Mark

Those look like the tall Indy car tires. AMT put the tall tires into those "toy tractor-trailer" kits they were doing in '67 or '68 (the North American Van Lines truck that started out as a toy or promo item...there was a dump truck too). The rears got used on those sand dragster kits too. The shorter front tires got used on the '63 F-100 reissue (the one with that dumb camper cap with the raised area at the front), also (of all things) the Mach I Mustang concept car kit.

Fragile? Challenge accepted!

The last issue of the original kit, prior to the Boss Nova alteration, was in 1969. Slightly different from the annual kit (different custom wheels, a handful of custom parts deleted, red taillight lenses eliminated) but overall pretty much the same.

Looks like someone did a decent job of filling in the rear door lines. With no time off (I've been working all along) but sometimes nowhere to go other than work, I've been doing some time-consuming repairs and bodywork jobs that I had been putting off. One such job involved molding the Advanced Custom parts on a '63 Impala (yes, the assymetrical parts), another will be to mold in one of those custom Nova front end pieces...

Lots of possibilities...stock, some were drag raced, a few built as street machines. Until now, a hard to find kit, and expensive when you did find one. Me, I want one to build with the original customizing parts...

You'd have to ask Heller about the F1 cars...

They probably can, it just comes down to licensing costs and if they think enough of them could be sold.

I used to work for a guy who messed with the odometers on his leased Ford Explorers. As I recall, the first one was just turned back. The second one was replaced with a lower mileage odometer from a wreck, the third was just disconnected when it approached the target number (just under the limit specified in the lease). The same guy had an angle iron ladder rack that was bolted to the roof first thing. When the vehicle was turned in, they'd take the rack off, bash in the areas around the holes with a ball-peen hammer, then slob some Bondo in the holes and do a quickie touch-up. On average, he probably put on three times the allowed mileage...on a three year lease, he hit the maximum mileage around the end of the first year. The dealer was apparently making enough money on the leases to look the other way at these activities. They probably flipped the trade-ins at auction, but the dealers getting those vehicles probably just passed them on to the next sucker as-is.

Universal fit = doesn't fit anything in the universe...

I see those commercials and tell myself: "Self, don't take any of those people along if you go shopping for a used car..."

You could get a second copy of the Hemi from the parts pack, which Round 2 has issued. The original drag Deora had that pack but it was not plated. I'd almost bet it will be plated in the new issue though.

Let me guess...Testors lacquers...

Yes, a former AMT employee once stated that. The family is/was from the area. Many of the names on their decal sheets back then were actual people.

Yes, that was a real service station, operated by relatives of the infamous doctor.

The '28 sedan, the Wild Ones issue (could be built as a roadster pickup or woodie wagon), and the first issues of the separate woodie and pickup kits all had solid (no slots) early Halibrand wheels.

Don't know about model paints (presumably you mean lacquers like Testors and Tamiya) but I know a guy who has used it over automotive lacquers like Duplicolor. I'm not sure what the time frame is (how soon clear is applied over color) but it seems to work. I guess clear sprays like Testors and Tamiya are moving off the shelves there, too?

That is the first issue of the AMT Mustang, the one which eventually became the Warren Tope race car. AMT had the promo contract, not many promos were made but there were some. None had dated license plates, I am not sure if they were produced as 1971 and 1972.

The '70 kit I have now is molded in that color. The '70 I had in 1970 was molded in white. Some of the MPC annuals were molded in white and a color (not two colors in the same kit, but either or) in 1970-71. I have seen '70 Barracudas in lime green (including mine), '70 and '71 Challengers in purple, '70 Chargers in yellow, and '71 Impalas in red, all in white also.

It probably picks up some moisture/condensation over time too. Between that and the contamination from paint already removed, you can't expect it to last forever.

That Testors dark blue must have been a popular color for the Opel GT. I stripped that same color off of a partial build that I bought some years back.

You mean, like at the rear of the body? I'd look for a pan from some other car that matches up at the corners of the Deuce body, then cut it down to fit. If you are able to vacuum form a part, you could make a simple mold and form such a part also.

Revell has three: the hard-to-find highboy based on the 1996 tooling, the Stacy David Rat Roaster which is similar but newer tooling, and the ex-Monogram Little Deuce which is 1/24 scale.

Those slicks are very early MPC items. Probably the only ones in the tool bank (other than the "too old for the car" pie crusts) that would fit.

When looking at project cars at a show, it's easy to spot potential problems like welded-in glass or lacquer crazing on bodies. eBay sellers sometimes become experts at posing items for photos so as to hide or minimize those problems. If the pictures leave something unclear, pass on the item and wait for another one.

To hopefully straighten everything out, the original MPC '67 and '68 kits did have the plain base model hood. The original '69 annual kit does not have it. It does have two hoods, one being the 400 hood with the small scoops. The other is a custom piece which was probably made by reworking the plain hood. The 400 hood in the more recent kits was newly tooled and is not the same as the original one. I don't think it fits as well as the original piece either. The Revell hood should in theory fit the MPC body because the parts on the actual cars are the same. But the kits were created forty years apart, by two companies, with different people and different methods. You'd expect that similar parts should interchange between kits, but that is rarely the case.