Mustang with the Good Hair

I recently purchased a lot of models from the early to mid-1970s; I was hoping for a Chalky or two in the bunch but alas, no such luck. Fortunately, it didn’t cost me much, and there was one unexpected keeper in the bunch:

This #87 Buckskin Mustang epitomizes everything that was both good, and bad, about Breyer models of the 1970s. That would be the era that I grew up in, Breyer-wise.

The Bad: his shading is fuzzy and inconsistent, there’s overspray in unexpected places, his seams are rough and punctuated by random gouges, and he has a factory-bent back leg that makes him lean at a rather precipitous angle.

The Good: look at that mane!

He’s got spit curls!

There was a lot of variation in the way the Buckskin Mustang’s mane was painted over the years: it’s been loosely airbrushed, tightly airbrushed, and it has had a couple of different painting masks/stencils. This release was in production for about 25 years, so variation of that sort is not only not unusual, it is to be expected.

I’ve seen, and owned, Buckskin Mustangs with tightly airbrushed manes before. But the quality of the airbrushing on this fellow – well, I haven’t quite seen its like before. It’s delicate, playful, and almost calligraphic.

Was someone in the painting department showing off? Bored? Or had a particularly good lunch that day?

No matter. They took what would have been a standard, barely-out-of-body-box quality Mustang and turned him into a genuine piece of art.

So of course I have to keep him.