Agent G Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) those skin tight uniforms always made me uncomfortable They actually served a purpose back in the day. Before tact vests and body armor were the norm and mandatory, motor officers tailored their uniforms. The tighter fit allowed for less flapping in the breeze, thus essentially not beating one to death with one's own shirt. In the dark ages before helmets, Motormen took the crown stiffener from the crown of their uniform caps to prevent them from becoming Frisbees at speed. That my friends is also the purpose of the strap around the base of the service cap. It was a chin strap back in the cavalry days. Trouble is no one I ever worked with even remotely looked like that blonde in the later episodes of CHiPs. G Edited February 8, 2015 by Agent G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickRollerLT1 Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) The Revell '79 Mustangs, because they just slopped a Mustang nose onto the Capri body that has the wider fenders. Worst being the McLaren Mustang (which I'm working on currently to make into something decent) as that appears to be nowhere close to the 1:1 Edited February 8, 2015 by RickRollerLT1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moparfarmer Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 You know we now talk of quality but when all the annuals came out in the 50s-60s and 70s we were all happy..Now we have a few duds and everyone gets up in arms about a few mistakes no matter how big or small..Lets face it, most of us are getting to be grey haired and old..How long is our hobby going to last..Lets not sh*t on Revell too much because they have done some nice stuff lately too...Mustang with a chopped top, if you weren't a rivet counter the average modeller wouldn't know but its brought up..Think some of the tooling methods today and also with the not knowing the product(China) has something to do with it..I always said that JoHan had the nicest and best engraved and correct bodies in their times...Come on guys/gals give Revell SOME credit..At least they are trying... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kruleworld Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 You are aware of the fact that the Daytona Spyder that was used in the tv-series was a replica based on a Corvette chassis right? Enzo Ferrari was so incensed that the gave them two real daytonas for the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chunkypeanutbutter Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 Oh, Enzo loved to get incensed... I thought about getting that kit, but turned it down when I saw it didn't say "Ferrari" on it at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niteowl7710 Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) Enzo Ferrari was so incensed that the gave them two real daytonas for the show. Actually they destroyed the Daytonavette (one of several built for filming and stunts) on screen and Ferrari gave them 2 '86 Testarossas. If you want a kit of an ACTUAL Ferrari Daytona, then go buy a Fujimi EM kit, the Spyder is still in production in the regular "Ferrari Red" window box, and the coupe was just reissued on Wednesday as part of a new "The Circuit Wolf" (Japanese Cartoon) series. Edited February 8, 2015 by niteowl7710 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) You know we now talk of quality but when all the annuals came out in the 50s-60s and 70s we were all happy..Now we have a few duds and everyone gets up in arms about a few mistakes no matter how big or small..Lets face it, most of us are getting to be grey haired and old..How long is our hobby going to last..Lets not sh*t on Revell too much because they have done some nice stuff lately too...Mustang with a chopped top, if you weren't a rivet counter the average modeller wouldn't know but its brought up..Think some of the tooling methods today and also with the not knowing the product(China) has something to do with it..I always said that JoHan had the nicest and best engraved and correct bodies in their times...Come on guys/gals give Revell SOME credit..At least they are trying... Here we go again. Revell HAS made some beautiful stuff recently. But if you want to excuse poorly-measured work, excuse your own. Don't try to make "most modelers don't know any better anyway" excuses for professional tooling designers. People in the industry get paid enough to get major dimensions on model cars scale-correct. Expecting major dimensions to be correct IS NOT RIVET COUNTING. Edited February 8, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddyfink Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) If you look at the evolution curve of Revell kits, you will notices that there are some serious differences in style and technique. They went from some seriously detailed, yet very finicky and poor fitting, mainly due to having everything open up. To some very simplistic kits that shared lots parts with other kits And then to some quite decent kits They started a detail comeback, but, some of the subjects where quite lackluster and rather unappealing And now some nice stuff, but, with questionable specs on some of them Unlike AMT or MPC, who kept a pretty linear style of design and kit execution, Revell has tried quite a few styles of kit production and no doubt some of them had to do with finances. Revell appears to have taken more risks on how their kits have been produced and some have been hits and some horrible misses. Myself, I am just glad they are still around and making kits. The very first kit I built as a child was a Revell kit, and overall, most of what I have built has been Revell. I have a soft spot for them and their kits. And, they started in California, and that means something to me! Edited February 8, 2015 by Daddyfink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) Enzo Ferrari was so incensed that the gave them two real daytonas for the show. No. Ferrari sued several manufacturers of Daytona look-alikes and essentially shut them down. The producers of the show agreed to destroy the replicas to avoid legal issues, and were offered two real Ferraris for season 3 onward. The Ferraris supplied to Miami Vice were Testarossa cars, not Daytonas. There also was a fake TR stunt car built on an old Pantera chassis. Edited February 8, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim boyd Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 If you look at the evolution curve of Revell kits, you will notices that there are some serious differences in style and technique. They went from some seriously detailed, yet very finicky and poor fitting, mainly due to having everything open up. To some very simplistic kits that shared lots parts with other kits And then to some quite decent kits They started a detail comeback, but, some of the subjects where quite lackluster and rather unappealing And now some nice stuff, but, with questionable specs on some of them Unlike AMT or MPC, who kept a pretty linear style of design and kit execution, Revell has tried quite a few styles of kit production and no doubt some of them had to do with finances. Revell appears to have taken more risks on how their kits have been produced and some have been hits and some horrible misses. Myself, I am just glad they are still around and making kits. The very first kit I built as a child was a Revell kit, and overall, most of what I have built has been Revell. I have a soft spot for them and their kits. And, they started in California, and that means something to me! To add to the discussion here...the Revell that existed prior to the acquisition/merger with Monogram was an entirely different company than the Revell afterward, which was managed/developed/manufactured by the existing Monogram crew in (then) Morton Grove, Illinois. With your examples, the break took place between the third gen Camaro kit and the 1989 Grand Prix shown here. TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 ...They went from some seriously detailed, yet very finicky and poor fitting, mainly due to having everything open up. Frankly, I was a huge fan of the Revell kits of that period (especially the Challenger and Showboat kits, and the truly great parts-packs). The detail was simply outstanding, especially for the time, and I always attributed the difficulty of getting everything to fit properly as a function of my own less-developed skills, and NOT as deficiencies in the kits themselves. The complexity of the Revell engines of the time, that went together more like REAL engines (rather than simple blobular halves), and the inclusion of tooling of some internal parts, was in a very large way responsible for my developing an understanding of how engines actually worked, and served to start me on my ultimate career path. I've recently been building a Challenger, and beginning restorations of some gluebomb '56 Ford truck and Chevy kits, and I find that the kits build beautifully if you have the patience and skills to make them work. No, they're not easy shake-the-box projects by any means, but to damm the kits as "finicky" misses the whole point of offering opening panels and a very high level of detail in general. The woody with all its opening panels (and all of its derivatives) is to my mind the best model A Ford ever offered, and I have amassed many of the things because the parts are just SO GOOD. Revell's current '50 Olds and '56 Ford kits are, to me, a return to what I think of as Revell's golden-age, and now that we know how good their kits can be with current technology, it's difficult to excuse major scaling and proportion errors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southpier Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 i never remember a Revell kit with a hole through the engine block (or oil pan) for the front axle, or having the chassis held to the body with 4 - #8 self tapping screws. maybe they were #6 - but the point ..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highway Posted February 8, 2015 Author Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) You know we now talk of quality but when all the annuals came out in the 50s-60s and 70s we were all happy..Now we have a few duds and everyone gets up in arms about a few mistakes no matter how big or small..Lets face it, most of us are getting to be grey haired and old..How long is our hobby going to last..Lets not sh*t on Revell too much because they have done some nice stuff lately too...Mustang with a chopped top, if you weren't a rivet counter the average modeller wouldn't know but its brought up..Think some of the tooling methods today and also with the not knowing the product(China) has something to do with it..I always said that JoHan had the nicest and best engraved and correct bodies in their times...Come on guys/gals give Revell SOME credit..At least they are trying... Here we go again. Revell HAS made some beautiful stuff recently. But if you want to excuse poorly-measured work, excuse your own. Don't try to make "most modelers don't know any better anyway" excuses for professional tooling designers. People in the industry get paid enough to get major dimensions on model cars scale-correct. Expecting major dimensions to be correct IS NOT RIVET COUNTING. Also, as my point of this thread, neither is expecting the correct vehicle when building what is supposed to be a replica. Whether some want to consider it "rivet counting" or not, as pictures have proved here and anyone who was at that time (or now for that matter) could tell, the vehicles Revell just slapped some "CHiP's" copyrights and pictures on were no where near the vehicle they were to represent! That would have been just as bad as MPC/AMT putting "Knight Rider" markings on a Camaro kit or using a 73 Charger for a "Dukes of Hazzard" General Lee! Edited February 8, 2015 by highway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atmobil Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 No. Ferrari sued several manufacturers of Daytona look-alikes and essentially shut them down. The producers of the show agreed to destroy the replicas to avoid legal issues, and were offered two real Ferraris for season 3 onward. The Ferraris supplied to Miami Vice were Testarossa cars, not Daytonas. There also was a fake TR stunt car built on an old Pantera chassis. Yes, and I think the reason for the factorysupplied Testarossas was that they where new cars that Ferrari was still producing at the time and the Daytona was an old model and also being a copy and not a real one. A real Daytona Spyder is very rare and expensive and was so also in the mid 80s. Take a look at this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_Daytona Here we find this: The generally accepted total number of Daytonas from the Ferrari club historians is 1,406 over the life of the model. This figure includes 158 UK right-hand-drive coupés, 122 factory-made spyders (of which 7 are right hand drive), and 15 competition cars in three series with modified lightweight bodies and in various degrees of engine tune. All bodies except the first Pininfarina prototype were produced by Italian coachbuilder Scaglietti, which at the time already had a reputable record of working with Ferrari.[6] So I think there should be no case against Revell for "doing a bad job" on the kit. I do not know if the kit is any good however but I belive it is accurate in detail to the real car it was based on. It is however something else on the Magnum P.I. VW Vanagon that has the wrong wheels and the wrong decals as it says Magnum P.I. on the side and not Island Hoppers as it should. It also come with tinted glass and that includes the headlamps. But I don't think Revell has made any more bad kits than other manufacturers, a lot of the japanese kitmakers have made loads of kits that lack detail, have bad proportions or other things that are at fault. But they have also made a lot of really great kits, and this goes for MPC, AMT, Monogram, Lindberg and all the others aswell. Some kits are not very good, others are good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atmobil Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 This qoute was supposed to be in my last reply over here, from the Wikipedia article: In the 1980s, the car gained new notoriety on the first two seasons of NBC's hit television series Miami Vice. The black car used in the series was a replica built on a Corvette chassis. Ferrari execs were not pleased that their company and one of their products was represented on TV by an imitation car and sued the manufacturer of the kit for trademark infringement and trademark dilution.The Daytona replica was eventually destroyed on-screen and replaced with a donated Ferrari Testarossa, the company's newest model during the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drball Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 No. Ferrari sued several manufacturers of Daytona look-alikes and essentially shut them down. The producers of the show agreed to destroy the replicas to avoid legal issues, and were offered two real Ferraris for season 3 onward. The Ferraris supplied to Miami Vice were Testarossa cars, not Daytonas. There also was a fake TR stunt car built on an old Pantera chassis. One of the originals showed up on an episode of the Car Chasers and was authenicated by the builder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drball Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 No. Ferrari sued several manufacturers of Daytona look-alikes and essentially shut them down. The producers of the show agreed to destroy the replicas to avoid legal issues, and were offered two real Ferraris for season 3 onward. The Ferraris supplied to Miami Vice were Testarossa cars, not Daytonas. There also was a fake TR stunt car built on an old Pantera chassis. One of the originals showed up on an episode of the Car Chasers and was authenicated by the builder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niteowl7710 Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 The builder of the replica Daytona saved one in exchange for building the Pantera chassis based Testarossa stunt car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RancheroSteve Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Same for the IMSA Capri's / Trans-Am Mustang and Trans-Am Camero kits. Different body styles for the Ford's. Different manufacturer for the Camero, but the same parts for the motors and chassis on all three. Keeping the bean counters happy by being lazy. As far as I'm aware Revell didn't do a Capri - just the IMSA Mustang. And while it's true that Revell (and Revell/Monogram) got a lot of "mileage" out of that kit, they did do some re-tooling over the years: beside the obvious body and related parts, the Trans-Am Mustang has a new transmission cover with ignition boxes and a window net; the Trans-Am Camaro has that stuff plus new heads, valve covers, intake, exhaust headers and pipes, dash top, and wheels. Keep in mind that these were all tube frame cars that used a lot of common components, so the chassis weren't much different to the casual observer. If you're willing to accept less than perfect accuracy, I think it's still a darn good kit that's held up well over time. And as they're pretty much the only (non-resin) game in town for the IMSA/Trans-Am cars of that era, I was happy just to get them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.