How it all got started.
Back when I was building forty to a hundred dirt models a year, a friend brought me an AMT '63 Mercury and a '63 Galaxie buildup. Now back then the Ford was as hard to find as the Mercury so it took me a while to decide to do anything with them. But after one trip too many to the Joe Weatherly Museum I couldn't resist the pull of that Marauder any longer.
I really liked the different look of the full bodies on the Grand National cars without the fenders being cut out and without those big truck hubs they used on the dirt cars. While I had built a few of the older cars like the Coke Monte Carlo and the MPC stockers they just didn't "grab" me like that old Merc did. It predated the decals for the older cars and was handlettered just like the dirt models I learned on.
I lost all the dirt cars in the auction but managed to hold onto the Mercury somehow and it became the seed that became the collection I have now. It will always have a special place in my collection because it was my personal "First of the Many" that redirected my modeling to the "Darkside".
I had no inkling of the future when I built this that these cars would be so popular and that so many decals and parts would be available for them. It was a long time coming but I'm glad the early racers haven't been forgotten.
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02-10-2008, 07:53 PM
