Athearn GP30

Introduced in 1963, the GP30, as modeled by Athearn, was lacking, in several ways, but certainly was a unique locomotive, both in prototype and model. The story goes that Irv Athearn didn'like the looks of it, so it was discontinued after a short, two year span. This made the "ugly darling" a collector's item, relatively few in number.
They can still be found, sometimes new in the widely varied baxes, as shown in the photo. Five road names were offered, as well as an undecorated unit. Shown are the 5 schemes, along with the variety of boxes I've found them in. The Reading, and New York Central schemes are the more difficult to find, in my experience.