Empire fuel car - real or fantasy?

[peteski]

This month's MT released this car (photo borrowed from MT website)


Does anybody know if this was a real paint scheme or is it a fantasy car?  The left side looks realistic for the early 1900s, but what looks like a full size photo-realistic mural seems a bit strange.  The photo of the model is not really showing it very clearly, but it looks mire like a photographic mural rather than a painted artwork.  Something like you would find on a tail of a modern airliner. I would have expected a car of that vintage to have a hand-painted artwork.

[mecgp7]

Found a pic here: http://keokukandwesternrr.com/models.htm
Looks like it's for real, but the proto looks longer than 40' to me.

[highway70]

It is a 40 foot car.  Data reads     IL  40 ft ? in

[Sokramiketes]

If they used a photo of a hand-painted photo-realistic mural for the artwork... would it look like what you're describing in N scale? 

[C855B]

Hey, that's a great bit of modeling on MTL's part! They even added the hatches! Unique features nobody would expect from a production model. Very cool.

Gee, did Joe have a hand in this?

[JoeD]

Yes it's real!  We worked with Charlie Vlk on this one...he started, via a friend of his, researching this car many years ago.  He provided great artwork for us to work with.  I found this one on an unrelated search and figured it would get people scratching their heads.

Joe

[davefoxx]

Good looking car.  I like the instructions on the lower carside, "WHEN EMPTY RUSH ME BACK OVER SAME ROUTE."

[peteski]

Wow! That's impressive (both in 1:1 and in 1:160 scales)!
The mural is done so well that it looks like a photograph (at least in the photograph of the car).

I suspect that the new printing technology MT acquired last year allowed for this kind of artwork to be produced.

I'm in for at least couple of these (one for my collection and one as an investment).     Looks like I'll have to wait a but for  it (as its release has been delayed).

[John]

there is this

http://keokukandwesternrr.com/images/freightcars/EmpireFuelBillboardCarGRYX1018ro.jpg


http://keokukandwesternrr.com/models.htm

[Sokramiketes]

there is this

http://keokukandwesternrr.com/images/freightcars/EmpireFuelBillboardCarGRYX1018ro.jpg


http://keokukandwesternrr.com/models.htm

Welcome to post #2. 

[central.vermont]

there is this

http://keokukandwesternrr.com/images/freightcars/EmpireFuelBillboardCarGRYX1018ro.jpg


http://keokukandwesternrr.com/models.htm

Neat car!! But it looks like they could have used Arch Bar trucks to be more correct.

Jon

[Chris333]

So now I sit here waiting for the new MT boxcar coal load 

[John]

Welcome to post #2. 

ehhh .. quit being picky

who has time to read all these threads anyway ..

[nkalanaga]

With a 1931 date, photography and printing were well advanced by then, so I wonder if this was a photograph, printed on "wallpaper", similar to a real billboard?  Glue it on, just like a roadside billboard, and it's ready to go.

[bbussey]

Neat car!! But it looks like they could have used Arch Bar trucks to be more correct.

True, but that's easy enough to correct.  Not my era or locale, so I'll be skipping this one.  But the model does appear to be an impressively well done representative of the prototype.