Mark

The annual kit has Hurst mag wheels. Reissues have the K-H wheels. There is one issue '69 Cougar that has unplated K-H wheels. It is a Seventies issue though, all recent reissues do NOT have them.

AMT '66 Mercury has the best set. The '53 'Vette wheels do not have open backs as I recall.

I believe the early '64 cars did still have roll-up side glass. The early cars still had side trim and a bench front seat with the passenger side seat back removed. The Dana 60 rear axle did not yet exist in 1964 so it is wrong for the kit. Best combination of parts IMO would be Jo-Han body and related parts, and maybe some engine parts, interior and chassis from the Lindberg kit, aftermarket wheels and tires.

Maybe...I've never checked as I have been a subscriber since about 1981.

Back issues are often sold at higher than original cover price.

Yes, four-speed. The slant six version may have a three-speed manual (which would be correct for that engine) but all of the V8 versions have four-speeds.

No, the Petty version has a Hemi.

The Lindberg '64 Plymouth kits (all versions) have manual transmissions, all of the Dodges have Torqueflites.

Adams was briefly tied in with Revell in the mid/late Fifties. The first run of most of their kits were likely branded as Revell. When Adams and Revell dissolved their partnership, Adams marketed their kits under their own name. After that, it would seem that they either sold or rented the tools to other companies. Back in the Fifties there were a lot of different, sometimes oddball, scales used. This continued into the early Sixties. The British branch of Revell tooled a series of British and European cars that varied from about 1/40 to about 1/45. It finally hit all of these companies to start tooling their "series" to a single scale, as builders wanted to display them together and have them in the same size relative to the 1:1 versions.

The publisher of Hot Rod and Motor Trend has axed all of their magazines except three or four, prior to the pandemic. Besides the two titles mentioned, I think they are keeping a truck magazine and an off-road title. Car Craft, Street Rodder, Musclecar Review, Hot Rod Deluxe, all the others...19 of them, gone already.

I didn't know Varney did any kits. They made model railroad stuff mostly, like everyone else they dabbled in slot racing in the early Sixties. The cars were slow and the track design was weird, so they made a hasty retreat to railroading.

A lot of the parts in the MPC GTO kits were recycled from 1966 straight through to '72. Chassis, engine, parts of the plated tree. The bucket seats got re-engraved with the new upholstery pattern every year...'72 seat is a lot bulkier than an original '66 annual kit seat! When the wheelbase changes, they just moved the axle holes...that's why the recent kits have multiple sets of holes, or they are in the wrong place.

Publishers "combine" titles so they can keep subscription money already received, and send the "combined" title to fill the remainder of the subscription. I'm not going to bother with FSM...if we're lucky they might include a token car article per issue.

Around here, Mavericks rusted quickly (like nearly everything else!). In 1986, I bought a '74 coupe with 27,000 miles and lots of structural rust and rot. The interior was like new. The engine and transmission live on, in my '62 Fairlane. The powertrain now has more miles on it in the Fairlane than it racked up in the Maverick.

I believe the '70 GTO was converted back to '72 spec. The Ertl '70 was itself backdated from the red '72 that was issued around 1980. The original annual '70 had the Endura front bumper molded as part of the body, the Ertl '70 had it as a separate part. There were two '70 GTO tools in 1969-70. Parts like glass and rear bumpers from 1970 production items are marked #1 or #2 on the back sides. Parts interchange between them. I did check a Fast Pack kit and a funny car body, but haven't taken apart a promo and don't have an annual kit. Between promos, red "contest promos", Fast Pack snap together kits, annual kits, and funny car kits, MPC likely needed two tools. One most likely got updated to produce 1971 promos and kits, the other body eventually got butchered into the dirt track car body. The interior from that one wound up in the Ertl '70. Ertl put a lot of thought into some of those modified reissues that they did.

"Justice", or "just us"?

Very short production run. Probably done after the stock/funny car Maverick kit (the first kit in the Maverick/Comet group) but before the Comet funny car "annual" and definitely before the Pro Stock variations. The Comet kit had Maverick wheel covers. The Comet promo model did have correct wheel covers.

But the guy playing the game never said: "You sank my battleship..."

Maybe now they can offer a complete one...

The idea behind the service bed is to sell more truck kits! It's too bad it isn't included as an option, but that would add to an already crammed box, and raise the price.

I too bought the tacky glue thinking it might be better than Elmer's. And I too was disappointed, and switched back.

What's to know? Probably the same service bed that is in the '65 or '66 that is out now, included in the later truck kit, with new '67 trim parts as needed...

You may have bought from a beginner. Or perhaps someone who starts everything at a low initial bid taking a gamble, and lost this time around. Think of it this way: the seller held up his/her end and packed the item without trying to cut corners or offset the loss. The seller might do enough business to take the occasional loss in stride.

Who was it that said..."the only thing worse than being talked about, is NOT being talked about"?

Most of the pro street kits (except those that are variations of all-out drag cars already issued) have front suspension that is shared with the stock version of the kit. Another reason that many drag cars use rack and pinion steering is space utilization. In most applications it frees up space in the right places for header design.