Superior bakeries and more vintage kits.

Spurred on by the Art Curren kit mingling project, I landed another haul of vintage kits from the 'bay, including a pair of Revell Superior Bakeries - one boxed and the other pre-built, I've lost count of how many of these I have now but it must be at least a dozen.

I also picked up an Atlas Lumber Yard with office, another of those classic kits that must have featured on pretty much every US outline layout ever made, as well as numerous kit-bashing articles and features over the years.

The final kit in this lot is a vintage Heljan NMRA Headquarters Building, a curious model that replicates the custom built building in Chattanooga, TN that houses the administration staff for the NMRA.  

The real-life building has been designed to look like a typical railroad station and is complete with overhanging roof and upper viewing tower.

The kit contains the usual Heljan pre-coloured plastic components and captures the shape of the building well, although I'm not sure of the colour chosen as the kits dark red brick seems at odd with the images I have seen of the real building.

The kit seemed like it would be a good starting point for a kitbash into a smaller station building, and as it was going cheap I picked it up.  However looking at the parts it has a few problems, including poor fit and also a large section of the wall has the NMRA sign and logo cast into the plastic.

These kits will join the growing pile of vintage plastic in the spare room, which more than ever resembles the stockroom of an eighties model shop!  I really do need to get some more listings onto ebay to clear some space.

Yultide Revelling

I'm still collecting parts for my planned kitbash emulating "The Hardly Able Mfg Co" from Art Currans book on structure building.

I came across a few more Revell kits on ebay and snapped them up, an operating engine house and a sanding depot.  The depot is complete and sealed, but the engine house is missing a few pieces.

Great kits, and fortunately they weren't too expensive, an important consideration as I am not a collector and I do intend to actually use these parts.  The copyright on the kits suggests they are from the earliest releases in the late fifties.  These kits were reissued by Con-Cor and Heljan through the years, but they have been off the market for a couple of decades now.

 

The sand and pump house will make a good detail for my next freemo module, these old revell kits can look fantastic when they are detailed and painted.

Here are a couple of examples from various modellers I found on the net:

A Revell 'Weekly Herald News' reworked to make a stock auction house.

Another 'Weekly Herald' in a 1:87 auto diorama.

A pair of 'Superior Bakery' kits and some other Revell kits joined to make a factory.

Looks like we got us a convoy...

Following on from my ebay purchases, I located a further three Revell re-issued truck kits on http://www.kingkit.co.uk/ and snapped them up.

I now have three of the four Revell issued kits, including a second boxed 2103 and my first Ford CL-9000:


2101  GMC Astro 95 & Canvas Trailer

2103 GMC Astro & Stake Trailer

2104  Ford CL-9000 & Car Carrier

As with the two trucks I already own, the trailers in these kits are barely worth looking at - the car carrier in particular is very poor quality and doesn't appear to be based on any particular prototype - even the Revell 1950's car transporter trailer kit is better detailed than this one.

With the arrival of these kits I probably have more than enough GMC Astro trucks!  However I'm really pleased to finally have one of the Ford tractor units, although I am still on the lookout for the sleeper cab version of the CL-9000 truck as I prefer the look of the larger cab.

Lindberg HO GMC Astro - Sleeper Cab

Following the Revell GMC flatbed kit, I went on a bit of a landgrab for more of these HO scale truck kits.  The Revell re-issues seem to be thin on the ground, but I have managed to locate and purchase several of the original Lindberg kits, including this 'Freight Van' kit that features the Sleeper Cab version of the Astro with a box trailer.

This particular kit is still factory sealed, so I've not taken the time to open it and check out the contents, however from the box art it looks like the trailer itself will be similar in quality to the Flatbed... which is to say it will be need to replaced with a new trailer!

It's interesting that these trucks have yet to be issued as modern high-detail die-cast trucks, the current offerings from Athearn and Walthers seem to be either modern or 1950's/60's with the 70's and 80's being sorely under-represented.

Revell HO GMC Astro Semi Truck

The GMC Astro semi-tractor is one of the classic late seventies/early eighties cab-over truck designs, created as a response to legislation that limited the overall length of semi-trucks and trailers.

By mounting the cab over the engine, these trucks were able to use shorter chassis and therefore haul longer trailers. 

Legislation changes in the 90's meant that the length limits were increased and all current North American truck designs are the traditional long-nose type.

This particular GMC truck was familiar to UK audiences from movies like Convoy, Beverly Hills Cop and also the similar cabover designs by Freightliner and Kenworth were frequently seen in TV shows like 'BJ and the Bear'

The only HO version of this truck is a model originally released by Lindberg in the seventies and then re-issued by Revell, but it has been out of production for well over a decade.

I recently picked up one of these kits cheaply on eBay and I plan to use it to recreate the truck from Beverly Hills Cop, a short wheelbase Astro with a large airdam and an excellent 70's paint scheme, towing twin pup trailers.

The kit is in mint condition and complete with decals and instructions, but as the trailer is not particularly high quality, I will most likely discard most of the trailer parts and mate the cab with an Athearn chassis.

The Superior Bakery arrives at last

Here's a look at another recent ebay bargain, a vintage Revell/ConCor/Heljan HO structure kit #9037 'The Superior Bakery' a classic kit and the basis for many kitbashing articles.

I first saw this kit in an old 1985 Model Railroader article on creating the "Hardly Abel Manufacturing Co." by Art Curran, but there have been many other articles over the years showing how to kitbash different industries and buildings utilising this kit.

The original kit was released in the 1950's by Revell and is in itself actually a kind of factory produced kitbash, as the main structure is built reusing the components of the Revell #9028 two stall engine house.

You can see how the walls and roof are shared between the two kits, along with many of the detailing parts.  The bakery includes a section of sidewalk, trash bin and lightpole, as well as various vents and chimneys not included with the engine shed version.

I bought this kit very cheaply on ebay, it was advertised as being complete but opened, so that meant I was bale to get it a lot cheaper than the 'collectors' price that sealed versions are going for.  I have seen this same kit go as high as £30 ($45usd) which is a bit beyond the level I would feel comfortable bidding to.  I only paid £7 ($10usd) for this one which means it is not too expensive to actually build.

Parts-wise, the kit includes pieces cast in a variety of colours, and printed glazing material with green window bars, plus a set of vintage posters and a colourful decal sheet.

So a pretty good deal for such a rare kit.  Problem is... to make the "Hardly Abel Manufacturing Co." I need two of them...!