# Tom Daniel's and Moebius



## david-5877 (Mar 14, 2000)

Has anybody heard anything about the Tom Daniel's / Moebius connection. I'm curious to know if they are still planning on doing something together or not. It would be nice to hear or see of an update. Revell can't own all the rights to Tom's stuff.


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## Moebius (Mar 15, 2007)

Long story I really won't get into, but I have a feeling we won't be doing anything with Tom at this time. So many other things have come up, and it appears Revell is going to do all of the classic stuff that sat for ages due to worries of being politically correct. We have a lot planned, and unfortunately not enough time and resources to do more than we have on the plate.


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## Kit (Jul 9, 2009)

It's too bad you won't be doing a new Rommel's Rod. I was really looking forward to seeing an improved version. But it's certainly understandable that you would pay attention to other projects after creating excitement for a new release, and having a big company like Revell step in and crash the party. 

Good luck with the Von Franco property.


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## spindrift (Apr 16, 2005)

Revell (Monogram) have a LONG history with Tom- that is enough to consider why he would work with them again. A reissue is alot faster and cheaper than a new tool kit. I am so happy to see these reissues- Revell DOES care about us!
Gary


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## Kit (Jul 9, 2009)

No offense, but caring was not much in evidence. It seems pretty unlikely that Revell was gearing up for a re-pop until Moebius starting working with Daniel to develop an improved version. That would have been a pretty wild coincidence of timing.

Moebius was even considering doing it in a larger scale. If Revell were so caring, they would have let well enough alone, or they would also be looking to make improvements and considering a larger scale. Maybe they are. But come this fall, if a simple reissue, or one with new decals or some other minor improvement, comes along, then we'll see how caring the company is.

You see this stuff often enough over the years. Reissues appear when some scrappy little competitor stirs up the market; not before, and not since. 

There's nothing wrong with being a big company that doesn't do products with a lot of exttra care. Re-pops would be nice. But c'mon. If they cared, they would either have produced this long ago or they wouldn't have hijacked the project.

Of course, Tom Daniel is quite a big factor. He may or may not be easy to work with, he may or may not care, he may or may not have simply gone for the better offer. Doesn't make him a bad person. Just a person.


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## Moebius (Mar 15, 2007)

Hijack is a nice word for what it is. We had planned something more detailed, and from what I understand this is a straight repop. I could be wrong. I have been told by Tom that the tooling was long gone on this, so it will be new, but supposedly no changes from the original. We should know soon. I have mine on order already, anxious to see what they did with it!


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## Auroranut (Jan 12, 2008)

The story I heard years ago was that the glass was missing. RR was supposed to have been reissued in phase1 of the Selected Subjects Program but due to the missing glass it was cancelled. I find this strange as the glass to the Mysterion was also rumored to be missing but they retooled it to release in the SSP range! That glass is curved and detailed so would be hard to retool whereas the RR glass is all flat and wouldn't have been as costly to reproduce.
To be honest, I'd say it was PC that got in the way....
I agree with Kit (welcome by the way...:wave- Moebius was screwed by Revell after Frank & co. did the hard work. I realise businesses are competitive, but this wasn't right!! Revell must have known about the hard work and expensive advertising that Moebius had put into the project months before they decided to stick the knife in....

Chris.


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## Kit (Jul 9, 2009)

Thanks for the welcome, Chris. Long-time listener, first-time caller, as they said in Grosse Pointe Blank.


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## Duff Miver (Dec 18, 2007)

Just my two cents on Tom Daniel - Awhile back at the showrods website they posted a link to Tom's website and there was an email address. Figuring I was wasting my time but 'what the heck ' I emailed him asking if he ever got mad when people called him Tom DanielS . Sure enough he wrote me back saying - no - it was something his dad delt with and he as well. He thanked me for my interest in him and I came away from the whole thing liking him even more. I don't want to sound off on my feelings about the rug being pulled - but I must say I welcome the Rommels reissue and would have bought the Moebius version as well [ sigh] I'm just glad to be able to build this kit for much less than the $250 + price tag I had been seeing sealed ones go for on ebay. -- Duff
p.s. I still have my old Rommels its beat up and the original skeletons are missing [among other things so I'll get atleast 3 Reissues when they come out - one to build outright - one to repair my vintage one- and one to keep sealed for the next generation to enjoy .


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## Tim Nolan (Jul 9, 2008)

As a long-time friend of Tom Daniel, I'm here to tell you he is one of the kindest, nicest people you'd ever want to meet. He's constantly amazed that people still remember him and love his work after all these years. I've done my best over the years to make him aware that he has not/will not be forgotten for a long time! 

He HAS been screwed over many times though by people in the industry. Monogram pretty much crapped on him big-time at the end of "the era", not even putting his name on his own designs, and pretty much claiming the rights to all his stuff, which is totally bogus since most of it is copyrighted. After his stint with Playing Mantis and Toy Biz too, I don't think things ended on a totally good note. Granted, Tom is a true artist and sometimes hard to deal with, but I don't blame him for not sticking to his guns with his thoughts and opinions regarding his designs. I'd be the same way. 

I'd have loved to seen what Moebius could have done with the Rommels, but it's OK that Revell is reissueing I guess. Honestly, I've never understood the
fuss over this kit. I have had a nearly complete collection of Tom's kits for many years now, and it's one of my least favorites. He has so many other killer designs, many which have been reissued, but there's still a ton more of them I'd like to see come back! It has also never ceased to amaze me the "stigma" which surrounds this kit. There are, what, a gazillion German model kits on the market with insignias on them, but the powers-that-be are concerned witht the "nazi" implications this kit has? Wierd. 

As far as Revell, it's great to see them reissuing some of the all-time greats this year, but it's almost too little too late. They're jumping on the band wagon after the success of Moebius and Retro Hobbies/Auto World. They aren't concerned with what we want guys, they're concerned with the bottom line and it's a last ditch attempt. I'll buy the kits to have them, but my money is still with the other guys. They have us in mind as well as making a living.


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## BronzeGiant (Jun 8, 2007)

I'm looking forward to an issue of Rommel's Rod no matter who does it. The one thing that I think will make it a success or a failure is that it really needs to be released in 1/24-1/25 scale. Making it a larger scale would throw off many factors like displaying it with other car builds as well as using the parts for kit bashing. Car scale is pretty much established at 1/24-1/25 and I feel to be successful this needs to be adhered to.

Steve


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## Moebius (Mar 15, 2007)

1/24 - 1/25 was the intended plan here. With our informal survey, larger scale to match military half tracks already in production almost beat the original size! 1/35 and 1/72 were close behind. Much more interest from military modelers than car modelers. Very surprising!


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## BatToys (Feb 4, 2002)

I think Moebius would have made the better detailed kit. Revell makes retro kits if they feel it will sell for sure. They are very conservative. But I have to say Revell is very nice. Once they gave me car windshields direct from the molds so there would be no scratches.


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## Rattrap (Feb 23, 1999)

Tom Daniel is a very nice guy. Interesting bit of trivia. He once told me that he had entered an SF design contest when he was in art school, and he might have wound up doing SF art as a career, but he got beaten out by one of his classmates- Syd Mead.

Bummer for us as SF fans, but hey, this way we got a good SF artist and a good automotive artist out of the same class.


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## fluke (Feb 27, 2001)

Funny, I found that Tamiya 1/35 German WWII Half track buggy wheels replaced my Rommels Rod to the T. Tom did do some research cuz the kits wheels are very similar. The first thing I did was look at 1/24 tank wheels and boy were they too big! 

Too bad.....it sure would have been swell to see what nifty things you and Tom could have done to that kit.


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## Moebius (Mar 15, 2007)

fluke said:


> Funny, I found that Tamiya 1/35 German WWII Half track buggy wheels replaced my Rommels Rod to the T. Tom did do some research cuz the kits wheels are very similar. The first thing I did was look at 1/24 tank wheels and boy were they too big!
> 
> Too bad.....it sure would have been swell to see what nifty things you and Tom could have done to that kit.


Funny you say that, as that was the first thing we did, buy a Tamiya kit to see if it fit correct. That was fix number 1 we planned!


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## david-5877 (Mar 14, 2000)

thanks for the update


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## mcdougall (Oct 28, 2007)

I was going to get this kit had Moebius produced it but now that they're not...Forgeddaboudit...:tongue:
Mcdee


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## 1bluegtx (Aug 13, 2004)

Auroranut said:


> The story I heard years ago was that the glass was missing. RR was supposed to have been reissued in phase1 of the Selected Subjects Program but due to the missing glass it was cancelled. I find this strange as the glass to the Mysterion was also rumored to be missing but they retooled it to release in the SSP range! That glass is curved and detailed so would be hard to retool whereas the RR glass is all flat and wouldn't have been as costly to reproduce.
> To be honest, I'd say it was PC that got in the way....
> I agree with Kit (welcome by the way...:wave- Moebius was screwed by Revell after Frank & co. did the hard work. I realise businesses are competitive, but this wasn't right!! Revell must have known about the hard work and expensive advertising that Moebius had put into the project months before they decided to stick the knife in....
> 
> Chris.


It did not have anything to do with political correctness.they opened the mold and there was corrosion damage(which is pretty common).They said they would gladly repair the mold if they got enough preorders....but they didnt get them!

BRIAN


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## Moebius (Mar 15, 2007)

1bluegtx said:


> It did not have anything to do with political correctness.they opened the mold and there was corrosion damage(which is pretty common).They said they would gladly repair the mold if they got enough preorders....but they didnt get them!
> 
> BRIAN


Much different story than they told TD, according to him.


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