While now out of production for a few years, one scenic item on the layout that I have enjoyed are a series of cars and trucks once sold by International Hobby Corp. They were marketed for HO but, as their ad copy implied at the time, they are somewhat over scale for HO (“Will look great on HO layouts”). I am not sure if they are exactly 1/76 but they are close and work great in OO.

This first photo is of a 1949 Ford Woody Wagon, a 1955 Chevrolet Step-Side Pick-up, and a 1955 Ford Thunderbird. These all have “pull-back” motors, i.e., if you pull them back they will go forward like toys but they are not too noticeable. They offered also a 1957 Chevrolet Corvette and several other cars too modern for the era of my layout such as a Dodge Viper and a 1964 Ford Mustang. They advertised with multi page advertisements in Model Railroader for some years, and the complete list of these cars may be found in for example the March, 2003 issue. I have three of the Step-Side Chevrolet trucks as they really suit the small town Kansas theme of the layout and my grandparents owned one.

The second photo is of other models they also sold that also seem to be somewhat over scale for HO, including this Pepsi truck, the Peterbilt stake-side truck, and a 1940s bus. The bus is the only plastic model in the group, all the rest are die-cast in metal.

I took a look on eBay and found a couple of these models for sale. I really should pick up a Corvette if I see one and perhaps a Mustang, but for the size of my layout I probably have about enough cars and trucks to do the job.

Related to that, I should also mention that the scenery items on any layout don’t all have to be to scale. To force perspective a little I also have an S scale car and truck that are set right at the front of the layout and a couple HO models that are put to the back.