Gary Sutherlin's AMC Matador

(click the image to go back)

Gary Sutherlin must be the world's most unassuming model car builder. He arrives early at each MAMA meeting and surreptitiously places his latest creation on the display table unobserved. He doesn't seek awards or accolades. Gary builds to please himself. But over the years, he's pleased quite a few of his fellow club members, too. Some of us have made a habit of trying to figure out which models on the display table are Gary's based on his building tastes, style, and quirks (Gary likes to build them straightforward, but with a twist now and then, such as the time he added poseable steering to an otherwise box-stock Mercury Cougar XR-7.)

Gary has a mischevious streak in him, too. At one recent meeting he had slipped a model past us (it was a subject that none of us would have associated with him), and when our president asked the group who built it, Gary quietly sat in the back row, knowing he'd gotten us.

Not too long ago, Gary caught a good deal on a couple of AMC Matador kits at a swap meet in Dunn Loring, VA. Combined with two others he already had at home they formed the basis of a series of four Matadors he's building.