Motor City

The old Jo-Han flat boxes had their own issues with no give room if a box happened to get slightly crushed. The AMT Prestige kit boxes were oversized, so there was plenty of room to pack everything in there and not get all squished together. Maybe retailers complained about the flat and oversized boxes since it alters the shelf efficiency in the stores. Shipping multiple sizes of cases from the manufacturers is less efficient, too.

With the packaging technology we have today, what James mentioned should never happen.

I thought it was the '68 GTO snap kit.

No, there are still MANY cars and trucks with internal combustion engines to do first.?

I went a few days ago and saw the label for the '71 442 and figured they only got a few and were already sold out. Who knows what's going on.

might as well release it a 2023 model at this point

What is OBS and what the heck could have happened to the promo tooling that Steve Goldman referred to?

Those 1970s car kits were nothing to write home about, and some were closer to 1/43 scale than 1/32. The subjects are interesting, though!

I think most of us couldn't care less at this point since plenty of models are introduced every month.

I was hoping for an all-new kit like the '71 442. My buddy and I went to his younger brother's house a few days ago and saw his '70 Road Runner, which I hadn't seen in over twenty years. After 3 blown engines, he's almost ready to put the latest and greatest engine in it. ?

When I was a student in the 1970s, it was $24.00 for season tickets (6 football games) in the student section. We had a lot of good times.

That wouldn't happen to be the University of Michigan, would it?

I was hoping for a 1/25th scale.

thank you, Steve!

Steve, I think I should send all of my unbuilt kits to you to finish for me! What tires did you use on that '59 Dodge?

Thanks for all of the great advice, guys! I've noticed the funny wheel cover positioning on some of the old Jo-Han kits and sure don't want that look. I'm not sure I still have any with the later plastic axles, but I'll keep all of these points in mind when I get around to building them. Now that I'm retired (finally), I will have time to get back to building. The last non-promo-type kit I built was the MPC '82 Trans Am. It's hard to believe it has been 40 years.

I have a few original Jo-Han kits from around 1960. The instructions want you to use blocks of wood and a hammer to mount these pieces together. Should I forget about risking damage to the wheel covers and wheel backs by using some other tires? If so, what tires should I purchase since the kits included the wider whitewalls that were used prior to the industry going to a narrower whitewall for 1962. Thank you.

Hi Bill, That has great potential! The reason AMT keeps reissuing the '70 Impala Custom Coupe (the name they used for the Caprice and Impala formal roof) is because it was never turned into a modified stocker. I finally picked up a kit for the first time recently. The '69 Impala SS kit and promo were also the Custom Coupe, which I think looks better than the other hardtop, and opinions will vary?. If Round2's cloning program is successful, we can one day expect to see more variations such as this since 3D files is the future of our hobby. Jim

What Ulf said: I am grateful for Round 2's both volume and spread. I have been in and out of the hobby all my life (now and going forward it will be in). In the 1990s I was in for a while and the shop had very few kits that I wanted to build. My luck then was that it was possible to buy up some old kits from friends who focused on their 1:1 cars, but today thirty years later we would be without both complete kits and parts. I prefer to kit bash before resin and there I think Round 2 does a great job of releasing AMT's old 3 in 1 kits that are full of fun stuff and above all sensible stuff. Now there is an alternative to kits that have been semi-ambitiously updated with billet parts and big rims and I am grateful for that. Can we get some kits with inline 6's, 4 doors and small hubcaps I wouldn't sleep but that customer group is probably too small. If Round 2 also released the Dualli wheels from the 90s promos, life would be at its peak.

A '51 Victoria would be an excellent choice for a new kit. I have a Custom 4-door promo but would buy this if it ever came out.

The new model looks like a 21st century version of the old car. Both have some nice styling features. The new one has too-small windows and that bright strip that detracts from an otherwise nice-looking car.

Just when you thought there couldn't be any more awful Barris creations out there, another comes along ...

Atlantis is working on the tooling for the '57 Nomad. My folks' were the original owners of a '57 Bel Air sport coupe (hardtop). Dad liked the '58 Impala better when it came out, but the dealer wouldn't give much for trade-in, so he kept the Bel Air. He thought the '57 was too busy looking, but the Impala had even more glop on it! I wouldn't mind owning one identical to the one we had, which was identical to the one pictured except without Fuel Injection.

The front fender vents don't even line up ...

I wonder if anyone makes the correct exhaust tips in resin? Jo-Han did it correctly.