Force

Yes I don't think any international buyer is happy with this "program", it rather scares them away instead of helping them. The seller don't have to go through the Global Shipping Program if they don't want to, it's up to them what shipping form they choose. I see several auctions on ebay US where First Class Mail International or regular Priority Mail are the shipping options...so you can still do them if you want to and skip this lousy program.

Okay, Thanks!

I'm not a rivet counter by all means and the world doesn't go under for a millimeter here and there as long as it can be fixed. But I think a kit of whatever it is should at least have fairly correct stuff in it, an engine wich is at least close to the thing that's supposed to be in there, same with the suspension, axles and much of the frame. I don't like to buy a truck kit that's supposed to be for example a Volvo F16 or FH16 and find the same outdated TD120C engine, drive train and frame as all their Volvo F12 has had since the very beginning, that's not even close to what these trucks should have wich is a TD162 engine for the F16 and D16 engine for the FH16, both looks a lot different than the TD120...so everything is wrong except the frame and cab. Same with the Scania 164 and R 500, they have the same old DS14 engine as the 142 and 143 kits (the 143 should even have had an Intercooled DSC14 but didn't), that's also wrong as Scania did totally new engine platforms after the 143 series and the DC16 wich it should have been looks a lot different than the DS14...so just because it's a Scania engine doesn't mean it's right. The Italeri Volvo F6 kit shares everything with the Renault, Iveco-Magirus and DAF kits and has an air cooled Deutz V6 engine...the cab is shared between them so that's correct, but Volvo has never had any air cooled engines and the F6 should have a Volvo TD60. Some of the American trucks has older style Cummins NTC engines that Italeri only did a few new parts for and want's us to believe it's a N14...not so correct there either as a NTC and N14 looks a bit different, and some are on the wrong chassis so the suspension is wrong and so on.. Same goes for the RoG Marmon, it's so wrong that I wouldn't give a dime for it,...kits like that is not what I want to put my money into. What everyone else does is up to them.

Yes it's stated in the listing but I avoid these auctions as I think the cost for this is way too much.

Yes they are and that's why I still have the ones I have, but most of their other trucks aren't.

Can we leave this and get back on topic.

Sounds pretty much like an Italeri American truck to me. Well, Italeri does the cab, hood and related parts pretty much right so they are a little better...but the rest of the truck kit is often wrong.

I find this new "Customs Services and International Tracking" thing (scam) totally unnecessary and bad for both the buyer and seller. The seller maybe thinks it will make it easier for international buyers to bid and buy their things, but in fact I believe it scares most of them off with what you have to pay just for this so called "service". If you use it the shipping is allways Priority Mail Intl wich almost is double the price of First Class Mail Intl and the tracking and the few days faster shipping isn't worth that much, secondly you must pay import charges on every purchase...85% of the deals I have done on ebay these past few years I haven't had to pay anything as most slips through Customs without charge...so why would I want to pay everytime...no I want to take care of the import charges myself if it comes to that. A lot of times the cost of this so called "service" way exceeds the cost of the parts or model I want to buy and pay double or even more than that isn't what I want to do, one example, if a part I want to bid on is on ebay and this "shipping customs service thing" is on, the part maybe costs lets say $2.50...but the cost of the "service" is around $35.00...so the total price of this part will be $37.50...yeah like I will pay that for one lousy part when I can get a complete model and shipped for that price...no way in ****.

Where did you get the Weld Delta 1 rear wheels??

Okay it might be a bit worse then...but not much.

One might call it nitpicking but I for one want my models to be as accurate as they can be and if the kit itself isn't correct in several places I woun't buy and build it...that's the main reason I stopped buying Italeri kits, I had lots of them before but sold them off so I only have four in my stash now, one Scania 142M Roadrunner, one Peterbilt 378 Long Hauler, one Volvo VN 780 (no engine ...!!) and one Freightliner FLC. Italeri mostly take shortcuts and re-use wrong or outdated stuff for their kits instead of doing new correct parts in the chassis and engines department and I don't like to waste my money on such kits, and the RoG Marmon isn't much worse than many of the Italeri kits. So if Italeri would make this truck I hope they will do it right and not take the same shortcuts they usually do, otherwise it's a no buy for me...I rather put my money on better more accurate kits such as the Moebius offerings.

I think you have a point there Norman, the diecast industry has most likely killed off much of the NHRA and NASCAR racing model kit market...back before the diecast models people who wanted a model of their favourite drivers cars had to buy a model kit...nothing else was available to them. The diecast industry also did exclusive deals with many racing teams so they were the only ones licensed to do models of their cars...much as John Force Racing...diecast only...and if the model kit companys couldn't make and sell model kits of the most popular drivers cars the market gets a lot narrower. Today the cost of licensing and small market doesn't make it worth doing kits of these cars anymore. I know back in 1997 Revell planned to do John Force's Firebird FC...it was even in the catalog for that year...but the kit was canceled due to licensing issues, Revell did the Firebird FC kit but cars with other drivers instead (C Pedregon McDonalds - J Toliver MAD - R Anderson Parts America and a couple of generic race specific cars)...bad for a John Force fan like me. I don't know...but I think a John Force FC model kit would have sold pretty well. I like your daydreams, I would also have liked generic fictional models of modern up to date Top Fuel , Funny Car and even Pro Stock kits...I for one would get several each...as you say, the aftermarket would probably fill the need for decals. This hasn't been tried before...yes generic models of race cars has been out before...but not of current up to date racing cars...and as nothing else except for the old out dated kits is available for us modelers it might work, licensing would be less of a problem as they already have most of the needed licenses to do the cars. What licencing are needed to do these? Top Fuel...McKinney, Hadman, DSR for the chassis design, Chrysler for engines as the basic design are theirs?... KB, AJPE, BAE, JFR only does inhanced "copys". Funny Car...McKinney, Hadman, DSR, JFR, for chassis, Ford (wich are leaving), Dodge, Toyota for bodys, engines as above...? Pro Stock...Haas, Bickel, RJ for chassis, Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge for bodies and engines...?

The Generation 5 Camaro came 2010 but the body style wasn't approved by NHRA until 2012, so the first NHRA Pro Stock Camaro's were 2012 models. But as they look basically the same from 2010 to 2013 it doesn't matter that much, the 2014 is changed some tho'

As far as I know that's correct...Ford Engine Blue for King engines.

The grille looks like an upside down 42-47 Ford COE truck grille.

Nice Slump Buster. A better choise for front wheels are the ones from the old Jo-Han 71 'Cuda, if you don't have any Competition Resins have them, they are also sold by Slixx.

It's funny with the Skip Hess Revell Kit car, the car was sponsored by Revell Inc. but as far as I know they never did a model kit of it.

Yup, this tooling is very out of date and needs a lot of correcting to get to modern standards, a lot has happened since the last version of the tooling 1997 as the updates Revell did to the tooling then was too little and too late to get up to the specs even for the time they were done. The funny thing is...not much has happened hardware wise on the real cars since Revell stopped releasing "new updated" Funny Cars and Top Fuelers in the early 2000's. The latest of the modern era Top Fuel Dragster kits from Revell was the Bernstein Bud King and the Schumacher Army cars released back in 2002 and they are the most updated version of that tooling, not enough to be up to the specs for the time tho'...but IF Revell had done all necessary updating to the TF kits back then the tooling would still have worked very well today 12 years later as a current Top Fuel Dragster still looks pretty much like they did back in 2002 and the kit would have needed very little to be up to current status. The same with the Funny Cars, except for the bodies, wheels and cage around the driver they haven't changed that much since 2002 either. Many FC and TF teams started to use the set-back blower that everyone uses today around 2002-3 and many of the other things we see on the cars today came before that so after 2002-3 not much has been done to the cars that are that visible. So needed updates to get the TF and FC kits closer to today's standard are: The engines in both the TF and FC kits needs new intake manifold and set-back 14-71 blower with bag and hold down straps, a larger carbon fibre injector hat (wich the 2002 TF kits had), MSD Pro Mag 44 magnetos with boxes and coils, titanium valve covers with covers for the spark plugs, a slightly larger titanium bell housing for the 5-disc clutch (the TF one isn't that bad but the FC needs a totally new one), the fuel management systems also needs some updating with Sid Waterman Mega Bertha Fuel pumps and feed tubes and the mandatory slide valve that all use now, some barrel valves, shut off valves and some other maybe for optional use would also have been nice to have. The chassis also need some updating, the roll cage around the driver is wider with more padding (especially in a FC), has more bars and a titanium shield to protect the drivers head from flying debris, they need the oildown protection belly pans and the larger blow by oil scavenge tanks, Funny Cars needs a new fuel tank and an oil tank for the dry sump beside it (yes FC's has had dry sump oil system since at least back in the late 80's) and an air bottle for the driver. The TF kits needs new wings both rear and front as the rear wing has allways been 2-element in the kits but 3-element wings has been used on the real cars since about 1997-98 (Revell never updated the rear wing other than new end plates) and the front wing is a separate whole piece in front of the nose cone on the real cars and appeared for the first time in 1998 on Joe Amato's car and the rest came in after that, and therefore also a new body and wind shield are needed in the kits, the TF kits have also needed a new fuel tank since the very beginning as they have never looked like they do in the kits. Both the TF and FC kits needs new wheels. Front wheels, preferably a couple of different current designs like Magnum PRO, Aluma Star and V-Series from Weld Racing, and maybe the ARE series Qualifier, Track Star and Torque Thrust Pro (the American Racing Pro Series wheels wich are sold by Weld today). The Weld Racing Magnum PRO and Aluma Star PRO rear bead lock wheels with the required SFI 15.4 tag are used by most of the racers in nitro racing today so they are obvoius choises...some may even use the fairly new Weld Delta 1 wheel wich also are available with SFI 15.4 tag and has become very popular in Pro Stock. The Schumacher TF canopy maybe aren't that necessary as there aren't that many who use them yet except for the 3 DSR drivers and Brittany Force but would be a nice optional part. And of course the FC kits needs new bodies...not that I like the look of the "wedges with humps" body styles they drive today but they are needed to do a current Funny Car. .

Just to clear things up a bit, the red Mr Gasket Gasser was a later 69-70 Mustang body style, the blue Malco Gasser was the earlier 67-68. Underneath was the Malco Gasser and the first version of the Mr Gasket Gasser pretty much the same except for a couple of things and the MPC model kits of the two were the same except for the body and decals, the engine in the real car was later changed from a blown "Cammer" to the dual turbo Boss 429.

Yes that's right. I got at least one of each evolution of these kits, all Funny Car kits wich started with the Monogram Don Prudhomme Pepsi/Wendy's, Dale Pulde Miller Warrior Pontiac Trans Am's and Billy Meyer Chief Autoparts Ford Mustang in 1984 via the Monogram Ford Tempo from 1986, the Revell Olds Cutlass from 1989, Dodge Avenger from 1995 and up to the Pontiac Firebird from 1997 are based on the same tooling...including the Mongoo$e 57 Chevy...and share the same chassis and pretty much everything else. Some things were updated during the years tho'. We'll start with the wheels, the first kits had Weld Drag Lite, then Weld Pro Star for some of the Olds and finally a strange hybrid of the Weld Pro Star and Centerline Convo Pro that never looked right for the Avenger and Firebird. Further updates were dual magnetos and dual plug valve covers and electronics box wich came with the Olds, the rear end got changed to a Chrisman in the Avenger, the blower got a bag and hold down straps, the injector hat got larger with straps and the wheelie bar was changed to a single with the Firebird, and a few things more.

That's just the "sold page", if you click on the picture you'll be forwarded to the original auction and pictures of the contents, yes the model was started and the chassis and engine was partly built and looks okay, only the cab, hood, rear body and battery was painted, the rest wasn't...and if the box is bad doesn't matter that much...the main reason is that all contents are there. So I don't know but I still thinks it was fairly cheap. I just did a quick search for Tyrone Malone's trucks on ebay and there are two Bandag Bandits up for sale right now, one for 200 and one for 400 bucks "buy now" and two Super Bosses, one for $180 and one for $250 "buy now". There are also one Papa Truck up for auction and the bidding is up to $101 at the moment, and one Hideout Truck is up for sale for "buy now" $150...all these are unbuilt I have to add.

It looks like it ended at $36 + $25 for shipping...that's still quite cheap for a complete Bandag Bandit.

I didn't have that big of a problem with the AMT White Freightliner when I built it in my teenage years, it came together pretty much straight forward if I remember correctly...it was 35+ years ago tho'. I also did the AMT KW W925, the GMC General, the Pete 352 and 359, and the Ertl International Transstar II and Mack DM600 back then and all came together quite good. But the Freightliner isn't much of a multi piece body...it's just three parts to do the outer shell of the cab, the Italeri trucks has multi piece bodies and they consists of at least five pieces to do just the cab, front, left and right sides, back wall and roof, and the interior consists of several separate pieces, floorboard, roof, sides and back wall and they have to be put in with the outer parts so you can't do the interior and cab separately, I have also built some of them and with patience they are not that big of a problem to put together.

Yes the "1100 Series" cab replaced the Unilite "small Window" cab 1972 so it has to be before that, and 1969 is a round number so why not.

Well it's nearly 24 hours left of the auction and the price will most likely go up some before it ends, but anything under $100 is a good deal for one of these. I allready have two of these unbuilt so you're safe from me...I promise I will not bid.