With pictures on every one of the 176 pages, this soft-cover book is must reading for any serious model kit collector or builder. Tim Boyd, if you do not already recognize the name, is one of the world's leading authorities on model cars and model car kits. After achieving regional and national model car contest wins, he became a model car journalist, eventually authoring more than 500 published works during the next 40 years. His monthly “Modeler’s Corner” column was a highly popular feature in Street Rodder magazine for 17 years, and he is by far the longest running and most prolific contributor to Scale Auto, the world’s most popular model car magazine. Boyd authored the book Collecting Model Car and Truck Kits in 2001, and was elected to the International Model Car Museum’s Hall of Fame, also in 2001. He retired from a 35-year marketing and design career in the auto industry and lives in Southern Michigan.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: In the Beginning: The Origins of the Model Car Kit Hobby
Chapter 2: The Four Waves of Model Car Kit Evolution and the Envy Factor
Chapter 3: Laying the Groundwork for Muscle Cars: The Pre–Supercar Era
Chapter 4: The Supercar Is Born, Part 1: Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick
Chapter 5: The Supercar Is Born, Part 2: Chevelle and El Camino
Chapter 6: Dearborn Responds: Ford and Mercury Performance Intermediates
Chapter 7: It’s All about the Packaging: Chrysler and AMC Supercar Intermediates
Chapter 8: The Pony Car Brigade, Part 1: Mustang and Camaro
Chapter 9: The Pony Car Brigade, Part 2: Everything Else
Chapter 10: Smaller in Stature, but . . . the Story of Junior Supercars
Chapter 11: Flash, Space, and Grace: The Family Supercar
Chapter 12: The Domestic Sports Car
Chapter 13: Today We Call Them Tuners
Chapter 14: The Model Car Kit Collector
Chapter 15: Afterword
In the 1960s, model kit building was a huge hobby. Kids built plastic kits of planes, tanks, race cars, space ships, creatures from scary movies, you name it. Before baseball card collecting, Pokémon, and video games, model kit building was one of the most popular hobby activities. Car and airplane kits were the most popular, and among the car kits, muscle cars, as we know them today, were one of the most popular categories.
Many owners of real muscle cars today were not old enough to buy them when the cars were new, of course. Yet kids of the 1960s and 1970s worshiped these cars to an extent completely foreign to kids today. If you couldn’t afford, or were too young to buy a muscle car back then, what could you do? For many, the next best thing was to buy, collect, and build muscle car kits from a variety of kit companies. Hundreds were made. Many of these kits have become collectible today, especially in original, unassembled form.
