Bob Ellis

West Coast Precision Diecast made extremely fine detailed 1959-1964 Chevys. The best that I have ever seen. The dumped a lot in the last 2 years as $45-89 Daily Drivers. Some were actually perfect. But, the most obvious observation is that the market for $150 1/24 diecast is dead. And it sounds like you can't build them cheap enough in China to make a buck either.

The economic collapse of 2008 may not have been the only reason, but it coincided with the demise of Franklin and Danbury diecast cars. Unlike like kits, that most build, diecast is a collectible. All collectibles have taken a beating recently. About the only diecast that I see getting good money is the Franklin Airstream trailer.

I got this resin 1967 Impala 4dr Sports Roof from Germany. This is the Supernatural car.

I am looking forward to seeing how this MPC Revell Cyclone goes

The only two differences I know between a 70 and 71 MPC Cyclone, are the dated bumpers and decals that say Cyclone .

It's amazing how well #11 Xactos open promo hoods.

Did the turbo return?

I wouldn't hold my breath on this '81-87 Cutlass

Reminds me that I have to finish my '69 Chevelle vert too. You did great removing the '68 side trim.

The windshield is perfect. No small feat to change it from HT to a convertible.

Modelhaus makes a '68 Impala. It is basically a promo body. MCW makes the Impala and the Biscayne. I can't vouch for the Impala. but the Biscayne is nice because it is made to fit the ERTL/AMT '67 Impala. The bad news is that you must chrome the bumpers yourself.

It is an interesting comment about how the original AMT captures the shape better. I find the new computer generated tools to be a little square compared to the ones produced in the '60s that had good shape but less details.

Nice job. Where did the hood come from? My '69 kit has a different hood.

Are you sure about that 65 Wildcat from t.m.resin? I thought Missing Ling sold that resin kit.

My ESCI kit is an AMT 1958 Impala.

The light bar worked like fiber optics. The light followed from the bulb to other ends of the bar to each head light. Used 2 grain of wheat bulbs The '64 Impala frame still has the cut away that allowed the light switch handle to be moved back and forth below the frame. The box had to be lined up and glued to the underside of the trunk so that the switch bar would swing back and forth. Used 2 AAA batteries in the box, that required unscrewing the frame to get to them. The phosphor bronze clips in the box relaxed against the battery or was pushed out by the swing bar when lights were to be off. The Ford did not get a cut out in the frame to allow the bar to swing. I would used LEDs today. The grain of wheat bulbs just glowed sort of dull. Because the grain of wheat bulbs did not direct light, they lit up the whole inside of the car. This required painting black the inside of the body to stop the light from glowing through the plastic. LEDs would not have that problem. One year only experiment (1964). Just like the AMT Turnpike slot cars (1962).

Looks nice. Did you redo the front side marker lights, or does your version of this kit look like it is in the picture?

AMT may have labeled the 1970 box as an SS, but MPC put SS emblems and bucket seats in their 1970 Impala.

I think this eBay Global international shipping is a precurser to what they want to do with eBay auctions in the USA. Some of you know about the 200 tems sold or $20,000 limit when eBay/Paypal informs the IRS that you are a bonified seller. There are some sellers that use multiple seller IDs to avoid that, but I believe the IRS definition of Structuring ( moving money in smaller bundles) will catch up to them. And then there are issues such as sales and user taxes that even if a person wanted to comply with, it most likely would be prohibitively complicated and expensive. Ebay is no longer the homespun auction site it was in 1998. It's a big business now. To compete and comply like Amazon in internet tax rules, ebay will take your reigns. For that reason, I believe eBay will be run like an Amazon. If you want to sell, you will have to invoice and ship through them. They will take care of the total sales, sales tax, shipping details ect. Might even force people to do free ship like Amazon prime. The litlle sellers will just disappear in the near future. Unless you want to make a business out of it.

I think the main complaint is that this Roth 57 Chevy has only one good point; the decals. I was experimenting with swaping the old and the new AMT 1957 Chevy bumpers with this Roth '57 Chevy. For some reason, those Revell bumpers are extremely funky and to me don't represent the real bumpers at all. They are big and heavy, almost cartoonish. The opening doors and trunk are the only redeeming feature.

It would be interesting if somebody who has experience, or has seen the tools to make these plastic kits, to comment about the insert pieces that compose the kit. When you look at several issues of that '64 Impala kit, you see parts appearing and disappearing, or replaced by another part. I know that the original mags were replaced. Sometimes with baby moons and sometimes with unlabled Cragars. The question to me is where are the individual inserts, or are parts of the tool closed off?

The 1973 issue Street Shaker T408 didn't have any custom parts and screw chassis deleted. Most of the custom parts came back with the Countdown Series in 1977-8. The clear head lights are included in the 1968-9 issue, but the grille holes are filled in. Last issue of 1964 dated bumper and screw chassis. The convertible version was not offered in 1969. Never came back.

You can tell a re-issued ERTL MPC Roadrunner or Cuda because the Pentastar on the lower right fender is missing. Anybody remember the the 5 parts of the Pentastar forming at the beginning of the Bob Hope comedy hour?

Probably why using a credit card is good; only charge when product is ready to ship. Now SQUARE can charge a credit card on an iPhone,

Nice you installed the turbo in the '65. I could never understand why AMT deleted it off the chrome tree.