I'd like to return a few beans onto this gameboard -
Floridaboy: I agree that those AMT kits from the late '50s/ early '60s were pretty accurate. In our heads! They identified the features that mattered, and they hit them on the nose. The overall length or height might have been wrong, but the fins or the distinctive fenders looked right to us. And as the years rolled on, our eyes grew more sophisticated, and the accuracy got poorer, sort of like our parents getting dumber as we got into junior high, and then high school. Later I grew to recognizing fine distinctions between the Ford Mk II at Sebring in 1966 and at Le Mans in 1966 and found Fujimi (and Revell reboxing) to come up short.
I was on that original thread with Luke'57 on that other forum where the person questioned the quality difference between old AMT and new Revell. And after I summarized the identification points of those beloved old AMT 3in1 kits... the screws holding the chassis, the shallow interior tub with the plastic washer thingies, the hood clips, and the metal axles, frequently going through the engine block, I forgot to mention the typical "lowering block" feature, with the multiple holes to set the ride height or attitude. And then just to show what an absolutely foreign concept that was, somebody came back and asked "did that mean that the '65 El Camino was front wheel drive?"
And that was when it really sunk in for me - what a different culture we had been living with in those days. You hardly ever had a problem with getting all four wheels to touch the ground then, did you? That didn't start until the Revell kits with fiddly front ends with individual kingposts and tierods. Or the really fancy AMT Trophy Series cars.
So here's a toast to the good old days of hood clips and steel front axles, going right through the engine block on a rear wheel drive car. And lots and lots of annual 3in1 cars every year.
It ain't love, but it ain't bad.
Rick Heinbaugh
