Mark

Additional work that can be done while the interior is apart includes standing the side panels up straight, eliminating the "draft" or top-to-bottom taper that one-piece buckets have. Doing that makes the assembled interior look deeper. Another bit of work to add to the pile, is to lower the floor if possible. Some of those old interior buckets are shallow, leaving the floor higher up than it should be.

It's actually a '60, the upholstery pattern on the seats is 1960. When it was first reissued in the mid-Seventies, it was called a '59, and most reissues after that were also called a '59. Revell first reissued their '59 around that time, but called that one a '60. Interior in the Revell kit is correct for a '59.

Maybe whoever does the box art deliberately went over the top with that shade of pink, to make the box jump out at you on the shelf?

If it is cheaper.... ...someone will try it...

What has been seen, cannot be unseen...

The new issue is white, but a small number of them are molded in gold plastic.

Don't know, but it was a pretty early one. Not one of the early Seventies GM test cases (they supposedly sold a few Oldsmobiles with them), it might have been something like a Ford Escort or Tempo.

I had a (distant) relative who actually got pulled over once for going too slow. This wasn't on the highway, just a regular road. Same person bought a new car with an airbag, and thought he could "test" it, thinking it was reusable. Got an expensive lesson from the dealer when he found out it wasn't!

Break down the individual parts into shapes, and they could be duplicated with Plastruct rod, or even sprue filed to shape. The brake drums and wheel inner rims might be a pain, but then again you should be able to save the original parts. The tie rod definitely will be a pain if you insist on keeping the working steering feature, even then you could bend one up from some thin/stiff music wire and keep the steering.

The J is a "typical" Revell gasser, it uses the same chassis as their Willys pickup and Austin kits. Those were (I think) among the last car kits Revell did with the sheet of DIY window material. That is probably the best out-of-box build on one of those that I have ever seen. It uses the original steerable front axle and original Ansen mag wheels from the first couple of issues. The axle was always in the kit, though later issues added a non-steering, ridiculously dropped axle. But the wheels were replaced, as was the original rear axle. I wonder if this kit has gotten some rehab work for this issue.

-Shouldn't he have been able to prove his work didn't leak (or you have been able to show that it did) before you paid for the work and took the part? Of course, if you went back now, he'd probably claim you did something to it that caused it to leak. -I'm surprised you were able to find multiple shops nearby that at least claimed the ability to do the work. All of the radiator and tank shops around here have huge signs reading "new gas tanks and radiators installed". Nobody fixes anymore, just replaces. -How can anyone even install a drive belt inside out? That sure took some doing, all the (pre-serpentine) belts on my vehicles had a definite taper that fit the grooves on the pulleys. Just when you think service can't get any worse, or people any dumber, along comes someone to upset the paradigm...

I haven't seen a Follmer kit with a '72 body myself, built or unbuilt. The one I have has the later body. The RWR (Roy Woods Racing) Javelin AMXs were in fact the ex-Penske cars (AMC wanted Penske to concentrate on NASCAR in '72). Those cars later went to privateer racers but most have since been restored as either Penske or RWR cars. To my knowledge none of the 1:1 cars were ever retrimmed as '73-'74s.

That's a pretty early one, it looks as though it has one-piece hollow tires (Jo-Han switched to two-piece tires later on). It probably has wire axles too (switched to thick plastic rods, probably at the same time the tires were changed). The '72 body details also point to an early kit (once changed to '73-'74 trim, the body was neved changed back). The wheels, and those unfortunate velocity stacks, weren't in the Trans-Am versions and so were taken from a stock kit.

Not a '74, it's a '72. Jo-Han kit, looks like an early production George Follmer/Roy Woods Racing Trans-Am racer, with wheels from a stock kit. AMT sold the Jo-Han kit in its packaging twice. The first was the '71 Mark Donohue/Roger Penske Trans-Am racer, the other was a stock '74. Both were made by Jo-Han, and packed in AMT boxes with AMT instruction sheets and decal sheets.

$25 for breakfast? I should be able to remember the times I paid $25 for dinner, that's how many times that has happened...

I'm wondering how much of a tumble some of these sites (Doordash, etc) are going to take, with more areas opening up. I do think there is a segment of the population that will stick to ordering out instead of going to a restaurant, just a question of how big it will be.

The rear seat cover was in the Prestige Series issue in the Eighties. The earlier Countdown series issue included only one custom version, not two as in the annual and first (late Sixties) reissue. The Catalina 2+2 issue deleted all of the custom parts. There was a Buyers' Choice issue Bonneville after that, but I'm not sure what is in that one.

Or to pull up to a funeral with one...

The pages I have don't have the issue date on them (on either side) as do some other magazines.

I knew I had it. Haven't got the magazine, but do have the article...

I think someone at MPC got the idea from an article in an issue of (IIRC) Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine from 1969 or 1970. A guy named Artie Wheeler, who later attended early NNL East events before his passing, was building scale ramp haulers from pickup truck kits. His were curbside builds; he'd stretch the chassis with swizzle sticks or other pieces of plastic, then fabricate the ramp bodies from cardstock taken from cigarette cartons. At the time, he worked at a restaurant, and probably got cartons from reloading the cigarette vending machines that were usually seen in restaurants back then. The 1:1 haulers go back further than that, I have seen photos of trucks like that from the early/mid Sixties.

'61 through '64 shared some chassis parts. I believe that the '61 kits and some of the convertible annuals did not have the separate A-arms, and the '61 and '62 kits did not include those stock car exhaust dumps. My guess would be AMT '63 or '64 Bonneville.

If you use solvent cement to glue the sprue plugs in, make sure it dries completely before applying putty. One thing I do with holes like this, as well as splices between pieces, is rout out the seam or slightly "dish in" the filled hole. After the putty is applied and sanded level, I end up with a thin "stripe" of putty between spliced parts, and a round area of putty where the hole was. I never apply primer over a join between two pieces, without putty being over the joined area. And the first coat or two of primer is applied only over the worked areas with a brush, not blasted on with a spray can. Only after the area is smoothed does the spray can come out.

I once had a boss that fits this perfectly. When a new procedure came along, he didn't bother to learn about it because it was different from the way things were when he started with the company in 1952 or thereabouts. So when you figured it out yourself, and it wasn't quite right, he'd tell you so but wouldn't disclose the "right" way because he hadn't even tried to do it. He'd complain that none of us were doing anything right, ever, but when any of us was offered another position he'd complain that he couldn't afford to lose any of us. All of that caught up to him...he got canned at the age of 57, and was unemployable. He had to ride out close to five years after his unemployment benefits ran out, until he could retire at 62-1/2. I didn't feel one bit sorry to see the door slam on his way out.

The new kit is certainly better (though one of my brothers, who owned and restored a Kurtis, did find inaccuracies with it), but did it sell well enough? I would bet that it will be a long, long time before we see the newer kit reissued...if ever.