Seeing Dick Pelkey’s high-riding 1955 Chevrolet gasser at Musclepalooza on Memorial Day weekend conjured sepia-toned memories of the Badman model kit.
As a kid, I thought the Badman would be the perfect automobile for all-around daily use: big-block Chevy, open headers, straight front axle, and “Adios Mother” painted across the trunk lid – a phrase that, to a pre-pubescent boy, seemed like it must have some secret profane connotation, yet innocent enough to pass muster with moms purchasing the kit. “Oh, how nice! This pleasant, bilingual race-car driver remembered to say goodbye to his mother. A perfect role model for my son!”
Badman is one of the dozens of kits designed by artist Tom Daniel during his days at Monogram in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Daniel’s illustrations have also appeared in numerous car magazines over the years, most famously in Rod and Custom‘s Sketchpad feature. Daniel definitely didn’t start the ’55 Chevy gasser trend, but he clearly contributed to the awareness of it among generations of young people who would grow up to take pictures of cars at drag strips.
I was glad to see that many of Daniel’s kits are still available in the Revell catalog, though Badman isn’t among them. Kits are still widely available through online auctions and retailers of old model kits.
For more about the artist, check out his website at www.tomdaniel.com, and for more old cars with straight front axles doing big smoky burnouts, get to Musclepalooza at Lebanon Valley Dragway in the fall.
