Mark

The primer that was used could certainly have been "hot". But, an otherwise usable lacquer primer will cause those swirl marks to show up if it is not sufficiently shaken prior to application. There's been a general cheapening of these primers in recent years; less "solids" or pigment, more reducer. If the primer isn't shaken thoroughly, you run a good chance of spraying what is essentially lacquer thinner, leaving the solids settling at the bottom of the can. A good shaking (you should be able to roll the agitator around the bottom of the can) and applying the first coat from further away than usual, will often eliminate or reduce these problems.

No, it has been mentioned...the line is a swirl mark at the meeting point of molten styrene coming together from different entry points. Not really a flaw in and of itself, but the hot primer sure did make it stand out.

Again, nothing new...early Sixties annual kits had this too. Years ago, I built a previously unbuilt '62 Fairlane to match my 1:1 car. I painted it with Duplicolor touch-up spray in the correct color. It took a bunch of priming and wet sanding to get similar marks off of the body. I also removed some of the raised lettering on the underside of the hood (carryover from the promo) that didn't pertain to my car...that was fun too. I'm glad AMT left the V8 emblems off of the front fenders of that body...

Resin parts may or may not fit (maybe you have a copy of a copy, which affects fit). For some reason, over the years I have had little trouble finding original Tudor sedan bodies, parts, and kits. I sold half a dozen of them a few years ago at NNL East (all had the unique sedan parts, enough to complete a car) and I've still got a few of them. Since the fender/chassis units aren't always in good shape, I have picked up several of the Woody/roadster pickup kits for parts. The original sedan bodies do fit the later fenders.

The fender unit/chassis, stock parts, and stock engine from the '28 sedan were carried over to the woody/pickup. MPC management didn't really want to reissue the AMT boxed kits in the same form, hence the alterations. MPC also had a habit of reusing parts from one kit in another, so the A fenders/chassis and woody/pickup chrome flathead engine got used in the Barris Mail Truck kit also. Back to the '32 Chevy (which never appeared in AMT packaging), the initial issue with both bodies was later issued as two individual kits before the panel truck got butchered into the Vampire Van. The Vampire Van body does still fit the stock Chevy fender unit, which makes for some interesting possibilities.

That was the AMT '32 Victoria.

My kit has extra letters scattered on the sheet...when mixed with the complete "Firebird" lettering, there is enough there to spell "Turbo Trans-Am". At the time MPC made that kit, Monogram had an exclusive licensing deal with SCCA (owners of the "Trans-Am" name; Pontiac paid SCCA $5 per car to use it). MPC scattered the "Trans-Am" lettering on the decal sheet in a number of kits to work around that.

The Ford roadster pickup was probably intended to be in that Blue Ribbon series (which turned out to be a series of one). I'd guess that it and the Chevy didn't set the world on fire sales-wise. Had they done so, MPC might have issued the Ford as a third entry, with the woody wagon body. It wouldn't have been outrageous to see the Switchers based kits like the Ts and Deuces issued also. The Ford was of course based on the stock kit, with a bunch of alterations: the Chevy engine and Corvette rear suspension, and the repro Halibrand (Mehelich?) wheels which are very nicely done. It's a shame they didn't throw in a different front axle to get the front end out of the sky, even at the cost of losing the working steering. That, and the steep angle of the engine/transmission, are the only minuses in that issue. Ertl later undid most of the "Blue Ribbon" alterations in the Ford, but did leave the transmission hump in the floorboard piece. They also didn't put back the spare tire recess in the front fender.

Revell did a decent job on those multiple piece bodies, both 1/32 and 1/25 scale. It's interesting that, in the mid-Seventies, they dusted several of the 1/25 scale kits (Ranchero, Skyliner, Corvette, Porsche, and Austin-Healey) off for reissue while leaving the '62 Mopars in the tool crib...

The Astro I body/Piranha chassis funny car was the Scorpion. It was issued only once, early-mid Seventies. As for the spy car body on that chassis, the roof may or may not line up with the roll cage and driver area on the chassis, depending on the mismatch a decision will need to be made regarding which piece gets modified to make everything fit.

2X on the can...I've never had any trouble with the cans, other than that of my own making. You do have to shoot clear over it anyway, why not just use the can? The only hitch is the "time window" between coats, and you'll have that with an airbrush too...

That tow truck version was included in the '72 annual kit also.

The 1:1 car has a 273 V8, biggest one you could get in a Barracuda at the time. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if the car was actually a Valiant...pretty much the same thing after the roof is cut off. I got the Round 2 reissue kit as a gift a couple of years ago, only recently did I get up the courage to try to do the pearl white/candy red fade paint job. It actually came out good. I did the paint around Thanksgiving, both colors are lacquer, should be thoroughly gassed out, cured, whatever, and ready to shoot some clear over by now...

I wouldn't attempt to remove only part of the plating on a part...I'd be concerned about the removal medium still "working" after paint is applied in the desired areas. For mag wheel spokes and such, I paint over the chrome, leaving things like lug nuts and center caps plated. If the plating on the wheel is overly thick, I'll set it aside and look for a set with good plating.

I'd look at the most recent statement to see exactly what you have/don't have. Maybe the broker lopped off a few items in order to give you a lower quote...

See if you can pick up a built/started kit as a source of spare parts. I was looking for one of the Hawaiian Dodge Charger funny car kits awhile back (that one had newly tooled tires and wheels) and was able to do just that. I found it at a show though, shipping would be costly on a large scale kit like these.

Not sure, but the model railroad aftermarket was using it long before the car guys. I had a couple of PE items done in the late Eighties, but Putty Thrower (Mark Gustavson) was doing model car PE first, as I got info from him and used his source for my stuff.

Nothing special, others here used it before I tried it...LA's Totally Awesome cleaner. I read about it here, saw it at a Family Dollar store ($3 for two quarts), and tried it. I have since bought a gallon at Ollie's for five bucks (actually less as I had a coupon).

There were six kits in the series, all had the same chassis but some kits had one type of rear suspension while the rest had another type.

I haven't needed to buy the stuff lately, but I don't recall seeing the Castrol branded product last time I was shopping for it. The Purple Power works fine for me, and I won't need more any time soon because I use something else to get paint off of plastic parts.

The old CAR MODEL magazine had a couple of articles on building garage scenes from cardboard boxes. The idea was to put all of the tools, spare parts, and figures included in most car kits to use.

The drag strip display base in several late sixties AMT kits looks an awful lot like that Revell item, but with space for only one car.

The automotive ones were previewed at a trade show around 1964, but did not generate enough interest from hobby dealers to warrant production. The idea behind these was that they would have been cheap to make, Revell was getting into slot racing at the time so money for other new products was thin on the ground. An Ed Roth themed one would have been cool to see too...

If the Purple Power is strong (hasn't been through a lot of uses, and hasn't got water or condensation in it) fifteen minutes to half an hour should do the job. Make sure all of the lacquer is off (thick areas or runs may require some assistance), clean the parts well, then treat them like unplated parrs (which they now are).

I prefer to remove plating from parts that I want to paint. Those parts have at least the equivalent of a heavy coat of paint on them, in the form of the lacquer undercoat that helps the plating (vacuum metalizing) adhere to the plastic. I use the "purple" cleaner (used to be called Castrol Super Clean, then called Super Clean, the one I have now is Purple Power) as it takes off the lacquer undercoat as well as the plating. If you strip a part molded in white and then plated, if you get everything then the part should be plain white when it is stripped. If it has yellowish areas on it, then some of the undercoat is still on it.