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1/16 MPC Nascar Petty Charger; a kit change just announced


'70 Grande

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I always cut my masking material into thin strips about a millimeter wide using a piece of glass and steel straightedge. That makes the tape go round the curves easily. After masking off the blue, I spray my base white, then go round with another mm strip of mask before the STP red. Try it, I think you'll like it. :)

Thanks for the tip, I will give it a try!

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I was impressed enough by this thing as the street machine, and that kit was eviscerated, relatively, compared to this one. Can't wait, and the decision to skip the clear plastic on the body is sitting better and better with me, more I think about it.

You're right to think that way. The clear plastic bodies were brittle and tough to deal with, often cracking while installing to the chassis. It can be done but it's exceptionally tricky. The switch also helps the originals retain thier full collectible value.

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FYI: The soon-to-be-reissued 1/16 Nascar Petty Charger kits will be on their way to America soon, but a new announcement regarding this reissue has just been released; the following message is from the manufacturer:

"The MPC-767 1/16 Petty Charger kit has been molded with an opaque "Petty Blue" body as opposed to a clear body. After several attempts using various types of plastics and injection tricks, we were not able to achieve the quality or durability we needed in order to do the kit with a clear body. The age of the tooling along with the recent backdating work we had to do were the reasons. We had to make the decision to mold the body in Petty blue instead, which is reflected in the updated packaging. The chassis/motor/interior parts are molded in grey, similar to the original kit."

Jacen got the exact same response, not necessarily in the same words as the above. The question was asked and the press style response was what was given. Maybe Jacen could have presented the statement in different wordage so as not to confuse you?

Edited by MAGNUM4342
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Cost and flexibility are only two of MANY issue when making a clear body kit. Please note that none of the more recent kits are near the size of the Petty Charger, not near the age of the Petty mold......that has been modified a number of times. I have two friends in the industrial molding industry......both talk about how hard it would be to get a mold the size of the Petty kit to come out correct EVERY time.....which is what is required in mass production. Ten percent rejects would have raised the cost a bunch.

I am thankful R2 spent the money to restore the kit......I'd take the kit in pink right now.......

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I have built an original issue Petty Charger 1/16, it's simply an amazing kit, build it out of the box is a stunning and detailed model..add extra Detail pieces and you have a magnificent vintage NASCAR model. I will be ordering one of the reissue kits and build it again. I still have my original built Petty Charger in a glass case, it show it's age...BUT..STILL my favorite in my small collection...I even saved the original boxtop.

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I don't why so many are sweating the non clear body. Tamiya and other companies make a great clear paint. Easy.

But seriously, I would never build a model with a clear body. Unless the actual car had a clear body. But doing so would eliminate having to sweat the intimidating blue/red paint scheme. I dread building this kit, but I'm going to have to. *sigh* It's maybe the prettiest Nascar car of all time. I can't not build it.

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looks like the MPC Street Charger- prob with a mix of that kit and General Lee?

This kit is where the other two came from. That's why the Street Charger was a "One Run of Fun" reissue, to backdate the tool back to the original NASCAR kit negated the ability to do it again.

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What they should do is have someone pull a body made out of lexan for them and include it with the opaque body.

I'm also big into R/C and we have lexan shells for even 1/4 scale cars.

All it would take is to make a plug from one of the styrene bodies and duplicate it. Lexan is cheap and fast to work with.

Maybe someone after market could do that. Lexan comes out crystal clear with little to no defects and then we could have both. Opaque accurate body and a clear lexan shell that as well if we want to go that way for a bit.

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I hope that the Petty car is a big hit. The other Stock cars were the Hardees T bird and The Pontiac in 1/16 that I used to have- I forget who made them. If the Petty car goes well it would be nice to have those other nascars back also.

I'd like to see as many as possible 1/8- 1/12- 1/16 kits come back.

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OK, That was Before Neil I think

Neil had left RAMOHC Racing by the time the kit came out. He had gone to a limited sched. The thing most folks forget is the #75 kit was announced at RCHTA as a Tim Richmond Old Milwaukee car!! But the anti beer PC folks killed that one and the Speed car was filled in.

BTW....the kits are not well done. The Pontiac is salvageable but the TB is a mess. Body is all wrong. They have you cutting up the roll cage to make the body fit the chassis......just a mess.

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I'm building a modded General Lee which is close to the same as this kit (Petty) engine wise and chassis wise.......I looked thru this thread and couldn't find it BUT I read somewhere about having to tweek the headers and header gaskets to make them fit the engine right so that when the engine is installed in the chassis the headers won't touch the tie rod or some other chassis parts. I wanted to get a little more detail on that.. if anyone knows? :)

I'm going to be ready soon to do the tweek but I want to figure out all my test fits and gluing so it goes smooth. Plus that will help when I get to the Petty kit if it has the same tweek needed.. Thanks--

I remembered the AMT stock cars and how the T Bird was messed up- I'm glad my memory went back that far-( *80's) I guess I'm doing pretty good!

And---- I'll buy any 1/16, 1/12, 1/8 Nascar kit-- a 1/8 kit would be beyond cool--- ( I know- they'll never make one) :(

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