I need to start accumulating cars to add to urban streets that I am working on. As a start I got one made by Busch and a more expensive on by Woodland Scenics to see what the difference was. Both will have their place on the layout depending on whether they are easily seen or not.
What brands have you found to be a good bang for the buck?
My most recent acquisitions have mostly been from Oxford Diecast. These are nicely detailed at a decent price point.
Autos at the depot by Edmund, on Flickr
I used to be able to find Classic Metal Works at reduced prices at train shows but lately it seems the prices have escalated for that line. Athearn, Brekina, Busch and their ilk all seem to have significantly increased in the last few years.
I always look for sales and discounts. MB Klein sometimes has considerable discounts on vehicles now and then.
Here’s a brand I’m not familiar with but the price looks good, after discount:
https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/schuco-ho-452617601-1953-cadillac-eldorado-baby-blue/
Sometimes there is a particular vehicle I’m looking for and in that case I simply have to pry my wallet open [:|]
This Athearn Model B Mack mixer was close to $30 at the time but it was one I wanted as I remember seeing them in the '60s.
Mixer_mishap by Edmund, on Flickr
Sometimes I treat myself to a highly detailed vehicle from Artitec. Beautiful models but that detail comes at a price.
Payloader2 by [url=https://w
I strongly second Ed’s suggestion of Oxford Diecast. I just received a shipment from Modeltrainstuff containing (among other items) four Oxford cars. Interestingly, three of them are the same as on Ed’s pic, the Chrysler wagon, the Dodge truck, and the Buick wagon. The forth is a DeSoto with luggage on the roof rack.
JW
Oxford, in my opinion, gives the best bang for the buck. Less than $10.00 each, and they look really good.
The yellow car is Oxford.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
I model 1954, so I also have models from Busch, Classic Metal Works, and many others.
I have en entire Home Depot small moving box filled with vehicles. I had No idea I had that many. My wife loves the little cars. When we are at train shows she always buys any that we do not already have. Now I have way too many.
-Kevin
Thanks for the suggestions. I will check them out.
The current CMW line is now all plastic, and the quality has gone down while the price has gone up…wobbly wheels, crooked printing, too much flash
Depending on your era, if you can track down the old Life-Like Scenemaster vehicles, they do a great job filling in like street scenes or parking lots where you don’t need super-detailed cars. They haven’t been made for a while, but still show up online and at RR flea markets.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/4747/products/LIF1620.jpg?v=1614702162
The eternal debate on acquiring location and era-correct vehicles for you module/diorama/layout…without spending way too much money on it…continues
First, there was a recent debate on this forum on ‘generic’ looking model cars, and my opinion was “heck yeah!”. To me, those who said they would NOT accept generic vehicles make no sense - fine, for the up-front edge of your module use those exactly modeled F350s or Mustangs or whatever else you can find (which can be limited), but in the farther-back street scenes, or in a big parking lot, or a highway packed with other vehicles around, generic is plenty good enough. BTW, those Woodland Scenics vehicles mentioned above (not sure if you meant the 1940s/1950s ones like ‘Hitchin a Ride’ or ‘Rusty’s Regret’ or the more recent 1980s era ones like ‘Marron Coupe’ or ‘Blue Sedan’) are generic models, sort of based off of actual vehicles, but IMO they still work (I have one or two). Heh, I see on Woodland Scenics own Vehicle webpage their ‘Passenger Van’ has no windows in the back - that seems like an bit of a mislabel on WS’s part.
Moving on, how about a recent era GMC Top-Kick in…oh wait, they are no longer made in HO scale. Or are they? (yes, solid core - ugh - and grainy feel seems almost filament printing to me). How about a Nissan NV van (pretty common in reality), or a Sentra, or an Altima, or Toyota Corolla or Avalon, or Subaru Impreza - You get the idea as there not many of those around in HO. Audi’s and Mercedes and BMWs, they’re pretty easy to find in reasonably recent era (e.g. 21st century) as well as earlier eras. (I have plenty) IIRC this used to be because a) Europe had/has a large HO vehicle collection audience, hence quite a number of German-prototype vehicles b
I used to find die-cast HO cars for about a dollar and a half at Walmart. Thise days are gone. They persisted for higher prices at train shows. Now, i have most of what i want, but will still pick up an Oxford or CMW for a particular model.
I now realize that I should have mentioned that my setting is 1983. That has been stretched as time goes by and I now have some rolling stock from much later. That means most of the automobiles that I will get will be from the 70s and 80s, but I don’t have a problem with generic that is newer although I would certainly draw the line on a Tesla.
I missed the thread on generic cars. How long ago was that?
There seems to be plenty of 50’s auto’s, and some 60’s, but not a lot of 70’s. Some but not alot.
hbgatsf - c mid-80s time period? Then those Woodland Scenics “Modern” vehicles I linked to in my earlier post should be a fair start, although the affordibity of them is up to you to decide (To me it looks like WS sort of copied other models already out there and modified them a bit (the van in particular seems almost Trident like), any way the range would be good up to mid-1980s IMO. Also if you can find them at train shows Bachman used to sell a set of 6 1970ish automobiles, nominally to populate their Tri-level Auto-Rack. While nothing spectular, they do fill the back-streets IF you strip and repaint them (at the time, the finish was horrid - I owned a set in the 1980s and repainted them) and replace the very crude wheels (and put some sort of simple interior - scratchbuild a floor pan and some seats out of styrene), they aren’t too bad. One chap on the 1/87 Vehicle Modele’s web site made a decent looking Cadillac IIRC using the coupe in the set.
MisterBeasley, I remember the Fresh Cherries line of HO diecast (likely source of any Pacers or Pintos you may see on a HO layout), but there was another set back then (not the “Reel Rides”, although that had a decent pickup based off the one from “Fast Time At Ridgemont High” IIRC) - maybe Hot Wheels 1/87? Model Power? I don’t recall (and I have several of those models stashed away - they were decent enough). Of course, now all those useful HO vehicle models have been relegated to eBay and Train Shows, so I wish hbgatsf luck.
What timeframe are you modeling? Some manufacturers seem to concentrate on a particular era
I like the fact that Oxford doesn’t just do the standard Ford/Chevy stuff…they have Pontiacs, Buicks, Olds, Chryslers, Mercurys…even an Edsel and Corvair!
The Asian automakers are very tight on their licensing for minature vehicles, plus the vehicles they sell in N America are different than what they sell in Europe or other countries, and our product safety/trial lawyers (If Baby Num-Num swallows a piece of a toy version of a Toyota, then not only the toy maker gets sued but Toyota itself)
Edmund
I really like that Artitec loader. I needed a similar vehicle for my sugar beet plant. I found a Life-Like construction set at a train show for around $12 that included a tracked steam crane, two stake bed trucks, a generator and a few small detail pieces. The crane looked rather toy-like right out of the package. I “updated” it to a diesel powered crane by shaving the smokestack off the roof and replacing it with an exhaust pipe. I also scratch built a clamshell bucket and re-rigged the crane assembly. Add new paint and weathering and the toy became a rather nice model!
In my never-ending quest to conquer not just space but also time, I also have a set of 1930s vehicles to complement my later-era cars. A of these are Jordans, which I suppose are no longer available.
From my teenage years, i still have a collection of cereal-box cars which don’t belong on my streets, but dang, they look great in the graveyards of the rusted automobiles. These get mercilessly weathered, including cutting the doors and hood open and drilling out those solid plastic windows.
If you guys want to double up with your junk yard vehicles. It kind of follows the pattern of building a lumber load for a flat car with a hollow inside. You only need to see the ends, sides and top.
Cut a vehicle in half crosswise, heat up the roof and flatten down that roof. So now you have a front and a rear of the same vehicle. Now sit them side by side, now you have what looks like two vehicles the same color sitting side by side. Put full/non cut vehicles on the tops of the halfed vehicles and along the sides. So you have the hollow effect as with the lumber loads. Seperate the vehicles that are the same colors with other vehicles of different colors for a better visual effect.
My layout is set in the late '30s, so a lot of the vehicles are from Jordan, but I do have some from Williams and Sylvan, and others from unknown sources, too.
I’m not overly fussy on worrying about whether a vehicle is truly appropriate for the time period, though, so there may be some that are a little too “modern”.
Here are a few…
…not sure of this one, but I think that it was originally a military vehicle…I scratchbuilt the moving van portion…
I’m on vacation over in Europe and will be stopping at a train store in Berlin on the 18th. In searching their website, they list new items coming down the pipeline.
One of these vendors is Brekina and I browsed the brochure. They’re coming out with US vehicles for the 60’s and 70’s, mainly in the Chevrolet brand, plus some US tractors. I then checked the Walthers website and the ones I was interested in should arrive in January 2023. Some nice stuff!
Busch on the other hand, list their US license for Ford. I did see some Ford vehicles on their new item brochure. Some US vehicles, but you won’t see them in the US for sale; at least not at Walthers.
Neal