The Holy Grail of Model Cars...

Talking about Hot Rods and Jalopies, I would be amiss not mentioning the AMT model cars that we all built when we were young. If you are about my age you will remember going to Lil's Hobby Lobby to pick up one of the $1.49(note 1.49 shown on the box ends) Trophy Series 3 in 1 models shown here. These debuted in 1960 to rave reviews, and started a model building phenomena unrivaled until the dawn of the die cast models of today. The first one is the 1932 Ford 5-window coupe...my all-time favourite, and next is the 1932 Ford Model B Sport Roadster. I scanned these from my own model collection. The bottom two photos are not mine but show you how cool it was especially if you were too young to buy a real hot rod, how to properly build a 1:25th scale beauty. These guys built them to exact box specifications.

I had always built model cars but the hobby went astray somewhat when I started building the real things at 1:1 scale. Thanks to my good friend Steve Miller(a pristine model car builder and award winner), and my other good friend Kevin Rouse(who had sadly passed away just a few years ago), who got me back into the hobby full tilt. The cold winter months here in Thunder Bay offer tons of time to dedicate to the building of these wonderful model cars.

There have been many re-releases of these models and more are being released each year. Many stock car jalopy models have also been built using these kits and others of the 3 in 1 series.

We had also used many of the bodies of these kits for slot car racing back in the late 60s.

The Revell company has just released an all new 32 Ford 5-window coupe kit and will be re-releasing the 1925 Ford Model T two kits in one(the vintage one shown above) this fall in a wonderfully decorated tin box just like the original.

Thanks so much to Dave Darby for the incredible box art replicas in the last 2 photos and also for the use of his great photos. Click on the comments below to read Dave Darby's comments. Click on photos to enlarge.