Gowland & Gowland (England) was one of the early plastic scale modeling companies. Gowland & Gowland designed 30 kits which Revell issued as the Highway Pioneers series from 1951 thru 1953.
Highway Pioneers Series Two, 1/32 scale, featured these five cars molded in ( ):
1910 Cadillac Limousine (light blue)- 2 copies
1915 Model "T" Ford Center Door Sedan (black)
1908 Buick "10" Rumble (red)
1914 Stutz Bearcat (yellow)
1910 Studebaker Electric Coupe (green)
These models had been built in the late 50s and put away in the hot attic in 1961. They remained there until 2007. All those years(46!) in the attic had totally warped and deformed the models. The Studebaker's smaller parts had literally crumbled into powder, and its mangled body shed countless slivers of decayed plastic. The Studebaker's so-called "body" might be a subject of a future diorama as it is absolute junk, with no possibility of ever restoring.
After completing the redo of one of the two 1910 Cadillac Limousines and the 1915 Ford Model "T" Center Door Sedan recently, I began working on this 1914 Stutz Bearcat.This model wasn't quite as badly warped as the others, but still significantly so.
My recollection is that when new years ago, the front suspension, especially, along with the main body were already warped and ill-fitting. The rear suspension's plastic axle had degraded so much that all that could be saved were the springs and the differential.
A rear axle was made from plastic sprue. Up front, it was sort of worse in that the layout of the correct suspension wasn't at all obvious and terribly out of shape. A metal flat bar was fastened to the front axle to give it strength as the plastic was extremely crumbly. The springs here, too, were misaligned and crooked. The plastic was so decrepit that when bonding with Super glue, the two joining surfaces held together but the underlying plastic literally gave way. To gain increased integrity and to give joints extra strength, modeling putty was thinly applied over these areas. From various photos of actual 1914 Stutz Bearcats, it appears some had a small circular windscreen mounted to the steering wheel stalk. Maybe I'll make one for this model in the future.
Thanks for looking...
