model for this car, I realized that the 1957 Ford trooper sedan by Road Champs has the top added on not molded in like most. Then I got the Olds convertible and set the top on and it works as a 2 footer but not built for this close up picture.

He enjoyed seeing his car in scale on my layout.

Azgary

Starting out I chose winter scenes, so I'm pretty well locked into cars with lids. The brooklin's are at the front of the layout; brutally expensive but my favorites. And nostalgically, my grandfather drove LaSalles and Brooklin has some nice ones. But I have to put little pieces of white cardboard under the tires to keep 'em from sticking to the painted surface. Anybody got a brilliant idea to fix that?

I like sedans and trucks,I buy them when I am in Europe,unfortunately they are not giving them away but if you spend over 75Euro you get 19%VAT back.

Solido France

Rex Toy France

Vitesse Portugal

Siku Germany

Brumm Italy

Franklin Mint USA

Mikey 

 

 

I really don't have a preference. I'm all over the place when it comes to buying diecast.

I prefer sedans.  A lot of the choices depend upon the era chosen to model.  Convertibles are certainly more available and prevalent in the lower priced market.  I have noticed sedans in the fifties and sixties are higher priced and more scarce.  Station wagons, with few exceptions for fifties and sixties are priced in the stratosphere. I now have more sedans than convertibles, but many are Russian or other European knock-offs of American made cars from the forties, and fifties.  Of course, if you can afford nice Brooklin models, then just about anything you desire is available.  Some of these cost as much as a new diesel loco.

 

I forgot to mention, I like coupes too, but they are also rare.

While I prefer sedans and hardtops over rag tops, I am a sucker for a cheap price. A few years ago Wall Mart was selling 1\43 die cast '50's cars for about $2 each and I think they were all convertibles. So my layout has an abundance of rag tops driven by Clad Rains (the Invisible Man) wanna be's. LOL

Mikey:  I see a number of Rextoys on your layout....you are not finding them offered

as new retail in France, are you?

I hope "weathering" them includes vast amounts of RUST.  Ohio cars driven throughout the fifties, sixties and into the seventies were RUSTY BUCKETS.  I owned many of them.  In fact, I had  Pinto station wagon that after three years had to have the doors tied closed with rope and duct tape to keep them shut.  Fords seemed to rust more than Chevy's back then, but they all had some rust damage.  Those were the days of BONDO and black primer.  The choice of guys in high school with very little money to spend. 

 

But, I digress.  We're talking about die cast, not life as I remember it.  Bob S.

I have approx. 300 1:43 models ranging from $7. to $350. None were bought because they were cheap. I have very few top-down convertibles, but I do have a number that are top-up. Of special interest to me are station wagons and "dream cars". Cars from the late '40s-1959 have a lot of memories for me, since I was 5-17 years old during that period. One of my highlights was attending the GM Motorama in NYC in 1955 and 56.

I have to laugh when I read a forum member saying the old cars lasted longer than present day cars. Cars in "snow" climates would show rust after 5 years. The optional cost "undercoating" was later found to encourage rust. Also, cars developed rattles, and "overheating" while stuck in traffic was very common. New car warranties could be as short as 3 months (the 1950 Hudson was 90 days or 4,000 miles, whatever came first).

"The brooklin's are at the front of the layout; brutally expensive but my favorites. And nostalgically, my grandfather drove LaSalles and Brooklin has some nice ones"

 

I could not agree more with this statement. Mine too.

Brian,

   I like them both and they do not have to be really expensive either, the older stuff I really like is getting harder to find however, looked at an older RR Silver Cloud that I will probably pick up today, in the Antique store in our spiraling metropolis of Galeton, Pa.

I can understand your liking of convertibles, I have a old heavy Red 57 T-Bird, that is one of my favorites!  

PCRR/Dave

Like them both but one of my all time favorite cars...

 

 

Love these too...

 

There is a store in Vienna near St Stephens Cathedral that has one of the largest selections of Diecast tha i have ever seen,they have  Rex as well as some brands that I have never heard of and cant afford.

Mikey

SEDANS.......

Over on the model car forum we have a regular post from time to time called 'what people REALLY drove'.

It's old photos and snap shots of citys and town from the 1930's to 1970's. 

It always shows how the 4 doors out numbered the 2 doors and you almost NEVER see a convertible. So because of these I almost ban convertibles from the layout.

I wish we had more 'Plane Jane' base model 4 door models. 

Not every car was a top of the line 2 door coupe. 

Movies and TV have helped this problem. Watching a episode of Mad Men set 1968 and all the cars were rare top end cars.....the ones collectors keep and restore....but NOT what was really seen on the streets. 

great perspective.....I agree!

During the "hardtop convertible" period, from about 1950 until 1970 (when I am guessing

rollover crash safety became a mandated concern), those hardtop coupes seemed to

outnumber everything else on the road.  Coupes have suffered the decrease that has

affected brands, other body styles (look at a mid='50's Chevrolet catalog and one for

2015), options available, etc.  Then? Body styles and engine choices galore.  Today? What size four door do you want?   Well, at least they are now building fairly fuel efficient

SUV's.  Whee!  Now there are two body styles available.

Me, too.  But sexiness always sell, partikcularly in diecast.

 

I have photos of downtown where I grew up, in the '50s.  Thing  you notice are that nearly every car was a sedan unless it was a satation wagon, that base Fords, Plymouths, Chevies, Nashs and Dodges and Pontiacs, and Studebakers, etc., outnumbered fancier cars like caddillac and Packard about ten to one, and that there were a fair number of 15 year old cars, too.  And no convertibles.   

I try to put them I parking lots if I can.

I have my one open convertible, a mid-thirties Ford, up on the outside lift rack at a

service station.  Nobody in it up on the rack.

That's pretty much how it was in my Pennsylvania town, too.  Convertible weather is rare in the Northeast, and even in the summer, few wanted the the blazing sun beating down on them.

 

We did have a Packard dealership in town, though, so there were more Packards (mostly Clippers) on our streets than might be seen elsewhere.  And about half a dozen Crosleys of various vintages.  A few Kaisers, too.  But try as I might, I don't recall any convertibles, outside of the handful of Austin-Healeys and MGs owned by the local sports-car enthusiasts.

 

As you say, it was mainly sedans, trailed closely by station wagons and the occasional pickup truck.

 

I do have some convertibles, however I don't use them as I mostly do winter themes.