On March 7, 2009 at the NNL Western Nationals at the Santa Clara (California) Convention Center, the SLM presented its first award for excellence to Thomas McNamara for his replica of Tommy Ivo's Showboat. The SLM's treasurer, Dwayne Bressem did the honors. Dwayne had this to say about Thomas McNamara's model:

The Model I chose was one at first look I kinda overlooked because of the subject. After speaking to another modeler who mentioned some things about it, I went back and really looked at it. My eyes went buggy and my mind struggled to comprehend the amount of effort he went through to have this model look as good as It did.

The model I chose was Thomas McNamara's Ivo Showboat. Each Motor had 76 seperate components for the fuel Injector linkage and fuel Lines. I will try and get better shots of it from a member of his club.Thomas made a jig for the injector tubes to be sure they were all the same length and the flares all the same. He also made a jig for the exhaust like the kit shows you, to maintain a constant angle for the installation of each header tube.The longer I looked at it the more Ii saw. Here are some photos of Thomas' Showboat.

So, as the SLM kicks off its second decade, with an eye toward becoming a greater influence within the realm of car modeling, we are proud to present Thomas' Showboat replica.