O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicle May 29

Richard E every week it just gets better and better. your post is one i look forward to,thanks again!!!!!!!!!

I have never had a car with actual wood on it, although I had a K-car with fake wooden trim on the sides way back when that proved amazingly tolerant of the slings and arrows of outrageous four-year olds . . . .

I have a couple of woodies on my layout, this Chrysler being the most prominent.  The wood sides and split windscreen really set the time period well.  

That 1940 Brooklin Buick wagon is on my "to acquire" list, but it is more expensive,

new, than other Brooklins, even, so I wait on it.  I am hoping Brooklin does other

1940 Buicks, and expands that year into the other GM lines.  A couple of the Rextoy

1935 Ford wagons are backed up to station or grain elevator platforms here.

I had 2 "fake" woody wagons...'71 and '76 Chevys. I have a few 1:43s also...the AE '41 Packard is my favorite.

I thought I had seen them all in real life, but the 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline was a new one to me.  Very nice lineup of scale vehicles.

My parents had friends in 1957 who owned a 1954 Ford wood-trimmed wagon that was involved in a minor accident which damaged the wood on the passenger door.  In just those three years since it had been built, Ford had discontinued wood parts and the stock was gone.

I can honestly say that there are probably more here than I ever saw in real life. In my area of the state(CA), they were not very popular.

Thank you, for showing these.

Wood bodied automobiles were more expensive than other models and they were high maintenance.

That Chevrolet Fleetline Aero wood trim was not a Chevy option,, but an aftermarket dealer option

Who remembers these?

A Chevette with a wood grained decal.  It has its charm

Chrysler LaBaron Town & Country convertable. They also did a station wagon

I grew up in a very "upscale" area of Northern NJ. The "old money" owned very few Cadillacs, as the car of choice was a Ford Country Squire woody-look wagon.

When I was high school. I had a friend that lived in an upscale suburb of Rochester.

It seemed like every home has a Cadillac or Lincoln and a Ford Country Squire in the driveway.

That was at a time when most middle class families had one car.

Richard, I look forward to these article's every week and have gone back and read most of the past ones. Thank you for the fine work.

Yesterday at the Gadsden museum train meet I picked up a Matchbox Tucker new in boxes,for $10.00. Also a Kinsmart 1/42? scale 1950 Suburban,for $5.00.

Azgary 

New money: "Our chauffeur is driving our limo to our portico".

Old money: "James is bringing the car around".

Here, the old money clung to their Pierce-Arrows, Franklins, Packards and LaSalles,

and looked down their noses at what they regarded as more plebian transportation favored by the nouveau riche.

I always enjoy this thread.   Below are a couple of the NEO faux woodies from my collection.

-Duncan

NEO 1974 Chrysler Town & Country

NEO 1974 Buick Electra Wagon

I love the 1/43rd scale models of woody cars.Here is my collection listed clockwise:

1.American Models-1939 Ford woody wagon

2.Brooklin Models-1946 Mercury Sportsman

3.Motor City-1950 Ford woody wagon

4.Motor City-1948 Chrysler Town and Country

Dan

The first car I ever drove.My family's 1972 Ford Pinto Squire wagon.Pintos were made to last five years in the rust belt.This one made it about fifteen years,with endless repairs.

Dan

I liked the "wood trim" on wagons. We had a 1972 Olds Vista Cruiser with the wood grain package. Unfortunately, the vinyl wood grain deteriorates over time. We sold ours before that happened, but my father and I were contemplating going "old school" and fabricating real wood panels with lots of marine varnish for it if we had kept it.

Here is a cool vintage Monogram dealer display reproduction with a Danbury Ford Model A woody wagon model on it.

Dan

Great photo's. Inspiring me to try get a few for my layout

Nice thread,I forgot what a fan I am of the woody vehicles.Here are some photos of more of my collectables.I have to get out to some car shows this Summer to hopefully see them in person.

Dan

This is off-subject as I pulled up the April 4 "Chronicle" on pickups and found it closed.

A lot of wood-bodied trucks, back into the teens, were called flare-side expresses and

would pass for pickups.  But my interest are the pickups for the 1930's-1940, and

few have been done except for Ford.  As mentioned in the posting, there were the

Matchbox Reo, International (both I was glad to see, as "different") plus Studebaker

and the '40 Ford, which has been offered by several.  There are no Chevrolet or

GMC (Chevy clones with Pontiac flat head engines) pickups offered in 1/43-1/48.  I had

mentioned the S1 locomotive in another posting as written about in "Hemmings", a vintage vehicle magazine, and that issue highlights the Diamond T pickups from that era, one restored example auctioning for over $100K.  It also listed the Buddy Stewart pickup, which one model looks like a 1936 GMC with a Packard grille.  There were the Mack Jr. rebadged  Reo (the 1937 Diamont T looks suspiciously like that same Reo-Mack truck, but the 1938 forward D-T pickups have the horizontal bar grille similar to a 1938 Oldsmobile).  Federal, which like Stewart, was known for large trucks, also offered a pickup. There were both tiny American Austin and American Bantam pickups, and a 1940 and later Crosley pickup.  There was the 1933 Essex pickup, renamed Terraplane for following years, and Willys.  I would sprinkle all of these around my layout, if I could.

Here's a '41 Plymouth pickup to add to your list. It's inexpensive and comes in several colors. Maker might be Road Champs, I forget. On the left in the photo. 

According to the "premier" 1:43 collecting books (the "In Miniature" series by Randall Olson), the most prized/expensive 1:43 models are the '42 and '46 Chrysler Town and Country woody sedans hand-built by Motor City. When new, this model cost $299., and the last sale, in 2008 on eBay, was $1,800.

Gee, model cars suffer from auction inflation just like 1:1 cars...good thing those

models are after my time, although some within it are not cheap, either.

Mr. Hohmann:  Where can I find that Randall Olson series?...I have wondered if there was a guide to 1/43rd so I could discover what was made that I could use and chase

down...

SWH:  I have kind of ignored that '41 Plymouth model because I wasn't sure styling

had not changed from 1940 and prior, but I got unlazy, checked the books and that

styling was a change from 1938, used for 1939-41, so I can use it.  No Plymouth

pickups were built in 1942, and none offered again until 1974 with the Trail Duster,

and two compacts pickups I had never heard of or forgotten, the Arrow and the Scamp,

through 1983.

Wow, $1,800!!!!  I can see paying this much only for one car: if someone made a detailed model of a 1955 Oldsmobile Super 88 sedan in just the right two-tone blue (my Dad's first new car), yeah, I might buy, but otherwise, geez, no.

It sounds like you want a "who made what" guide that covers past offerings, both diecast and hand built. That would be "American Wheels" by Jerry Rettig. This mainly data, with a few visuals. Bear in mind this does not cover models made recently. Do a Google search to find one for sale (Amazon no longer has any). You can also email jerryrettig@msn.com

Some of the "In Miniature" (GM, Ford) books are soft cover on Amazon. Chrysler, and Independents are available from the author via email at randallolson@telus.net, These deal mainly with handbuilds, and are more visual rather than data. These are high quality, and give a good insight on how these models are made.

To be honest, the best way to "track down" what is available is to search eBay. The method I use is to search "1:43 1955" or whatever year you want.

The fist of my two orders, this directly from American Excellenc, arrived a few minutes ago: I also ordered some more indirectly when I realized I could get them through amazon, too.  Only four of five I order were included, a Zundapp scooter I ordered was shown on the invoice as unavailable.  Anyway, fairly good bargains for the money.  

EDIT: actually I was wrong.  I just checked.  This is the second (the Amazon) order I placed.  The first is still out there is shipping land somewhere. 

I particularly like this bike.  Good looking diecast models of smaller motorcycles like this single-cycle 250cc bike are less common than the big Harleys.  I have a second one coming in the second order, I think.  

First reasons passing understanding I have developed a small collection of 1950s-60s Fiat 500s - back when they had 500 and 600 cc motors.  This Brumm model of a soviet-bloc clone is of a slightly different model than any I had, and look-alike enough for me . . . nice detailed model.  The bus, a Gaz, is a dead ringer for an early Ford - I'm slowly accumulating cars for a full 1920 street scene on my layout.  This, repaintedg, will really help out.  It's plastic but nice.  The others are metal diecast, with the Corgi Capri being all surprisingly heavy.  

Richard, I appreciate your posting the link.  These were good finds.

I like that bus, and have looked at it on the net.  Henry Ford supposedly provided the

tooling to the USSR to build those, so it is a dead ringer for a Model A.  I want one of those buses to make into a rail bus, as several short lines ran them.

The most famous Woody, Strange Station Wagon from the Vacation movie

They are nearly perfect for that, as the plastic body will make them easy to work with in the modification.

I thought of doing that, but I put a lot of time into the Ford bus below: cab and chassis from a stock K-Line-by-Lionel vintage truck, with a scratch built body and interior in it.  I patterned it after a photo of an early rail bus, but an advantage is that this runs on 'Streets, too, as a normal bus of that period.  

I'm going to try to paint this newest Gas bus in Greyhound Bus colors, even though I am not sure that is prototypical, then place it static on the layout for display. 

Lee:

I have 2 of those GAZ buses. I want to make one into an On30 railbus, I don't have any On30 on my layout, but I'm planning to build an On30 layout with a friend. The other I will repaint as a rural school bus

A rural school bus would be perfect.  That is a good idea.  It would look so good like that .

A school bus company, that is now, I think,  closed, offered quantities of O scale models of their first Model T Ford schoolbus, and I sold a number in train shows, but kept at least one.  I have seen photos of Model T railbuses, but think the larger A makes a better platform.  I, too, need to get a couple of those GAZ Model A clones.

I have to look into the Russian models available.  I've thrown away the box now, but that bus came in a box with nothing but Russian or some other eastern-European print on it. (I would say it was all Greek to me, but I know enough to realize it was not Greek!). 

There was a thread/posting some time back from someone who had found another source of Russian models, many of clones, like this bus, of earlier generation American cars.  Also, frankly, there isn't much difference visually between earlier (1915) European and American cars - I just ordered a 1915 Fiat that will do fine on my Colorado main street for WWI era.

I have some of those Russian models the are sold under the name Nash Autoprom, I think they are made by IXO. The cartons have Cyrillic text and its all "Greek" to me also

The Russians were better at copying things than the Japanese. during WWII the Russians were our allies and we sent them a lot of equipment and engineering help.

The Russian Zis 120 is almost an exact copy of a 41 Packard to the point were half of the parts are interchangeable with it.

After the war the Soviets started dieseizing there railroads with a copy of the Alco RS-1 

Changing the subject while keeping it still to model cars on layouts:

WHAT IS THE STORY WITH WHITE TIRES ON EARLY CARS?

 I've googled images of early cars and as well as current restored old cars.  It looks like all-white tires were common until about 1915 and then faded from use gradually?  Regardless black tires were used as early as 1912 and white ones got pretty dirty anyway so often look gray if not black in old B&W photos.

I'm intersted in what people know, think, suggest . . . 

Why I want to know: I am amassing enough WWI and post-WWI cars to make a 1920 street scene on my layout and want to lay out a street with cars from 1920 back to perhaps '05, with a smattering of a few horses and buggys, etc., to go with times I run all 1920-ish locos and rolling stock.  In the past I've had fun putting all '40s, or all '50s, or '60s car on my main street to change the period I'm modeling.  I think 1920 would be fun!  Yes, I should change the styles of signs and streetlight posts, too, but a period cars and a few changes of billboards and such does the trick well enough. 

This is one of about a dozen cars I have already, a 1913 Buick.  Not the greatest model - it needs work (no glass in the windshield, too much plastic sheen) but it cost just $6.  I fit of work and paint will change all that . . .  But it has white tires and I was thinking off either "weathering them grimy and dark (I can't imagine they could possibly stay clean for long) or just painting them dirty flat black.

Lee, Early tires, beginning in 1914, were made of pure natural rubber with various chemicals added to make it wear better. The best of these was zinc oxide, which increased traction and made it wear better. This also made the entire tire white. Later, carbon black was added to increase the tread life to the area in contact with the road.

I guess "whitewalls" should really be called "black capped".