Bachmann vehicle sets

[sirenwerks]

I've seen some nice stuff done with vehicles from the Bachmann vehicle sets lately. Mostly just through very patient repainting to bring out the details that are there. And since the cars and trucks they represent are late 60s and very early 70s, they fit my bill. I went to purchase a few and find they're impossible to find. The Bachmann web site is under construction and unavailable and my LHS, M.B. Klein,
doesn't have them on its web site. Are they still available? If so, where?

[wm3798]

I'm guessing that these are out of production.  I haven't seen a new set of these in years, possibly decades.  They frequently appear on Ebay, often broken up and sold individually for far more than they're worth.

Your best bet is to do what I've been doing, look for someone selling the old Bachmann or Trix auto racks, which are themselves worthless junk, then denuding them of their autos, which are salvagable with some effort.  If I can get the car for under $10 I'm ahead of the game.  Usually once I've pulled the autos off, I'll re-sell the car as an empty for a few bucks, or as part of a lot just to get rid of it.


Before


After


Lee

[Mark5]

Some of the Bachmann cars and trucks are usable if you strip of the paint, and add better wheels etc. Some are lost causes.

Carter has done some really nice work with the old Bachmann cars - you can see them here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NScaleVehicleAssociation but I think you have to join to be able to view the pix.

The cars in the auto racks are much different than the ones sold in sets (much lower quality, no glass)

Salvagable is in the eye of the beholder.

Mark

[wm3798]

But the stripped down versions on the auto racks require less prep.  The "built up" cars pretty much have to be disassembled to fix, which is made difficult by the giant 40 year old glue blobs you'll encounter...

I use clear gloss medium to install new windows in the Trix Fords, which gives pleasing results...

Lee

[Mark5]

Take a look at Carter's cars, maybe then you will see the light!

But yeah, upgrading the nicer cars is not really labor efficient for making a rack fleet.

I picked up some loose ones on Ebay a while back, but I cant back up my talk with anything tangible as yet. :-[

On a side tangent, it would be really nice if Atlas would do a Ford Pinto or Ford Maverick. I need some '73s for my racks!

Mark

[asarge]

Model Power has a Car and station set with some vehicles. Retail is about $16 for about 10 vehicles plus the other details.

[Mark5]

Model Power has a Car and station set with some vehicles. Retail is about $16 for about 10 vehicles plus the other details.

Is this the one with the Mercedes? If so, they are rather awful.

I saw these in the store, they look even worse in person:

[asarge]

Don;t remember the cars being terribly identifiable with any make/model.

[wm3798]

I have a scad of those Mercedes cars as well.  They are knock-offs of the old Viking model, and again, require some surgery to look halfway decent.  But it can be done.



That's them on the middle deck before surgery.  I'm afraid I don't have any post-op pictures...

Of the Bachmann autos, the ones that are the most useful are:
The Tow Truck


The Mercury Cougar
The Cadillac Eldorado
The Cadillac Ambulance (available on the auto rack only)
the VW Micro Bus (another Viking knock-off)

The Nova Station Wagon
The Barney Fife Police car (can be painted to look more police-y, or knock the gumball machine off the roof to make a regular sedan)

The Stake body truck (mostly for the cab... used on the above boom truck)
The Cement Mixer (another good cab donor)

The Corvette, Camaro and Dodge Charger are way too bulky to really work, and the little tractor trailer is completely useless.  The Greyhound bus can be reworked into something more realistic, I think Randy Gustafson has tackled that project either here or on the A-board.

The also had the set of road equipment, which included a grader (not bad), a front end loader (can be salvaged), a bulldozer (way too big) and an articulated earth mover (also not bad).  With some weathering and a little work, all but the bulldozer can be worked in as either a scenic element or a flat car load.

Here endeth the epistle!
Lee


Lee

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The dozer is about the right size for a D8. This would be a 1950's version before the OSHA bars.

The Nova, Elderado and Cugar are decent when mounted on a Wiking chassis and repainted. The other stff is a bit suspect.

[Mark5]

As a car nut the 1st thing that hits me is that the wheels are tucked way too far inside the fenders. Although this was a characteristic of the cars from this era it is too exagerated to my eye.



I'm guessing most folks don't notice it.

Mark

[asarge]

Vehicles are more of a scenery itiem for me and for the price of these vehicles, quality and accuracy is not so much of an issue w/me. 

[Philip H]

http://cgi.ebay.com/N-Scale-12-Vehicles-and-2-People-BUILT-UP_W0QQitemZ160395866358QQcmdZViewItemQQptZModel_RR_Trains?hash=item255856b0f6

Here are a few . . . .

[sirenwerks]

Here's what I am looking to do...

Both of these vehicles are by Carter Fritschle, the GMC on the right uses the cab from the tow truck from a Bachmann set.



The bed and tires have been replaced, the rest is just careful painting and it looks pretty sweet to me there are few trucks that fit my era like this one. The flat bed variety truck from the same set may be salvageable as a pick-up model too but I'm not sure yet. The mail van, bus, tractor trailer are all throw aways. I've seen the earth mover used as a realistic flat car load, but I think the grader and dozer are both too over scale.

And here are some of the Bachmann cars. Before...



And after being refinished by Carter Fritschle again...



When you strip away the gaudy paint they provide, there are actually prototypical vehicles under there - a Mercury Cougar, Chevy II station wagon, Cadillac El Dorado, and, of course, a Corvette (which IMO doesn't look quite right as a model no matter how great the paint is, the front fenders make it look more like a Fiat). Granted, it's only three personal vehicles, but add those to the few Wikings and the schmattering of two or three other 70ish cars out there , and you've practically doubled the variety. And they present as a lot more realistic than the Trix vehicles.

[Mark5]

And for those of us crazy enough to add license plates, here's a multi state generator that covers many decades as well:

http://acme.com/licensemaker/licensemaker.cgi?text=&state=Maryland&r=168866709

Mark