How was Lindberg able to do this?

[Monty]

After what I'd call some encouraging success in the '90s, ('67 442, '66 Chevelle, '53 Ford) Lindberg came out with a line of 1/25 cars (and a van) with working hydraulic components they originally called Hoppin' Hydros.  

The ones I saw looked like direct ripoffs of AMT stuff, such as this Riviera

a '64 Chevy and an early '70s Chevy van.  There may have been others, but I haven't seen them.  

To my way of thinking, these couldn't have been created without leasing AMT's molds.  Anybody have any inside info?  

[stitchdup]

Dont they share an owner and factory?

[thatz4u]

I believe Round 2 owns both companies now.....

[paul alflen]

I believe that George Totoff (earlier MPC president and owner) bought Lindberg with Ernie Pettit( Testor corp.) in the 1990"s.  It became  part of RPM. Totoff had a  interest in a tooling company in Windsor, Ontatio, Canada in the 1960's. In the 1990's when these models were done he would have the connections to get the tooling done in China . Just send them and Amt or  Mpc or Johan body and tell them to copy it with the engineering changes made to fit the lowrider/ hopper chassis. The caddy lowrider is basically a copy of Johan's 1977-1979 promo with a moved  rear wheelhouse/wheelbase to fit the low rider/ hopper chassis. The Johan  Caddilac promo clear glass fits in the Lindberg lowrider caddy. So that probably how they were copied . Mark, your take on this?

[bisc63]

I think I have one of that series; a pretty nice 64 Impala body, with a chopped top!

[Dave Van]

Lindberg just cloned the bodies off AMT....much cheaper than designing new CAD.

[Mark]

Not the first time...a couple of the only decent kits Palmer ever made are copies of other companies' stuff.  Their 1/32 scale '40 Ford sedan is copied from the AMT 1/32 kit, except Palmer split the body into three pieces to simplify tooling.  Another of their 1/32 kits, a Chaparral, is a copy of another company's kit.

The diecast companies do this too.  I had a couple of 1/18 scale '56 Chevy hardtops that were copied from the Monogram 1/24 kit, screwed-up roofline and all. 

The 1/64 scale diecasts (Hot Wheels, etc) are usually made using 1/24 scale masters as part of the design process.  There was an article in the old Johnny Lightning newsletter that showed a couple of them (they used original designs for theirs).  What would stop someone from using a kit body in place of the carved master?

[paul alflen]

Thank you Mark and Dave Vanfor your knowledge on this!

[Tom Geiger]

There was a story, I believe it was from Roger Harney, about Monogram winning a court case against Palmer for cloning one of their models.  If I remember correctly, Monogram executives went and witnessed the destruction of the mold at the Palmer facility.

[paul alflen]

Tom was it about an airplane that IMC copied from Monogram? If so that  court case from 1971 is on the internet. I Googled Monogram models court case and it came up. Wonder if it took down Industo-motive corp (IMC)? It is an interesting read about copyrights!

[Snake45]

1 hour ago, paul alflen said:

Tom was it about an airplane that IMC copied from Monogram? If so that  court case from 1971 is on the internet. I Googled Monogram models court case and it came up. Wonder if it took down Industo-motive corp (IMC)? It is an interesting read about copyrights!

Very interesting! I'm not familiar with the IMC F-105 but I do have a copy of the disputed IMC A-1E Skyraider, one of the most notorious turds in the history of plastic airplane models. It's quite obvious that IMC directly copied Monograms's A-1E, BUT they altered it from the multiplace A-1E  into the single-seat A-1H/J. This required new fuselage halves, new cockpit, and new canopy. But the new parts were badly done and the resulting model actually represents NOTHING in the real world. It wasn't even marketed as an A-1E so wasn't even really in direct competition with the Monogram kit. I would think that the IMC kit was different enough from the Monogram original to legally not be a copy, especially since IMC also included new "battle damaged" parts in this series of airplane models. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Snake45

[paul alflen]

Thanks Snake for that clarification

[64Comet404]

7 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

There was a story, I believe it was from Roger Harney, about Monogram winning a court case against Palmer for cloning one of their models.  If I remember correctly, Monogram executives went and witnessed the destruction of the mold at the Palmer facility.

There were a couple of cases where one model company would copy the tooling from another company. Revell was caught having copied the Monogram 1/48 B-17, but without copying all the internal fuselage detail. In earlier times (mid 1950s), Airfix copied the Aurora 1/48 Spitfire, but downsized it for their first 1/72 aircraft kit. It is surprising how many times it has happened across the hobby industry.

[mk11]

Continues right to the present day 

A recent much ballyhooed light commercial release and a couple of mid sixties cars had numerous parts copied from older kits. I realize the money just isn't there for large staffs of 'prototypers' but please, for your own reputations' sake, find people that know the subject matter and can develop (or find) accurate parts