Robberbaron

See the above link for the 2015 discussion.

There are actually two different versions of the five window roof and hood. Brief discussion in this thread: Once you see the two side by side, the roof differences are obvious. There was another thread that went into more detail about the differences, but I can't find it for the life of me. Seem to recall that the apparent understanding was that the early versions of the 5-window still used the original hood. The suspicion was that the tooling was damaged under RC2 ownership and they had to retool the roof piece (poorly). They also modified the hood (or maybe completely retooled it?) to fit the different cowl shape of the new roof piece. In the missing thread, I seem to recall comparison pics of 1:1 '36 5-windows, showing that the earlier "Dick Tracy" versions have more accurate roof/window proportions. Don't hold me to that, since I'm sure no expert on '36 Fords.

Yup, 1973-1987 for the half tons, all the way through 1991 for the Blazers, Suburbans, and 3/4 and 1-tons. (I think?). With an 18-year run and however many millions sold, multiply that over the average number of ownership changes in the life of one of those trucks. In America that translates to tens of millions of people who either owned one themselves at some point, or had a family member with one, or at the very least knew friends/neighbors/coworkers/fellow students with them. I attended high school 1989-1993, and each year there were at least dozen different square bodies in the lot. My best friend's dad had a brown/tan 1/2 ton with the 4.3 V6 and a quadrajet (guessing it was about an '85?) My buddy drove it often after he got his license. It was surprisingly good at laying a patch. All that past exposure translates to the current surge in popularity both in 1:1 and scale. Nostalgia is a heckuva drug...

Just a reminder to always open/inspect your kits soon after purchase, even if you don't plan to build them in the near future. About two weeks ago I picked up another '66 Mustang GT and '69 Galaxie. Finally got around to opening them today. Mustang was all good, but Galaxie: NO body! (And yes, it was factory sealed.) Don't think Ive ever had that before. Guess I'm swinging back there next week for a refund or an exchange. I already got one of those '69 Galaxies previously, and I remember it was packaged wierd. Everything bagged like normal EXCEPT for the body itself, just sitting loose in the box.

Totally hit and miss in my area. I have three Walmarts within my normal home/work/grocery orbit. None of them have kits consistently. Years ago when Round2 first started doing the self-contained aisle displays, only one of my local stores got a couple of them during the Christmas season. After that, it was several years before I saw them again at that store. That store now seems to randomly get them a couple times throughout the year. The second store I've only seen them in twice. The third store I NEVER saw them until about two weeks ago. Interestingly, it was the "old" selection that doesn't include any unique box art.

I agree with Steve's assessment. When I was a kid these 1:1 Monzas were everywhere, and the MPC kits/promos always seemed spot-on to me. Been a while since I looked at my AMT "Original Art" reissue, but I seem to recall thinking the belt line/side window shape didn't seem quite right. As Steve noted, the AMT chassis is better, with separate drivetrain/exhaust detail from what I recall. The best Monza recipe might be to bash the AMT dirty bits with an MPC body. The MPC Monza promos can still be scored quite cheap from what I have seen. IMHO, the "original" AMT corporation was hitting its low point in the mid-seventies. As a general rule, most AMT annuals from this era have body proportion problems vs. their MPC counterparts, which are usually pretty accurate. Similar examples are the Camaros, Pinto coupes, and the Novas. (The roof shape in the just-reissued AMT 1976 Nova Pro Street is all wrong vs. the MPC 1979 Nova, which gets it right.)

Ford had some doozies in the seventies. The parents of one of my sister's friends were Ford people. When the time came to replace their full size Country Sedan wagon (which really was the infamous "metallic pea" green), they purchased a Fairmont in this lovely shade: Not really tan, not really peach. So what would you call this? We decided it was a close match to the old Crayola crayon "flesh" color. Hence, we quickly christened their new family truckster the "Fleshmont"

Tough to tell from the picture, but I'm guessing it's a rebox of the GMC "Deserter". Wheels/tires in the illustration look a bit oversized, which would match up with that scenario. They did recently tool up the Chevy grill for the Sodbuster stepside, so I guess there's a chance it could be a Chevy. But I don't think they have a Fleetside Chevy tailgate that they could use. Notice that the '60 Ford truck is one of the kits with different box art. Looks like the box is the same size as all the other kits. For that $19.99 price I'm guessing it doesn't include the trailer. Interesting development. Over the weekend I stopped at one of my local Walmarts to pick up some Valvoline. Was surprised to see they had an aisle display of kits, but it was the "old" selection that's been popping up over the past year. None of this unique box art.

Yup, built it as a youngster. Script on the new box art looks to be taken directly from it:

Sounds familiar. Years ago our oldest bought our neighbor's 2006 Nissan Altima. We decided to pull the oxidized, yellowed headlight housings to try to rub them out and clear coat them. Discovered that the procedure to change any of the front bulbs was to pull the entire front bumper cover/grill assembly. In addition to all the pins, each side also had a set of screws in the wheel arches, so procedure said to pull both front wheels too. Turns out I was able to turn the wheels to each side enough to access the screws. Still, once I saw everything involved I decided to install all new bulbs before reinstalling the housings.

Stuff like this has never been my cup of tea. However, over the years I've seen how many people love this kit and have a deep emotional attachment to it (similar to Badman, etc.). Think this will be a HUGE seller for Atlantis.

'63 Lemans came out of left field for me. Never would have guessed that most of the original tooling survived. Suspecting that a coupe version will be announced in the near future, a la the '64 Cutlass and '68 Coronet. And I agree, the mind starts racing regarding other similar scenarios. First thought that comes to my mind is the '65 Falcon.

Michael's has a 40% coupon on their website right now, so stopped by after work and picked up an MPC '68 Coronet hardtop. (Sure not gonna pay the $39.99 list price.)

Dude's Torino is a '73. Different grill, front/rear bumpers, and taillights. Gotta imagine that a '73 would be available in 3D too, just because of The Big Lebowski.