Motor City

The best hope for seeing old models such as the AMT 1958 kits again is to take original, unbuilt kits and 3D scan the parts. Round 2 has a lot of kits in their archive, but I don't know how far back it goes. The Nova and '64 Cutlass are a good start to partially restoring or creating missing tooling for kits. 3D printers may eventually be commonplace in our homes, and maybe we can then buy 3D files to print our own parts directly from the model manufacturer.

thanks for the info, Rob

Has the Fruehauf Sunoco tanker trailer ever been reissued? My Dad bought it for some reason and never built it. Even the box art looks neat. These truck kits saved AMT for a while.

thanks, Mark; I looked at some photos and see what you are saying about the trim piece only applying to the '63 coupe; my brother and I would point to or comment on any Corvette we saw since they weren't a common sight around the Detroit area until the '68 model came out

What's unique about the '63 windshield trim?

I'd be embarrassed to be seen next to or in an El Camino as awful looking as that one! I guess that's Monogram's version (El Macho) of the Macho T/A! 😵 It's another great review, Adam. As an original owner of this generation EC, I bought it as a second vehicle for occasional hauling, but mostly as a good looking and handling toy, at a substantially lower cost than a Grand National, Monte Carlo SS, 442 or Corvette.

I bought the kit decades ago and recall the Nomad's passenger front fender had some issue on top. Hopefully it has been corrected, but if not, it's something I guess could be fixed with bondo.

or you could buy the MPC '82 El Camino kit, but it's not an easy kit to find

Blame it on the custom Chevy van kit with the quad rectangular headlights. Apparently most of us found the headlight history lesson more interesting than the releases! 🙂

that's true: Note the Cutlass has the optional wheels used on the '65 Dynamic 88 kit. Both the '64 Wildcat and '64 Cutlass were GM concept cars.

Here in the U.S., it was a big deal to get lighting laws changed, just as it was to go from 2 headlights to 4 in the 1957-1958 time period. My comment should have mentioned that it pertained to the U.S., but everyone seemed to know that was what I was referring to. So it looks like the early 1970s rectangular lights started in Europe. I wonder when it started in Japan? I also forgot about the '75 Monza 2+2, Sunbird, Firenza and Skyhawk, which were new and had rectangular headlights.

thanks for posting that, Chris; it's pretty cool!

The 1974 calendar year (1975 model year) was the first use of rectangular headlights. They were standard on the full-size Cadillacs and Eldorado, Electra and Riviera, 98, Grand Ville and Bonneville. They were eventually used on the 1980 Chevy and GMC trucks, but were only single units at that time.

Danno, No, they actually all look quite presentable and yes, they are acetate. The ''54 and '55 convertibles are quite straight. The '54 has a slight distortion where the front fenders warped upward slightly. The '56 Roadmaster has a slightly "dented" roof, and is the worst of the bunch (except for my '60 Invicta hardtop). The '57 is another convertible and is quite straight. My '58 hardtop has a slight buckle in the cowl area, while other '58s tend to buckle between the rear window and trunk lid. What AMT made prior to the '58 were: '54 Skylark, Roadmaster 4-door '55 Century convertible, Roadmaster 4-door '56 Century convertible, Roadmaster 4-door hardtop '57 Roadmaster convertible, 2-door hardtop

AMT did make a '54-57 Buick promos. It's too bad most (or all) of their tooling from the 1950s was probably recycled decades ago.