Mark

My last employer cut back on staff in 2019 (including me) because they had sold all of their properties. I was given a year or so notice (turned out to be a year and a half), was allowed to pile up paid time off, and I got a generous package for staying as long as needed (which I intended to do anyway). I decided not to try landing a position with the new owners of the property. Towards the end of my time there, I caught part of a conversation between two of the incoming managers. Their employer had just announced pay raises...ten cents an hour, across the board. Why even bother...

Some stores might still be putting out stock from Ollie's last buyout. But with the shipping bottleneck that exists right now, I wouldn't count on seeing anything newer hitting the shelves there. Round 2 and the hobby distributors can probably sell everything they can bring in through hobby shops and online sellers.

HL has never carried Mo(e)bius kits.

Revell did a few Corvette promos (then current year items), a Chrysler PT Cruiser, a Ford Expedition, maybe a couple others. They did some retro promos also, like '63 Corvettes and '57 Chevies.

Special Interest Autos ran a couple of articles on those "snake oil" mileage and performance improvement devices. Some of them were sold for decades with no changes (except for price). Even the advertising didn't change much. They theorized that most of these things were priced low enough that buyers wouldn't bother with recourse when they (inevitably) figured out the things didn't work. The scam artists made a bunch of money by scamming a large number of people for a small amount per person, then vanishing for a time and resurfacing a few years later to repeat the process. The people who didn't fall for the scams probably just thought that, if picking up so much of an improvement was so cheap and easy, why weren't the manufacturers putting that junk on the car on the assembly line?

Only one company made a promo in a given year. For 1969, Impala promos were AMT only. MPC made kits on their own dime because there was enough of a market for Impala kits for them to be profitable without the promo contract to help pay for the tooling.

The MPC Pacer hatchback kits ('76-'78) also have a six. I'd give the MPC engine a bit of an edge (more parts) but you could go with whichever is easier/less costly.

It is broke...they've been doing their level best to break it over the last fifteen years or so. Every time they try to "fix" it, the remedy always seems to involve taking it further away from its origins, and alienating the very people who helped them build it in the first place.

If stuff gets delivered to the correct house number on the wrong street, then yes, it is an issue. When I get mail like that, I drop it off at the house on the correct street. But not everyone else does that...some will simply toss the item in the trash, to others it might be a free gift.

Anyone else notice that eBay has eliminated the "promo" sub-category in model kits? Looks like another lame attempt to conceal withering numbers of listings...

There was a PSM '71 Challenger kit, there may have been a '70 also. The '71 body's grille area is the same as a '70, the '71 grille is an add-on.

Unfortunately the time for a Project X kit has long since passed...PHR no longer exists, and how often does Hot Rod drag the car out?

Pretty sure all Halibrand wheels back then were magnesium, so the plating needs to come off anyway. If they are plated, that is; the wheels weren't plated in the original double kits, though the parts packs were plated. The availability of these wheels (as in: nobody will ever tool them again) far outweighs any flaws they might have. Because Atlantis is issuing individual car kits instead of double kits, they're throwing us a bone or two with the extra engine and wiring pack. Hopefully they won't mess with the individual parts trees and will leave all of the parts on each one. That will make these kits gold mines for early Sixties drag racing parts.

I'd bet the engines in the first couple of kits will be chosen from the four that are known to be ready to run; that is, the four that Revell ran in the late Nineties. Ford 427, small block Chevy, early Cadillac, Pontiac 421.

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..." or words to that effect... Having a long term, big picture goal to accomplish just might take a lot of peoples' minds off of more petty, self-centered pursuits, and get more people pulling in the same direction...

Are you sure it's from Instagram? If the e-mail sender put a link in the e-mail, it could just be someone trolling for suckers who use the link. I get those from eBay every so often...

You've got that segment of the population (and it's growing) who figure out the bare minimum for what they need to survive, and they'll work only when necessary for that, and not one minute more. It has always existed, it's just getting bigger.

J.C. Agajanian's "Willard Battery Special" (the car Parnelli Jones drove to the Indy win in '63) was a Watson roadster. Watson and other builders cribbed Frank Kurtis' design heavily in that period. But there were differences, like the other builders using fiberglass nose and tail sections where Kurtis' cars always, or nearly so, used aluminum for all body panels.

I'm thinking those tires aren't big enough (compared to the Pirelli fronts, which are really small) to be the AMT Coronet rear tires. I'll stick with the Revell Willys as a guess.

Wheels and tires on the Dodge are from the reissues of the MPC '69 Charger Daytona (500 had them also). Everybody likes to bag on that kit, but it does have a lot of good parts in it. I bought one of those at the last Ollie's kit dump, to get the wheels and other parts. (Chassis, interior, and windshield will go into a straight resin '69 Coronet body that I snagged at the '19 NNL East for five bucks...the bumpers were in my parts box!) Those rear wheels could be narrowed enough to fit within the quarter panels. Figure out how deep the spokes are in the wheel, cut the wheel in half down the center (don't hit the spokes or center cap), then file each half to true up the cuts and make the wheel narrower. Before reattaching the outer ring/half, you can paint the spokes. I do that a lot, sometimes making two sets of wheels into one set with plated inner rings made from a second wheel. In other instances I'll cut apart an out of fashion "billet" wheel because the outer ring is nice, then fit a center from a damaged mag wheel that I like. I've even cut down damaged wheels and cast duplicates to use in this way.

Body is heavily altered, it could be based on either the Monogram or Revell '30/'31 Ford coupes, or could be a resin piece based on one of those. Front tires are Pirellis from a Sixties Revell kit (SWC '41 Willys, Miss Deal Studebaker, Anglia/Thames, and others). Wheels could be a combination of parts. Rear tires look like the ones from the Revell pro street '41 Willys. Rear wheels again could be pieced together from multiple sources. Basic engine looks like the pro street Willys piece also.

Both companies made kits. MPC made both the hardtop and convertible, AMT made only a hardtop kit despite having made the convertible as a promo. MPC's convertible kit had the (incorrect) hardtop deck lid, with the recess in the center. Basically a hardtop with no roof. Same deal for '70: AMT made hardtop and convertible promos, hardtop only kit. MPC made HT and CV kits, the CV was the "Bat Machine" molded in glow-in-the-dark plastic, try finding one of those now! MPC got the Impala promos for '71, AMT quit doing Impalas at that point. '71 promos were both HT and (incorrect) CV, kit was HT only. CV had incorrect upper quarter panels and windshield header.

The '69 Impala promos are AMT. Like the '70, my '69 convertible promo has the correct "no recess" deck lid. Apparently Impala kits were still strong sellers, as both AMT and MPC each offered at least one from 1968-70 (AMT's lame "for 1968" effort included). AMT started tapering off with convertible kits as early as 1965 (not every promo became a kit) but they hung on with full size Chevies and Fords through '67. MPC stuck with the drop-tops a couple years longer.

Only one company made a promo in a given year. The contract might be split between two companies in the same year, but each company would manufacture a different promo (example: AMT '66 Barracuda, Jo-Han '66 Fury). I haven't looked at my '69 Impala promos in a while, but I believe they are AMT. AMT definitely did the 1970 Impala promos; their convertible (never offered as a kit) had the correct deck lid without the recessed area down the center like MPC's kit body. Both still had incorrect upper quarter panels, basically the same as the hardtop.

MPC's '68 convertible kit included a pretty radical custom version. Their '69 convertible was even more radical, it had a bubble top. AMT's "for 1968" kit was called a "Chevrolet SS 427". Basically the '67 kit with the stock bumpers, wheels, and seats deleted, and with the body detrimmed and with no rear window opening (rear glass was still included). The chassis got reused in their '69 and '70 Impala kits, that "for 1968" body tooling probably hit the scrap heap before it had a chance to cool off...