The RMC/Dremel Kitbashing Award came about when Dremel’s head sales manager Ed Erdman met with then-editor Tony Koester at the annual Model Railroad Industry Association show at the Hilton in Chicago. Dremel was looking for a way to promote their motorized hobby tools, and together they came up with the idea of the kitbashing contest sponsorship and award.

Reader Ed Krottendorfer kindly assembled a spreadsheet of all contest winners from the last 50 years. Raymond Hobin was the first published candidate in the January 1972 edition, taking an HO scale Tyco Pacific and kitbashing it into a credible model of a Jersey Central Heavy Pacific. Since then, the contest continued every month with few interruptions. A quick glance at the list shows the majority of entries to be HO scale, with a smattering of O, S, and N sprinkled here and there. In late 2020 and 2021 we hit a bit of a dry spell, with only a few entries to publish, but 2022 has seen dozens of new entries submitted for consideration. And now it appears Robert Frascella’s entry will be the last one under the old banner.

With Dremel withdrawing, we are currently seeking a new corporate sponsor to encourage this monthly showcase of creativity. While it’s sad to see a partnership of 50 years come to an end, we’re excited to see what the future has in store. Kitbashing methods may have changed over the years, but the core idea of taking an existing product and transforming it into something unique will never go away. —Otto M. Vondrak, editor