Chicago Police 1961 Checker Marathon

[cpdgreg]

Not a dream or fantasy car. Chicago PD put several Checkers on the street for evaluation as a patrol vehicle in 1961. I found the 1:43 diecast version on eBay years ago and used decals and emergency lights from my spare parts box.

Checker A.jpg (122.57 KiB) Viewed 5796 times

Checker 2.jpg (311.88 KiB) Viewed 5796 times

Checker.jpg (310.32 KiB) Viewed 5796 times

[JoeO]

Greg that's awesome looking

[CCFR-45]

I totally thought it was a fantasy car after reading the title of the post. Thank you for including the old picture. Great looking work on the model as well.

Thanks for sharing

[tocopper]

Back in the 70's Toronto Police tested one out assigned it as a Sargent's car out 1 District Traffic ...problem was our scout cars were yellow at the time and every time the Traffic Sargent drove it in the downtown area he would get flagged over by tourists thinking it was taxi...needless to say car sat at the station most of the time until they got rid of it. Tried looking through the department history but couldn't find a photo.

[Dick Williams]

Outstanding job of replicating those historic vehicles - you captured every detail.

Speaking of vintage CPD cars, I just came across a couple of "white metal" CPD models that may not be news to some on this forum, but I hadn't heard of them before.

One is a 1961 Plymouth Belvedere by Highway Travelers (http://store.route66modelcarstore.com/19be4dsebyhw.html), a small American white metal model producer whose models are made in the U.K., where many former and current white metal manufacturers reside. The Belvedere also is offered in the red and white "NYPD" livery used in the making of the old TV show "Car 54 Where Are You?" (http://store.route66modelcarstore.com/1 ... byhw1.html) Most police car enthusiasts probably know that the cars used in the filming of the show were red and white to avoid being mistaken for actual NYPD cars, and because those colors on black and white film would appear to be the same tone as the actual NYPD cars. The other model is by Conquest (from England), and is a 1963 Ford Galaxie (http://store.route66modelcarstore.com/19gasebycoch.html). Both are in the blue and white Chicago PD colors adopted in 1958.

Both of these cars are sold by Route 66 Model Car Store, and I believe probably were commissioned in the Chicago PD livery by the owner, Dave ("Buz") Kerkel. Route 66 is a Chicago-area store that specializes in high-quality white metal models, and I found through an Internet search that Kerkel started the 1/43rd Scale Model Car Expo in 2012. The Route 66 site mentions that the CPD Belvedere was that show's official model in 2017. Each of these cars is a very high-end model, even for white metal, going for $250 each in the Route 66 online store, and I've seen one of them for sale on eBay for even more.

While most of us probably can't afford to spend $500 on two models -- even ones of outstanding quality as these are -- they're nice to look at! They would make a nice complement to the two white metal 1958 Ford models commissioned years ago by Past-Time Hobbies to represent the change from black and white to blue and white Chicago cars.

[cpdgreg]

First off, thank you for the kind words about my cars. I try to get them right.

While I will agree that the tooling of the '61 Plym and '63 Ford appear to be nice, the Chicago PD graphics are way off. There is no way I would spend that much money on something I then have to strip and re-decal to make it look accurate.

There are so many reference photos available that require nothing more than doing a simple Google search. I see their finished product and think to myself, "they lost a customer because they couldn't do their homework." That's THEIR loss. Not mine.

[Dick Williams]

I thought you'd have something to say about the accuracy of the graphics, Greg, after I looked more closely at the cars and compared them with photos of the real period vehicles. I agree with you completely - although sometimes I'm tempted to get a car that isn't made by any other manufacturer and change the decals. Not at these prices, though!

Reminds me of the first CHP car that NEO released - the Monaco, not the more recent Polara that Dennis Deal did for them. The California state seal in the door star was not even an approximation of the real thing. I got CHP decals from Rich Krom and redid the car in about 10 mins, but I'm always a little nervous about stripping a very expensive model. Then NEO followed that up by releasing their NYPD car with the shield on the passenger-side door reversed (mirror image).

The people who are going to buy these high-end models -- unlike the former Road Chumps with their litany of errors -- are collectors who are interested in accuracy. The car collectors who care about the car, not the graphics, are mostly going to buy the civilian version. Police car enthusiasts are the market for a $100, or in this case $250, model, and those that are willing to spend that kind of money want the graphics and colors to be accurate. As I said, if I had that kind of money and CPD period decals were available in 1:43 (maybe they are, I haven't looked), I'd be tempted to do it. Fortunately the '61 Plymouth is an ugly enough car that this diminishes the temptation even more...

[Rich]

Dick, there are some highly accurate decals available in 1:43 scale. Thanks to Greg and his wealth of knowledge on Chicago PD history, I was able to get a sheet done with about anything you need, including the star with the yellow center. That is still a lot of money for a single car. Way too rich for me.

[cpdgreg]

I did not want to reveal my source for the extremely accurate Chicago PD decals in 1/43, but if you don't mind- I don't mind either.

Thank you Rich for the remarkable job you did in replicating the markings in miniature. (Even though still I wish you would also do them in 1/25)