Can-Con

Interesting. I've never heard of that before. I guess you learn something new all the time. 👍

Monty, you could do it by using a brighter red and doing a couple coats of clear red over it. That's how the car companies get those vibrant reds you mention. First one I seen like that was on Mustangs back in the mid '90s with the "laser red tinted clearcoat metallic". It's a 3 part paint, base coat, tinted clear and the top clearcoat.

No, completely different frame. I bet you could easily slam an AMT Chevy van frame and floor under there if you really wanted. Rear end bothering you? swap it out for something else. It's a separate part, not hard to do.

Um, you guys sure these are not "body in frame" construction? Pretty sure they all have a separate frame unless you're talking about the kit specifically having a one piece chassis plate instead of having a separate frame and floor like other van kits. But, yes Chris, Sean is right about the front suspension arms. In fact they used the exact same ones as the pickups for the first couple years and just slightly modified pickup arms after that. It was just the frame crossmembers that had the offset.

That is some fabulous craftmanship right there. I've seen some nice top chops and have done a few myself but this is truly inspired.

I'm pretty sure that photo has been tweaked for colour and contrast but I think House of Color "blueblood red" would get you pretty close.

Top looks like it has a very subtle chop too, Bob. But, yea. a lot of the changes are so subtle they would not be noticed like the frenching of the headlights.

Never would have expected that as it's the same copper colour my Riv was. Good to hear you can get floor pans for it. when I had mine you couldn't get them. IIRC, my floor was about the same as yours, maybe a bit worse, including the whole trunk floor.

Simple solution for lowering, , , cut the mounting pins off and mount them up higher. Probably could mount them a bit lower if you want to raise the van up a bit for some reason too.

I think we'll see a lot more built like this then like the box art. 😉

Shape is right but the grille and bumpers are a completely different design.

Ah, I see, you need it to be wide enough for the cap. Got it. 👍

Those would be all the same hotrod parts as in this kit, right Dave?

Yea, the grille wraps right around to the wheel opening but you could take a second grille, cut it up and add that part.

They're gonna sell a bunch of those. Van models are all about the paint, interior and customizing, not the engine since most van kits don't have opening hoods and even when they do open, what's the point? you can't see anything anyway. New '70s Chevy van with opening doors, including the slider on the side? If you don't want one don't worry about it. I'm sure there are plenty who will. Or to put it another way , , Would you buy a 1/8 figure kit of a Demogorgon? Most here wouldn't but the ST fans will. Same thing with van. The ST fans will buy them up no matter if it has an engine or a 200 piece frame or not . They'll buy all the kits up you guys leave and then some.

I'd bet it is.

Take another closer look, Jurgen. The inner walls of the box are exactly the same on that kit as the regular stepside kit. In the kit, as on the real trucks the outer fiberglass skins were just added to the regular box in place of the regular fenders. They are exactly correct, do not need to be modified at all.

I'm sure it will have the Meteor grille as all the issues of the kit I've ever seen have it. But, it's not a complete grille. It's missing the ends that wrap around the sides of the fenders, never had them.

I was originally very exited when these kits were announced but when I found out the grille/bumper area was out of scale it kinda threw water on my plans. I actually did measure the grille of a real '84 C-20 pickup one of my uncles has a few months ago and found it to me almost exactly 70" across the top of the grille. I don't have one of those kits but I do nave a few MPC/AMT C-10s and found that they're about the right width or possibly a hair wider. Pics I've seen show the Revell grilles are noticeably wider then the MPC. That said, I probably will eventually will build a couple of these, more likely if they bring out a pickup but as it stands now I can wait.

Did that in the late '70s when I was in my early teens. It's something I'd like to try again on something but not by hand with Testors bottle paints.

The kit itself is NOT actually underscale, it's just too short. When I built my AMT '70 restoration last year I did comparisons with it, the MPC '69 shown and the Revell '69 and found they're all almost exactly the same width but the MPC was designed to use the chassis MPC had used for earlier Mustangs since their '66 so it was too short. I found that if I used another MPC body and made the right cuts through the doors and roof of both and grafted the longer halves back together I would have one very nice '69 Mustang body and one very funky short '69 Mustang body.😉

Got this far before I had to go for surgery.

Just depends on your build style. Personally I'll have 2 of the AMT '66 Mustangs on the go soon and I'll just replace the inner fenders. I'm sure what's in the box will be just fine for 95% of the people who actually buy the kit.

Hubcap problem solved, Mark. 😉

Thanks guys. Yea, I guess you really never know until it happens. I think this means we should just build what we want and have some fun while we can. 😄