Art & Inspiration hobby shops, models, and juvenile car enthusiasm

I had a ton of model kits. $2.50 and ,oddly enough that was what I charged to mow front and back with edging. Many customers in a 50 acre housing tract. Many models on the shelves. There was 1/72 WW2 airplanes that were .75. I put up an assembly line and had the Battle of Britan hung from my ceiling.
When I went into the Navy my brothers told me how much fun they had shooting them down with paper clips and rubberbands.
Remember sparkplug wires from colored thread to match the paint?

 

as a kid there was the Hobby shop of all hobby shops within pedal disatance from me- The Squadron Shop - primarily centered around military models, the back 3rd of the shop was strictly car models - my neighborhood buddies and I spent every cent we had on both - the military models we bought were all in HO scale, and we had huge battles in the backyard - rainy days were for the car models - Pop got me into those, along with slot car tracks-that was the winter time sport- between me and the 4 other kids on my street we had built a track that covered 4 sheets of plywood - we played a form of "chicken" races - if your car fishtailed and spun out, you had to leave your car in place till the other racer had an opportunity to hit your car with theirs - if your car was knocked completely off the track, you lost, and the next racer started, if your car flipped over, or sat on its side, you lost. If the tire "tread" was still touching the "road surface" you could put your car back on the track and continue racing. great times.
Pop even taught us how to hop up our AFX cars, taller gears, larger magnets, even cutting the armature wires out and rewrapping them with thinner wire to make them spin faster(and get hot faster)
Wish I still had all my track and cars still...

 

We had two Hobby shops in Rapid City. Toy Hobby and Whos Hobby. Whos is still going strong. I stop in at times and buy a kit or browse. There is also a strong slot car group in the area as well as 3 or 4 separate RC airplane groups............things aren't all bad.

 

My youngest uncle (only a few years older than me!) hooked me when he painted one of my first kit bodies (A Chevy Nova, I think) a wicked purple metalflake from a Testor's spray can.

Built:



Unbuilt:



I better have some kids, or those things will never get built.

 

You should tell the kid to bring one/both of his parents over to meet you, then you won't be a stranger & he might be allowed to go for a ride with you. You never know, it might turn the kid into one of them crazy hotrodders.

 

Growing up in the 60's in San Francisco, We had two hobbie shops to hang out at. One on Mission St. and one on San Bruno Ave. They were about 3 miles opposite from each other. I lived in between these two. In those days It was no problem during the summer to go between the two and hang out because we were always on our bicycles. Our parents never worried about us cause we were in groups. As a matter of fact during the Summer our moms encouraged us to go out and do something instead of hanging around the house and bugging them! Sure is different today. Each hobbie shop had an H.O. slot car track, so you had a reason to hang out.Those Summers at the hobbie shops sort of set a pattern on how we would grow up w/ cars as an intregal part of our lives. We went from Car Models to Slot Car racing. Then to building real street cars and occasionaly street racing and getting in trouble with the cops!. Some of us tried Drag Racing at Half Moon Bay , Fremont and Champion. But it all started at the hobbie shop for me. I wasn't introduced to cars there, but it helped fuel the fire for a passion I've had all my life!!!

 

I forgot, we also had a Kresge store that had a whole aisle of models as well as a dining counter. Smell of burgers and styrene!

 

Mazooma1 thanks for posting a pic of your wall!! On that was is a box from the 1st model(Long John) i built as a little boy of about 5 or 6...I couldnt recall the name of it but when i saw the box it brought back a flood of memories! I will try to find one to redo!!

 

The "long John" kit is still available. Contact Galaxie Limited, web-site is
www.galaxielimited.com
It is a re-issue and now come with resin Whitewall tires.

 

Some of us are still juvenile...........

 

my pleasure

 

It doesn't matter. In 1983 I bought (yeah, I don't care, laugh at me) a 1981 Citation. It was wrecked in the front and I was a young married guy with little money. The first thing I did after getting the car back together was to buy a model just like it to build.

Would I have built as many models as I did if I had a computer with internet access when I was a kid? I dunno.

How many of us have things we need to get done while wasting time here?

 

Built many models too but lost interest when I got my license. No desire to build now but I sure wish Mom hadn't thrown my small collection out when I moved out. (At least she saved the Lionel Trains.) I always let the kids sit in my truck at show if they show an interest. (Moms and Grannies too.)

 

My first kits, the 1/32 ones, a tube of glue and some paint in jars was less than a buck at the Sub base PX in Pearl Harbor when I was a kid back in the late 50's / early 60's. Sadly, my allowance was 25cents a week, so I had to save up a whole month to get one. Later on in high school, most AMT kits were 88 cents at the discount hobby shop where I worked and Testor's spray cans were 39cents each. Since I got just above minimum wage then, like 90 cents and hour, I could afford more kits! Gary

PS just about EVERYONE I knew built model cars back then.

 

I got interested in cars when I was 12 (1960) and laid-up from major surgery. I hate to think what would have happened if I had video games instead!
I think my first model was a Jo Han '57 Plymouth custom.
I spent a lot of my early teen years and money in hobby shops and slot car tracks. I used to "kit bash" and built lots of cool rods and customs. I thought I invented tubing exhaust and wiring engines with thread and upholstering with old sweaters and stuff. I haven't been to one in a few years, but, I have a stack of kits and done cars in the attic for "someday". I saw a slot car track in Des Plaines yesterday. Gotta check it out soon.


I almost forgot! Some of the best fun we ever had was messin' with the Marine recruiters next to the hobby shop. Me and a couple friends were 4F ( I'm blind in one eye, but big and healthy looking), and every time a new guy was in the recruiters' office, we'd go in and pretend to want to enlist. We'd go in and chant "kill,kill" and "I wanna' go kill commies", and shit. But we always made friends with them and thanked 'em for serving. Boy we were assholes!

 

I built a couple hundred model kits. Swapping parts, modifying bodies, candy over base paints. Definately was my entryway into "full size" cars once I was old enough.

 

I agree with wvenfield, we had less things to compete for our time in those older days. We also had more patience which was required to build those models.

50fraud, I'm dissappointed to hear about the hotwheels customer base. I was looking at some of those the other day, they are really wild vehicles as far as design goes.

Norby, you probably did invent it. That was also a fun part of the hobby, finding odd things around the house that you could cut up or modify to look like a car part. I used to
use corduroy material to simulate tuck n roll upholstery.


I started with those Comet model airplane kits. Took a zillion sticks of wood to put those together! When plastic models became my interest, that was a piece of cake to glue those together.





It wasn't so easy to get a good paint job with a brush, but
who was that picky in those days?

 

Tony was talking about the early balsa wood models. Here's some of the kits, they were all late forties or very early fifties.

I have several more, my wife says I'm crazy spending money on a box full of wood!

Mick

 

I started building the kits in 59 or 60, and stopped by mid 60s to work on real cars.

The best ones for me were the AMT 3-in-one. AMT printed a price code on the ends of the box...1.49 or 1.50.

Revell kits: the chrome seemed to rub right off if you handled the parts too much...but the Orange Crate was worth it..

I even tried some of the body putty for custom work, that came in a small tube..was it Testors?

3-in-one kits made us want to use parts from different kits.

We had good childhoods compared with today..

 

Ok, in 83 you were an adult and you built a model of a car that you had. If you were a kid going to the store to buy a model, would the Citation be the one you went after ??

 

As a kid I had 2 great hobby shops within a bike ride of my house. I had countless hours of fun building, painting, customizing, and sometimes blowing up model cars.
Wish I still had them.

 

Tony, model cars certainly helped fuel my passion for hot rods and race cars. I have vivid memories of sitting at the old desk in my bedroom and losing all perception of time while meticulously working away at some cool Monogram or AMT kit. Next to my desk, on a table, was a 45 rpm record player. I'd throw on a record of some kind of surf or R&B music and lose myself in my model and music. When the record finished, without missing a beat, I'd set down whatever was in my right hand (while I continued holding some part or implement in the left), pick up another record off my stack of 45s, put it on the turntable, place the tonearm needle on the record, and then resume cutting, sanding, gluing or painting parts. This was carried out in an orchestrated fluid motion.

I sometimes think back to the ritual of model building, the staring at the beautiful box art, rendered in the graphics style of the day that conveyed coolness and excitement. I remember the feelings of anticipation while ripping that shrink wrap off and opening the box to reveal all those pristine pieces just waiting to be snapped off those trees. I miss the powerful smell of the glue that was used in those days -the kind that I'm sure killed off a good number of brain cells. Sitting for hours before supper and after, trying to create a masterpiece out of a jumble of parts was pure nirvana to a 12 year old future gearhead, dreaming of the day when instead of a plastic representation I'd be working on the real thing.

 

WOW! I forgot about painting with the cool nail-polish colors and buffing and rubbing them out for finish!! The first pearlescents!

 

The other afternoon I was working on some drawings for my fiances' little boys pinewood derby car. I worked on some fun ideas and showed them to him. I just wanted him to be inspired to do something with it. He looked at it nodded his head and walked back to his room to play video games. I asked him alittle later about working on it and he wanted to play rock band. Oh well I tried.

 

FWIW, retail on 1/25th scale glue model kits varies from about $8-$20 on new stuff. Depends what it is and where you buy it. One of the odd-lots stores had some Revell Nascar kits for $5 a shot a while back.

 

Boy that reminds me of Robbies Hobbies in Cudahy. He had his store on Atlantic Blvd and a store front display on Gage Av. Every week i would looking for a new model a toy shop called 1000 n 1 Toys in Bell while my Mom was shoping in the market next door. The guy would actually sell me glue because he knew that i was useing it for the models. Good Times

 

Are you talking about King Norman's Toy's? I grew up in the same neighborhood (San Bruno) and would go in to see at least 2 walls of models, another full wall of slots. $1.99 would get you a model and .15 for glue. Spent many hours there. On a side note King Norman had a place at Lake Berryessa (where the Zodiac killer started) and would show movies on an outdoor screen to all the kids camping there in the summer, good times.

 

I just posted a thread about those old gas cars and how they were my all-time favorite but I still had slot car sets, Hot Wheels (my aunt started working for Mattel right at the time that Hot Wheels came out) and of course model cars. I used to make model cars left and right. Cars like that famous 57 nomad, Paddy Wagon, QuickSilver, Red Baron, LIl Coffin etc etc...
Sometimes, I used to blow up the models with a firecracker, but I have fond memories and I am gratefull that I grew up during that era (late 60s,70s, Hated the 70 stlye clothes though) They were just wonderful,simple times.
That is what we need to do, get back to the basics. Violence, Sex, Drugs are glorfied in Movies, Music, TV. We want to outlaw cigarettes yet legalize Marijuana. Our government is so screwed up, the 3 stooges could do a better job. All of these things reflect and shape a childs life. Also, we don't encourage the importance of common sense.
I always believe that my parents generation had it right, not perfect, but they were on the right track, which is why they deserve the title: "The Greatest Generation".

 

It's not juvenile. I like to think of it as creating automotive art on a small scale.

 

Lyle,
Nice stuff! What scale is the '32 roadster? How did you do the beauty rings?