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"Guilty Pleasures" Kits?


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Is there a kit or kits that, even though you know they're bad, and there are better kits of the same subject you could be spending your efforts on, you feel strangely compelled to build anyway--even more than once? :blink:

I have several of these guilty pleasures. In airplanes, it's the Monogram F4U-4 Corsair, the Matchbox F4U-4, and the Hawk/Testor F8F Bearcat and P-51D Mustang.

In cars, I'm drawn to the original annual AMT '63 to '67 Corvettes, even though the Revell '67 kits (and even their '63 snapper) are way better in just about every way.

But my biggest guilty pleasure must be the MPC (more recently, AMT) '69 Camaro. It's a horrible, horrible kit (for reasons I'll explain here sometime soon), but I've built four of them (one in 1969, one in the late '80s, and two in the 2000s) and have another one that is going to the paint shop even as we speak. I have no explanation or excuse to offer other than pure nostalgia. Or the perverse challenge of the thing. Or something.

I've built three of the Monogram 1/24 '69 Camaros (from the '70s) too, but at least there I have a good excuse--I built them all before the Revell kit appeared. In fact, I had a fourth one on the workbench when the Revell kit was announced--it went back into the box immediately and I don't think I've seen it since. (I'd love to find it, as I'm now in the mood to finish the wretched backbirth.)

So those are some of my guilty pleasures. What are yours?

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I have a Revell Camaro Z/28 that is really just terrible. I mean, the front suspension mounts be these two huge pegs... Little stuff that gets annoying. Maybe I'll half-a$$ it together one of these days. Couple of flies got in the paint when I did it, but it came out so perfectly glossy it was enough to make me set it on the Shelf Of Shame.

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My guilty pleasure kits of late have been late 70s to early 80s Revell pickup and combo kits. They are mostly based on snap-kits and are in some places rather crude, but in other places they are the best detail in 1:25 for a particular area or have really cool combinations. The Revell 80-86 Ford pickup series are hands down the best proportioned and detailed 1:25 scale renditions but the underhood and chassis detail is atrocious. The Revell 77 Chevy C10 pickup glue kit is atrocious however its snap-kit derivatives have much better chassis detail! Plus they came bundled with trailers and Cool Things. B)

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The MPC '67 Charger kit. It's a very simplified kit, the molded details are very shallow. But it kitbashes very well, the fitment is excellent (except for the bumpers) and as my favorite 1:1 I really enjoyed them as a young man. The Revell kit is vastly superior in every way, but I will very likely build another MPC.

1967DodgeChargerstreetmachineMPC_zps3397

Two very old builds, but also my favorites.

000_0128.jpg

100_0705.jpg

Edited by Jantrix
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This thread would be very much enhanced with images of the models in question.

Here's three of my MPC '69 Camaros. The fourth was the AMT Yenko version I built for my son (a Fast & Furious fan) and the fifth now has a coat of Walmart Color Place Gray Primer drying on it.

69CamaroMPC16.jpg

69CamaroMPC14.jpg

Edited by Snake45
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Here's three of my MPC '69 Camaros...and the fifth now has a coat of Walmart Color Place Gray Primer drying on it.

Here's that fifth MPC '69 Camaro, the one that went to the paint shop today. I have about 20 hours or more in sanding and straightening this body and making subtle changes and improvements, such as scribing in the body panel lines. I did what I could with the little backbirth but it still looks like ass. Oh well. I'm going a slightly different way with this one, a direction that actually capitalizes on this body's inherent flaws. Will post pics when I get it finished, hopefully in the next month or so.

MPC69Camaro10_zpsc6d328d5.jpg

MPC69Camaro13_zpsa1826fe9.jpg

MPC69Camaro14_zpsa399184f.jpg

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AMT '32 Fords. Everybody knows their shortcomings, but I keep coming back to them over and over and over. Several WIPs...

Excellent post, A-GG! This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I started this thread. Model on! B)

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Revell '57 Chevies (the 1963 opening-everything kit, though I do have at least one each of the newer ones too). Recently finished the first one as a club project, in typical fashion spending too much time on it after dragging my feet over most of the summer. I should have just gotten it into one piece, but instead made a number of improvements including some photoetch parts (grille, hood and decklid trim, door locks, license plate frames), and a few scratchbuilt parts (interior and exterior door handles, arm rests, under-dash tissue dispenser, generator). I tried to get rid of some of the deficiencies (generator suspended in mid-air) without changing the character of the kit. I should have replaced all of the hinges, though I did get the ones in the kit to work okay without a lot of slop. I only swapped a few parts in from other '57 kits: wheelcovers (my kit was a 1998 issue without stock wheels), intake setup (so I could sand off the weak Fuel Injection script), and tires (so I could get five matching tires). It actually came out pretty good, though I polished through the paint on the roof with only a couple of evenings left before it had to be completed. Now that it is done, I'm working up the courage to mask and reshoot the white roof on the finished car. The thing actually went together pretty well, probably because I didn't try to re-engineer it. As frustrating as it was at times, it actually provided a lot of enjoyable build time. I learned a lot from the first one, which will be applied to however many of these I get to from here on out.

I do have a few more of these kits including the current Ed Roth issue, the Seventies low rider (first low rider kit I can recall that had new parts added as opposed to just being called a low rider), and a couple of first-issue kits (which differ from later issues in a lot of ways). Plans are for the first issue to go together out of the box with the exception of new plating and resin cast stock wheels, so I can use those plastic-softening US Royal thinline white sidewall tires. I might even paint the chrome trim with some One-Shot silver. I picked up another Revell Nomad kit, but the body in the sealed Skip's Drive-In issue was twisted like a pretzel. Which, of course, led me to grab an original issue kit on eBay. Looking at the built Nomad on the box, it looks to have been constructed from a Revell hardtop with an AMT '55 Nomad roof. Just my opinion though.

I've got one of those nasty MPC/AMT '69 Camaro hardtops too; it's going to get stuck together at some point. I've been thinking about revisiting some projects that got shelved due to better kits coming out (stock '67 Corvette based on the MPC kit, things like that). The material is paid for and sitting on the shelves already...why not?

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Here's that fifth MPC '69 Camaro, the one that went to the paint shop today. I have about 20 hours or more in sanding and straightening this body and making subtle changes and improvements, such as scribing in the body panel lines. I did what I could with the little backbirth but it still looks like ass. Oh well. I'm going a slightly different way with this one, a direction that actually capitalizes on this body's inherent flaws. Will post pics when I get it finished, hopefully in the next month or so.

MPC69Camaro10_zpsc6d328d5.jpg

MPC69Camaro13_zpsa1826fe9.jpg

MPC69Camaro14_zpsa399184f.jpg

That kit isn't all that different from the MPC annual kit. It's a so-so conversion of their excellent '68 annual kit (MPC had the promo contract for '68, AMT for '69). Between the annual and the black car, it was the Dickie Harrell funny car, then the Jeg's dirt track car. If you look at the inside of the body, you can see where MPC tooled exhaust holes for the dirt track issue. Back when the black version was issued, I was playing around with the idea of using pieces from a second body to raise the styling crease and the tops of the front wheel openings. I think that the low wheel openings can be concealed to some extent by painting the car in a dark color and applying the white SS stripes that come in the kit.

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That kit isn't all that different from the MPC annual kit. It's a so-so conversion of their excellent '68 annual kit (MPC had the promo contract for '68, AMT for '69). Between the annual and the black car, it was the Dickie Harrell funny car, then the Jeg's dirt track car. If you look at the inside of the body, you can see where MPC tooled exhaust holes for the dirt track issue. Back when the black version was issued, I was playing around with the idea of using pieces from a second body to raise the styling crease and the tops of the front wheel openings. I think that the low wheel openings can be concealed to some extent by painting the car in a dark color and applying the white SS stripes that come in the kit.

Yup. You've crystalized my thoughts on this kit exactly. When I started this one, I was going to raise the body crease and wheel openings, and then thought, with more than a dozen Revell kits in the Snakepit, why bother? Instead, I'm building this one quasi-"pro touring," with some modern oversized wheels and rubber band tires. They seem to fill the wheel openings pretty nicely. It'll have another surprise on it, too, but that will have to wait till I'm finished with it. B)

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The 3 big ones for me have been mentioned. AMT's '63 Corvette. Just built another one in the last two months. The MPC '69 Camaro SS convertible. Bought one just a couple of month's ago. I like it better than the modern Revell tooling. And I'm not sure why? And AMT's '32 Fords. As much as I like Revell's '32 Fords, and they are by far better kits, I still love AMT's old '32s. I still like options/choices the AMT '32 Ford kits gave you. Stock or hot rod, all in one box. And they still look pretty good when they're done.

Scott

Edited by unclescott58
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This one I keep doing over and over thinking maybe I will overcome it's short comings. The front suspension is horrible and the windshield is too thick and a poor fit. I have trimed the windshield, trimed the dash, lowered the suspention, narrowed the suspention in every attempt to get one right. I should probably give up and build the Monogram model. I prefer 1/25 scale but, enough is enough! I had a Monogram '53 built at one time but, I think it got dropped and broken. If I remember correctly it was an easy build. IMG_9743_zpsc5dd42f1.jpgIMG_9744_zps945eec72.jpgIMG_9745_zps18483cbd.jpgIMG_9747_zps9a8662da.jpg

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RMVW, how's the AMT '53 Vette snapper kit? I've heard it's better than the glue kit. True?

I forgot to mention the snapper! Yes it is a wondeful kit, way better than the high parts count kit. It has a shiny finish that almost doesn't need painted. The stance is great and makes a beautiful shelf model. I had one and let it go, my mistake. Might find another one some day. Thanks!

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