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The Newhart car isn't even close to the one in the opening of Newhart. It even says The Bob Newhart Show on the box. That was the title of the 70s series. He walks to work in that intro. Newhart is the 80s series with the brown Olds 4 dr sedan in the intro. I have no idea why they'd issue such an incorrect model.

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It is.

Yeah, I Googled it after I said that! :lol: I thought Revell did do that for real, because I remember seeing the Ferrari and TC's chopper, just couldn't remember if I had actually seen the van. 

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I imagine the AMT Matilda Ford van didn't sell very well; the movie utterly tanked at the box office and was pulled from release. Probably AMT's worst marketing goof since The Hero?

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And they didn't even include a 1/25 scale boxing kangaroo! :wacko:

I remember seeing this kit in the 1979 catalog, but have never seen one in person.   

Similarly, there was the 'New Monkees' '87 Mustang GT convertible (with '83 interior and engine) that Monogram put out...I think the TV show had already been cancelled when the kit came out.    And how about the AMT 'Knight Rider 2000' custom thingy?   That was a dud I bet...

Edited by Rob Hall
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I'd love to get Tim Boyd's or Art Anderson's take. If I remember correctly one of AMT's poorest sellers was the Thomas Flyer. The poorest selling series more than likely was the Aurora Racing Scenes cars. Please note I said poorest selling and not poorest kits.....those were great kits with unfortunately high retail prices.

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I remember a time when that RoboCop Taurus was everywhere at rock bottom prices and still didn't sell. I cannot vouch for kit quality but the subject matter seemed to be universally unappealing. 

It might have built ok, but it didn't look too good due to the exaggerated and soft panel lines that AMT were into at the time. I had the kit, and got as far as assembling the engine before I threw it all away. It was that exciting. I had never seen an actual Taurus V6 before, and the kit one seemed to have some real wonky proportions (to my untrained European eyes. (The Taurus was not sold in Norway where I lived at the time)).

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It might have built ok, but it didn't look too good due to the exaggerated and soft panel lines that AMT were into at the time. I had the kit, and got as far as assembling the engine before I threw it all away. It was that exciting. I had never seen an actual Taurus V6 before, and the kit one seemed to have some real wonky proportions (to my untrained European eyes. (The Taurus was not sold in Norway where I lived at the time)).

The big problem w/ the RoboCop Taurus (and the regular Taurus police car kit) is they were based on the Taurus SHO body and trim, and had the SHO Yamaha V6 rather than a regular Ford V6 the police packages used, so they were kind of phony police car kits...

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I remember that Matilda van kit collecting dust for years in Los Angeles toy and discount stores.  Kit swap-meet vendors couldn't give them away either.  The REVELL John Travolta "Firebird Fever" also seemed to hang around on the shelves for years. 

Another sales flop around the same time - the ERTL 1/25 farm tractor kits.  I remember a local toy store having stacks of those kits at deep discount.  And I've been kicking myself for years that I didn't buy every one of them!

I'd also like to see some of our insiders weigh in on the subject of sales flops.  I recently read an old thread saying the new REVELL Midget Racers didn't sell as well as expected.  I checked eBay, where I found quite a few Midgets for sale. Many were offered at reasonable prices, others at ridiculous prices from the usual "RARE COLLECTIBLE VINTAGE!!!" gonks.

 

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I remember from the late eighties an Italeri (also reboxed as Testors) Volvo 760 that seemed to sit on store shelves for forever and a half despite being competitively priced. Do you guys remember / share my opinion on that one? 

You mean this one? Picked this one up, factory sealed for under $10CDN.

IMG_20160608_1922288_zpsjvlkjaed.jpg

 

I love these quirky kits. so any of the kits in the link I originally posted would be fun to me. The Newhart Oldsmobile, the Alf Ferrari, I think they'd be hilarious. And as a VW nut and formaer van owner, I'm actively hunting for a Magnum PI VW T3. :)

 

 

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