Somewhere at my parents house buried under time and boxes, there may still be a few pictures of a drag strip I had when I was kid.  Built from presswood,  the home-made drag strip stretched about six feet long and maybe a foot wide.  It was painted black with white lines down the middle.  The left side of the drag strip was built on top of a series of three shelves where I could store all the model cars I built, except for the two ‘cars of the week’ that I would place on my drag strip.

I loved to build model cars, especially wild street machines.  The Boot Hill Express is one I remember building.  You can see in the image below, that I found on oldtoystuff.com, an example of the Boot Hill model.  I’m sure I built a few of these others, such as the street “T”, as well as many others not pictured.

It’s not that I was ever a highly anal model builder, reveling in details and accuracy.  No, I just liked putting them together, to make the pieces fit, to get it finished so I could put it on my race track.

So, I do have a certain understanding of the skills necessary to make a really fine, high quality model — skills I am perfectly at peace saying that I don’t possess.  Of course, as a dad, I figured that if I enjoyed building models that my kids would enjoy it.

And it was then that I ran smack into rule #27 of parenting — “sometimes the things I liked to do as a kid aren’t ‘cool’ anymore” (and I probably shouldn’t open up the debate about whether model building was ‘cool’ even when I was a kid).  So, when I bought my boys a model for christmas a few years ago, they gracious said thanks, and then avoided them for the thrill of xbox.  What’s a dad to do?

What got me thinking about race tracks and building models as a kid was that I came across this extremely well done model by Serge Haelterman.  The detail is impressive, far beyond anything I’d ever do.  You can go to this AFV Website to see more pics of his model and read his description of what he did to it.

Speaking of models, I just discovered a series of books that appear to come out of the Czech Republic called Jeeps in detail. The MB edition was published in 2009, so the other books might be quite new as well.

Designed for modelers, but likely excellent for restorers as well, these books are 50+ color photos of different jeeps that are in the hands of Czech private collector(s).

1. GPW Jeeps in detail
2. MB Jeeps in detail & UK Site
3. M-38 Jeeps in detail

I drove a rental car through the Czech Republic back in 2003, one of several countries I visited.  Prague was one of the stops (Cesky Krumlov was another great stop).  If you visit, I highly recommend you wander through the castle that overlooks downtown Prague.  And I highly recommend that you DON’T eat the chinese food on the south side of town.