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Ghost Kits - Shown But Never Released


Casey

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AMT50Studebakervivi-vi.jpg

It's pretty well known that Ertl was planning a '50 Studebaker and '49 Olds a decade or so ago, but did they ever formally announce or show them? Word certainly got out somehow- I remember there being quite a buzz at the time.

Ahh, the legends (urban!) that grew out of this "new kit announcement" back in October 1999, at RCHTA! I attended that trade show on opening (trade only) day, and upon seeing this one and the '50 Oldsmobile Club Coupe (hastily made up kit box art by Racing Champions/Ertl), asked Tom Walsh, then heading up plastic model production for RCE, when those two kits might be coming out. His answer?

They'd already presented the concept of those two kits to Walmart (in a private presentation at Wally's headquarters in Bentonville AR) and a similar presentation to KMart just a couple of weeks before RCHTA. The response from those-then major buyers of AMT (and other companies' plastic model kits, Walsh related, was less than the hoped-for positive result. He chose to offer the two proposals at RCHTA, in hopes that the mix of smaller retailers, even some of the lesser "Big Box" stores, along with the hobby industry wholesalers, would generate enough orders to make it feasible for them to proceed with development. However, as of about 2pm that Friday afternoon, Walsh related that more than likely neither kit would be going any farther than box art proposals. Please consider that to a model kit manufacturer, particularly in the mass-produced plastic model kit field, it's the mix of larger retailers and those wholesale houses which supply local hobby shops that are those manufacturers' primary customers! If the buyers from such companies see serious sales potential in any newly announced kit, it almost always comes to fruition--if not, then not.

I can still remember several proposed AMT model kits that never wound up being developed, due to that very same thing:

At the HIAA (forerunner of RCHTA as a trade organization for model companies) trade show in January 1972, AMT's catalog showed a Link-Belt Traxcavator backhoe shovel--however, when sales figures came in from the recently released Caterpillar D8 Bulldozer kit--those were so terribly disappointing that the Traxcavator was axed, before any serious kit development happened. Same with AMT's proposed 1922 Ahrens-Fox Piston Pumper fire truck--dismal sales results for AMT's American LaFrance fire apparatus showed them that there really wasn't a strong enough market for them to spend any more capital on newly tooled subjects. At the 1978 HIAA trade show in Houston TX, AMT showed box art AND a built-up Ford C600 with a Gar Wood Packer garbage truck body (I was commissioned to do that builtup in the fall of 1977)--another proposed model kit that died due to a lack of wholesaler/retailer interest.

Even in 1967, MPC showed a built prototype model of the 1928 Miller 91 that won that year's Indianapolis 500, as an extension of the "Gangbusters" series/era of antique and classic car kits--it too died from lack of enough pre-orders.

Art

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I can still remember several proposed AMT model kits that never wound up being developed, due to that very same thing:

During a recent conversation with someone who freelanced for RC2 back to the AMT era........

We discussed a number of kits that we almost got. None got tooling but some did get research and/or drawings done.

Most were along the lines of the Studie and Olds........GREAT subject matter.......but not big box seleers.

How I wish some of these had been made.........

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Ahh, the legends (urban!) that grew out of this "new kit announcement" back in October 1999, at RCHTA! I attended that trade show on opening (trade only) day, and upon seeing this one and the '50 Oldsmobile Club Coupe (hastily made up kit box art by Racing Champions/Ertl), asked Tom Walsh, then heading up plastic model production for RCE, when those two kits might be coming out. His answer?

They'd already presented the concept of those two kits to Walmart (in a private presentation at Wally's headquarters in Bentonville AR) and a similar presentation to KMart just a couple of weeks before RCHTA. The response from those-then major buyers of AMT (and other companies' plastic model kits, Walsh related, was less than the hoped-for positive result. He chose to offer the two proposals at RCHTA, in hopes that the mix of smaller retailers, even some of the lesser "Big Box" stores, along with the hobby industry wholesalers, would generate enough orders to make it feasible for them to proceed with development. However, as of about 2pm that Friday afternoon, Walsh related that more than likely neither kit would be going any farther than box art proposals. Please consider that to a model kit manufacturer, particularly in the mass-produced plastic model kit field, it's the mix of larger retailers and those wholesale houses which supply local hobby shops that are those manufacturers' primary customers! If the buyers from such companies see serious sales potential in any newly announced kit, it almost always comes to fruition--if not, then not.

I can still remember several proposed AMT model kits that never wound up being developed, due to that very same thing:

At the HIAA (forerunner of RCHTA as a trade organization for model companies) trade show in January 1972, AMT's catalog showed a Link-Belt Traxcavator backhoe shovel--however, when sales figures came in from the recently released Caterpillar D8 Bulldozer kit--those were so terribly disappointing that the Traxcavator was axed, before any serious kit development happened. Same with AMT's proposed 1922 Ahrens-Fox Piston Pumper fire truck--dismal sales results for AMT's American LaFrance fire apparatus showed them that there really wasn't a strong enough market for them to spend any more capital on newly tooled subjects. At the 1978 HIAA trade show in Houston TX, AMT showed box art AND a built-up Ford C600 with a Gar Wood Packer garbage truck body (I was commissioned to do that builtup in the fall of 1977)--another proposed model kit that died due to a lack of wholesaler/retailer interest.

Even in 1967, MPC showed a built prototype model of the 1928 Miller 91 that won that year's Indianapolis 500, as an extension of the "Gangbusters" series/era of antique and classic car kits--it too died from lack of enough pre-orders.

Art

Working in distributon at the time, we were all over that Stude, in terms of sales. However, I can see why Wal-Mart and the other big-box stores were less than thrilled. Their buyers probably didn't see the potential in the kit, given their audience for plastic kits at the time, I can see why.

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Working in distributon at the time, we were all over that Stude, in terms of sales. However, I can see why Wal-Mart and the other big-box stores were less than thrilled. Their buyers probably didn't see the potential in the kit, given their audience for plastic kits at the time, I can see why.

The question here is, how can one describe the typical WalMart shopper?

Might be an interesting essay..

;^)

And, what are the biggest buyers of model kits these days, Michaels, Hobby Lobby?...wich sort of clientele do they serve?

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The question here is, how can one describe the typical WalMart shopper?

Might be an interesting essay..

;^)

And, what are the biggest buyers of model kits these days, Michaels, Hobby Lobby?...wich sort of clientele do they serve?

Biggest single retailer of model kits today is Amazon. By far. Full disclosure: we sell on Amazon. Not sure how much is bought and actually warehoused by Amazon and how much is just companies like us selling through Amazon, but I see the power of Amazon first hand every day. HUNDREDS of (mostly Revell) kits shipping out each day around Christmas from just our little slice of Amazon.

I'll put it this way, if every NNL/GSL attending, message board posting, "serious" car modeller quit buying kits, we'd probably survive. But if every mom buying a kit for her son for Christmas or every child buying a kit for their dad for Fathers' Day quit buying kits then we'd starve. And I can't stress that point enough.

Edited by Brett Barrow
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You got it. ;) Funny how the sales point has changed through the years though.

First, '50's and '60's , the local hobby shops.

Then who knew where you'd find 'em, i.e. Dime stores, grocery stores, big department stores during their Christmas rush.

Along comes the BIG box store, K-Mart. Ooops, slippin' a little there.

WalMart, do it our way or else. See ye. :o

Now just a little here, Hobby Lobby, a little there Michaels and back to WalMart, just a little.

and now you sat the "INTERWEB" ? :blink:

Edited by Greg Myers
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  • 4 months later...

If anyone here has built Monogram's 83 Mustang convertible kit #2222, you'll notice that in some of the drawings in the instructions it has the GT350 rocker stripes from a 20th anniversary 84 Mustang. I'm guessing the lawsuit with Carroll Shelby over the GT350 name being used killed off the other kit.

Edited by Travis T
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I'll add an example to this thread:

I bought this one at the GSL auction this past spring. They auctioned off a bunch of old Box Art cars that Revell / Monogram had donated. I was fortunate to win a few, including this Richard Petty 43 Super truck model.   Here's the clincher... it never got released!   

When I posted it here on the site, I got an email from an insider who supplied built models to RM for both box art and promotional purposes. This one was produced for those purposes, and the plug got pulled on the Super Truck series before it came  to being.

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I'll add an example to this thread:

IMG_2058-vi.jpg

I bought this one at the GSL auction this past spring. They auctioned off a bunch of old Box Art cars that Revell / Monogram had donated. I was fortunate to win a few, including this Richard Petty 43 Super truck model.   Here's the clincher... it never got released!   

When I posted it here on the site, I got an email from an insider who supplied built models to RM for both box art and promotional purposes. This one was produced for those purposes, and the plug got pulled on the Super Truck series before it came  to being.

But Revell did release the blue Carlos Contrairas #43 Dodge truck

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Yes, but not the RED Steve Grissom truck.  That was supposed to be issued but they stopped the series... per the guy who built the box art vehicle that I own.

Pretty cool truck, but, just because a kit was not issued with different decals does not make it a Ghost kit. Sorry. 

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Never knew it existed, but that definitely looks real. :D

RMX-2998-2.jpg

 

Yeah I have 1....only one I've ever seen. There was also a #1 Dennis Setzer Mopar version, also hard to find. They don't even come up on ebay very often but when they do they go for much more than your regular Nascar kit.......which at this point you can hardly give away.

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In "The Catalogue of Model Cars of the World" which came out in 1967, one of the products it listed for Jo-Han was a 1934 Packard.  Apparently, it was never produced, though Okey Spaulding did claim to have some of the moulds at one point.

This subject was referenced in several JoHan ads in Car Model Magazine c. 1967 as "coming soon" but I have never heard anything that metal was actually cut.  I even asked Dennis Doty, who was very close to Joe Haenle (sp?) during the early 1970's, and he never saw any evidence of its development during his factory visits.  

Richard, do you recall in any more detail what Okey said about this subject?  

Needless to say, a 1934 Packard done to the JoHan Gold Cup series level of detail and fidelity, would have been a favorite with the modeling community and a treasured collectible kit today.  A real missed opportunity, for sure.  

TIM 

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It would be a magnificent thing, to be sure.  I'd discovered the book about the time I'd discovered the Jo-Han classic kits, and since they'd never been all tht common in my area,  I figured I'd missed it somehow, so the Jo-Han Packard was one of my grail kits for the longest time, until I found out it was in the same category as actual grails.

I checked back on the Johan Resurrected  mailing list,  and in the conversation I had about this in 2006, what he actually said was that the designer who worked on the kit said that engineering drawings and a master for the body were still around when he took inventory, but that they had disappearred by the time the trucked arrived to pick up everything.   Apparently Hanley abandoned the project because of poor sales of the other classic kits.

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It would be a magnificent thing, to be sure.  I'd discovered the book about the time I'd discovered the Jo-Han classic kits, and since they'd never been all tht common in my area,  I figured I'd missed it somehow, so the Jo-Han Packard was one of my grail kits for the longest time, until I found out it was in the same category as actual grails.

I checked back on the Johan Resurrected  mailing list,  and in the conversation I had about this in 2006, what he actually said was that the designer who worked on the kit said that engineering drawings and a master for the body were still around when he took inventory, but that they had disappearred by the time the trucked arrived to pick up everything.   Apparently Hanley abandoned the project because of poor sales of the other classic kits.

Thanks Richard...TIM 

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It would be a magnificent thing, to be sure.  I'd discovered the book about the time I'd discovered the Jo-Han classic kits, and since they'd never been all tht common in my area,  I figured I'd missed it somehow, so the Jo-Han Packard was one of my grail kits for the longest time, until I found out it was in the same category as actual grails.

I checked back on the Johan Resurrected  mailing list,  and in the conversation I had about this in 2006, what he actually said was that the designer who worked on the kit said that engineering drawings and a master for the body were still around when he took inventory, but that they had disappearred by the time the trucked arrived to pick up everything.   Apparently Hanley abandoned the project because of poor sales of the other classic kits.

I would guess it was probably canceled when Monogram released their Packard kit.

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I would guess it was probably canceled when Monogram released their Packard kit.

I'm pretty sure Monogram's Packard didn't come out until the mid 70s.  I certainly haven't seen any release earlier than 1975.   In any case, they never let Monogram's classic Mercedes stop them from releasing their own version.

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I'm pretty sure Monogram's Packard didn't come out until the mid 70s.  I certainly haven't seen any release earlier than 1975.   In any case, they never let Monogram's classic Mercedes stop them from releasing their own version.

I wasn't sure when the Monogram Packards were released I know the Duseys and Cord came out in the mid 60s, the Mercedes Monogram did I'm pretty sure came out after the JoHan.

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  • 2 months later...

Which kits were shown in a catalog or another publication and/or were announced but never actually hit store shelves?

 

Paul Gill mentioned the 1/16 MPC Chevy "Apache" Stepside 4x4 kit shown in the '76(?) MPC catalog:

 

1978MPCCatalog005-vi.jpg

After looking at Revells version of the 1/16 pickup, I'm curious how this version would have compared if it were made.

 

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