John Reid

Besides model building, John was into Rods and Customs, and was seriously looking for a 1955-56 Mercury automobile

to go cruising around town with. He was into riding Harley Davidson motorcycles and owned a 1988 Low Rider.

His other interests/skills included, pin striping, photography and video. He also enjoyed cooking, fishing, travel and vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts.

He was an active member of the following clubs:
Modified Motorcycle Association
Long Island Auto Replica Society
(They nicknamed him ‘Lenscap’ during a LIARs Model Show. He liked taking photos of the models and attached to his camera lens was a lenscap swinging precariously close to the models, thus the name stuck.)
Pin Heads (paint pinstriping association)

Recollections from Doug Estabrook

I don’t know how John found out about MassCar, but I'm glad he did. The first time I sat and talked to John, I thought to myself ‘Hey, this guy is really COOL...he CAN’T build models. He’s got a GT Mustang, a Harley Davidson, he plays drums in a band AND is a genuinely good guy.’

If there was anyone who dispelled the ‘modelgeek’ equation, it was John. And the thing I liked best about John-he ‘got it.’ Had a great sense of humor, never took himself too seriously and probably was the only guy in the club who had more fun than me! But my fondest memory? John and I were having a BS session on the phone one night and he asked me what I was doing the next day. I told him I had no plans and he told me about this hobby shop) The Spare Time Shop) that he went to and asked if I would like to go for a ride to the place. I met him there, proceeded to go over the biggest selection of models I'd seen in a long time. The one problem? John wandered around in there a lot. Now, anyone who¹s ever been to that store knows that they have a great selection of everything. It was then that I found out John was interested in everything. He looked at the model railroad stuff, planes and military stuff, even caught him in the craft section. He was interested in what HE was interested in and didn't care if people thought he was a ‘geek’ or not. I think if we had ever had T-shirts made up with 'GEEK' emblazoned on the front, John not only would have paid for them all, he would have been the first guy to pull one on. Anyway, back to the shopping trip. When we were getting ready to leave, John volunteered to help me carry the two kits I was going to buy to the counter. He then proceeded to buy them and then handed them to me and said ‘Merry Christmas.’ I was very touched. I hardly knew this guy and here he was acting like we’d known each other forever. We then went to a Sub/Pizza shop right next store and had lunch. We must have sat there talking for 3 hours. And modeling was a very small part of it. John was a very intelligent man, a very compassionate man and a good friend.

One last story Tony Mazzola had gathered up a bunch of John¹s stuff after he passed away and brought it to a meeting to share with us. I ended up buying a Badger airbrush that John had bought and never used. I figured that every time I used that gun to paint a car with, a little piece of John would be applied to that model. To this day, I've never turned out a good paint job with that thing! Tried and tried, but could never get the hang of it. I finally figured it all out‹every time I tried to paint a car, I THOUGHT I could hear laughing. I have that airbrush mounted to a plaque to remind me of how John ‘got it’ and that he’s not to far away. I miss the guy..........

Recollections from Tony Mazzola

John and I hit it off right from the start. I remember him arriving at the clubhouse for the first time in his1989 Mustang GT back in 1992?. Since both of us owned real muscle cars, we had something in common to break the ice with and talk about.

As I got to know John, I started to realize how multi-faceted he was. He was a Jazz & Blues Drummer and had worked for the likes of the James Montgomery Blues Band and John Lee Hooker. He also did studio session work in Manhattan and Boston. As president of MassCar, I remember he followed the classroom/speaker (speaker standing in front of an audience) setup started by Neil. Then he altered this classroom setup to a more casual circle of friends where he encouraged people to bring in and work on their projects. This seemed radical at the time, since up to this point Neil and Doug had used the classroom approach without question. John also wanted to females interested in building and joining, since up to this point this was a boys club.

He encouraged road trips cross-country whenever a model contest was advertised. Such trips brought Masscar members to attend the NNL West in 1994 and 1995. (He took videos of these trips which are still fun to watch while appreciating his sense of humor). He was the main reason why I ran for the president’s position. He would tell me, ‘what are you waiting for? You have leadership abilities besides people listen when you speak!’ With that bit of encouragement I was nominated and won.

One day, he asked me to join him on a trip to a model contest held in Chicago in May of 1995. Work schedules didn’t allow me to take the time off. While in Chicago he suffered a very damaging heart attack and there went through open heart surgery. From this point on his health was never the same. He managed to keep a positive outlook on life and still built models. When he was up for the occasion, I would go to pick him up at his home and take him to attend the meetings.

John left us on June 20, 1996. He will never be forgotten since he touched the lives of so many including my own.

John Reid ( - 1996)