AMT Modified Stockers

[stavanzer]

This is a case where just a straight re-issue will fall flat. Ditching the Two Piece Slicks(forever!) would help as well.

Also, open up every blocked off bit in the tooling, especially on the chrome trees. As a last thought, include the huge No Name Treaded Tires that originally appeared in the 80's-90's Michael Keaton Batmobile. They are an almost Drop fit on the rims from the modified stockers. Two Kinds of tires, Revised Decals, and extra parts, and these kits will be snapped up by those in the know. And every other Hobby Lobby buyer will pull the trigger based on Box Art, Decals and Tires.

[Casey]

On 10/18/2019 at 8:03 PM, RichCostello said:

Any chance that any of the others will come back? I'd like to get the 64 Galaxie, and 65 Fairlane(never had those).

The 1965 Fairlane Modified Stocker is coming back in 2020, and any others which were reissued during the RC2 era are likely reasonable candidates for reissue within the next few years, too.

I would expect box art close to the original issue this time around, with the usual updated decal sheet and a few extra bits among the chrome parts, similar to the '65 Chevelle Mod Stocker which was just released:

[Tom Geiger]

On 10/4/2019 at 6:55 PM, Snake45 said:

and the stock rear panel is replaced by an interesting (molded in) grid or mesh pattern that I think would look great for a mid-'60s custom. 

I'm looking to do the Falcon for the 24 Hour Build.   I'm not a fan of that mesh back panel and am looking for a way to get rid of it.  

[Snake45]

28 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

I'm looking to do the Falcon for the 24 Hour Build.   I'm not a fan of that mesh back panel and am looking for a way to get rid of it.  

The Falcon has it too? I was talking about the Chevelle. 

If the Falcon has it and you don't want it, just cut it out and replace it with sheet styrene. 

[Pete L.]

The chrome tree from the Impala has the "Mystery Motor" factory headers included, really cool IMHO !

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Pete L.

[slusher]

On 1/8/2020 at 12:37 PM, Casey said:

The 1965 Fairlane Modified Stocker is coming back in 2020, and any others which were reissued during the RC2 era are likely reasonable candidates for reissue within the next few years, too.

I would expect box art close to the original issue this time around, with the usual updated decal sheet and a few extra bits among the chrome parts, similar to the '65 Chevelle Mod Stocker which was just released:

Any idea when any of the stockers might be out Casey?

[espo]

15 hours ago, Pete L. said:

The chrome tree from the Impala has the "Mystery Motor" factory headers included, really cool IMHO !

 

The headers along with several other parts were in the initial 3in1 AMT '66 Impala SS kit also.  They are a copy of what GM provided to the NASCAR teams starting with the '63 Impala "Mystery Motor" race cars. They were cast iron as I understand. 

[Casey]

12 hours ago, slusher said:

Any idea when any of the stockers might be out Casey?

Judging by Tim Boyd's advance copy and review of the '65 Chevelle, very soon. ? I would expect the others to arrive in late spring ('66 Impala) and July-ish for the '65 Fairlane. I figure a six month cushion between announcement and general availability is about right in most cases.

Looking on eBay, most of the previous issues of the AMT Mod Stockers are available to buy right now for $30 or so, which is a bit less than the $33 MSRP of these forthcoming Round2 reissues, so unless any new or bonus parts make the 2020 reissues must haves, you can have them now if you wish.

[slusher]

3 hours ago, Casey said:

Judging by Tim Boyd's advance copy and review of the '65 Chevelle, very soon. ? I would expect the others to arrive in late spring ('66 Impala) and July-ish for the '65 Fairlane. I figure a six month cushion between announcement and general availability is about right in most cases.

Looking on eBay, most of the previous issues of the AMT Mod Stockers are available to buy right now for $30 or so, which is a bit less than the $33 MSRP of these forthcoming Round2 reissues, so unless any new or bonus parts make the 2020 reissues must haves, you can have them now if you wish.

Casey after I asked you, I watched the video. I don’t see the Chevelle stocker on Modelroundup.com coming soon page..

[stavanzer]

That's Okay, Carl. Chad shows at least one coming. The others will follow in due time.

[Casey]

On 1/8/2020 at 12:37 PM, Casey said:

I would expect box art close to the original issue this time around

[CabDriver]

So, as someone who would like to build one of the kits from this series, is there one that stands out in particular as being a better builder than the others?

I don’t much mind WHICH of the series it is - I just feel like building a roundy-racer!  Any recommendations before I pick one at random?

[Snake45]

Just now, CabDriver said:

So, as someone who would like to build one of the kits from this series, is there one that stands out in particular as being a better builder than the others?

I don’t much mind WHICH of the series it is - I just feel like building a roundy-racer!  Any recommendations before I pick one at random?

I don't think there's a great deal of difference between them. Pick your favorite body style, or whichever one you run across first, or cheapest. Personally, I'm partial to the Skylark, Chevelle, and Impala, but that's just me. 

[CabDriver]

Just now, Snake45 said:

I don't think there's a great deal of difference between them. Pick your favorite body style, or whichever one you run across first, or cheapest. Personally, I'm partial to the Skylark, Chevelle, and Impala, but that's just me. 

That’s pretty much what I figured the answer would be from reading this thread and googling pics of them, but I figured it was work asking in case one was a LOT better than the others for some reason. Thanks buddy!  

[slusher]

25 minutes ago, CabDriver said:

That’s pretty much what I figured the answer would be from reading this thread and googling pics of them, but I figured it was work asking in case one was a LOT better than the others for some reason. Thanks buddy!  

That’s kinda how I feel get one you buy one you like. One is coming out each month!

[CabDriver]

3 minutes ago, slusher said:

That’s kinda how I feel get one you buy one you like. One is coming out each month!

I can already see myself ending up doing them all, like I can see myself doing all 6 of those MPC trikes too ??

[tim boyd]

18 hours ago, CabDriver said:

So, as someone who would like to build one of the kits from this series, is there one that stands out in particular as being a better builder than the others?

I don’t much mind WHICH of the series it is - I just feel like building a roundy-racer!  Any recommendations before I pick one at random?

Actually I disagree here with some of you guys....I haven't seen all of these kits but the ones I have seen are mostly minor redos of old annual kit tooling. 

The one that stands out as a "step beyond" is the '65 Chevelle Modified Stocker.  That was my take after reviewing this particular kit in the Modified Stockers series here.  I know it still falls well short of the standards for a fully accurate kit today, but the degree of modification on this kit went well beyond the scope of the other Modified Stockers kits, again, at least the ones I have seen.   

So Cab, my recommendation would be to try the Chevelle kit....TIM 

 

[CabDriver]

29 minutes ago, tim boyd said:

Actually I disagree here with some of you guys....I haven't seen all of these kits but the ones I have seen are mostly minor redos of old annual kit tooling. 

The one that stands out as a "step beyond" is the '65 Chevelle Modified Stocker.  That was my take after reviewing this particular kit in the Modified Stockers series here.  I know it still falls well short of the standards for a fully accurate kit today, but the degree of modification on this kit went well beyond the scope of the other Modified Stockers kits, again, at least the ones I have seen.   

So Cab, my recommendation would be to try the Chevelle kit....TIM 

 

I remembered that you had reviewed one of these kits recently but hadn’t taken the time to look it up to re-read it yet - you beat me to it!  

Thanks Tim!  Appreciate the recommendation! 

Jim

[Mark]

1 hour ago, tim boyd said:

Actually I disagree here with some of you guys....I haven't seen all of these kits but the ones I have seen are mostly minor redos of old annual kit tooling. 

 

Sadly, not so minor that they could be restored to stock.  Lots of trim and detail engraving wiped from nearly every part, in most cases only the engines were left alone.  The Torino fastback was one notable exception.  

The Chevelle got more rework than the others because it had been altered once already, for the altered wheelbase funny car.  

I remember seeing these kits when they were first issued.  I didn't know how the alterations were done, but even then it was pretty easy to see that the original stock versions were unlikely to ever come back.  But then again it wasn't a big deal for AMT to have done these.  The previous issues of most of these kits hadn't sold well.  I had prior issues of a couple of them that I picked up on clearance after the Modified Stocker issues appeared.  So at the time, these were probably looked at as "let's get one more hit off of these tools before they hit the scrap pile".  But eight of the nine still exist (with the GTO having been converted back to stock years ago).

 

[tim boyd]

14 hours ago, Mark said:

Sadly, not so minor that they could be restored to stock.  Lots of trim and detail engraving wiped from nearly every part, in most cases only the engines were left alone.  The Torino fastback was one notable exception.  

The Chevelle got more rework than the others because it had been altered once already, for the altered wheelbase funny car.  

I remember seeing these kits when they were first issued.  I didn't know how the alterations were done, but even then it was pretty easy to see that the original stock versions were unlikely to ever come back.  But then again it wasn't a big deal for AMT to have done these.  The previous issues of most of these kits hadn't sold well.  I had prior issues of a couple of them that I picked up on clearance after the Modified Stocker issues appeared.  So at the time, these were probably looked at as "let's get one more hit off of these tools before they hit the scrap pile".  But eight of the nine still exist (with the GTO having been converted back to stock years ago).

 

Yep, didn't mean to suggest that they could be restored to stock.  

To add to Mark's point, AMT's new President at the time, Tom Gannon, was a hard-nosed businessman who according to several people I've interviewed over the years probably saved AMT from going out of business.  The Modified Stockers series was an attempt to redeploy unused assets to generate new sales revenue.  The other alternative was to scrap these old tools for tax writeoff purposes.  That's what happened to other old tools like the AMT 1963 F100 and Apache pickup tools.  

 

TIM  

[Snake45]

Here's a possible answer to the problem: 

1. Buy the '65 Chevelle mod stocker kit. 

2. Cut off its top and graft it onto the upcoming '64 Cutlass convertible to make your own Cutlass hardtop. 

3. Replace the Chevelle body on the mod stocker frame with the body from some old glue bomb or sub-par model in your possession. 

You end up with not just one but two cool models nobody else has! 

[Draggon]

5 hours ago, Snake45 said:

Here's a possible answer to the problem: 

1. Buy the '65 Chevelle mod stocker kit. 

2. Cut off its top and graft it onto the upcoming '64 Cutlass convertible to make your own Cutlass hardtop. 

3. Replace the Chevelle body on the mod stocker frame with the body from some old glue bomb or sub-par model in your possession. 

You end up with not just one but two cool models nobody else has! 

Or keep the Chevelle body and make a convertible modified like this. 

[Fabrux]

Are the massive slick tires typical of this style of race car or track specific? I confess I don't know much about the style of racing these cars would do, but they are fascinating to me. I just keep thinking that they should be running something closer to Nascar sized wheels?

['70 Grande]

I believe the racing tires found in these Modified Stocker kits aren't specific to any race tracks, but could be considered "region-specific". What I mean by that is that in the mid-1960's thru mid-1970's, dirt track race cars were built based on parts, (including tires), and methods that were popular, (and successful on the track), in their region. 

I believe, in the northeastern region of the US, these big tires were popular during that era; (might have been popular in the southeastern US, too). Here in the midwest, I don't recall ever seeing the big tires on the track. 

Any other opinions out there regarding my "regional" theory?

[stavanzer]

Looking forward to the '65 Ford kit. It looks to have had at least some of the extra parts added back in, and it has all new decals. I wonder which Mod Stock kit is up next? I'm hoping for the Buick or Olds, but the '64 Ford would be nice too.