I believe it was around 1967 (maybe?) that AMT released The California Hauler, a Peterbilt 359 ten wheel tractor. Nice kit. In 1970, a few versions of the Ford Louisville LN 8000, LNT 8000, and the Ford C Series tilt cab. All nice kits. Prior to that, most of the model kits were of passenger cars and pickup trucks. However, these "big rigs" were not the first "big trucks" AMT offered.

Due to my advanced age and the absence of equally aged catalogs, I don't recall the exact year, but earlier, AMT had made an attempt, perhaps to test the potential market, of "big" truck kits. Simplified assembly models, with very generic unidentified cabs, and not listed as any particular scale, the first release had a gravel trailer, and if I recall correctly, the box art showed a green truck.

I remember buying the kit, and according to the code on the box end, the retail price was $3.00, about twice the price of a car kit. I don't have any recollection of the accuracy, or inaccuracy, of the trailer, but I do know that I felt mixed emotions about the model overall : disappointment that the (then) best model company could do no better than this? Yet optimism that someone had dared to try to make a model of a big truck.

For some unknown reason, this foolish kid also purchased the second release when it became available. Same generic cab, but a very well done van trailer, with raised lettering on the sides, representing a well known American moving company, and colorful box art depicting the colors of the moving company's trucks. I would guess that this may have been before everyone wanted royalties from the model company, that ironically, was giving the companies whose products and services that they represented in their scale models...free advertising!

A red and white cab was shown in the box art illustrations, and in spite of the nameless hokey cab, I was impressed by what seemed to my young mind to be an improvement over the previous similar truck kit.

You will note that I said I was impressed. I didn't say I was smart. Had I been smart, I would have retained the moving van trailer for a couple decades, as it seems that it may have matched fairly well with the 1/32 scale tractor trucks that AMT and Monogram eventually produced. Alas, predicting the future was not a skill I possessed.

All in all (whatever that means), I give AMT credit ('cause I can't afford to give them cash) for taking a gamble. and making something that, at the time, no one else was offering.. Did these less than stellar truck kits lead to the eventual prolific offerings in big rigs from all the model companies? If I were to guess, I'd say yes.

-Jim Amado

page updated 8/13/2024