Moebius 1966 Ford F-100 Flareside

Once again, the fine folks at Moebius have released a kit subject that makes me wonder if Dave Metzner is scanning my brain. First the Hornet, then the Bumpsides, and now this new '66.

My childhood is filled with memories of two different '66 F-Series trucks, so naturally I had to at least take a look at this kit. As with the previous series of Bumpside kits, there will be more variants of this generation, including a service truck, which will be the next release. Those, and the stories of those two 1:1 scale 1966 Effies I mentioned earlier, will be stories for another time.

The box art continues with Moebius's pleasing mix of a painting of the vehicle subject, augmented by photographs of the assembled and painted model on the sides.

As far as "hard parts", much of this kit is based on the earlier '69-'72 kits. So we will show these first.

Here is the sprue containing the jack, horns, sway bar links, washer reservoir, shocks, brake backing plates, battery, sun visor, and rear springs. This carries over directly from the Bumpside kits. The washer bottle and jack are not used, as the '66 has it's own horns and a washer fluid bag.

Another carryover sprue, and this time, all three parts are used on the '66 variant.

This sprue carries over too, and everything you see other than the two-piece booster/master cylinder is used on the '66, though you could "upgrade" your '66 to power brakes and still keep it technically box stock.

The lovely Ford Big Six returns from the earlier kits as well, as do all of it's wonderful ancillary components.

The chassis is carryover, as are the pedal panels, driveshaft, and front crossmember. The real trucks were mechanically similar, so it makes sense for Moebius to reuse these components.

And finally... a spruce containing a tailgate, crossmember, rear bumper, and radiator you won't need for the '66.

Now it's time for the new parts!

Here we have the bed sides, fenders, rear bumper and tail light housings.

This sprue has the new cab crossmember, washer ag, horns, hood hinges, single-chamber brake cylinder... and an intake, carb, and air cleaner for another version of the kit. The setup here is for a two-barrel FE engine, so it could be adapted to the V8 engine from the '71 or '70 4x4 kit.

This sprue contains the rest of the bed components. Tailgate, bulkhead, steps, and floor.

Here we have the seat, rear cab wall/fuel tank, and driver's side door panel.

Here we have the radiator core support, the panel over the grille (whatever the technical term for such may be) and a variety of driveshafts.

Here we have the passenger's side door panel, firewall, and dash.

The cab casting s nicely done, and like the Bumpside kts, has the inner fenders molded in place.

Here we have the floor and hood. There's a faint mold line on the hood that runs off the front edges of the chrome spear all the way around the front of the hood. I missed t until I'd already painted my hood.

The top two chrome sprues are carried over from the Bumpside kits and provide door handles, wipers, and such. The smaller sprues and individual grille are unique to the '66.

The clear parts are unique to the '66, though the '67-'72 tail lights are still on the sprue, just unpainted. The "crest" tail light lenses are coated in clear red.

The small decal sheet includes three plates, custom cab scripts for the doors, gauge graphics, Twin I Beam insets for the fender badges, air cleaner decals, and markings for the washer bag.

The hollow no-name tires are also familiar to anyone who's built one of the Bumpside kits.

As is typical of Moebius, a full-color instruction sheet which included photos for decal placement and detailing, along with a factory color chart, is included. And this one includes an additional leaflet to correct a mistake in the original sheet.

As far as the build process?

Having built a number of the Bumpside kits, chassis and engine assembly was straightforward. I had to go just a bit beyond the box for mine, though. AMT skinny Firestone tires were added up front, while mud and snow tires from Scenes Unlimited out back. I did have to trim away the "paddles" from the kit wheels to fit these tires. I have found that hollow AMT tires will fit well on the Moebius wheels.

Just like the Bumpside kits, the windshield is a tight fit. Again, the upswing is a windshield that fits with no glue, and again I recommend foiling the windshield trim after it has been insterted into the cab.

I made some signboards for the bed, and robbed the decals from MPC's '78 Dodge pickup kit. I opted not to use the dog dish caps and gave the truck some light weathering.

The kit supplies no rear plate mount, so I made one from .010" plastic sheet and used a Michigan plate from the '70 4x4 kit. Speaking of that '70 4x4 kit...

I swapped in the engine and transmission from the '70 4x4 kit. Years ago in a junkyard I saw a '66 F-100 that had been fitted with a Mercury FE big block. so I added the valve covers from an AMT '66 Park Lane, but kept the Ford pickup air cleaner to give it that "junkyard swap" kind of feel. Here you can see the washer bag that was in pretty much every Ford product of this era. You can also see the rust hole I added just above the driver's side headlight. My father's '66 F-250 had a hole in that area so I wanted to try it here. I found that the firewall fit in the '66 kit is much better than that in the Bumpside kits.

So I guess all of this means that the base kit is a fun and enjoyable build, and it responds well to kitbashing. Just like the Bumpside kits. I would say that Moebius has another hit on it's hands. I'm definitely getting more of these as they're rolled out. I'm particulary looking forward to the long ed variant, so I can get to those two burly old Fords I rememer so well from my childhood.