SteveG

Peter is right, your rag test isn't exactly how plastic colorants are tested for things like bleed fastness, the solvent fastness of pigments or the solvent solubility of dyes. There are actual standard lab tests for those real issues in the plastics industry. Natural high impact polystyrene or HIPS is actually a very translucent white so all model parts other then the water clear items have some colorant added to them. Anyone who has tried to paint over brightly colored polystyrene with solvent based products and didn't have a problem, consider yourself lucky. After I switched to collision repair grade paints, I stopped attempting to paint over anything molded in brightly molded colors, especially red or yellow. It only took a couple of failures to learn my lesson. I can tell you the reactions I saw had nothing to do with the opaqueness of the finishes I was using. For the record if it's not clear already, I'm no fan of molding kits in any heavily colored plastic. But if the boss says there's still going to be some kits molded in color that's what going to happen. Not everybody can or wants to paint to their model builds. -Steve

I believe the concept they went with is a Show Car Hauler for Ed Roth, what your not seeing is a yet to be announced matching trailer. A close look at the graphics on the rear of the cab lists some of his custom cars. -Steve

Don't forget that the Cab portion still needs to work with all the previous issues that are still viable. It should be fairly accurate for a '71 or '72 model based on when it was first released. Considering the basic body style ran for 33 years, even if they changed some details to earlier or later model trucks, there always will be someone saying they picked wrong. -Steve

I believe one of the trucks that was referenced is this one known as "Old Purple" and you can see the Garwood body has a fair amount of setback to it. There's a nice video of this truck in action on YouTube "Old Purple" Ford C-Series - GarWood LP-900 Rear Load Garbage Truck posted by Thrash 'N' Trash Productions -Steve

From the Drastic Plastic Fotki albums, Here's The Californian original Box Art And a very cleanly built model from the same album -Steve

The last time the Californian kit was issued, the Beatles were still performing live. Underneath that love it or hate it Harry Bradley designed body is basically a stock MPC 1968 Oldsmobile Toronado kit. The Surf Shark Caddy now gives us a stock '59 Miller Meteor Combination body to work with. Those Safe-T-Vu roof lamps have never been done in scale before. Jamie hinted that there's another version coming. This kit is based on AMT's Ecto-1A which still leaves the Polar Lights Ecto-1 in the tooling bank. -Steve

All new tooling I-6 without the big axle hole, otherwise it's a straight up clone of the original customizing kit with the addition of a separate battery, radiator and brake cylinder. Plus the kit will be jam packed with all the Customizing parts and Accessory items jut like the original. -Steve

It comes with both a Manual Trans engine block and the Automatic on separate trees. -Steve

The Drag Hemi display engine will be included along with all the Customizing parts from what I've seen. -Steve

Other than the body and trim parts it's pretty much a stock Toronado underneath. The dash was slightly modified but passes for stock. If there were any gates to be unblocked it would be on the plated tree, but I wouldn't expect to see any stock bumpers included with this kit. -Steve

It's from some existing tooling, last issue of the MPC Toronado as Rob stated. -Steve

This will be the second version of the kit, I wouldn't say final or full detail to describe it. Yes, it will have an actual engine plus a trailer and many other parts just like the original customizing kit did. You could never compare it to a modern full detail kit with separate everything, I think expanded parts count better describes it. It's everything you liked about the first issue plus a lot more. -Steve

The pan notch wouldn't work in this case, The six cylinder engine sits deep enough in the chassis to require a hole through the engine block which I'm pretty sure was eliminated for the upcoming issue. Still no need to totally scratch build a wheel mounting pin, if you take a trip to your local hardware store or home-center you'll find there's a finishing nail size that's the perfect substitute for making stub axles or pins, just trim them to length. You might even already have some if your the household handyman like me. Of course since I switched to an air-nailer a few years back I can't find that box of nails now that I wanted to demonstrate it. -Steve

Those release dates are approximate at best. The AMT 1971 Ford Mustang Mach I will be molded in white this time and includes an expanded decal sheet with more stripe options. The AMT 1937 Chevy "Salt Shaker" will have it's unique parts restored. -Steve

This is a pre-production sample built by Mike Wherry. There's everything in it to build it as a 442 except the sway bar, along with all the original parts. The 442 related parts are newly tooled added pieces. For those who want to build it like the original F85 Cutlass kit just shave the 442 badges and use the original drivetrain parts still included. You could call it a 4n1 as I'm told the extra parts will be mentioned in the instructions somewhere. Box Art is loosely based on the the original '64 F85 Cutlass annual issue. I hope this clears up any confusion. -Steve