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Revell's "Hot Rod Hydro" - What's New and Different with this reissue?


tim boyd

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Went to Wikipedia and looked up Chrysler hemi and found twelve different cubic inch hemi's from the 50/60's

392 was a Chrysler and 341 was a Desoto engine Cubic inches ranged from 241 to 392 until the late 60 intro of the 426 The 'hemi' hydro should have 'firedome' heads

greg

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Went to Wikipedia and looked up Chrysler hemi and found twelve different cubic inch hemi's from the 50/60's

392 was a Chrysler and 341 was a Desoto engine Cubic inches ranged from 241 to 392 until the late 60 intro of the 426 The 'hemi' hydro should have 'firedome' heads

greg

The irony is that the current "Hemi" is technically not a Hemi.......

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Norm at Replicas and Miniatures makes a conversion set to turn this, and the Hemi Hydro, back into the original 60's issue "Go and Show" Drag Boat.

Yes...the conversion set is pictured and described in detail in my on-line review in the link of the original post. Original box art, too, in case anyone has not yet looked at the link. Cheers..>TIM .

Edited by tim boyd
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Calnaga Castings has a nice jet drive for boat kits, however you must remember that prop drive boats are faster than jet drives. I followed drag boat racing as well as Unlimited Hydro Plane racing back in the 90's for 'bout 7-8 years. It was a blast.

Agreed, Steve's jet drive boat castings are outstanding....they are sized for the AMT Hull Raiser kit, but I presume they would adapt well for the Revell Hot Rod Hydro.

Steve also makes a revised seating unit, ,again sized for the Hull Raiser, that might be too narrow to adapt to the Hot Rod Hydro's much wider hull.

Steve did an article on his ski boat model using his conversion pieces in MCM several years ago.

Cheers....TIM

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I have two issues of this boat in my stash, the combo kit with the 65 Chevy step side and the 1971 issue that has been started by someone a long time ago. I do have plans on building one with a MPC Corvette body on it as I found some really cool pictures online that gave me the idea:

P1100329.jpg

P1100330.jpg

And here is some of the pictures I found:

1963_corvette_speed_boat01.jpg

1963_corvette_speed_boat02.jpg

1963_corvette_speed_boat10.jpg

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Great review, as usual Tim.

I also wondered about the change from "Hemi" to "Hot Rod." We know that Revell has licensing for the Hemi name, but maybe has to pay each time? Perhaps this was done to widen the appeal to anti-Hemi folks? (as if there is anyone out there who doesn't love a Hemi :angry: )

This appears to be a great canvas for a nice boat/land vehicle set. I can't wait to see what you guys will do with it...

...

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  • 4 weeks later...

Rob...the AMT kit is a replica of the Kindsvater hull, powered by a SOHC 427 Ford.  This comt is a major rehahs of the original AMT  Rayson Craft Trophy Ser es kit of 1963.  

This version of the AMT was originally released as the "Hull Raiser" in 1968, along with a combo kit version including the AMT Custom 1968 Firebird.  It was again reissued in a combo kit with AMT's Chevy C25 Van around 1975, as the "Aqau Rod" version you mentioned.  It was last riessued around 2005 or so as a Model King kit in combo with the MPc 1970 Bonneville convertible.  

At this link you can see multiple built up versions of both the  Revell and AMT kits.  http://public.fotki.com/funman1712/tim-boyds-124th--12/boyd-model-boats/boyd-boats-/

Cheersl.TIM 

 ,  

 

 

 

Edited by tim boyd
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Thanks heaps for that Tim, I've been chasing an Aqua Rod Van kit for my van collection but have been unable to get one so far. Checking box arts online I learnt it had a Ford engine but was wondering how similar they'd be. I was going to maybe get some aftermarket Aqua Rod decals and build up a Chev van and Hot Rod Hydro and decal the pair as Aqua Rod if they were close. Interesting to check out the differences.

Thanks again.

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  • 3 years later...
On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2015 at 6:49 AM, Snake45 said:

I just looked at the instruction sheets for the original and the SSP reissue, and I'm confused.

 

Revell seems to have you mount the engine backwards.

 

To clarify, the engine SHOULD be mounted backwards (at least it is on every one of this kind of boat I've ever seen), and they want you to mount it frontwards.

 

They have the driveshaft coming out of the front cover, instead of from the flywheel end of the engine. Is this real? Was this ever actually done by anyone?

Snake,

           The orientation of which end of the engine goes forward, usually depends on the boat's useage. Drag boats, by and large, have the driveline taken off of the flywheel end, which is also the heaviest duty mounting for a driveline adaptor. However, in the early days of drag boats, the popular engines being used, like the 394 Olds or 354/392 Chrysler hemi, had very large, heavy duty crank snouts which could handle the tremendous amounts of torque. So, for the most part, the engines are mounted backwards on the majority of Drag boats and ski boats, with the exception of the earliest ones, BUT...…..Boats that require turning at high speed, like circle race or endure style boats will most often take the driveline off of the crank snout on the timing cover end. In this way, the engine's torque actually "helps" the boat to turn. The Weber-carbed small block Chevy photo that AFX posted is a circle race boat....as was the original Revell kit "Varooom", an SK class circle boat, so driving off the crank snout on those two is proper . Yes, this style of drive generally requires a left-hand turning prop, as opposed to a right-handed prop used on flywheel-forward boats. The overwhelmingly appropriate side to place the driver is , like your car, on the left side. Some Jet boats and outboards will put the driver on the right, likely more due to the hand throttles mounted on the right gunwale ( the inside edge of the passenger compartment).

1422352_409265935932826_7483376926195345259_n.jpg

10405232_409265969266156_7671333699624027235_n.jpg

18' Stevens Woodeck at show.jpg

Adios Two engines 2.jpg

backside of 1968 Moon catalog.jpg

Edited by spike morelli
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  • 1 year later...

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