Very few parts could be swapped, especially the wheels, so there weren’t a lot of repeat purchases.
Which brings me to now. I never got beyond the favorite models of my youth. I currently have more 40 Fords than anything else. I liked the earlier models as they had decent detail, but were also easy to assemble. Rather than evolving into hysterical levels of detailing, I built my stuff to be viewed in a diorama setting from a few feet away.
My first diorama was of the Giant Gila Monster. The movie was released in 1959, and ironically many of the real cars in the movie were produced in 1/25th scale at the time. Here’s a couple of shots from several years ago -
The 58 Ford Sheriff’s car started life as a resin 2 door hardtop Fairlane. All of the side trim had to be removed and replaced, and the car converted to a 4 door sedan. It has working headlights, wig wags on the roof, and an accurate depiction of a Siro Drift siren on the roof:
The Gila Monster is a solid chunk of resin that my wife detailed:
The gas pumps started life as salt and pepper shakers. They originally came with paper stickers on the front for the markings. I peeled the faces off, cut out the hole for the pump face and inserted photo reduced reproductions of real pump faces (these being Martin & Schwartz model 80 “Tall Top” models. The Mobilgas signs are photo reductions of real pieces, the louvers are from old AMT models, the nozzles and hoses are from ugly reproduction toy pumps, and the reset handles (on the other side) are vent window handles from some random model car:
Here’s an overview of the right side of the original diorama. In real life, the cop car used in the movie was actually a former Navy vehicle. They were frequently painted gray with the black hood and trunk lid. The Mobiloil sign in the foreground was an actual sign in real life. I found a photo of one on Ebay, and after removing the bullet holes and rust, printed it up and stuck it to a plastic support. Same thing with the Mobil Tires sign on the roof. I found one of those on Ebay too, but it was up in rafters and the shot was taken at an angle. So after straightening and removal of the 2x4’s in the image, it replicated the one used in the movie.
Over time it just took up too much space, so I chopped it up and kept the essentials in this little display in the garage. Who knows I may build another full size set again in the future:
The big replacement for the Giant Gila Monster was the Universal Set. As a kid I started noticing how familiar the place looked, and began to recognize it in more and more films. It was used earlier, but my first memory of it was in It Came from Outer Space. Subsequently it was used in Tarantula, The Monolith Monsters, Earth Versus the Spider, etc. One of the later productions was Back to the Future. It was also used in Peter Gunn, Leave it to Beaver, Adam-12, and many other TV shows. So I thought it would make a nice backdrop to park cars in front of.
It took around 2-3 years to get it built as there are no specifications available establishing measurements. The only known dimension was the 16” wheels on the 46 Ford woody used in The Monolith Monsters. Everything was scaled from that, considering distance across the sidewalk and the normal height of doorways and second stories. All of the buildings are made of sheet and strip stock plastic with a couple of machined aluminum pieces thrown in.
Here’s what it looks like today:
Each building has individual lighting, and the street lights are on their own circuit as well. The camera store in the second store is going to get converted into something else, and I still haven’t decided what to make the building on the far right into. I routinely switch the cars around depending on what mood I’m in:
The overflow cars are stored in plastic cases to keep dust off the paint and glass. Here’s what’s on display now. I had to break the photos up into upper and lower or the lighting glares too much:
