Road vehicles for the 70's era?


A

Alan Curtis

Member
Having just started an HO scale switching layout based in the 1970's, there seems to be a shortage of road vehicles for this era, although it is a popular era to model. Does anyone know of the availability of such models? Cars, trucks and farm tractors and equipment are needed.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 
The problem with any era, for American passenger cars, is that most manufacturers make a model for a limited time, and then the model is discontinued. Your best bet for the most variety is to do your shopping for 1/87 scale vehicles on E-bay. You may also find some at Truckstopmodels.com and in the Walthers catalog. Here are some you can be looking for (most are discontinued).

Atlas:
1978-79 Ford Fairmont 4 door sedans and station wagons
MainStreet (also listed as Herpa but not sure if ever released under the Herpa name):
1970 Ford Custom 300 series (Galaxie) 4 door sedan and police car, 1968 Plymouth Fury 4 door sedan and police car
Fresh Cherries (MotorMax):
1979 Ford Escort, 1982 Ford Tempo, 1971 Mustang, 1971 Maverick, Pinto wagon, Mercury Bobcat hatchback, AMC Hornet, AMC Gremlin, Chevy Vega, early 70's Ford van, 1977 Dodge van, 70's Honda Civic and Accord etc
ReelRides (Motormax):
1972 Chevy pickup, 79 Cadillac Eldorado, mid 70's Pontiac Trans Am, 1967 Plymouth GTX convertible, 1970 Pontiac GTO
Classic Metalworks (Mini Metals):
1978 Chevy Impala 4 door sedan, police car, fire chief car and taxi, 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, 1966-67 Dodge Charger, 1967 Ford Custom 300 (Galaxie) 4 door sedan, police, taxi, and fire chief, 1961 Chevrolet Impala coupe
Herpa:
1979-mid 80's Mustang hatchback, 1979-82 Buick Grand National, 1963 Chevy Corvette coupe, Ford 427 Cobra roadster, 1982 Camaro Z-28, 1969 -70 Boss Mustang, mid 80's Thunderbird, mid 80's Corvette, and mid 80's Pontiac Grand Prix (all except the 1979 Mustang were also sold under the Monogram Mini Exacts name)
Busch:
1974 Pontiac Firebird, 1965 Ford Mustang convertible and coupe, 1966 Cadillac ambulance, hearse and limo,mid 70's Dodge Monaco and Plymouth Fury 4 door sedans and police cars, 1950-1968 Dodge Power Wagon pickup (All Busch models may still be available)
Brekina:
1964-1970 Dodge A-100 vans and pickups, 1970 Chevrolet Camaro, 1968-1972 Chevrolet Corvette convertible and coupe, 1972 Toyota Celica, VW Bug, VW bus, VW Squareback
(Brekina models are currently available)
Neo:
1979 Pontiac Trans Am, Jeep Grand Cherokee Wagoneer woody, 1976 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, 1974 Buick LeSabre coupe, 1967-72 Ford pickup, 1969 Buick Riviera, 1986 Chevrolet Caprice sedan, 1966 Cadillac ambulance (Neo models are currently available but extremely high detail makes them very expensive)
Roco:
Jeep CJ-5 Renegade, 1977 Dodge pickup truck
Trident:
early 80's Chevrolet pickups vans and SUVs that could pass for mid 70's models
Model Power:
1969 Camaro convertible, 1969 Olds 4-4-2, 1968 Chevy El Camino, 1970 Plymouth Cuda coupe, 1963 Thunderbird (some of these will be added to the Schuco product line)
Hot Wheels (1/87 scale series):
1970 Dodge Challenger, 1970 Plymouth Superbird (with a wheel swap and a little silver paint to detail these discontinued models look good)
Ricko:
1971 Plymouth Cuda convertible, 1963 Lincoln Continental convertible
Bub:
1966 Shelby Mustang fastback, 1971 Datsun 240-Z (currently available on Amazon)
Wiking:
1964 Chevrolet Malibu hardtop, 1965 Ford Mustang convertible and coupe , VW Beetle (Mustangs currently available)
Walthers:
1966 Ford pickup, 1967 Ford Mustang fastback
Tyco:
1968 Chevy Camaro RS, 1968 AMC AMX coupe (cheap plastic but with interiors and chassis borrowed from other models they can look great)
Road Ragers (1/87 scale series):
1962 Chrysler (Plymouth) Valiant 4 door sedan, 1960 Ford Falcon 4 door sedan, 1961-63 Ford Falcon wagon, 1966-67 Ford Falcon 4 door sedan (Australian product line currently available on Amazon but the steering wheels are on the wrong side but otherwise look American)
Revell:
1961 Chrysler convertible, 1961 Imperial coupe, 1961 Dodge Polara and Dart coupes, 1961 Plymouth Savoy wagon, 1961 Dodge Lancer 4 door sedan, 1961 Plymouth Valiant wagon


Hope this helps get you started in your search. While there may not be many currently available, there were a variety of 1/87 scale vehicles made for the era.
 
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For large trucks the Mack B & R models are correct as are any Autocar and White Freightliners - not the current Freightliners you see on the road today which are Volvos. Ford L series and C series cabovers were seen everywhere as both tractors and straight jobs. The International R series and Ford F600 / F800 medium and heavy duty trucks offered by Mini Metals are more mid 50's vintage but some survived into the late 60's and early 70's. 40 foot trailers were the normal box trailers. Longer trailers didn't come along until into the 80's. A 53 foot box trailer would be out of the era for the 70's. Athearn has Kenworth conventional cab tractors of the 70's vintage.
 
Be sure to check Walthers.com and Truckstopmodels.com first. Its always possible that both may still have some discontinued models still available. One vendor on Amazon (Modelcarworldusa) has many 1/87 vehicles, and since they are in Europe, the American models may not sell out as fast. If you buy the Bub Mustang and the Road Ragers Falcons for example from that Amazon vendor, be sure to look at the hundreds of other models they have so that you can order several at once to get the most from the shipping charge from Europe (just be sure to include "1/87" in the search).

I just checked Truckstop Models and they still had the Road Ragers 1966 Falcon in stock and the 1978-79 Ford Fairmont station wagon. Didn't look up the others. You may find a different color for the Falcon on Amazon. The Fairmont sedans and station wagons were once available in several factory colors to make it easy to fill up an Auto-Rack.
 
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Awesome list Jim, all good feed for Google or Feebay!
How about scaring us up something from the 80's? Not to hijack Al's thread....
 
G'day Alan....I recently bought some Model Power mostly modern vehicles around early 2000s for my layout but I noticed Model Power also had earlier cars as well...Cab over trucks are a little harder to find but a crowd called Herpa , make some stuff , not diecast , but great quality and detail..sadly Model Power are finishing up but doubtless much of their stock will be in hobby shops , online and EBAY for a long time...One of the cars was a 1956 Lincoln Continental Mk 2...that would fit in with a 70s era too...as they'd be 10-15 years old or so and would still look appropriate in a car park or so...Cost me $7.25 Australian dollar..bought here...Exquisite detail too...Good luck there's many good places to find them...Cheers Rod...
 
Rico said:
Awesome list Jim, all good feed for Google or Feebay!
How about scaring us up something from the 80's? Not to hijack Al's thread....
Click to expand...

Personally, I'm more familiar with 1960's cars. But many of the late 70's models above continued well into the 80;s with little or no changes. I do remember Busch having a Ford Probe at one time that was likely a late 80's or very early 90's model, and Busch also makes Ford Crown Vic sedans and police cars and Chevy Caprice sedans and police cars that were 90's models but might be similar to late 80's models. The same might be true of their Chevy S10 Blazer and Dodge Caravans. Herpa made a Jeep Cherokee that are either late 80's or early 90's models. Trident made some Ford trucks that are either 80's or 90's models. To me, once you get past the mid 70's everything started looking the same year after year and styles didn't change much for many years. Only the newer Mustangs and Challengers have interested me over the last 10 years. Since my layout is set in the late 60's to very early 70's I don't pay attention to newer models.
 
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G'day Alan....still on Model Power...I went to Hobbylinc via the internet and they had four pages of HO scale cars, several in the late 60s early 70s..era in American ...some were just $3-4 each. I have about 20 of these MP cars and the detail is great , especially for the money...Have a look...A shame that MP are closing down....their Metal Train stuff was really good too...Have a look at the Herpa trucks too..on the Herpa website...just type in Herpa Models....Cheers Rod..
 
Thanks guys, lots of great info there! I will copy this thread to aid my searching! My son needs more vehicles than I do, so will be of interest to him also.

I knew getting started on this forum again would be a good thing ;)

Alan
 
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I had no idea there was so many road vehicles about for my era! Although I wonder how many will be easily accessible from where I am without incurring massive postage costs...
 
I had some of the same concerns as I like to use the scenery details like vehicles to give the impression of the time period. I also model the 70's...

The Busch models are really very accurate for the era. Also Walthers offered a Ford van that was early 70's correct and the trucks with the Budd C cab(Ford cabovers) would also be correct. Also there was a car marked Chevy Nova, but the details were actually closer to the Olds and Pontiac versions of the car.
 
FYI, Fresh Cherries are getting hard to find now and Truck Stop Models closed a few months back. Harder and harder to find 1970's vehicles, especially now that Athearn Genesis has started selling highly detailed open autoracks.
 
Next time you drive around look at the vehicles around you. Not everyone drives a late model car. So, using cars from the 50's and 60's would not be out of place. An 80's era vehicle would not be a good idea, unless it has a flux capacitor.
 
as i rember the 70 cars you still saw a lot of older cars out there. they where built to last so you might not need a lot of 70 cars and trucks. you just need a couple that look new to show your era. while you can still use older cars they wher still out there. for proto typical look.
 
I believe there is or was a supplier of body frame parts in New Zealand for the DeLorean. From what I read somewhere else, the stainless steel panels were just cosmetic, mounted on a normal steel sub-body.
 
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