Motor City

I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and saw the Porsche tractor and the '34 Ford pickup. They did not have the '59 Imperial, so I bought the '66 Mercury and Ford GT snap kit.

thank you, Steve!

Was a Schwinn 10-speed bike (Collegiate, Continental, Paramount, Varsity, etc.) ever offered as a model?

AMT made this for the '75-'77 model years

Those Brats were fairly popular when new - even in Detroit. Not too many exciting cars by 1978, but it would have been nice to have had a Mark V, Cougar XR-7, Thunderbird, Ranchero GT or Magnum kit.

As Gerry stated above, the '62-'64 Impala SS had the aluminum engine-turned rear trim. They also had engine-turned exterior side trim, dashboard and console trim. If a decal isn't available, which seems difficult to believe, silver paint on these area doesn't look too bad.

thanks for the information, Helmut Jim

WARNING! The box art is also inaccurate. Only the non-SS had a rear cove painted body color. This should have the engine-turned aluminum rear panel. Seriously, though, I always thought the AMT '62-64 Impala bodies had nice lines and accurate proportions.

I had these same issues when I attempted to post to the '72 442 topic in the Aftermarket/Resin section several days ago. It took multiple attempts over a few days to successfully post.

A while back, I asked about the '71-'72 ram air hood for the Jo-Han kit, but the only response was to buy the Revell '72 H/O kit. Missing Link sells a '70 ram air hood, but I'm not sure if it's for the Jo-Han or Revell kit. I got the Jo-Han standard 442 hood (pictured above for those who don't know) of off Ebay, but don't know if it fits the Revell kit. I'm not aware of a standard hood in resin. For those who don't know, the re-issued Jo-Han '70 442 kit (U.S.A. Oldies) has the '71-'72 442 interior, which is not the same seat pattern as what was used in '70. You can get the '71-'72 front bumper/grille, and the '71-'72 hood, with the '71 or '72 (different taillights) rear bumper and make a correct '71 or '72. The real '72 had black painted headlight bezels instead of the chrome used on the earlier cars. I think the Testors kit is the same tooling as the '70 U.S.A. Oldies, but I'm not positive.

The first Mustang I saw was driving through our subdivision in Dearborn in December of 1963. I got a quick glimpse of it and thought it was really something.

I'm looking forward to the Monte Carlo. Hopefully the Regal Grand National and '79-'80 Capri RS will soon follow.

Tim, It may be true that to do an accurate '57 Ranchero that would please most of this forum's members would require an essentially new tool. I think the real reason was they foresaw more sales doing Foose models, and that may have been a better use of their money. It appears cars that kids can relate to (concept cars, Mustangs, Camaros, Chevelles & hot rods owned by their parents or grandparents) is where the kit market is headed.

I find it odd that the old Revell had the money to do all of those Foose models, but none to tool up a '57 Ranchero from their newer '57 Ford kits. I think most would have preferred a '72 or '73 Gran Torino Sport or Ranchero GT over the '76 Torino. I guess if it isn't an endless variation on a Camaro, they aren't too receptive. The '62 Mopar kits would be nice to have, but I doubt enough people would buy them to make that a worthwhile investment. Maybe they would listen to a '70 Ranchero GT based on the Torino kit. We can only hope ...

My '87 El Camino has a Medium Claret bucket seat interior, which is more of a plum color. The Regal T-type pictured above is a brighter red.

Since most models are built with model cement that fuses the two pieces together (essentially melting the plastic), is there a safe way to dissolve the cement? I've always used Elmer's white glue to build models.

I'm going to need an hour for my eyes to recover from the frequently out of focus video!

thanks, Thomas!

I want to also mention that the '67-'76 Eldorado never used a dual-snorkel air cleaner - even though it was included in the Jo-Han kits. That air cleaner was only used on the early Toronados.

This is really interesting info on the Nova. I thought it might have been derived from the Ventura, but didn't know for sure as the model cars available in that time period were pretty lame for the most part. I had basically quit buying models for several years by then. Faust mentioned how difficult it was to predict model cars accurately with last minute changes from the automakers. Besides the incorrect Jo-Han '74 442 promo and MPC's '75 Ventura with the hood scoop, I had MPC '76 Corvette convertible and Jo-han '68 Ambassador convertible kits. An actual car was not produced for either one of these!

Bob is correct about the '75 GTO. I bought my kit at the Detroit Auto Show, and got rid of it when I couldn't hide the repair to the hood opening. Nowadays, someone would have made a resin hood and air cleaner assembly to build it stock. Other than that, it seemed to be a good kit.

The original kit was the '75 Ventura, but it had a '74 GTO hood scoop, so it couldn't be built stock.

I like the '60-'64 Bonneville the best. I think the '65-'66 GM B bodies without fender skirts (Impala, Caprice, Catalina, 88, Wildcat, Lesabre) were about the most attractive large cars of all time.

In the U.S. anyway, we aren't even maintaining the infrastructure we have. Now add charging stations, autonomous sensors and mix in some ice, salt, slush, and heavy snow. It may happen in some communities with mild climates within several years, but will probably take another generation or two to be widespread because of the tremendous costs involved.