Motor City

My take on it is that you could order a lot of speed parts from the parts dept. of your local dealer: heads, cams, dual-quad or tri-power carbs, ram air package, ram air hood, different axle ratios.

That block has changed dramatically since I graduated from Dearborn High School over 50 years ago. It had been a series of old buildings on Monroe, with the 1896 Wagner Hotel on the SW corner of Michigan Avenue and Monroe. Ford Motor Company renovated the hotel for office and restaurant space as part of the revitalization of that minor portion of the shopping district. Many of the buildings have been fixed up with new brick veneer, windows, lighting, electrical, etc. It looks better than it did when I was going to school. Thanks for posting the photo, Dave!

No, I don't recall that hobby shop. It must have been by Adray's Appliance. Dearborn had a few good hobby shops in the 1960's such as Harb's and Joe's Hobby, as well as Kresge and ACE Hardware. Some of the drug stores like Jack's carried a good selection. I bought most of mine there since I lived just West of Telegraph and would walk there.

I bought the '75 Ventura kit at the Detroit auto show and just couldn't get a good result filling in the hole in the hood where the hood scoop was supposed to go. Too bad the correct flat hood wasn't included.

I don't know if you still live in the Detroit area, but the strip mall was demolished several years ago, and the Sears was demolished a year or so ago. I just drove by it a couple of weekends ago to attend a funeral and it is fenced off for redevelopment. There used to be so many good hobby shops and retailers that carried kits back in the 1960s and 1970s.

H-1200 1955 Cadillac Eldorado H-1201 1955 Chrysler New Yorker St. Regis H-1202 1955 Ford Fairlane Sunliner H-1203 1955 Buick Century H-1204 1955 Mercury Montclair H-1200-6 1956 Cadillac Eldorado H-1201-6 1956 Chrysler New Yorker St. Regis H-1202-6 1956 Ford Fairlane Sunliner H-1203-6 1956 Buick Century H-1204-6 1956 Mercury Montclair H-1206 Autorama (Century, Eldorado, Fairlane, New Yorker) H-1209 1956 Continental Mark II H-1229 Ford Customizing Kit H-1230 Buick Customizing Kit H-1231 Chrysler Customizing Kit H-1233 Mercury Customizing Kit

AMT did make promotional models of the 1950 through 1956 Studebaker coupes.

It looks like the body had a hard landing before it was even assembled into a stunt car!

I have the original '69 promo in a pinkish color with a darker painted and textured vinyl roof. Maybe Buick wanted the promo made with a vinyl top since it started to become a very popular option in the 1966 model year for many cars.

The '68 does not have a vinyl roof.

The original promo was a Beretta GT. My real car had 14" tires, while the Beretta GT had 15", and as Steve indicated, the GTZ had 16".

I ordered the standard '91 Beretta with the optional V6, sport suspension, gauge cluster, cruise, ac, automatic trans. I thought the tires were too small on the car and should have been a bit bigger to better fill up the wheel openings. It was a good car that I kept for 9 years. I sold it to a relative since I started having pain in my left hip and there was not adequate footwell space to stretch your leg out. Note in my photo that the tires are quite small.

Don't give anyone any ideas as the Canadian wildfires are drifting over Detroit ...

As always, it's an interesting and entertaining read. I'd choose the Pyro Imperial roadster as my favorite. The BMW Celica has to be one of the most bizarre kits of an almost-stock car. The first kit I built was a Pyro '37 Chevy coupe molded in green plastic.

There would be much more sales potential with a 1970 GTX or Road Runner kit using Round2's 1969 GTX kit for the powertrain, chassis, glass and interior tub. Newly tooled door panels, dashboard, seats, body, ram air hood, grille, bumpers, and a few other parts would need to be fabricated. You would have a somewhat modern tool that would please most modelers. Having both a GTX and Road Runner would lead to more kit sales.