Robberbaron

AMT did Gremlin annuals through 1976. A couple of years ago, Round 2 restored the tooling and reissued the 1976 kit, followed by the 1975. If you want to convert to the earlier "small bumper" body style, it's available in resin. The AMT Gremlins kits have a V8, but the MPC Pacer coupe and the AMT Pacer wagon each have an I6. Both were also recently reissued.

Not sure how I missed this one when it was originally posted, either. Easily the best Avanti build that I've ever seen, period!

Real nice. Cleanest build I've seen of this kit, yet.

Tulip, really like this one a lot. Just what I would want as a 1:1. Close to stock, just some tasteful and subtle improvements...

As a former owner of a 1:1 '77 Monte, you did an excellent job on this one. Looks like your 1:1 must have been a real beauty! My 1:1 was my daily driver for a few years in the mid '90s, and was about half rust by that time. Can't complain since I paid $700 and got several years of use out of it. Wanted to find a solid one for a summer car, but ended up getting a Malibu Classic instead.

Well deserved! I like your attention to the details, such as adding the correct Rally Sport badging to the fenders.

Flawless build, as always Tulio! Never would guess that the body was so distressed when you started on it...

Wouldn't change a thing - perfection!

One of the best builds I've seen of this kit, well done!

Anytime I've bought a built-up kit with the intention to rebuild it, I never got what you could describe as a "glue bomb". They've always been fairly decent built-ups, without any major missing parts. And it's never been a kit that's currently available. A good example is a cleanly built, unpainted MPC 1981 El Camino that I picked up for a few bucks, many years ago. That's a one year only grill, and the tool ended up being converted (poorly) by Ertl into the 1986 SS, and it will probably never get converted back. So that's your choice if you want a 1981 El Camino. Same for old Johans. Now I HAVE been guilty of buying full-on glue bombs for cheap, just to get a set of wheels and tires, such as the big & little slot mags in the Monogram '55 Chevy Street Machine.

Some good stuff in this announcement. Glad to see they didn't drag their feet too long before bringing out that stock '70 Charger, and I'll also be in for one of the Torinos. Tough to make out from this pic, but looks like the Torino might have full wheel covers? I was kind of hoping for a nice set of hub caps and trim rings, since this was a popular combo on the 1:1 cars that could also be used for the earlier Torinos and Mustangs. Won't stop me from getting one, though. Wonder if the 2 'n 1 description for the T-bolt means it includes the flat Fairlane hood and hubcaps from the Special Edition kit that was out about 10 years ago. If so, I'll be in for one of those, too (missed that one during my modeling hiatus).

So sorry to hear this news, really hoped he would beat the odds. My sympathy to his family.

Most of the '80s Escorts around here self-destructed before they could rust away. The 4-banger that Ford used was an interference design, and good luck getting the owners to do preventative maintenance on the cheapest car that Ford made at the time. The American public in general wasn't too familiar with timing belts to begin with. When the timing belt inevitably snapped, if you were lucky it just bent a couple valves. More often the entire head was trashed, and the cost to get it professionally replaced was more then the car was worth. Had a friend in high school who got a free mint condition Escort wagon after their neighbor snapped the belt. Him and his dad pulled the head and were lucky and just had to do a valve job. This was one of the early American Escorts without the aero headlights (probably about an '83?), and you already didn't see many of those on the road anymore by that time. It was a low mileage grandma car, which is probably why it lasted as long as it did.

And who promised this to whom? Was it a definitive "promise", or a statement that they would simply take it into consideration?

Don't forget the hideously warped Ramcharger bodies that many people were getting in the most recent reissue (molded in 'Merica, no less). Even if the molding plant eats the cost of producing the replacement bodies, I suspect Revell/Hobbico must still be on the hook for at least some of the other ancillary costs, such as the customer service staff time and shipping.

Funny you should mention this, the last promos I bought about a year ago at a show were a 1978 Monza and a 1978 Monte Carlo, $20 for the pair, both mint. Great price for the Monte, still fair for the Monza - seen them before for that amount, though. I've been taking a renewed interest in these Monzas, since they're kind of forgotten little cars, but a lot of them came with factory V8s. With a little hopping up, they could be turned into little terrors on the streets. Seems like the promos still sell dirt cheap, and the way I see it, you can get them for a fraction of the cost of the new AMT reissued kit, or what an equivalent MPC kit reissue would cost. If I ever get ambitious enough, I would like to turn one into a Town Coupe, which is just about the ultimate 1:1 Chevy sleeper. Dropping a stout small block in one of those results in a "so wrong it's right" flyweight street machine.

Wow, that really is pretty straight! And the color seems pretty passable as a factory color, kind of surprising that it got painted that color in the '80s (seems like back then especially, there was very little appreciation for many of the 1:1 muscle cars that were originally painted green). I'm also surprised to see that this kit appears to have the correct, stock grill and front bumper guards. The awful MPC box art always led me to believe the grille pattern was incorrect and the bumper guards were still MIA. Guess it's the opposite of most '80s MPC box art - the contents are actually better than the box art indicates. Makes me really regret passing on one of these back in the early '90s. This is another one that it seems like Round 2 SHOULD be able to repop without too much drama...

I've said it before and I'll say it again the "old" Round 2 site was just about perfect. Well laid out, the newest releases at the top, working your way down all the way back to their very first releases from about 2008. And PDF instructions for almost everything. Their "new" site is pretty much a flashy, non-functional pile of excrement. Didn't need to fix what wasn't broken...

Would be nice to have a set of those in scale again. At least I don't think there's a currently available kit with that style - correct me if I'm wrong. Always nice to have one more alternative to Torq-Thrusts and Cragars.

Foresight Ventures made the Indy 500, along with a couple other similar styles. Stolen from the H.A.M.B.:

I believe the currently available "Revell" 1/24 Ramcharger kit was molded in the USA. Of course, with the monumental body warpage problems with that one, it didn't help make the case for American quality control...

I always thought the Monogram 1970 Buick GSX kit had very well done headlights, complete with the T3 triangle in the center. Of course, being a 1/24 kit, they might not be adaptable for most 1/25 kits. Plus technically I believe they're only appropriate for GM vehicles through 1972.

That's because it's an AMT kit:

Actually, that body is correct for the '78 Monza S, which really was nothing more than the Vega hatchback body with the nose from the new Monza wagon installed. Turns out that the 1978 Monza S was a pretty rare bird in 1:1, most estimates guess that there were only about 2,000 made. The common theory is that Chevy had left over Vega hatchback bodies after the 1977 model year was through, and didn't want to scrap them. They'd already decided to kill the Vega nameplate, so they decided to slap the new front end on the old Vega bodies and christened it the Monza S. The Vega wagons sold well enough that Chevy decided to continue producing them after killing off the Vega name. They designed a new nose that was similar to the standard Monza (non 2+2 Sport) front end, but would mate up to the old Vega fenders and hood. I believe (based on eyeballing) that the front bumper, the grill, and the headlight bezels are all the same as the standard Monza coupes, but the wagon header panel drops lower between the headlights compared with the standard Monza piece, in order to match the contours of the old Vega hood. The leading edge of the fenders on a Vega (and Monza wagons) is at an angle, whereas the fenders on "true" Monzas have a completely vertical leading edge. Chevy did a very good job of facelifting these wagons in '78. At a glance it looks like the front end from a Monza wagon (or the '78 Monza S) would bolt on to one of the standard Monza coupes, but they are in fact quite different. I realized this after kicking around the idea of grafting the nose from a "Twister Vega" kit (actually the Monza S, of course) onto an MPC Monza 2+2 Sport body to make a standard Monza 2+2. The more I researched it, the more I realized it would be much more involved than I first thought. Besides having to tweak the nose to look right, standard (non Sport) Monzas also have a unique hood that's different from the Sport models (has a hood bulge somewhat similar to the Vega, but not the same)

Really nice all around - clean build, great colors, nice subtle wheel choice.