Welcome to the Model Car Museum!

The International Model Car Builders' Museum was founded with a simple goal: Preserve the memories of the scale vehicle hobby for all hobbyists - old and new – and promote and support contemporary contests and displays which encourage current builders. The mission of the Museum is multifaceted. Our initial effort has been to gather and chronicle the history of the model car hobby from the perspective of the builder. The Museum isn't about collecting kits, though we have a modest collection of rare items. Instead, our goal has been to collect as much information and as many artifacts about services and supplies offered to hobbyists, and to focus on those individuals who have expressed their craftsmanship and creativity by constructing scale miniature automobiles. The Museum has display cases filled with the models of the famous and the obscure alike, each divided into topical displays: street rod, customs, replica stock and competition. We have a large library, display cabinets dedicated to model car topics of all descriptions, and we collect memorabilia from contests and displays from around the world.

In 2018, we reached out to the Fisher Body Craftsmen Guild craftsmen and now host a major exhibition of the work of those craftsmen from so long ago.



As part of the effort to chronicle and celebrate the history of our hobby, we have created the Hot 150/Clone the Past program with its accompanying display case that identifies the most influential models in the history of our hobby, and then to either acquire/restore the original model, or replicate and present the same in a chronological display. This program is an essential "core" effort because there needs to be a way of acknowledging, and understanding, the history of the technological development of model car construction since the hobby first emerged. We are pleased to display nearly three dozen replicated models from the history of the hobby.



Additionally, we have created the Scan the Past program which focuses on the goal of digitalizing significant model car magazines and related publications that have chronicled the history of our hobby. Said another way, we need to preserve the written history of our hobby while the original magazines are available to us. This Scan the Past program is based upon the burgeoning collection of magazines that we've been collecting since 1988.



Another goal is to participate in current activities in the hobby. For years, the Museum has been the chief sponsor of the GSL International Scale Vehicle Championship and Convention which has, since 1979, has successfully attracted the best scale vehicle builders in the world.



You may be interested in perusing the newsletters we have printed in the past. Check out these selected back issues of The Builder:



This is a new website – still obviously in its infancy – that will aim at serving a world-wide audience. This site will be continually updated with selected articles from the hoary old site we had, and add new articles and research topics in the next few months including a searchable data base of the thousands of items we have in the incredible inventory that we’ve gathered since the Museum was legally organized in 1992.



Presently, check out these vintage articles that present some important projects in which the Museum has been involved:



The “Merc in a TV” model by John Estlow

The Epochal work of Dave Shuklis

Quarter Scale Engine by Revell

Richard Mike Johnson’s “Pegasus”

Car Model Magazine’s “Crusader”



Please check back often for new articles, photos and research reports. Thank for dropping by!



The Trustees and Staff of the International Model Car Builders’ Museum



December 2019

