MODEL TRUCKER
Your Toga Chip Guy gets calls from all over the world with all kinds of questions regarding the potato chip. A previous blog post was about a man named Alan from Washington State, a Boeing retiree, who bought an old Dickey's Potato Chip truck to restore. He requested my assistance to find the authentic logos to redecorate the refurbished truck. Several years later I was contacted by Russ, the subject of today's blog post.
Russ spent his career as a driver for a beer and wine distributor in Connecticut. After retiring about seven years ago, he relocated from the Springfield, MA suburb of Ludlow, MA to his childhood area of Andover, Maine, not far from Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Russ' hobby is decorating blank model trucks. He started out focusing on home delivery milk brands he remembers from his childhood . Hen then moved on to bread delivery trucks and more recently has honed in on snack delivery trucks, most notably potato chip brands. Many of these companies are now defunct and since I have researched many of these companies and posted about them on my TogaChipGuy.comwebsite under the section entitled "Building an Industry" Russ reached out to me for help in obtaining the proper logos, and company script including font and colors. I had already obtained photos of many of these and knew where to reach out for help for those which I had not already secured.
The first thing Russ does is find and acquire blank trucks of all styles such as delivery vans, step vans, tankers etc. They are plastic and normally all white. These blank models are hard to find and normally are sold as part of a collector's liquidation. Recently Russ found seven for sale of which he purchased five. . Many of the models are of Detroit Industrial Vehicle Company ("DIVCO") produced trucks. Others are GMC models from the 1950's., Bulldog, Atlas and Athearn trucks The hot wheels, matchbox, and other diecast metal models are generally not suitable since they are already decorated with various brands. When he has to use the metal diecast model, Russ uses rubbing alcohol and Qtips to strip the painted logos and lettering. He avoids using any more powerful materials so as not to remove the underlying paint on the metal models Russ uses HO models that are similar sized and correspond the HO model trains. They are smaller than the larger O models. For the milk trucks, Russ includes the refrigerator box that was affixed to the top of the truck.
Securing the authentic logos and lettering is the most time consuming challenge. Business cards, invoices, letterheads and company postcards on clear backgrounds normally have clear backgrounds and are the best sources. Old tins are more difficult as they are rounded and vintage bags are usually wrinkled.
One he gets good images, Russ uses his computer (often with the assistance of his wife), to produce decal images of the logo and lettering. Sometimes his wife enhances the colors with colored pencils. He prints the logos and lettering on decals with sticky paper. Since the models are small, the decals must be sized and can also be very small, depending upon where they are placed on the models, such as doors or windows. Tweezers are often needed to place the decals on the proper spots. He likes to add the address and phone numbers on the doors and strives for all of this to be authentic.
Russ makes models of brands that are not already marketed. "I make models of the brands you can't buy." You don't really make any money so I end up giving many of them away to places such as museums. For example, a blank model will cost about $20, and after all of his effort to decorate it, he would be lucky to get about $40 for it.
Among the potato chip brands Russ has made are Bachman's, Frito-Lay, Granite State, Humpty Dumpty, Stateline, Utz, and Wise. The companies that he is currently researching are Castonguay's of Lewiston, Maine, Circus Time, and King Cole. Russ displays his work with photos on his Russ Towle Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/russtowle. The models are shown in front of a model train warehouse. See his of potato chip brands below.
Enjoy the Grateful Dead singing Truckin
The Toga Chip Guy