Robberbaron

Gotta admit, I was planning on holding off and just getting the Catalina version, but this looks too good to ignore. Looks like this is going on the "must buy" list.

Snake, thanks for doing this comparo. Looks like it should be an easy fix to trim that C-pillar back. I'm suspecting that's the main factor throwing off the whole "look" of this kit, along with the off-road stance that you get out of the box. I'm thinking doing this mod along with dropping the ride height will get this kit looking about 95% correct. Art, I don't doubt the capabilities of John Mueller or Dave Metzner, but didn't I hear that the story of this and the '65 Coronet was that management rammed these kits through into production before all the kinks were sorted out, to keep Wally World happy? (Wasn't ownership RC2 by this time?) That accounted for things like the weakly detailed, molded in headlights, among other things. Wonder if that also factored in to the mis-shapen C-pillar? Speculating that even if they had seen it, maybe they weren't allowed to make any additional tooling changes?

Stopped by Michael's because I had a 50% off coupon. Decided to get a 2nd Revell '32 Ford 5- window, because they're just a treasure trove of parts. Also picked up a Revell '68 Vette convertible, since they had them marked down to $9.99.

Still think the Challengers are the best looking new cars on the road. About 2 weeks ago my brother bought a 2014 100th Anniversary Edition Challenger R/T, in the exclusive metallic red. Very sharp car, and quite rare (never seen one before, and there are quite a few Challengers running around in our area). He told me that the very first day he took it for a drive, he was getting compliments, including from a Camaro SS driver. In overcast conditions, the paint just looks like a normal deep red metallic, but in the sun, it's almost a candy apple red, and very attention getting.

If we're adding the Lindberg "modern" stuff, don't forget the 1961 Impala versions (stock, drag, convertible). Additional variations of kits already listed include the 1968 Roadrunner pro street, 1969 GTX (hardtop) pro street, and the 1970 Monte Carlo lowrider.

Don't have that version, but seem to recall the box art on the side showed a small block with TPI under the hood.

As Brett mentioned when he started this thread, even some more experienced modelers may not be familiar with every model that gets reissued, as far as when the tooling was created. I agree with Tom, this list can be a very useful tool, not only as a reference for which Round 2 tools are "modern" designs, but also to summarize all the variations of each basic tool. I for one forgot about some of these, such as all the 3rd gen Corvette variations and those 1957 Corvettes, too.

All new kit using the Fairlane chassis/mechanicals. The original '60s issue got hacked into an altered wheelbase drag car, which also still exists. That was reissued as the Model King "King's Comet", I believe.

Couple more that come to mind are: 1967 Impala SS 427 (stock and street machine) 1968 El Camino SS396 (stock and street machine) 1971 Duster (stock and street machine) '39 Chevy Wagon Rod '32 Ford Phantom Vickie

Stevens is also listing the MPC 1960 Corvette. No surprise with that one either, since we knew the molds were serviceable, since it was reissued in the RC2 era. I might be interested in that one, since I only recently learned how many building options it offers. Really intrigued by that Larson Pro Stock Vega. Sure seems like that would indicate that they plan to backdate the body to the 1974-1975 nose, which honestly makes it much more usable to depict an accurate pro stock car. That "Twister Vega" kit is actually a misnomer. That body is actually a 1978 Monza S, and was MPC's final update to their Vega tooling. 1977 was actually the final year for the Vega nameplate. For 1978, Chevy offered the Monza S, which was really just the Vega hatchback body with the Monza front end bolted on. Chevy only built about 2000 of them, so most people speculate that it was a way for GM to use up some left over 1977 Vega hatchback body shells. So MPC's kit actually depicts an oddball car that was only produced briefly as a 1:1, and was seldom seen in real life. Chances are MPC had no idea of GM's plans when they updated the tooling for 1978. I suspect that there were never any 1:1 Pro Stock Monza S cars. I'm no expert on mid-70s pro stocks, but I'm wondering if anyone even ran the 1976-1977 Vega nose in Pro Stock? I'm guessing most guys that were running Vegas probably switched to the slicker Monza 2+2 bodies when they debuted in 1975, like Grumpy Jenkins did.

Don't forget the 1975 Cutlass, it was even announced as a release for the stillborn "Illinois Model Company", complete with box art describing supposed updates like rally wheels and white letter tires.

Here are five that we either know for sure that they still have, intact, or it's pretty likely they still have the tooling: 1959 Imperial 1970 Pontiac Bonneville 1964 Mercury Comet Missed all the Model King releases of these. Round 2 really owes it to themselves to rerelease the '64 Comet when the Moebius '65 kit comes out, to cater to anyone interested in bashing together a full detail '64. Pretty sure these also probably still exist intact: MPC 1979 Nova - MUCH more accurately shaped body than the deformed AMT 76ish Pro Street that RC2 reissued. The MPC was still available mid to late 80s, I believe (as the street machine issue), so it's likely intact and in good shape. Would be even cooler if they threw in the police parts and reissued it as the Squad Rod. MPC 1977 Pontiac Ventura - think this one was a one year wonder (not reissued after the annual), but I kinda dig these. People who have these Ventura kits claim that they have the best set of Rally II wheels ever kitted, so that could be a selling point. They recently dusted off the molds for the MPC Pacer from the same era, so there's reason to suspect this one also survives. OK, there's my "practical" five. But I'll throw out one more that I'd like to see them restore the tooling: I'd love to see the Superfly/Sweathogs Dream Machine restored back to a stock 1972 Grand Prix. I'm betting they still have the tooling for this one, too, and from pictures I've seen posted, much of the body was left stock, even down to the emblems. With the AMT 1975/1976 Gremlins, Round 2 has shown that they are willing to restore some of their tooling that was unjustly butchered, and I think this one would be a perfect candidate.

Picked one of these up the other day with a 40% off HL coupon. Wouldn't have been able to swallow the $30 sticker price considering what this kit is. Pretty much knew what to expect, based on previous posts in this thread. The one surprise disappointment is that the deep offset off-road wheels are mismatched. The fronts with the locking hubs are proper 6-lugs, but the rears are 5-lugs. D'oh! Don't think I saw anyone mention that previously, so it must not be too obvious to most people, but it jumped out at me immediately when I first looked over the chrome tree. Maybe it's because I planned to build it using these wheels. Not sure if I'll go that route now, since that's the kind of thing that will drive me nuts if I see it sitting on a shelf.

Looks great. Thanks for the updates on all the upcoming releases, Dave.

Definitely considering getting this one - looks sharp! Those revised 8-lugs look great, too.

Looks very nice.

I already have schemes on using the spare parts on several kits that I probably wouldn't build otherwise.

X2 X2

Just picked one of these up the other day with a HL 40% off. Never gotten any previous releases of these 37 Chevy kits, so this is my first exposure to this tooling. Very pleased with the contents - classic AMT Trophy series 3 in 1. Box is quite jam-packed. As Round 2 has been doing on many of their kits lately, they include a conventional clear parts tree (Windows, headlights, clear hood), plus a duplicate molded in transparent orange. As others have stated, the finned Offenhauser valve cover for the Stovebolt 6 is especially nice. Also included is a dual carb intake and exhaust headers to replicate a mildly modified Stovebolt. The 427 can only be built one way, for the drag version - GMC blower, 2-piece headers, etc. In regards to the decal sheet, I agree that it is very impressive. It might not be obvious upon seeing the picture that Oldscool posted, but that sheet covers the entire bottom of the box. One other thing to note: don't worry about the side panel note describing 2-piece drag slicks. As previously stated, the slicks are Round 2's new style pad-printed Goodyear Blue Streaks.

A disproportionate amount of the models that I built in the late 80s were Johan kits. By that time there was practically zero QC from that company. The result was sometimes entire parts trees that were flashed over. Pretty much any modern kit isn't going to have any flash even approaching that, so I'm not phased at all by it. Maybe I'm weird that way. (OK, my wife will tell you I'm weird in many ways!) Anyways, I'd rather deal with flash than parts that are short shot - I still have vivid memories of sculpting putty to fill out the front fender of a short shot 64 Dodge body!

Ha! Glad to see someone else having similar thoughts as me! Back in high school a buddy of mine got the '26 sedan in a 3-pack for Christmas. He had no interest in it, so he gave it to me. Honestly, at the time I also had zero interest in it, but even back then I was a packrat. So into the parts box it went. I recently stumbled across it again, and started wondering if I could find a use for it. As soon as I learned the details of this new '29 kit, I had a vision of slapping that '26 body on the Z'd A frame. I'm having similar thoughts about the AMT '25 Double T kit. Bought that one to build the chopped coupe, but have zero interest in building the bone stock companion roadster. But now I'm picturing the roadster pickup parts on this A frame.

To do a 73 or 74, you'd need to start with the AMT kit, or more likely, the Flintstone repop. The 73-74 X-bodies were facelifts of that body style. You'd need to change the quarter Windows, bumpers, nose, and taillights, but that's the closest starting point that exists, as far as I know. There was never any 1/25 plastic kit of any of the 73-74 X-bodies, unfortunately. Don't think I've even seen anything in resin. The 75+ X-bodies got totally new sheetmetal, even if the Pontiacs might look similar at first glance...

Finally snagged a Moebius '56 Chrysler at my LHS, to go with the '55.

Absolutely! We're on a bad streak at my work, dealing with AutoCAD assistants. We usually try to employ at least one college age student part time to do minor revisions and corrections to our ACAD drawings. If things work out, we usually try to transition them into a full time position when they get their BA. The previous kid we had just couldn't get up to speed, so we didn't offer him a full time position. After he left, we got another junior level student. Again, he JUST. DOESN'T. GET IT. As many times as we walk him through it, and try to drill into his head to CHECK YOUR OWN WORK before giving to us to review, he overlooks basic details. I'm convinced that some people just don't have it in them. The difficulty is convincing these guys that they need to find something else that's more suitable to them. The thing that amazes me is that these guys are engineering students with decent GPAs, yet I can't picture them functioning in an engineering capacity in any circumstance after they graduate. Because, you know, details usually matter in engineering...

Somewhere I have an old feature article (Muscle Car Review maybe?) on a 64 Biscayne 409 that had basically no other options besides the engine/trans. The owner pointed out that it didn't even have an outside rearview mirror, so he used a clip on one when he drove it. So that would put it sometime after 1964, but I agree it wasn't much after, pretty much around the time backup lights became mandatory, too. Actually, I believe mirrors were a bit more common than that on 60s kits, but still very hit and miss as far as whether or not a manufacturer included them. I clearly recall building the AMT 64 Impala and mounting the driver and passenger side mirrors, with the mirror portion being separate from the pedestal. Believe it or not, many of the Johan kits also included mirrors. I recall building the 1960 Plymouth wagon, and questioning the instructions showing the mirrors going on the fenders instead of the doors. The 69 SC/Rambler and the 70 Olds 442 also have them. I should qualify that I built all of these kits in the 1980s, so I don't know if these parts were in the kits when they were originally tooled, but my educated guess is that they were.