Here is a relic from TV shows gone bad from days gone by. Of course, this is AMT's one time issue of the "1928 Porter", "Mother" from the Jerry Van Dyke show, "My Mother The Car" The show was based on the concept that a man's mom, one David Crabtree's, had passed away and her spirit was incarnated into this 1928 Porter, and the car comes alive. Goofy concept, for bad TV, but hey what do you expect for 1965 television? I was glued to the screen each week, as I thought this was the coolest looking car on the face of the Earth. I really thought there was such a car for real as a 1928 Porter. I knew as soon as I saw that first episode, I had to have a model of it.
Of course, this was the golden age of 1/25 scale model car kits, so AMT stepped up to the plate, and produced this kit in early 1966.
Beings that at the time, I was only eight years old, I could not yet build model kits very good, and all my attempts to build this model ended in a glue-smeared wreck. My parents got this kit for me 3 times. The last time I got it, the show was already cancelled, and off the air, and I was heartbroken, not being able to see the car gracing my black and white Motorola 25" TV screen anymore. Unlike the preceeding two kits, this one did come out somewhat fair, but still glue smeared. My parents got this last kit for my at a bulk discount store in late 1966 for fifty cents. I still, after I built it, I played with it to death, and it, too was destroyed.
Fast forward to the 1980's, when I started to play around with REAL antique cars, and I started to go to old car shows and swap meets. I started finding the old model kits, and dealer promotional models that I got, and destroyed when I was a kid, and started to build up my collection like I had back then.
In, I believe, 1983, I was walking past a vendor at the big Fall Carlisle car show and swap meet, and he had about 15 old AMT kits stacked up on his table. One of them was this beat up old 1965 AMT My Mother The Car kit box. He said the kit was 100% complete, nothing missing. I told him I was trying to find one of these for years. He said, "Gimmie $15.00, and it's yours!" So that is how I got a fourth chance to build this model again, as I still think the car from this show is cool looking.
I never realized, though, how many inaccuracies are in this kit, compared to the real car, such as the fact that AMT based their replica on a 1927 Ford Model T touring car body, instead of the 1924 model T Ford body that was actually used in creating this car. The actual car is much more lower slung than this kit is. The tires on the actual car are much fatter, are wide whitewalls, and run in much smaller diameter chrome wire spoke wheels, as opposed to the bigger stock model T's painted wire spoke wheels.
Nonetheless, this model somewhat captures the essence of the original show's car, and still is the only scale replica ever made of this car, of which only two were really built for the short lived show.
I tried to be very careful with this then 17 year old kit, and painted it up to the best of my ability, according to the original copyrighted 1965 box art and instruction sheet that came with the kit.
The model you see here, today, is the result of that effort I did in 1983, to preserve a piece of American automotive and television history. After searching the internet, these pictures here, are the only ones of this kit that show an intact, and completed model.
"Everybody knows in the second life, we all come back sooner or later. As anything from a pussycat to a man-eating alligator. But the truth may mean my story, is more fiction than it's fact, but believe it or not my Mother dear, decided she'd come back. As a car. She's my very own guiding star. A 1928 Porter. And that's my Mother, dear. She helps me through everything I do, and I'm so glad she's here. My Mother The Car. My Mother The Car!"
To show how nuts I am about this car/show I typed this from memory.
My mom says I was, and am the only fan of this show. I don't think so. :-D
Jim.
