Mark

The accessory parts do look like Chevy stuff. They probably figured that, with the hood sides in place, nobody would notice the rest. The ZZ Top kit is pretty much a curbside for practical purposes, as I recall it has the stock single exhaust detail molded in.

That engine is actually a Pontiac, the basic engine was in the original '34 Ford customizing kit that was the starting point. The ZZ Top Eliminator kit has the same engine.

That's a distinct possibility...if they do, they will very likely make an effort to issue them in order to make use of their investment. The only thing in the way might be licensing.

This kit's origins stretch back to 1955. It was created by Pyro, and was first issued with wheel/tire units made entirely of plastic, and with no plated parts. It was tweaked in the early Seventies to include plating and vinyl tires (probably adapted from another kit). If you keep that in mind, the shortcomings are more acceptable. But it shouldn't have been issued in packaging with only pictures of a 1:1 car, and certainly not at the price of a more modern car kit.

The profit margin isn't there on the little stuff compared to larger items like model kits. When was the last time anyone (LHS, online sellers, even Evergreen or Plastruct themselves) ever discounted any of those items?

NHRA did fold the Modified Sports (and maybe some of the Street Roadster) classes into Gas in the late Sixties, IIRC. I seem to remember seeing pictures of Hugh Tucker's supercharged '28 Chevy bodied car running as a gasser towards the end of its racing career.

The currently available AMT kit was newly tooled in the last twenty years or so, and is a short bed. Not to be confused with the old SMP/AMT longbed kits from 1960-63 (promos 1960-66).

Their '39 sedan delivery kit has a stock hood. For some reason known only to them, neither Revell nor Monogram ever saw fit to include it in the coupe kit.

If you are looking for rectangular tubing, say 2" x 3" in 1/25 scale, just do some math...it would work out to .08" x .12". Then just select the styrene stock closest to the desired size. If there is no exact match, go slightly undersize as the paint thickness will be out of scale. As for calipers, I like digital, even the cheap ones can switch between inch and metric. The calipers are indispensable, you will find all sorts of things to measure like scrap wire, tubing, and sheet plastic you round up from non-hobby sources. The battery will last much longer if you take it out between uses. I've had one for five or six years, still on the first battery.

No problem...with me anyway, I've seldom been able to just join two parts together without having issues with the seam. I've sometimes joined panels together at the panel line itself, but more often than not the join is somewhere that shouldn't look like there is one...for that, there is the filler.

The wheels in the Malibu are nicer than the others. Because those Malibu kits sold so well over the years, often they turn up in built form at toy shows and club swap meets. When they do, I'll snag one provided it isn't a total glue bomb. Lots of good parts in those: wheels, scoops, Lakewood scatter shield, and suspension parts including a nice three-link rear end setup. Unbuilt ones go for stupid money so you don't want to pay that and then part it out, but the built ones can be a gold mine if you can pick them up for cheap.

I don't think anyone is promoting the use of putty to fill whopping huge holes or gaps, just smoothing the transitions from the as-manufactured part into the modified area. It's just the way I do things (not speaking for anyone else) but I do use styrene to fill the huge voids, then rout out slightly the area between, then use epoxy putty to smooth out the transition. Two-part filler is used to finish the area to a greater degree. I generally only use one-part putty for final finishing, filling ejector pin marks, and other minute flaws.

Might not be the actual wheels moving from one kit to another, but the same masters used to cut tooling for several kits. Most, if not all, of the Monogram Early Iron Series kits have similar wheels also.

Thinking about it now, it is kind of surprising that AMT didn't issue the stock sedan instead of the phaeton in 1969. That was right about the time that they converted the Willys double kit to eliminate the sedan and add the pickup conversion parts. It would have been natural for them to piece it into the Victoria kit just as they had done by creating a new phaeton body for the same kit. Then again , look at Rod & Custom issues from around then...Thirties Ford phaetons were hot. A number of bodies and cars were being bought in Australia and shipped in. AMT's kit was supposedly scaled from an Australian body, which did differ in minor ways. Note too, the original issue AMT box art refers to the phaeton as "rarest of the Fords"...not so. The B-400 convertible sedan was produced in fewer numbers, and is rarer than the phaeton.

They're designed to be added after paint. They are thin enough that most paint jobs would bury them.

Yes, the body in the one-shot Street Rods release is from the double kit. If I remember right, you can see traces of a couple of the locating pins that were molded into the double kit body for attaching the custom fenders. AMT did tool a new three-piece hood for that kit however.

The AMT roadsters and five-window coupe each have a unique (though similar) chassis: rear suspension and axle molded in, separate front spring/axle with backing plates molded in, no height adjustment built in. Victoria/phaeton/one-shot stock sedan all use the same chassis, fenders, engines and wheels. All bodies are height deficient at the cowl, and all kits have too-small stock wheels.

I'm not aware of any Craftsman series kit that included customizing parts, other than spotlights, mirrors, and such. The original annual kits did include some custom items like fender skirts and a Continental tire kit. I believe the first reissue was called Junior Trophy Series or something like that. Those kits were molded in color, often more than one over the production run of the kit. I've seen dark blue Buicks but the one I have is red. I'm not sure the Buick was ever issued in Junior Craftsman or Craftsman packaging. There was also a late Sixties reissue, molded in white, again without the skirts or Continental tire parts from the annual kit.

AMT's '69 and '70 Mustang annual kits were totally different, not a single part shared between them. I don't think even the tires or metal axles were the same from one to another.

For the sedan, I figure the sides were tweaked to make the bucket a little bit narrower, to slip inside the sedan body. The rear door lines were definitely wiped off the sides. Undoing the width alteration (if it was done) to make the interior fit the phaeton body again would make the interior not fit the sedan again. The door line apparently wasn't an issue, as I don't think that was reversed for the phaeton reissues.

The old Car Model Magazine ran a series of articles on kitbashed versions of the original Moon Scope kit. Not my thing, but a reissue of it as originally produced with the six wheels would probably do okay.

That sedan used the phaeton interior bucket. I never got around to comparing them, but I'd suspect that it was altered to fit into the sedan body. If so, Ertl having made it fit the phaeton again would have made it (again) not fit the sedan body. That said, maybe now it would be possible to just tool a new sedan interior, copied from a sedan kit piece. If anyone at Round 2 thought there would be enough demand for a reissued sedan, that is.

It's worth learning, especially if you have several unique or hard to find items that you would like to have multiple copies of. Just a thought.

There are five versions of that four-wheel SMP (later AMT) trailer that I can account for: -the first version in the Chevy pickup kits -second version as a stand-alone item. The stand-alone trailer does not include the fuel can boxes, there are other differences too. -third version as included in the late Sixties drag combo sets. Side skirts deleted, new deeper open wheels, trailer generally looks more up to date for the time. -fourth version as included in the Modified Stocker Hauler set, with the tire rack and "wind breaker" up front. -fifth version as sold via the Ertl Blueprinter mail order offer: chrome slotted wheels replacing the previous open wheels.

If you are making one, two, or three standard size mufflers and intend to use them in multiple projects, casting them should be considered also. Make one of each, make it as perfect as you can, then make castings of them as needed.