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AMT / Round 2 Bring back some more of those great old Double kits.


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what I would really like to see come back in this vein was that chevy nova wagon pulling a race car I don't recall exactly. I do believe that was AMT, right?

jb

Been a while since I've seen it but I think the Nova wagon was pulling the Nova AWB funnycar AKA Rat Packer. I don't think you'll see it again because I believe the Nova Wagon body was itself later turned into a funnycar, and the door lines were filled in and all the factory trim is gone.

Also in this series were a '63 Impala pulling the '65 Chevelle AWB, and some kind of Ford combo--I think it might have been the '64 Galaxie pulling the Falcon AWB but someone else might have a better idea.

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kool kits, the Wild Dream/King T both build up very nicely and fit together surprisingly well. I am going to be using the XR6 chassis and probably some running gear for a very special Trabant Universal surf wagon very soon now...with half a hemi engine to boot.

leftsidefront.jpg

leftfrontnice.jpg

jb

very nice and clean builds JB!!!!!
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thanks for the comments, here is a shot of the King T from the back showing the Jaguar (I would imagine) IRS.

jb

Lovely model, but not a Jag IRS. This might be of interest:

The first real application of IRS on a street rod came in 1964 on the Don Tognotti “King T” 1914 roadster. It was painted in “chameleon” paint treatment by Gene Winfield, but its hand-made rear end by Walt Reiff was what got most of the attention.

“King T” featured a 1955 Chevy center section with the axles cut down to four inches. Half-shafts were added from a GMC truck shortened four feet, and the outer wheel carriers were handcrafted. It was a lot of work, but with all the chrome plating and addition of inboard disc brakes and coilover shocks, the whole assembly was something that raised the bar for rear suspension on a rod, even if it was out of reach for most enthusiasts.

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IMG_1232-vi.jpg

I cannot agree more.. these kits are amazing parts boxes! Forget if you don't like one of the cars on the box, those parts can be used, and AMT encouraged guys to build with their imaginations back in the day. I recently got the above Model T Fruit truck kit. It's got the possibilities of about a dozen different rods and stock cars... not only can you do a pickup and the fruit truck huckster body, but there's also a turtle back and a shortie pickup bed in the kit. Just think of it as a box of street rod parts that you can do anything with. Better than Lego!

Years ago I got the AMT Blueprinter Double Dragster and Tony Nancy dragster double kits on the same outing. Man, you could build anything from the parts in those combined boxes.

MPC used to make the "Switchers" kits back in the early '70s, and I think they might have been reissued since. Those kits had a lot of optional parts; unfortunately, not very well molded or detailed. But, I digress. I would love to see Round 2 bring back some of the double kits like the Galaxie and Shelby Mustang, the Impala and Chevelle A/FX car, the Chevy Van and Aquarod(?) boat with trailer, the Nova wagon with utility trailer ("Crew Wagon"?)...

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Folks, all of this old AMT tooling is in the hands of real model car guys who seriously want to relive the past the same way we do. Note that they've been going through the tools, and opened up all the welded off sections of molds. The latest releases of some old classics have revealed long lost kit parts. I don't remember specifics, so you guys can post what you know. As they are finding things, we are seeing kits like this Fruit Wagon double kit. Right now they are still reviving the easy to restore kits back to market. I'd say they will be digging deeper, and these guys actually know what they've got (unlike the former succession AMT owners). So times have never been better... never say never!

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Is the Fruit Wagon a Double Kit? You build more than one car with that kit?

Scott

You can build a stock T of some sort, and a rod of some sort, if you plan your parts allocation carefully. I'm going to build a C-cab rod, use the T bucket body for another project, and hold all the stock T chassis/engine parts for swap fodder.

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You can build a stock T of some sort, and a rod of some sort, if you plan your parts allocation carefully. I'm going to build a C-cab rod, use the T bucket body for another project, and hold all the stock T chassis/engine parts for swap fodder.

But it's not designed to be a double kit, is it?

Scott

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Is the Fruit Wagon a Double Kit? You build more than one car with that kit?

Scott

Scott- read back to my original post describing the kit. It's a mess of parts! Several cabs, several rear treatments, two chassis. I want to go back and get another one so I can build more versions!

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Don't forget same kit with Paddy Wagon variant. Which is the 3rd Paddy Wagon kit extant. The Caspers was my favorite, and real,though it had King T chassis which was incorrect to the original.

I do wonder of they'll be able to pull bits back together, as King T Wild Dream were quite comprehensibly robbed. and distributed amongst at least 6-7 other kits.

I've got a mint kit, and an in-progress mint with about 7-8 pieces from other iterations of the kit, plus the MPC individually boxed kits of the 2 cars.

Those 2 and the XR-6 are the best models of the Oakland GNRS winners, amazing they were done within very short times of the cars actual wins. No CAD, nothing but slide rules, tool makers, and art. IMO some of the best kits ever done of contemporary street rods ever. Historic.

Edited by keyser
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>some of the best kits ever done of contemporary street rods ever. Historic.

agreed. I even thought that back when I was a kid and had these kits. could never really get them done right but always admired them and the real cars. that willys/32 ford kit was much more my real modeling skills level. and wasn't it amazing how contemporary they were to the real cars. I think they (the models at least by MPC if not AMT) were available early enough to be displayed with the real cars at shows back then.

jb

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kool kits, the Wild Dream/King T both build up very nicely and fit together surprisingly well. I am going to be using the XR6 chassis and probably some running gear for a very special Trabant Universal surf wagon very soon now...with half a hemi engine to boot.

leftsidefront.jpg

leftfrontnice.jpg

jb

There was a later version of the Wild Dream without the slicks on the front. The later version won the Oakland Roadster Show (America's Most Beautiful Roadster) trophy in 1968 (joint winner with Bob Reisner's "Invader", which won the award by itself the previous year), The revised Wild Dream was gold metalflake with a black interior, had a slightly different grille shell, and had a black padded removable top. Only a half dozen or so AMBR winners were ever done in kit form; it's strange that two were sold in one box...

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yeah I have some vintage photos of it in that trim; I had never noticed the front tires but you are correct, and they look WAY better.

I always had a particular liking for the King T even though it isn't my general style. but living in sacramento since 1965 on and off, when I was young the connection to Tognotti and his speed shop was there. also right before his death he picked one of my cars as his choice at the sacramento autorama model car show, and he actually chose my car two years in a row, different cars!

jb

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The newest re-issue of the '36 Ford has a set of custom headlights that look suspiciously like the Wild Dream's headlights. I don't have either kit, but I was looking at the '36 at an LHS a couple of days ago and saw the illustration of the custom headlights on the box art. I don't remember those being in the original issue '36 Ford kit that I had when it was new, and I haven't been inside a '36 kit since then. But, seeing this built Wild Dream model, I was immediately struck by how similar its headlights look to the custom jobs in the '36 Ford kit.

So, can anybody confirm that? Anybody have the '36 kit that can compare the custom headlights to jbwelda's Wild Dream build?

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Yep. They're in there. I was having a look at the '36 re-issue just last night and was wondering where I'd seen those headlights before.

I remember when my mom let me get the Wild Dream/King T kit at Woolworths in 1963. I was thrilled with the number of parts and the level of detail in those kits. Those kits were way beyond the skills of this six-year-old (at the time), but they sure were neat to have.

PB.

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The newest re-issue of the '36 Ford has a set of custom headlights that look suspiciously like the Wild Dream's headlights. I don't have either kit, but I was looking at the '36 at an LHS a couple of days ago and saw the illustration of the custom headlights on the box art. I don't remember those being in the original issue '36 Ford kit that I had when it was new, and I haven't been inside a '36 kit since then. But, seeing this built Wild Dream model, I was immediately struck by how similar its headlights look to the custom jobs in the '36 Ford kit.

So, can anybody confirm that? Anybody have the '36 kit that can compare the custom headlights to jbwelda's Wild Dream build?

I'm pretty certain those are '61 Imperial headlights. The units in an Imperial kit might be a bit smaller, but I'd bet that the entire Imperial kit is a bit undersize...

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