Motor City

a little trivia ... the '61 Starliner promo was made in acetate early on and then changed to the non-warping plastic; buy the pale yellow version if you want the good one

Hi Rich, Thanks for the additional information; I'd like to see more of these!

Those look neat, Rich. They are old since they were made in the U.S. and Canada. What scale is that?

That's a nice collection of ambulances, Rich. Did you repaint any or all of them? Dinky made some nice toys of cars that no one else did.

As I recall, it was Revell's '57 Nomad that had the ribbing molded in.

The only obvious criticisms are the lack of M U S T A N G lettering on the bottom of the front fenders and the correct lower body striping on the decal sheet.

I hope they work on the Nomad and eventually bring it back. I remember the top of the passenger fender had some weird crease on top of it that I gave up trying to correct.

The Cutlass and 442 hardtop and coupes had a different seat pattern in '71 and '72 than what was used on the Cutlass Supreme-based convertible. The '70 coupes, hardtops and convertibles shared an identical pattern different than what was used for '71 and '72.

Bill, That is awesome to have been able to track the 88 down, a car that was sharp in its own right. My folks' planned to buy an 88 hardtop, but the salesman wouldn't budge on the price so Dad ordered a '63 LeSabre 2-door hardtop instead. I drove it while I was a senior in high school. I wish I had it today.

The moderator said I got off track on the Avanti thread. I'm guilty as charged, so here is the GP topic. No one seems to know what happened to this tooling. It may have met the great dumpster in the sky along with the '64 Bonneville and Wildcat. I have the promo and it has good detail. Modify the '62 Catalina Super Duty kit. Use the chassis and glass, add the GP grille. The Super Duty engine was used in only 16 of the '62 Grand Prix, but it was available. The 8-lug wheels could come out of the '65 GP kit, and so could a tri-power engine. Tool a different body and interior. Also tool different bodies, interiors and glass for '63 and '64. Is the demand there for all three years? I think it is.

AMT did make the Studebaker promo from '50-'56. Also being in South Bend, the Studebaker Museum has cars that can be used for reference. For those who haven't seen it, the museum has a great collection including Studebaker carriages and wagons and the Packard Predictor. Below is the 1950 promo:

My aunt and uncle had a black on black '64 GP, but I liked the '63 a bit better. The '62 GP was nice, too. Once they started putting fender skirts on it (for '65-'68), I didn't like it so much.

1963 had some greatly styled new cars with a restrained use of chrome: Riviera, Grand Prix, Corvette and Avanti. Why can't we get a '63 Grand Prix model in 1/25th scale?

My Name Is Earl '73 El Camino?

Here's an AMT Divco promo that recently sold for $209.88 on Ebay. A kit with opening doors and hood, and licensing for some dairies (and Coca Cola) for decals, and they'll have a strong selling kit.

Here's the one used in most of the series. A Tale of McGarrett's Mercury (fiveohomepage.com) I don't remember the pilot episode, but a black '67 Marquis with a red interior would look sharp.

I would like to get the Divco diecast in a different color and not with the Hamm's ("from the land of sky-blue waters") decals. I think AMT ditched the 1951-ish Divco promo tooling decades ago. Some of the 1/64 diecast are nice, too.

'76 Caprice promo shown below; I used to own a '73 Caprice 2-door hardtop with the 454 and it had full dual exhaust as correctly shown on the '73 and '74 Caprice model cars

As James Duff and Luc stated, I don't see any model company having the inclination to 3D scan existing and complete Jo-Han kits to create new ones using today's production methods.

not lately, but I have the original; lots of complaints on this forum about the old kits with their molded-in exhaust systems, etc.

I understand Round2 has quite an inventory of old kits that can be used for reference in restoring or modifying the old AMT and MPC tooling. As far as Jo-Han subject matter, I doubt if many people under 60 would be interested in the '67-'68 Imperial, '57-'61 New Yorker, '62-'68 Chrysler 300, '55-'60 DeSoto, '55-61 Belvedere and Fury, the '58-61 Dodge, '56-'62 98 and Super 88, and '58-'62 Fleetwood. I think the '63-'70 Coupe deVille might have a few candidates, and the '63 Olds Starfire, and '66-'67 Toronado. The '68-'72 442, '71-'76 Eldorado, and '69-'70 Road Runner and GTX could be tooled in hardtop and convertible variations. But it would probably make more sense for a model company to start from scratch since the Jo-Han models typically have molded-in exhaust and underhood components that today's modelers frown upon.

What I referred to was using existing Jo-Han kits to recreate the tooling. Creating all-new kits of some cars that also had been made by Jo-Han is a whole different matter and wouldn't require permission of anyone other than the auto companies.

SMP had the '57 contract and made the Pontiac Star Chief as a 4-door hardtop and convertible. Round2's business model is to primarily restore or recreate lost tooling for AMT and MPC models, and they have obtained licensing from many manufacturers. It wouldn't be a stretch for them to recreate Jo-Han models from existing kits through 3D modeling. It would be capital intensive to do it and they would also have to receive licensing rights from Okey Spaulding and possibly some other unknown entity. It's apparent that Okey doesn't have the means to do this.

X-El reissued the 4-door hardtop Star Chief many years ago as an already-built promo and as a kit to be assembled.

I compared my '66 Fairlane promo reissue/retool? with my original '66 Cyclone promo. Both have windshields and backlights that appear to be the same and are definitely too low, so it isn't a new problem.