Mark

I'm in on these (the truck and trailer, not the diecast bucket truck). It's too bad Revell did the Roth cars, otherwise maybe Round 2 would have issued the Haulaway trailer as a companion piece, instead of an enclosed trailer...

I completely forgot that I had also bought a (molded in blue) Round 2 pro street Nova from the same guy. Again, no body, as this guy was a slot car drag racer and bought these kits for the bodies. I got a couple of other kits including a Revell '68 Hemi Dart. Parts gold mines! The original plan (when I get to it) will be to stick the Resto Rods pro touring style interior into a Pro Street Nova. I always disliked the interior setup in that kit. Get rid of those Cragar "plastic center cap" pro street wheels (the 1:1 wheels do have plated ABS plastic center caps, hinged for lug nut access!) and change the engine setup to fit under the hood. Instant up to date pro touring version.

I checked the box of parts that I bought (complete kit minus body, glass, and bumpers which were used on a slot car). Mine is molded in white. The instructions incorrectly show the pro street chassis; the stock one is included. All parts for the stock version, including tires, are included. The stock version assembly procedure is not shown in the instructions. In short, it should be the complete original two-version (stock or mild street machine) kit, plus the Resto Rod parts. The bench seat and open wheels will not be in the Resto Rods kit, as those were tooled later by Round 2 for the Bill Jenkins issue.

Did you buy that kit sealed? The sticker on the top panel of the box might indicate that it was bought second-hand, you may have bought a combination of parts from two or more kits. I bought an incomplete copy of that same kit a few years ago (original buyer bought it to use the body for a slot car). I wanted the Resto Rods wheels and interior bits, and also got a spare chassis and other leftover parts. As I remember it, the kit could be built stock, and had two complete engines (stock/tunnel ram, and that Resto Rods generic engine) as well as that long block/engine stand setup.

Worst case: the Atlantis parts pack based kits will be a parts gold mine. Best case: they'll plate all of the parts that were just silver plastic first time around, include an extra pack or two for optional parts, include bigger decal sheets, and so on...

Epoxy will be two parts, that must be mixed fully in the correct proportion (usually 1:1 of each) in order to properly cure. Look for one that dries clear, and steer clear of "dollar store" stuff.

The (then) new wheels and tires in the Hawaiian were tooled and produced in China. Atlantis did not get those, and so had to tool new tires again.

Those Resto Rods optional engines were just something cobbed together by RC2 (NOT Round 2). They don't represent any real 1:1 engine, though some of the parts are copied from other engines and actually look pretty decent. Some other parts in that series, particularly the bucket seats and wheels, are actually very well done. The seats have upholstery patterns that actually match the stock rear seats, something that almost never happened with vintage customizing kits.

The dragster speed equipment pack may be MIA also...the radius rods and front axle in the Miss Deal kit look similar to parts in that pack...

Revell '70 Torino GT (and Cobra) have a 429, the only correct 429/460. The AMT late Seventies Ford pickups have always had their engine called a 460 on the box, but it is actually a 360...different engine altogether.

My previous employer received a couple hundred dollars worth of late Fifties and early Sixties stamps as part of a donation. I spent a few hours of down time sorting them and putting them on the window envelopes we were using to send out bill payments. Those pre-stamped envelopes lasted a couple of months.

That body is from an MPC stock car kit. In the early Eighties, they brought out a few "new" stock cars that used the two-piece chassis from their earlier series. They offered a Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevy Monte Carlo, and a Buick Regal. All three used the same basic body (looks mostly like a Buick) with different hoods, front fascia, and rear trim panel for each version. The first group of cars didn't represent any actual cars (generic markings) but the second group had decals representing actual cars. Most, if not all, had tobacco brands as the main sponsor. Unfortunately for MPC, the far better Monogram NASCAR kits started hitting store shelves not long afterward. The big flares aren't entirely inaccurate; some of the early "downsized" cars that raced starting with the 1981 season used earlier chassis, shortened and with different roll cages to fit the smaller bodies. Only the top teams had entirely new cars built for the first season. Using a cut-down earlier chassis would require that type of fender flare, to allow for wider track width. Once the teams figured out whose chassis worked best with the smaller cars, more of them had new cars built, putting the older chassis to the sidelines.

HL hasn't carried any NASCAR kits that I know of.

Strange that XR-6 kit still had the '27 touring in it. I haven't seen one in the last few years, the last one I picked up must have had the touring built stock. The XR-6 was intact, as were the leftover rod parts from the touring (only the Frontenac engine setup was carried into later issues). Just grab a more recent issue of the tub, and I've got the stuff to build that first issue rod version. I already had a complete double kit (got that one in the early Seventies) but the box lid was split at one corner. The second one had a mint box, like someone built the tub and buried the rest of the kit in a closet or attic.

The stores around here have/had two airliner kits: one Lindberg, one Hawk. The Lindberg airliner has an optional clear fuselage half to show the interior detail, the Hawk kit has a hinged side panel. I thought about grabbing one of the Lindberg kits, but I know there's no way I'll ever sit down and build the thing. They also had one of the Lindberg figure kits, I believe Round 2 announced it as never having been released back when it was tooled. No cars left on the shelves from the most recent dump, other than a lone AMT 2004 Chrysler 300.

I picked up a built one of those Revell Camaro funny cars awhile back, with the intention of piecing the front fascia (and maybe the hood area) into an MPC body. As I recall, the pieces do fit together way better than anyone would expect, but the Revell front fascia slants inward a bit towards the bottom. I'll probably attack that one again over the coming winter.

The Ford OHC engine goes with the chassis. The chassis originated with Revell's Maverick funny car, also the Boss Mustang (the one with the body from the '70 coupe annual kit). That engine looks to be equal in (lack of) detail with the OHC engine in the Revell gasser kits. Revell was cheaping out in that period, copying parts from earlier kits for use in new ones. Funny cars were built with different make engines and bodies almost from day one. JJ had switched to the Hemi around 1970, his number two '69 Nova (driven by Clare Sanders) ran a 426 Hemi while JJ was running a Chevy in his. He linked up with Sanders to get up to speed in regards to building and tuning the Hemi. 1971 was a shakeout/transition year of sorts with funny cars. Prior to that, funnies with different engine/body were sometimes called Wacky Racers (after the cartoon series). '71 brought in all-out use of the narrow dragster style chassis (first used by Mickey Thompson under his '69 Mustangs), and wider use of Hemis, mainly the 426. The Ramchargers started selling "over the counter" ready to run nitro 426s in '69, others like Keith Black and Ed Pink stepped up to compete. By the end of the '71 season, guys with the old style chassis and non-426 engines were pretty much relegated to also-ran status.

You're preaching to the choir regarding straight six engines. I like 'em...put over 200,000 miles on an AMC 258, and have a '62 Ford Fairlane with a '74 250 under the hood. The AMC rolled across the scale at the boneyard in 1993, still ran great and used maybe a quart of oil in a thousand miles. But the body fell apart around it (was structurally unsafe) and I couldn't find another body to put the engine in. If the right one came along, I'd buy it without a thought. The Ford runs great too, smooth and quiet, power right where you want it for stop light to stop light driving. I like hearing the "experts" tell me it should have a 302 instead.

Ex-Revell kit, 1/25. I can't think of any car kit they ever did back then in 1/24. Even the foreign cars they did in the late Sixties and early Seventies (VW Beetle, Porsche 911, Datsun 240Z) were 1/25.

The chassis is a bit on the clumsy side compared to Jo-Han or MPC funny car chassis from the same time frame, but it looks workable. It does have a steerable front end though.

Some kits have nostalgia value for people who built them first time around...the early Revell funny cars definitely fall into that category. Not for everyone, but enough people will buy them to make the effort worthwhile for Atlantis. They make money on them, some of that money goes into something you or I will want. Works for me.

The straight sixes were price leaders, not intended as performance engines (except the Pontiac OHC, which was unsuccessful back then). The more cheaply they could be produced, the better. I'm surprised that GM waited as long as they did to cast the intake and head as a unit. When there is a cheaper way to do something, GM usually led the way in doing it.

The small Ford inline six (144/170/200/250) all had the intake manifold cast as a unit with the cylinder head, as did some Nash (pre-AMC) straight sixes. No problems from a durability standpoint, the only gripe came from people wanting to hop them up. The Nash six intake was open on top, a flat plate was then bolted to it and the carburetor bolted to that. Those guys just made a new plate to fit multiple carbs. Ford and Offenhauser offered a kit for the Ford six, where you had a couple of flat spots milled on the integral intake, and a couple of holes bored. Bolt-on flanges (separate pieces from Ford, Offenhauser's was a single piece) allowed for two more carbs to be added. Ford of Australia did manufacture those engines with a separate, bolt-on intake manifold. But the North American engines always had the integral intake.

The Chevy II/Nova was available with the four through 1970. Few people ordered them though, and dealers generally wouldn't stock them. They were also used by Kaiser Jeep in the CJ-5A postal Jeeps. AMC bought Jeep in 1970 but used stockpiled parts until they ran out. Those postal Jeeps with the Nova four also had a Powerglide transmission with a really small torque converter, and a narrow Dana 44 rear axle...a few people dropped small-blocks into them...

The car pictured is a '69...grille, and rectangular side markers give it away.