Mark

Earlier this week I ordered the Baja Patrol '53 Ford pickup via eBay. I wanted the new one because the original decal sheet has lettering in black, which doesn't match the white lettering in the box art (and won't work with the red as illustrated on the box). The vendor I bought from had the Mod Stocker combo for a buck LESS (and the BP price was the lowest I had seen for it). Still, the Hobby Lobby at 40 percent off is the best price for that combo kit.

Same here, only National Fuel. I got the phone prompt to call in a meter reading for gas. Called it in yesterday, it was rejected. Turns out they misread the meter last month, and I nearly caught up to that number this month. They always bug me to submit a meter reading...I do just that, then they estimate the bill anyway. I offered to send them a picture of the meter so they can see the reading; at that point they backed down. Someone either ain't doing their job, or ain't paying attention...

There were a number of exotic conversions back in the Sixties: the Moser small-block Chevy heads, the Leo Lyons Hemi heads for the small-block Chevy (only one or two sets made), and the Mickey Thompson Hemi heads for Pontiac and Ford engines. Not to mention the Arias big-block Chevy Hemi heads in the Seventies. Just an opinion, but none of them sold in any numbers because the conversion would have put you in the hands of one, and only one, vendor for replacement or additional parts. And if that vendor fell by the wayside, you were stuck with an orphan engine for which you'd have to make replacement parts. The M/T Hemi Ford heads supposedly used an articulated three-piece pushrod to make it work, which didn't help. Back then it would have been a lot cheaper to just start with a Chrysler engine, for which you could get speed equipment from any of a bunch of vendors who had to compete with one another on quality and price.

Same kit, with a few added parts for the other versions included.

And, right after RC2 ran those kits for DTR, they ran another bunch of the coupes for Walmart, in the under $7 "checkerboard box". Only difference was the decals. There was a later run of those for DTR in an original style Trophy Series box. The parts illustration on the side panel showed the brackets for the cycle fenders, but not the fenders themselves (because those weren't in the box).

People get rid of things for a reason. The challenge is to determine what that reason is, and if it's something you are better equipped to handle than the seller.

The later issue kits were sometimes called "1939". The original issue is a 1940, "with optional 1939 parts".

Some of the "street" versions don't have the headers or injector scoop (and the wheelie bar either).

All of the Jo-Han intermediate AMC car kits use the Marlin chassis plate. Some of the promos had a better one, but Jo-Han never saw fit to use it in the kits. Same goes for the engine, the Marlin was the only kit for which it was correct. Jo-Han had a better chassis plate for the '69-'70 GTX promos too, but never tried to put it into any of the kits.

I have heard that the lowest production Jo-Han annual kit was the '69 Rebel, as its body was converted from the '69 Ambassador right after that kit was run, then the conversion to the '70 Rebel Machine was started not long after. The Rebels are among the small group of Jo-Han annual kits that were not also produced as promos. The funny car version in the '69 kit isn't 100% accurate, as the Grant/AMC project ended towards the end of the '68 season. There was no 1969 version of that car.

The engine pictured was never made available, and never actually ran. One was turned at high RPM using an electric motor, to test the valve train, but that's as far as it got. Chrysler only publicized it in order to get NASCAR to step in and stop the escalation taking place with experimental engines at the time. The Moser conversion was an aftermarket thing that apparently didn't get off the ground.

The annual had AMT's pretty decent Keystone mags, all reissues (Countdown series was the first) have the American Racing Vector wheels.

I have never seen one of those short handles (never knew about it until now, otherwise I probably would have dreamt up a reason to get one). It's rare that an X-Acto blade is a good fit in another company's handle. The other companies usually make theirs different enough to force you to buy their blades too. Sometimes the X-Acto blade is a loose fit, you're tempted to go with it anyway but that isn't a good idea.

One of my older brothers (now deceased) used to love those parts-cannon guys. He used to look for those cars where the owner threw a bunch of new parts at it and then gave up...he'd buy it for cheap to get it out of the driveway, figure out what was actually wrong, then fix that and end up with a car with a bunch of new parts on it. One of the last ones was a mid-Nineties front-wheel-drive Dodge he found on eBay in Pennsylvania. Shade tree mechanic up the street put a new long block in it, it was overheating after that. Took several hours to get it home (buddy with a ramp truck backed out at the last minute). Takes it apart to look at the water pump, compares the new car to the one being replaced, everything looks the same. Takes the water pumps off, they are different. Turns out the long block was sold for multiple applications, but included a minivan water pump that turned in the opposite direction and used a different drive belt routing. Gets the correct water pump, puts it on, ran fine that day and a few years after that, until the next parts-cannon car came along.

People forget (younger ones never knew) that years ago, the model manufacturers kept a lot of items in the catalog for years on end, just changing box art every couple of years. Not just AMT. Revell kept their Gasser and Fifties Chevy kits out for years with the occasional box change. Monogram did so too, not even changing the box for items like the Badman and Early Iron Ford roadster pickup. And how many times did they rebox their funny cars (Barracuda, Duster, El Camino, and '57 Chevy) in the Seventies? None of the manufacturers are going to do only new items, they're going to throw in a bunch of reissues too. 90% of the people buying these things aren't going to the toy shows like a lot of us, and aren't aware that they might be able to find an older issue of the same kit for cheap. To an occasional builder, it's an impulse buy; they see it, think it's cool, and buy it.