O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicle May 22

Richard E thanks again for all these postings, as a car guy i love seeing whats available.

I have only a half dozen cars from the 1916 - 1929 period, but perhaps two dozen or more from the '30s.  They are all quite nice, fram various manufacturers 

But I have no real knowledge of cars from that era - it was before my time.  So the period unlike the '50s and on, when I was "car-aware" and watched listened closely to my father's, uncles, and grandfathers opinions about cars (One of the first lessons I took to heart being that I should listen only to men: women and girls, of course, knew nothing cbout cars worth listening too).  

So I know little about the details of cars on the street in the '20s and '30s - what was popular and what was not.   I know most of the post-war brands were in production then, along with many famous cars that no longer are (Jordan Playboy, the Night with its very cool sleeve valve engines) but I have no idea what cars sold best, what were the lemons, what were the noteworthy breakthrough or new-try cars (equivalent to the Mustang, Mini-van, Avanti, etc. in the '60s).  I do a little research, but not enough, so I tend to buy what I like.   

I used to aggressively collect sales lit, catalogs and brochures, for the medium price

(and others) orphans of the twenties and thirties, especially the several, quite a few,

who used the Lycoming engine.  (an "orphan" is a defunct marque, which now includes Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Mercury, Desoto, Plymouth, etc.  Jordan used Continental engines...Lycoming and Continental were the two big (there were others...Hall-Scott, etc.) independent engine makers who supplied engines to many of the independents, called "assembled cars", because you could almost rent a barn, contract for parts from suppliers, get your sheet metal custom stamped, AND get an emblem and screw-on hubcaps cast with your name on them.

Later Auburns, sought after classics, were not assembled cars because E.L. Cord,

who later built Cord and Duesenberg cars as part of his empire, owned Lycoming, and

made those engines. 

Your name may well have once been on a car......mine is on two different ones, one made in the Akron, Ohio area, and another, very rare, made in Detroit.  (supposed to be one of those last surviving in Mich.)  I have never seen it, and I have seen some rare cars.

I wrote a published article on one orphan make years ago (1974). 

The Depression killed off dozens of makes, dozens of choices, and not just high

quality cars like Franklin, Stutz, Marmon, and Pierce-Arrow, but inexpensive cars that competed with Ford and Chevrolet, to include Davis, Star, Durant (which had a full line including the luxury Locomobile), Whippet (a Willys brand) and others.

Brooklin has only tiptoed into some of those makes, such as the Marmon V-16, and

has made models of some of the commonly known orphans: Graham, Hupmobile and

Terraplane.  Rextoy, if they'd survived, looked like they might be going there.

Knight engines, once known to be quiet, had a wear problem that made them oil

burners over time, with Willys being the one popular priced car to used them.

Several luxury brands, most overseas, except for the Stearns-Knight, a full classic

made in Cleveland, used them.  There are a lot of moving parts in a Knight engine.

And if money was no object, and you thought steam was the answer, when Stanley

closed, there was Doble.  Detroit Electrics were made, I think, until 1940, but my

great aunt had (an earlier) one, and could not give it away when she went to gas cars.

Many other electrics had long since disappeared.  Battery charge was the problem,

which MAY now be improved.

Unless more model cars are produced, unlikely, I just don't have any suggestions

for new topics.  I don't remember but think you have addressed the truck models

out there, such as pickups.....

Slightly different topic but I wanted to post.

The last time I was in CVS pharmacy I saw some what looked like 1:43 cars that I didn;t have but I am gun shy because I bought a 63 Corvette and a 65 Mustang there that are to big, a estimated 1:39 scale or something.

So I was going there today and I brought one of my cars with me and showed it to the check out lady as soon as I walked in so she woulden’t charge me for it.

I saw that the Mustang and 63 Corvette was the same as what I have and can’t use a 58 Corvette and a 56 T Bird was also to big. But a 55 Chevy station wagon seemed OK even with my comparison car I rationlized that they were pretty big cars.

As soon as I got home and put it in with my other cars it stood out badly as way to big, so now I’m going to take it back.

 It says KenToy Die Casting on the bottum.

Let.s keep this thread active with talk about O scale vehicles and not about 1:1 vehicles. These are supposed to be model train related post and not about what engines 1:1 cars had or what your aunt Tilly drove to go shopping.

Now about O scale ideas, how about Woody's or advertising vehicles.

Bob

Dennis carry with you a tape measure. Most 1:43 cars will measure 3 7/8 - 4 1/4.

Here's a Welley 1953 Chevy drug store car with a Brooklin Chevy. The Welley has been enhanced with whiewall tires.

Bob

The subject of this posting is Depression Era Cars, to which I was trying to add a little

background knowledge, since many of us prefer models of prototypes to generic dimestore toys.  Most of the woodies pictured above are NOT from the Depression

era, but post WWII, and are NOT the subject of this thread.  Since I model the end

of the Depression Era, and cars many have never heard of were still being driven on

the roads, I would like to see and could use models of many I mentioned.  A popular

poster mentioned the Knight engine, which used valves that slid up and down the

cylinder walls, and as I worked with a mechanical engineer who owned a Stearns-Knight coupe so equipped, I added what little I knew about them.  I think Willys built the last American Knight engined car in 1932.

Colorado what Richard wrote was: I am running out of subjects, and open to suggestions. This week's subject was suggested by Trooper Ty. 

Since Richard said he was running out of subjects mine is a suggestion on Woody.s for another O scale Chronicle. So if Richard wants to do his next chronicle on Woodys then you can gather up pics of yours and post them.

Bob

Richard, I think there are a world of wonderous things about cars and 1:43 models of them to discuss.  Here are some topics for upcoming Motor Chronicles that I would like to see.  A few examples each time would get something started with all the knowledge people here have.  Some of these cars have to be available in 1:43, I suppose.

- Muscle cars before muscle cars.  There have always been manufacturers who "build a light car with big motor" combination.  I understand the "Rocket 88" was somewhat that way.  Studebaker had some fairly hot cars (for their time), and there had to be many long before the muscle car era I know nothing about.  The Chrysler 300 was, in in ts own way,a bit of a rocket.  Then there were cars like the Studellac.

   These are all quite interesting, and I really don't know a lot about who made what or even what existed in this category prior to about 1960, except for a few cases..  There are probably many more hot production cars that are not well known.  

    I'd like to have 1:43 models of some of these, particularly if they were sleepers, cars that did not look that fast.  

- Silk purses from Sows ears.  The most famous case here, I guess, is making the Mustang out of the Falcon - a few changes and presto-chongo, you have a new, successful model from a previously unglamorous model.  There had to be other cases where a manufacturer took a dowdy or down-market model, make a few changes, and came up with a winner.   Most interestingto me would be those where the change was almost nothing - ery minor, or strange, but led to success: the mythical add-a-strip-of-chrome-and-a-fancy-name model that sold in the thousands. 

- Duds.  Just as interesting, of course, are the cases where the sow's ear remained a sow's ear.  Not just the Edsel, or the Airflow, or the Pacer, or the Aztek, but there had to be many other examples where the manufacturer thought they were aiming at the market bullseye but didn't even hit the target.  Little is as fascinating as ignominious failure.  There have to be a few interesting 1:43 models available, too.

- Strange cars or features.  There is a world of interesting cars that had strange "features": the Knight sleeve valve, the Stout Scarab and its "office" internal layout (I have a model), the Crosley's Cobra (copper-brazed) engine, a few cars where the driver sat in the middle, etc.,  a businessman's coupe with a bed that would unfold in the rear, the removable portable radio Oldsmobile put in some cars in the '50s (you pulled it out through the locking glove-box - a aunt had one).  Those are just a few about (although not as much as I would like.  There are probably dozens of other oddities, particularly in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, that I don't know about.

- Or just pick one feature for a weekly chronicle, like rumble seats, or "businessman's coupe" designs, some of which were very different and had clever features.  

- We didn't mean to:  Mistakes so egregious that there was no way you can't admit you screwed up.  Two that come to mind both involve spark plugs I had to change.  The early Sunbeam Tiger.  You had to change the rear plug on the passenger's side through a removeable panel in the back of the glovebox.  Chevy had a car - I can't remember what now, where you had to loosen the motor mounts and jack up the side of the engine to remove a plug.  There had to be amny other, "We didn't see it until too late" examples over the years.  

- Weird options and features.  I'll put retracting tops in this way back when - common now, magical when the Skyliner was first out, and maybe even rarer before that?

    Bt what I'm really thinking of is the strangest option I ever saw: an uncle had a Buick with a small chrome button, about 1 inch diameter ,on the dashboard.  Iit had a 1/4 inch hole in it connected by a pipe and value to the intake manufold.  When he held the end of his lit cigarette up to it, the heat triggered a sensor that opened the valve on the pipe and engine vacuum sucked the ashes off the cigarette.  I am not making this up!  I was fascinated by it and always asked him to smoke when he was driving us somewhere.  It was the most fun to watch!

Airplane themes and influence.  A lot of cars were influenced, for good or bad, in many ways by the glamour and image of airplanes: the tailfin,  names (Spitfire), shape of grills, windshields, chrome "gun bezels" on the hood, etc..  and there had to be many other things, some perhaps good solid technology that really benefited folks (did shatterproof glass first come from airplanes, etc?).  You could probably do other themes too (ships, animals?).

First of all, Richard, thanks for this excellent topic.  I'll be printing it out for future reference for sure.  Dennis, my local (Massachusetts) CVS has been selling die-cast cars by mostly Kinsmart for the last couple of months and the selection is really appealing but not all are marked with the scale. I only found one that actually said 1:42, not 1:43 - a 2000 Dodge Power Wagon, so 'way too late for the era under discussion. It was frustrating seeing some nice inexpensive cars in a desired era/style but wrong size.  But, hey, who would have thought we'd be shopping for layout models in the CVS aisles? ☺️

Tomlinson Run RR

Here's a thought for a future topic. Today's topic is Depression-era cars. How about European cars of the same period? There are lots of interesting cars from that era that are little known here in the U.S. I use die-cast cars to set the time and place for my train layout, and I've collected some European models to spread around when I'm running my ETS tinplate and MTH Orient Express. 

Here's a Maybach Zeppelin: 

To add a couple to "the fun to fix" list above, I had two cars, a 1998 Chrysler Concorde, and a 2001 Dodge Intrepid, and when the battery died in the Chrysler,

you had to jack up the right front end, pull the wheel off, and pull the battery out of

the wheel well.  I traded the Intrepid before the battery died in it.  I also owned two

Ford Aerostar vans, '91 and '93...that still used distributors that set on the back of their V-6 blocks.  I stood on my head under the dash to replace rotor and dist.

cap. for the hybrid electronic ignition in those, while my '87 and '93 Mustangs,

four cylinders, contemporary with those, had full, trouble free, electronic ignition systems.  There was a compact from Ford, can't remember the year, maybe '93 that

I worked on for a friend,  that had a weird fuel injection system...I don't think it was

that throttle body FI system some vehicles had. I found working on my GM and

Chrysler cars, as well as the Mustangs reasonably straight forward, but several Fords were "different".

Often the not so correct, cheap offerings in 1:43 can be tweaked to look more authentic.  Here's the common as dirt deuce coupe by Yat Ming.

 Narrowed wheel track helps add to realism.   Rid it of non-authentic chrome. Lots of dirty thirties patina hides some of the out of scale features while toning down the newness. 

Bruce

American Excellence is running a sale with free shipping. It runs through Thursday May 25 2015 They have some excellent prices on over 1000 1/43 cars. You mist use code MD2015 when ordering

Here is a link

https://www.american-excellence.com/v2/

Here is a link directly to the 1/43s on sale

https://www.american-excellenc...%3E0&MASSSTAB=43

I know I will order a bunch.

Here are a few photos of pre-WWII diecast.

Three 1941 cars by Durham, two Chevys and a Ford.  

An assortment of Airflows. The two 1935 models on the left are both by Rextoys. The blue '34 is by Brooklin and the maroon '34 is by Durham. Chrysler changed the grille from 1934 to 1935 to make the car more conventional looking. It didn't work; people still thought it was ugly. Personally, I prefer the original "waterfall" grille; if you're going to have an Airflow you might as well get the full, undiluted effect.

More Airflows, both 1935. IXO on the left, Rextoys on the right.

A Hudson Greater 8 boattail roadster by Brooklin. I didn't like the original orange color, so I repainted it maroon. 

Everybody

Thanks for the suggestions. I intend to use many of them.

Lee:

One of the auto makers, I thing it was AMC or Packard, used a similar idea. The ashtray would empty every time you closed it into a container under the hood.

On today's cars the cigarette lighters and ashtrays are optional.

I had a V6 Fiero, to change the front bank spark plugs required a swivel head rachet with a couple of extensions and maybe a U joint, I don't remember, you did it all by feel. It wasen't as bad as you would think when you 1st started.

Not sure if they are a option any more. It was on my wife's 2000 Acura, but ? on today's cars. One thing my '67 Mustang had was a foot switch on the floor to change pre-set radio stations.

Finally found a near enough model of my 1955 Bentley R type I had whilst working.

Enforced retirement meant I had to sell her.

Betty as she was known.

Another interesting topic, Richard, would be the Mobil Economy run, both the history the event and the cars (and really seriously extreme efforts to stretch fuel economy with "stock" models) and 1:43 models of winners.  

As subject matter, you might address the American vehicles as made by state, as some.

such as Indiana had a great many makes made in them.  Problem is, many are defunct,

predate the '40's and up that probably most people model, and there are few models

of them made.  Indiana is an example, with Studebaker, Auburn, Duesenberg, Cord,

Marmon, and Stutz models in 1/43, but a lot of Indiana cars, such as Cole, Davis, Lexington, McFarlan, Paige and a long list are unremembered and unmodelled.  Ohio

had many makes, almost none of them modeled, such as Cleveland, Chandler, Peerless,

Jordan, Allen, Stearns-Knight, and another long list.  New York had Pierce-Arrow for

which there are models, and Franklin, for which I am aware of none.  St. Louis had

several car companies, none of which survived the Depression, and there are no

models.  Michigan, of course, is pretty safe, with Packard and all the contemporaries

surviving.   Mass. had Stanley, for which American Excellence has a model, but none

for Locomobile.

My thanks, too, for the posting of those model lists.  Nice to know that models exist

for Yugo and Trabant!!, no less, and super exotics favored by the Third Reich, such

as Maybach Zeppelin and Horch, but not for many period Chevrolets. 

Yet another topic.  Interesting engines.    The Crosley Cobra (copper brazed) mentioned earlier is certainly "interesting."  There were so many other strange or different experiments: early Wankel engines, the Turbine cars (Rover and Chrysler), Saabs variable compression ratio car, radial engines in cars, etc., etc.  My fav orite engine of all time is the BRM H-16, which is getting into racing and all, but still - there were so many.

Of more modeling interest might be the truly great engines.  Certainly the Ford flathead V8 and Chevy small block are up there.  The VW flat four?  The Slant Six from Chrysler?  The Olds Rocket 88?  I'd don't know.  

Here is an engine Chevrolet offered that not many are aware of, the "Copper-Cooled"

(air cooled) 1923 four.   It used copper plates brazed to the engine block for cooling,

and I think the problem was the plates came off when the engine heated.  Chevrolet,

in maybe, the first "recall". pulled all of them back from dealers and owners (almost

all of them, there is one at the Ford Museum in Greenfield Village, and I think one

more in private hands). Owners got a water cooled 1923 in exchange. So there was an air cooled Chevrolet before the Corvair.

I had forgotten all about the "copper-cooled" Chevy but I remember that it got a lot of press play as a historical curiosity around the time the Corvair came out. 

Just ordered some goodies from American Excellence.  Thanks for the tip, Richard. The free shipping was nice, too.

Tomlinson Run Railroad

It takes forever to go through that list of well over 1000 models for sale.  It is amazing how many different cars I have no interest in!   But I picked up a Russian-built Fiat 500 to add to my 500 collection, several small-displacement motorcycles (always hard to find), a 3-liter Capri that brings back memories of a friends, and an early mini delivery van.  

Thanks for posting the link. 

Hey guys, a couple of you mentioned having to wade through all those 1000s of models.  I found the "Advanced Search" to actually be helpful. It had drop-down filters for car brand, model manufacturer, scale, era, all the good stuff. And the results showed the sale items clearly in a different color.  I was so inspired by this purchase that I went over to ModelTrainStuff to see their expanded (?) die-cast collection.  Got a 1955 Chevy Railway Express truck to go with my new Webber Railway Express boxcar.  Should make a nice little vignette.

TRRR

I am with Lee on hacking and trudging my way through that 1300+ model list, but I

got through it, and...as S.W. Hiawatha,  found nothing I thought worth the effort to

buy.  However, hope lingers, so I will return to it.

While paging through the Bay, I discovered another long list of exotic cars, many

European race cars, and others with a few open big American classics, so it was

another for me to grumble about:  "replicarz".  It had a number of models of the

really beautifully styled Delahayes and other pre-WWII French exotics.  I don't think I ever read what powered those cars and if the engines were any good or ??

I had another look at the American Excellence sale and ordered a few things from the sale and a few non-sale items that I had been eyeing from other vendors and AE had a better price. Ordered a NEO '58 Chevy I'd been wanting, and some White Box models of prewar American, French, and German cars. From the sale I got a Citroen DS 19 and a Fiat Balilla (sp?) and a '49 Ford and I forget what else. I hadn't exactly been looking for the Fiat but it was knocked down to six bucks and it will fit into a European street scene for when I'm running my Orient Express. It's kind of a silly looking little thing but nowhere near as ugly as a Cinquecento.

One of the French prewar cars I ordered was a '38 Panhard Dynamic. Like the DS 19 and a lot of other French cars, it seems to have been designed for a future that never came. I'll post a photo when it arrives. And speaking of French cars, I was unable to resist a Peugeot 304 convertible that was on sale. It was a case of nostalgia for the car I wish I'd been able to own. I had a Peugeot 304S rally car for a couple of years in Nairobi, but of course it was a sedan because you don't park a convertible on the street anywhere in Africa. The top will get slashed to get at whatever is in the car. Not to mention what the wildlife will do to it if you take it on safari! My car did have a sunroof, but that little ragtop was gorgeous. 

Thanks again to Richard for posting the info on American Excellence. They have an incredible variety of automobiles and trucks and better prices than a lot of other vendors. Hopefully they will send my order promptly and without mistakes!

An Airflow by anything other name . . . 

When I search eBay for 1:43 cars, I type "1:43 1950", and after seeing those, change the date (ie 1951) and so on. This gets rid of the thousands of "race cars" being offered.

I do exactly the same thing on Amazon, first going to the toys and games section and then doing that search, working up through the entire post-war period, '46 to 60.  Sometimes I will type a name instead, particularly when looking for something rare (1:43 1953 Bristol, etc.).  There are simply too many diecast models on any b it site to sift through otherwise.

By the way, all of the American Excellence sale items I checked were also available through Amazon at the same price. It helps to know what you are looking for and type that into the serach engine in toys and games.  Same price, too.

Lee could you please give a couple of models priced the same on AE and Amazon.

Bob

:43 Puch 250 motorcycle, was priced at $11 on each.  Zundapp motorcycle - whatever price it was it was the same - around $11 oe $13, can't remember now.  I had bought boththe Puch and the Zundapp on American Excellence's site the other day but when i saw them on the Amazon site, from American Excellence, I ordered another of each - I don't have enough small, sub-Harley size bikes and scooters on my layout.

After reading Lee's post, I looked up several of the items I bought from American Excellence on Amazon. The prices were indeed the same on the non-sale items - not surprising, since the actual seller turned out to be American Excellence! Prices were identical for a Neo '58 Chevy, a Panhard Dynamic, and an Opel roadster. However, not all the sale prices were available on Amazon. I bought a Citroen DS19 Pallas on sale for $13.00; it was listed on Amazon for $44.95 from American Excellence. Also the shipping charge was higher from Amazon. American Excellence charges a flat 9.95 per order, with free shipping for orders over $150. The AE sale offered free shipping on all orders. If you order through Amazon, you pay Amazon's standard shipping rates and the items were not eligible for Amazon Prime.