Revell '87 Olds Cutlass

[David G.]

Wow, I didn't even know that GM made a Cutlass in 1987! I had a '72 Cutlass S with a 455- insanely fast! That car scared the bajeebers outta me. Were the 87's that fast?

[Brett Barrow]

At least one test shot in plastic exists of this kit. It was at iHobby Expo a couple years ago and was in blue plastic. It was only displayed during the Trade-only days, it was gone by the time the show was open to the public.

[Chuck Most]

Half-hearted diecast tooling or not, I'd have still liked one. I'm surprised no one does a Cutlass transkit for the Monogram GN or AMT/MPC Monte Carlo.

[Zoom Zoom]

Revell seems to have moved away from the practice of releasing plastic kits based on diecast tools, too. They announced the '62 Corvette, but it got canceled ... which kind of sucks because it's easily the best 1/25 scale kit of the subject available. I also would've loved to have seen the "Smokey and the Bandit" Trans Am in plastic.

Not sure why they balked on those, some have claimed that griping over issues with the Mustang interiors was the reason, but that is only rumor AFAIK...however the Corvette has a design issue w/the body that might make injecting it in plastic a big problem. The entire front end around the grille/headlights is one big, thick section of plastic. It could easily cause big, nasty sink marks because those thick and varied wall sections go against proper tooling design for plastic injection...perhaps they simply could not get acceptable results without too much retooling of expensive body components. Glad I got a diecast kit to play with...it sure is a lot nicer than the old AMT '62.

I was looking forward to both in plastic. The Trans Am was a nice one to build, I did replace the lame generic tires with some vintage Monogram radials. It too is a far better kit than the old AMT/MPC Trans Am.

[Art Anderson]

Not sure why they balked on those, some have claimed that griping over issues with the Mustang interiors was the reason, but that is only rumor AFAIK...however the Corvette has a design issue w/the body that might make injecting it in plastic a big problem. The entire front end around the grille/headlights is one big, thick section of plastic. It could easily cause big, nasty sink marks because those thick and varied wall sections go against proper tooling design for plastic injection...perhaps they simply could not get acceptable results without too much retooling of expensive body components. Glad I got a diecast kit to play with...it sure is a lot nicer than the old AMT '62.

I was looking forward to both in plastic. The Trans Am was a nice one to build, I did replace the lame generic tires with some vintage Monogram radials. It too is a far better kit than the old AMT/MPC Trans Am.

One of the common misconceptions about using diecast tooling to produce styrene kits is that it should automatically work, but that's generally not the case. Where a styrene body shell, particularly with the styrene blends used today, will flex and bend enough to be ejected off the core mold forming the inner body shell surfaces, diecast (Zamak) does not do that (flex Zamak, it says "flexed" or in other words, bent and misshapen, may well even crack or split). So, diecast model car bodies get very straight-sided inner shapes, with a good bit of "draft angle" in order for the body shell to slide easily off that inner core mold.

Increasing the thickness of styrene or any other thermoplastic can, and will, increase the noticeable shrinkage upon cooling (remember, styrene is heated so that it is a thick, pancake syrup like liquid for injection molding), which is what can make those nasty shrink marks in a body shell for which the tooling was done years ago, with harder, more brittle styrene blends no longer in use today. To see a plastic model kit body done in styrene but from a diecast tool, one need only look at Revell Monogram's 1/24 scale '48 MGTC, Jaguar XK-120, '53 Corvette or '56 Thunderbird. Those kits all started out as plastic models with diecast Zamak bodies back in 1978-79. All were fairly slabsided bodies, with few truly thick areas, although I've marveled that the Corvette, with its severe undercuts at front and rear, didn't seem to have that much in the way of sink marks (at least on the one I have). By comparison, the undercuts at the front of the Johnny Lightning 1/24 scale '51 Studebaker Commander Starlight (which I was in charge of product development, BTW) make for a "nose" that is literally almost 3/4 inch thick, and I simply cannot imagine the sink mark nightmares shooting that one in styrene would bring about.

Then there is the issue of door and body panel lines. Those are made by tooling a body shell mold with raised ridges on the inside of the tooling slide cores, to make that recessed panel line we modelers like to see. Now in a mold engineered for styrene, those can be made seemingly as fine as a human hair, and they will show up in the final product. However with the far higher heat of diecasting Zamak, those ridges have a minimum dimension requirement, in order that the steel (while hardened) doesn't just burn away over time, which it eventually will. For that reason, diecast tooling has a far more limited life than any tools cut for molding styrene, measured often in hundreds of thousands of castings, as opposed to literally millions in the case of at least a few styrene plastic kits. With that in mind, the raised ridges to make door and body panel lines in a tooling made for a diecast have to be far heavier, making for overscale door lines, panel lines and the like.

Revell Monogram has a tradition of going for the highest in scale appearance (I know, there have been serious criticisms of some of their releases over the years), and if they feel that a particular diecast tool, once shot in styrene, doesn't meet up with their expectations of what a decent plastic model kit should look like, who are we to argue?

Not me.

Art

[Art Anderson]

the last of the rear wheel drive Cutlasses were far from fast, even the Hurst version was pretty well a dog performance wise, it did look good though

Revell could use the existing Buick tooling to make a Cutlass but since the Buick is 1/24 scale i don't see it happening. the kit we were supposed to be seeing we never will and from what i've heard and seen that's okay. there was some hoopla on the 'net a few years back maybe from some west coasters who had supposedly worked a deal with Revell to do a special, limited run of the kits but that never happened.

Dave

Dave, only if the tool was designed to get an alternative body, interior AND engine. It's not always possible to just slip this out, and than in, with an injection molding tool--seldom are such tools designed for that to happen. Couple that with new chrome tree tool, clear red for taillights, and likely it would be easier (and less costly) to just do an all new tool, going back to tooling mockups for such parts as may be common to both cars, if indeed those mockups are still around and usable (they may not be, may not have survived the original toolmaking processes (that happens a lot too).

Art

[Tonioseven]

At least one test shot in plastic exists of this kit. It was at iHobby Expo a couple years ago and was in blue plastic. It was only displayed during the Trade-only days, it was gone by the time the show was open to the public.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Tonioseven

[montelsc]

From what I understand from Revell, it was scrapped indefinatly. I don't think we'll ever see it.

that sucks i used to own an 83 i would love to have this kit