#ModelCars

A piece of news crossed my desk concerning toymaker Playmobil striking a licensing deal with Ferrari.

As the year pivots from frustrating lockdowns amid a terrifying pandemic to utter lawlessness in the streets, we’ve all probably been waking up on the wrong side of the bed on a daily basis. Today, your author roused himself feeling particularly bitter as he realized the sniffle from last night has evolved into something a little more persistent. That’s going to keep me on the sidelines while my neighbors decide whether to protest brutality or embrace it fully by ensuring another quadrant of the city is razed. Perhaps I should have splurged on a fancier pack of masks, surely then this 2020 would have all worked out in my favor.

Now would be the perfect time to share the hollow virtue-signaling coming from the leadership at Ford and General Motors, both of which have announced they’re finally ready to tackle discrimination head-on several days after the tragic killing of George Floyd. But you know that would be pointless because — and I can’t put too fine a point on this — they are automakers and nobody sane wants their corporate opinion on racial politics.

So we’re covering the new Batmobile (below the break), which was only controversial in 1995 because someone designed it to look exactly like a giant phallus (above).

Not long ago my mother moved into an assisted living facility and I’ve been cleaning through her house. After observing her, my daughters, my sisters, and my maternal aunts I’ve figured out that there’s likely an OCD gene on one of their X chromosomes. Of course, my daughters got that bit of genetic material from their dear old dad. Hey, just because I have 60+ egg crates filled with about 15 years worth of automotive press kits doesn’t mean that I hoard things. Anyhow, while cleaning I came across a box that looked like it hadn’t been touched since January of 1966, when we moved to the house that I’m now going through. Most of the things in the box were detritus, stuff that could have been thrown away before the move. However, as I was rifling through the fabric scraps and what have you, something bright red caught my eye.

Plenty of builders of plastic car models do a pretty good job doing “weathered” kits, but most focus on romantic images of Route 66-drivin’ classics rusting beautifully behind a wholesome-looking 1951 service station. I think what we really need is more super-accurate models of iconic American hoopties, and I don’t just talk the talk! So, it brings joy to my heart to see that a professional modelmaker truly understands proper hooptieness.

Last month, while I was judging at the Arse Freeze-a-Palooza 24 Hours of LeMons, a team with a Billy Carter-themed Ford Fairmont Futura handed me something I’ve been trying to find for years: a gen-yoo-wine Malaise Era 1:25 scale Revell model kit of Billy Carter‘s customized Chevy Stepside. I am so happy!