A key activity of the Museum is to replicate those individual models from the history of our hobby that contributed the most to the development of craftsmanship, styling or other details related to the advance of the model car hobby. At the same time, we must preserve the written record of our hobby before the printed history of our hobby is lost to inevitable photochemical deterioration.
These are some programs the focus of which is to preserve the history of our hobby.
Clone the Past:
Our Clone the Past program seeks to identify the most influential scale models in the history of scale vehicle building. So far, we have identified a great number of models, publicized in Car Modeler, Model Car Science and other regularly-published magazines, that impacted building styles, levels of detailing and encouraged other builders through their excellence. In some cases, we have been fortunate enough to acquire some of those models from the original builders or later caretakers. In other cases, talented builders have been replicating those famous models.
Scan the Past:
Another key program is the Museum’s Scan the Past program in which we are digitally transferring from print media to digital images full issues of magazines published in the history of our hobby.
Not everything survives, and some of the Museum’s most vulnerable historic items are the vintage magazines that were most often printed on the least expensive and least durable paper available. Meant for quick consumption with high anticipated discard rates, early issues of Model Car Science and Car Model magazines – among others – have started to significantly deteriorate even in the very hospitable Salt Lake climate.
The history and information contained in those early issues of model car magazines cannot be lost. Coverage of the early events in the hobby, together with the great models created by early craftsmen, would be lost forever if each magazine crumbled into dust. Clearly, that isn’t acceptable, and the Museum decided a few years ago that it couldn’t tolerate that inevitable result.
The only viable thing to do was to digitize the back issues. Many dedicated modelers laboriously scanned back issues and then transferred those images to CDs.
As each disk is received from our dedicated scanners, we breathe a little easier knowing that the information on one more historic magazine is saved from oblivion.
A special thanks again to the following guys who have worked so hard: Terry Rollins, Dave Cura and Andy Kellock, Roger Yu, Elmore Craig, John Sharisky, Claes Ericsson, Jim Olson, Lindley Ruddick, Dave Mikrut, Dean Eubanks and Mike Swan. And, given his prior hard work for the Museum, we expect great productivity from Tim Burkhardt as well. We also want to acknowledge the great help extended by new member Frank Cura (father to scanner Dave Cura) who has a large collection of Model Car Science magazines that Dave is scanning for the Museum.