mk11

Scored this one last week. It was billed as an 'mpc 3n1 builtup', so at first I didn't pay it much attention. Then I decided on a closer look and suddenly the 'tells' started leaping out; window divider mainly, but there's three or four others, and I couldn't resist. Very reasonable price too, for an original amt '69 Mach 1 under all that green paint.

Hmmmm ... just realized the blue chassis with the upper wheelhouse cutouts filled in makes it six distinct plates. It also now has a couple of short posts molded on the topside under the interior. Been around since the eighties, I think. I have gray and blue ones here. RH chassis from the countdown kit iirc. Will they hold the line on the chassis design with all the other revisions needed for the fastback or will we get revision #7?

A feast for the eyes !

Dang shame that that 'oversight' from Ford kinda ebbs and flows...

Dad was letting me drive his '69 Newport Custom all over town at fourteen with a learners permit. Test was in a '76 Colt. Surprised no one's thrown this in yet

Yessir...

You're right about 'mostly'; everything's there but a pic of the chassis. Curiouser and curiouser ... Looking again at this Ironhorse chassis pic and Rex's pic a few posts back, it's obvious that there are actually five distinct versions of this chassis. Promo and annual, both single exhaust; '69 annual with dual exhaust under axle; show car chassis with corrected dual exhaust (note solid rear leafs and posts molded to upper rear of plate) and the currently used chassis, perhaps modified when coupe became a full detail kit in seventies, with opened up areas front and rear where the axles go through.

I did find a pic of Iron Horse parts that showed that chassis, but I'm not sure what was in the previous Mach 1, Autolite and Superstang versions. Sure was an interesting few years for amt's tooling department; going from the simple single exhaust chassis plate in the promo, '65/'66 annuals and Barris abominations to this chassis for '67/'68... ... and back to the same basic early(slightly altered) plate again for the '69 before revising it yet again for the '70 and following years. And somewhere during that time, the plate used currently was introduced

Some thing else to make you go 'hmmmm'... The middle chassis yet another variation on the theme, coming from the original amt '69 fastback kit. One step up from the promo/annual single exhaust chassis, but has still has the pipes running under the axle and a pointy nose. Did they use this one also under the Iron Horse/Mach1 show cars as well or was it the newer style with the pipes above the axle? Since the newer chassis is relatively the most accurate and they have resurrected the '66 fastback with the 3D, can we hope they would also think about redoing the original '69 body?

Promo on left, middle one perhaps used in the annuals and the current dual exh chassis on right...

Those M/T slicks also appeared in the original mpc sedan delivery kit.

I suspect many of us were introduced to the concept, and critical thinking, by gems like this... this thread kinda reminds me of a great old song by billie falcon; 'power windows'

They'll be saving those parts for the next variant of the tooling Chassis progression; from promo single exhaust to duals... Interiors; coupe, resin repop fastback and '68... Great to see JC (AFX) show us how well the '67 chassis/engine bay fits these with his Shelby Group ll build...

This has a good article on the continuation cars as well... Easy to build wannabes ...

Indeed https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-43755611

The amt original '65 mustang fastback and their shelby cobra had a weber option on their small blocks.

Very interesting to see another variation planned with a good start. I'm just eyeing mine up for cuts and mods to make it an 88" wb series ll with a slightly different drivetrain...

Rummaging in one of my 'geegaw' drawers... That's the closest gauge set I could find.

Those actually look more like the stock bracing, and as it was early in the program the true export brace may not have been developed yet... but you're right, I did mean the monte carlo bar was missing. Possible that irs design they mentioned was the same as the one Mr Geary was replicating in his ongoing mustang project.

Be interesting to see what the irs they had in mind would have looked like. Guess the export brace hadn't been developed yet at this early writing.

Possibly now the 8" det/lkrs are available, but I think it was just the traction-lok back then. Never heard of any Ford drag cars back then with 8 inch diffs. The nine inch found it's way into most if not all. Of course, the olds, pontiac and 12 bolt corporate diffs were quite stout too for the gm camp; dana 60s and the 8 3/4 for mopar stuff.

A guy might be able to adapt the look at least from these decals made by Ray... ...but I don't know that I've ever seen the factory four speed for these ever done in scale. Maybe a guy could reshape the auxiliary trans from one of the semi kits. As far as those 'temple' depressions, I'm not sure what you mean, Casey. The grill is fairly nice with the open center section, but to my eyes the headlights are sunken in too far, the grill bars need some thinning and the signal lights are a tad too tall.

This kit has the only stock 351M/400 engine in scale; these replaced the FE 360/390 in the trucks in '77. The proper '78/'79 front bumper in this kit, along with the engine and the MAD resin box could be used to make the pickups more accurate. Unless, of course, you chose to put a 300, 302 or 460 in your project. The C6 trans with the transfer case can also be used behind any of those engines.

You'd think they would go with the high strength nodular center section for that...