As a kid, one of my all-time favorite presents - received for Christmas or otherwise - were models. Plastic models were a BIG part of my childhood. While airplanes and rockets were always numero uno with this hombre (and some people don't think I've assimilated well to life in California...hah!), I enjoyed building models of pretty much anything. From "The Visible Man" to a scale model of Mr. Spock, from the nuclear submarine, Nautilus, to the Seaview sub from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", I loved building them all.
While not a large part of my model collection (a collection that was constantly threatened by destruction [at the hands of me, the creator], as building rockets, airplanes and things of this nature inevitably led to lighting them on fire and/or trying to launch them into space/stratosphere. Often achieving both through the use of Estes' solid rocket engines. But I digress), I also enjoyed building the occasional model car. The memory of one of these 'cars' has always stuck with me. In a good way. Well, usually.
While not a large part of my model collection (a collection that was constantly threatened by destruction [at the hands of me, the creator], as building rockets, airplanes and things of this nature inevitably led to lighting them on fire and/or trying to launch them into space/stratosphere. Often achieving both through the use of Estes' solid rocket engines. But I digress), I also enjoyed building the occasional model car. The memory of one of these 'cars' has always stuck with me. In a good way. Well, usually.
In the mid to late 1960s, Monogram Models, Inc., sensing young model makers' running towards all things space (actual and fictional) began to offer up a bevy of four-wheeled vehicles, tricked out and customized in hopes of attracting kids back to the basics: American muscle cars. Okay, so perhaps Monogram got into customizing model cars because rival model company Revell had signed America's favorite Kar Kustomizer, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth to design cars for them to sell them to kids. Monogram dug deep into the vaults to produce such classics as "Rommel's Rod", part dragster, part Nazi half-track; "Dragon Wagon", a sweet-looking, low-riding sled with a circus cage that contained a real dragon; and - who could forget? - the "Beer Wagon", a drag slicked t-bucket with a flatbed that held...beer barrels! You know, for kids! In retrospect, I think Monogram went on the cheap, scavenging parts from all of their other model kits and tried to build a concept car around them. But what did it matter? I fell for it all...hook, line and model glue. My personal favorite Monogram model had to be the Showtime Garbage Truck!
In this one kit, Monogram tried to cash in on all of America's favorite pastimes at once: drag racing, surfing, rock music and garbage collecting! God Bless America!
In this one kit, Monogram tried to cash in on all of America's favorite pastimes at once: drag racing, surfing, rock music and garbage collecting! God Bless America!
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