Robberbaron

VERY happy to see the news on this one! Certainly never expected to see this one again, especially after seeing the comments on that old hanger shot picture from several years ago, plus the fact the original body got butchered. About the only way it could be better in my book is if they had retooled the hardtop body instead of the convertible (since I personally much prefer fixed-roof cars). I certainly still plan to get one. I am curious, however: if the body needed to be retooled, is there a reason they chose to do the convertible vs. the hardtop? Supposedly kits of convertibles don't sell as well compared to the same subject as a hardtop - it's definitely easier for a builder to convert a hardtop body to a convertible than vice-versa. I'm sure the original hardtop and convertible kits shared the same interior tub (with the convertible doglegs), so that doesn't seem like the answer. Maybe the reason is that they were able to reuse the original convertible-specific body core that they already had? Not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth here, just genuinely intrigued by the process R2 sent through when they decided to resurrect this kit.

A '68 Chevelle wagon based on the El Camino would be sweet! Seems like they could reuse all the dirty bits, similar to the Revell '66 siblings. Regarding the Vista Cruiser, that generation (along with the Buick Sportwagon) actually used a stretched 121" wheelbase, I believe. The "standard" (non-Vista Cruiser) Cutlass wagons used the same 116" wheelbase shared with the other A-body 4 -doors and the El Caminos. Since Olds didn't offer a true full size wagon at the time, the Vista Cruiser helped fill a gap above the standard 116" wagons. I really like the idea of a '69 Vista Cruiser, and a tie-in with "That '70s Show" would match up with Round 2's marketing strategy. The main problem is that there is very little that they could use from the existing '69 442/Hurst Olds. Really the only things I can think of are the engine block and auto trans from the H/O, front glass, front bumper/grill surround, and probably (?) the dash and rear axle. Everything else would need to be newly tooled: body, interior, long wheelbase chassis, driveshaft, exhaust, rear bumper, taillights, wheel covers are all different. Even the grill inserts would need to be new, and the non-power-dome hood is different too. I can still imagine Round 2 doing it due to the marketing tie-in, but it would be a LOT more ambitious than the Supernatural Impala, which is itself pretty impressive. I agree that one of the Brady Mopar wagons also seems possible, but I think it would be a similar situation to the Vista Cruiser: almost everything new. Family Truckster seems possible too, but I think that would have much less appeal. Can''t really think of any other iconic TV/movie wagons that could be a candidate? Looking where Round 2 is spending their money for major new tooling, I really suspect any kind of new wagon tooling would have some kind of show biz tie-in.

I was lucky at mine, since they had an in-store price scanner literally 5 feet away from the display. None of the kits had price tags on them, there were only large tags on each side of the display. I thought some of the kits might be in the wrong places, so I started grabbing several at a time and scanning each, with the results stated above.

My local Wal-Mart is carrying Round 2 kits for the holidays, and they did have the '78 Dodge trucks for $24.99, which is about what my LHS has them for too. More than you'd pay at HL with a 40% coupon, but as Mark stated, if HL does end up carrying them, you're not likely to see them for a while. And there's no guarantee that they will carry it. There's always certain Round 2 kits that HL chooses not to stock for whatever reason. (some examples are the most recent reissue of the 1960 Ford Starliner, the MPC Squad Rod Nova, and the AMT Pacer wagon)

My wife ordered new bikes for the kids for Christmas from Wal-Mart online, and I stopped by the Schererville, IN store to pick them up. On the main aisle through the back of the store, they had a Round 2 free standing display, as described above. Quite surprised by the variety of kits they had. One side seemed to have "basic" automotive (car) kits that were $19.99, these included: 1959 Imperial, 1967 Impala, 1967 GTO (the New Weekend Warrior version), 1971 Duster, 1972 Nova "Old Pro", '77 Pinto (stock) and quite a few others I don't recall. Next side seemed to be all the TV/movie licensed vehicles, including Knight Rider, the Godzilla Jeep, Ghostbusters Ecto 1, etc. I believe these were all $24.99. Third side I believe was all Coca Cola branded kits. Yeah yeah, I know: "They could fill the whole display with those!" I believe all those were either $22.99 or $24.99, didn't pay attention because I didn't care. Last side was a hodge podge: some Lindberg non-auto garbage and Weird-Ohs kits on top for $14.99 I think (again: didn't care). Bottom was pick-up kits for $24.99. Several of these were the ones with bonus items like the '78 Dodge and '86 El Camino with the mini-bikes and the '60 Chevy with the go-cart, so at least there's an argument for why you'd pay more for those. But they also had the GMC Deserter and the Super Stones '78 Ford, which really don't strike me as anything special. The basic automotive kits aren't too bad of a deal at $19.99. Since most kits at HL list for $29.99 now, even with a 40% off coupon your paying $17.99 plus tax. Since my local HL has refused to stock anything new for months, this is a pretty good alternative. I ended up getting the '67 GTO because of the Christmas tree, tires, extra wheels, and decals they added for the Weekend Warrior reissue. Sure the base kit is still a turd, but they polished it up enough to get me to buy another!

Finally got around to cracking open the 2005 Chrysler kit that I picked up in October. After checking it out I was looking at the box, curious about how long it had possibly been sitting around, as discussed above: Surprise! It was manufactured in 2019! Date under the UPC on the box bottom is 06/19/2019 to be exact. Took a look at the '50 Mercury: UPC date is also 06/19/2019. Stamping inside of the Merc body (on the inside of the roof) is also dated 2019. Seems like at least some of these kits must have been manufactured specifically for Ollies, since that's only a few months before they actually started hitting their shelves in September. Maybe that's also the reason for the $9.99 price compared to $7.99 previously - at least some of these are no longer overstock from other retailers anymore.

Comparison pictures of 4-door hardtop vs. 4-door sedan:

Agreed that the tires don't seem like a deal breaker. Gotta wonder, would vacuforming be an option for the window glass? Not sure if they could do that in volume, but seems like creating a buck to vacuform would be cheaper than machining new tooling for the glass. Then again, the whole thing might seem too crude to the average customer. Is there some kind of precedent in the model airplane or military world? (are there injected molded kits with vacuformed glass?). Or is vacuforming really just something you only see in the aftermarket/cottage industry, like in resin kits?

Steve, out of curiosity, do you plan to use some generic poverty caps, or does somebody in the aftermarket produce the correct Oldsmobile hubcaps for this application? I'd definitely be interested in getting a few sets if someone produces them, especially if they actually have the "Oldsmobile" lettering. In my opinion also, pretty hard to beat this look: Any decision on stripes/no stripes? I personally find the '68 fender stripes detract from the lines of the car, but that's just my 2 cents.

If you're going for factory correct, I'm not sure if the ones from the Chevelle would be right. As someone mentioned, Chevy's version of these wheels was painted, and I think they always used a trim ring. Since the Olds version was chromed, I don't think they ever offered trim rings from the factory (?) A friend of mine used to have a '69 W-30 that he bought from the original owner. It had SSI wheels, and I clearly recall those didn't have trim rings.

Agreed. Might be a good opportunity for someone like me looking for oddball stuff like that.

If both of these bodies are newly tooled, does that mean the old "Twister Vega" body remains intact? (really the 1978 Monza S). Not much love for that one, I know. But I've always wanted to get a hold of one of those to do a mashup with the roof from the AMT Vega wagon funnycar to create a Monza Estate wagon. I suppose you could do a similar combo with one of these new Vega bodies instead.

Stopped by the Merrillville, IN store today on my way home from work. Picked up an '06 Chrysler 300 and the '49 Mercury Snap Police. Had probably about 15 of each. Probably had about 15 of the 2006 Camaro concept car. No interest in that since it wasn't the production version. Also had 2 of the AMT-branded (MPC) '69 Charger Daytonas, and some of the non-automotive Lindberg non-sense. I believe this would be the closest Ollies to the Chicago south suburbs, if anyone on that side of the border is considering an outing. The Hobart Hobby Lobby is a minute down the road, to make the trip more worthwhile.

As stated, the Dukes of Hazzard kit had the correct exhaust/chassis and dash. It also had the factory stock Roadrunner stripes, except WITHOUT the Warner Brothers bird. Apparently Round 2 didn't want to pay for the rights for the cartoon Roadrunner, in addition to the DOH royalty. Seems weird since both are WB properties. I seem to recall the only difference with the tin box version that was issued right after the DOH version is that the decals did have the bird. However, you had to pay quite a bit more for that version, which was pretty irritating at the time.

Debating which one is worse is kind of subjective, so I won't argue with anyone that feels different than me on this issue. All I know is that this thing looks WAY worse to me than the old Monogram Camaro. At least certain portions of the old Monogram looked kinda sorta OK (I think the taillights/back end looked fairly correct, I really should dig out my old built-up and have a look again). This thing on the other hand, NOTHING on the body looks right to me. This really is Palmer territory here. And we have to assume that the new release will be a straight reissue of this, because otherwise Round 2 would have made a point of heralding a "newly-tooled, accurate body" or some such description. The fact that they're willing to reissue garbage like this makes me scratch my head, especially compared to most of the good business decisions they make the majority of the time. Others are right, they will sell a fair number of these just because of the subject matter and the nice box art. But man, are they going to P.O. a bunch of people once they all see the contents!