Robberbaron

Thank you for the insight - I wasn't aware of all the differences between the fuel tanks/spare tire wells/frames. Proof once again that there's no substitute for first hand experience with a subject... "High school was a long time ago now" Ain't that the sad truth!!!

Yup, and I've seen resin 2 door sedan versions of both the Fairlane and the Mercury Comet available from a couple casters. Ford did some weird stuff. I believe the Fairlane & Falcon wagons shared the same wheelbase, just different front clips, and maybe taillights. The '66 Ranchero had a Falcon front clip, then for '67 they used the Fairlane front clip. I'd like to see someone bolt a Fairlane front clip onto a Falcon sedan body, just because.

In 1/25 scale, the chassis from the Revell Cutlass kits will have the best detail, hands down. IF I'm correct about the wagon wheelbase being 108" (see above), the Cutlass chassis should match right up, assuming Perrys correctly shortened the wheelbase from the El Camino that they based it on. The pictures I've seen of the Perry's wagons looked pretty good, but I know at least one other caster did a Malibu wagon that looked weird, I think because they didn't shorten the wheelbase. Of course if you use the Cutlass, you'll probably want to replace the Olds engine. The MPC El Camino small blocks are actually very good representations of late '70s to mid '80s SBC's, including very nice multipiece HEI distributors. You could either swap in the MPC engine into the Olds chassis, or just shorten the El Camino chassis. The MPC El Caminos do have separate drivetrain and exhaust parts, but it dates back to the 1978 annual, so it's not nearly as nice as the Cutlass parts. Another option would be the MPC 1980 Monte Carlo. I seem to recall the engine is about as detailed as the El Camino's, and the chassis should scale out to 108" wheelbase. Problem is that driveshaft/axle/exhaust are all molded in with the chassis plate.

Chris: First off, awesome collection of Malibus (especially the black one!) You obviously have a lot of first hand experience with them. I have more experience on the Monte Carlo side of the equation (daily drove a '79 Landau with pretty much every factory option), but between family/friends/co-workers I've had exposure to all of the different brands and most variations of the 1978+ A/G bodies. One item I'm not sure about is your statement about the wagon wheelbase matching the El Caminos. For previous generations of A-bodies (through 1977) this is correct, but I thought the 1978+ wagons had the same 108" wheelbase as the coupes and sedans, and only the El Caminos (and their GMC Cabellero clones) had the 117" wheelbase. That said, I have less experience with the wagons than the coupes (rode in a couple wagons, but never got my hands dirty working on them).

Probably my #1 item is Ansen Sprint style slotted mags, especially if I can find a big & little set like in the old Monogram '55 Chevy Street machine. These have always been my favorite 1:1 wheel style since I was a kid. By the mid-90s many older kits were getting "updated" with billet style directional wheels, 3-spokes, etc., so it seemed like it was getting harder to find nice slot mags in current kits. That's about the time I started hoarding the ones I could get. Ironically, I haven't actually used too many on my builds since I wanted to save them for the "perfect" project...

I always thought the AMT '58 Impala and '59 Elco Steelies were pretty good versions of factory stock, I've put them on a couple different beaters over the years

Truly great work! Everything seems accurate to how a well done 1:1 would look "back in the day".

Guess they're not fooling around, at least: From their Facebook page...

Excellent build, as usual!

What are you asking for her? Whatever it is, it isn't enough!

Since I had her out, here are a couple more pics. Slicks were the standard solid Goodyear bluestreaks that AMT used forever. Safe bet that the new reissue will have some version of Round2's new tampo-printed slicks. Partially built engine, showing those Mercury valve covers.: Generic decal sheet, with Chevy and Mopar decals in addition to Ford: I'd take some pics of one of the RC2 reissues that I have, but can't find the box that they're in right now...

Alright, you guys made me unearth my partially built 1969 reissue from my stash. Here are some pics of the Hurst wheels that I'm HOPING get recreated in this new upcoming reissue: Normally I'd take the tires off all of these and store them separately, but two of them have the tires on there so tight that I can't pry them off without fear of busting the rims themselves (wheel backs are pretty well welded on) The way I figure it, if tire melt hasn't started after 49 years, its probably not gonna happen. Will we actually get a new version of these? I sure hope so, but my gut tells me it's more likely that they'll just include some of their newly tooled American-type mags they've been putting in some of their releases the last couple years. The Hurst wheels are pretty prominent on the box art, though...

Been looking forward to seeing this one completed, Steve. Wouldn't change a thing! Particularly impressed with the work you did on the bed, correcting those taillights and matching the trim on the cab. Top notch work, as usual!

My bet is on Imperial

Thank you for the corrections, everyone. Must have been crossing up the Merc with a different kit reissued around that time.

Correct - the 1969 reissue still had the Hurst mags from the first release. The last time it was available from RC2 (NOT Round 2) was around 2004-ish with an aqua (teal?) car on the box. This version didn't have the Hursts, I believe it had American Racing Vectors or a similar "turbine" style wheel? (I bought a couple when they were reissued, but they're buried deep in my "stash" and I don't have the ambition to dig them out right now.) I'm suspecting that the wheel switch was made for the "Countdown" reissue in the late 1970s. I haven't seen that version, but when RC2 was reissuing all of this type of stuff, it seemed like they were dusting off all this old tooling and running it pretty much unmodified.

As far as conventional 4-door wagons, as Snake mentioned, the 65 and 66 Chevelles would be my first choices. You mentioned '80s and older, so there are also the Revell '48 Ford woodie, and the AMT '41 Ford woodie. Going back even further there are several Model A woodie kits (Monogram, Revell, and MPC, I believe) I think everything else that's been recently available has been 2-doors. In addition to the Nomads, there's the recent Revell '57 Ford Del Rio and '49 Mercury. Round 2 recently reissued the MPC Pinto wagon and AMT Pacer wagon. Johan had the 1960 Plymouth and 1961 Olds F-85 in their USA Oldies line, but those were gone by the early-to-mid-90s. Can't think of anything else that's been offered new in the last 20 to 30 years, though I'm probably forgetting something. And no, I'm not including foreign branded subject matter, I know there have been some Subarus and such, just zero interest on my part.

In a different post, Luc Janssens posted this pic: Looks like it'll be the "no name" box art for the '66 Mercury. Which begs the question: will the Hurst mags be back?

To paraphrase ol' Doc Brown: If you need to carry ballast, why not do it with some style? ?

Speaking of Nissans, my stepson insisted on buying our neighbor's '06 Nissan Altima a couple years ago after he got his license. It sure wasn't the kind of car I would have wanted when I was 16, but we knew it's history, it was mechanically sound, and it was his money, so his decision at the end of the day. I've helped him with basic maintenance and taught him oil changes, brakes, etc. Last summer he asked for help changing one of his headlight bulbs. Should be a 5 minute procedure max, right? After popping the hood and taking a look, I wasn't seeing how to get to the back of the headlight buckets. Figured I had to be missing something obvious, so I went online and downloaded the service manual to my tablet. First step was putting the car on a lift and pulling the front wheels. This in order to be able to remove the entire front bumper cover/grille assembly, to in turn allow you to remove the whole headlight assembly. Which then finally allows you access to remove and replace the halogen lamp. About halfway through the above process, I explained to him how the entire design team for this vehicle needed to be lined up and shot. Afterwards I popped the hood on my daily driver Sierra (also an '06) and demonstrated how I can literally do the same procedure in a minute and a half on the GMC. It was a pretty convincing example of excellent vs. awful design.

Yup, you beat me to it. Picked up a couple of those a few years ago. Actually, even the wheels seem decent (to me, at least), just need to hit them with some silver. (And yes, as usual for most of my purchases, I haven't followed through with my plan on these. Furthest I got is disassembling one and removing the push bar, trunk spoiler and light bar) Snake, as much as you like getting budget diecasts from Wal-Mart, these should be right up your alley. To me, they're so cheap that they're worth buying just for the enjoyment of screwing around with them. If you botch one up and destroy it, it's no big loss, unlike a $30 kit.

Very nicely done!

I'm certainly intrigued, but count me as another who would much rather have a factory stock 76/77 Cutlass (which I'm convinced would be a huge seller, for similar reasons as the Revell eighties Cutlasses). Would I/will I buy one of these? Not sure, need to wait and see how decent the final product turns out to be and the cost. I agree that it seems impossibly optimistic to be saying March 2018 availability if they just started cutting metal for the tooling. But then again, if this is all happening in America and all the characters are directly working with each other, maybe the timeline can be much quicker than the usual nonsense that goes on dealing with the Chinese on the other side of the world. Look back at how quickly MPC used to get kits tooled up back in the seventies, and make yearly updates. So it's not that it's physically impossible, just a question of staffing and how skilled is everyone involved (getting things right the first time does wonders for expediting the whole process). We'll see soon enough. Now, if they've just started cutting the actual tooling, the built model shown on their website must be either a 3D printed prototype, or a resin kit. One thing that jumps out at me is that the rear bumper is wrong for a 76/77 Cutlass coupe. The ends are clearly the 74/75 style, though that style also has a license plate opening that the bumper on the display model doesn't have. Bandit Resin makes a '77 Olds NASCAR body with an incorrect rear bumper that looks exactly like this, so I suspect that is what the display model actually is. Let's hope the actual production kit has this detail correct, because that's the kind of thing that would be a deal-breaker for a lot of people. Factory stock '77: Factory stock '75:

OK, this is a little weird: http://www.collectormodel.com/round2-models/4174-coming-off-the-shelf-what-a-gasser/#sthash.w2hdEbbh.dpbs Sounds like the "bonus" pad printed redlines won't work with either of the wheel types included with the kit? (or maybe they're too wide to fit an out of the box build?)

Clearly Scale seems to make lots of great stuff, but it looks like something's off with this one. Even though the description says it has flush, Euro-style headlamps, they sure look like sealed beams to me. Grille texture should be finer, also. If they could make some improvements, I'd definitely be interested.