Mark

Unless he finds more, I bought the last one he had at NNL East last year. His stock of clear parts and red taillights has been depleted considerably from what it was...

AMT's '70 kit didn't have the year on the box. They sold it through 1971, they didn't bother doing a new box for it. They handled their Corvette kits (coupe and roadster) the same way. MPC's '70 Camaro "Super Hugger" likewise didn't have the year on the box. It too had the standard front end. For '71, they changed to the RS front end, and issued it as an annual kit in a different box.

Last time that happened to me, the people involved were near the end of an aisle. I interrupted and told them that, if they'd move over a couple of feet, they could block two aisles. If looks could kill, I'd have been dead right there and then. For a while, I had the luck to run into near-empty carts in the checkout line. These jokers would leave a cart in line with one or two items in it, then wander off to finish their shopping. Keep calm, shove that stuff off to the side and carry on. Now I do my shopping in the off hours, so I don't encounter blocked aisles and such anymore.

Pretty sure that kit has a 426 also. Other MPC funny cars that used that same chassis also had other cylinder heads and valve covers included (Blue Max Mustang had Boss Nine parts, Setzer Vega had Chevy big-block parts). The MPC Winged Express fuel altered does have a decent 392 though.

From the looks of it, there are two plugs per cylinder. The plug wires that appear to be going to the other distributor are instead going to one plug on each cylinder on the opposite side of the engine. You'd wire the engine as though each distributor is the only one on the engine; that is, one wire to each cylinder. The other distributor's wires would then go to the other plug for each cylinder.

This kit is based on the MPC Garlits dragster kit, not the Ramchargers'.

It has a few newly tooled parts including the injector and scoop, but has a 426 engine and not the 392 as pictured on the box art and the info card included. Still, many of the needed ingredients are here, particularly the decal sheet. Round 2 can, and probably should, do more items like this.

Because if they had reissued the hardtop, people would be asking about the convertible...

The bumpers from the AMT '65 El Camino, or the station wagon, will fit the AMT hardtop body also.

If you use one of the newer Revell kits as a starting point, keep the frame and modify it back to stock. The outside of the frame rails form the outer "sill" between the bottom of the body and the running boards. It's going to be extremely tough to make some other frame fit that area as well as the kit piece. The AMT '32 engines all have the exhaust manifolds molded as part of the block. The AMT '34 5W coupe is the earliest model year kit that has separate parts. I'd check the parts in all of these kits, as few 1:1 '32 Fords (even restored ones) still have a '32 engine. Who knows what was in the car(s) that were measured and checked to make the kits. Wheels will be another problem. The AMT '32 kits all have undersize wheels. Best ones out there in plastic are probably the Monogram '34 Ford units...good luck finding a set though. Next best might be AMT '34 Ford 5W coupe, but something about those doesn't look right to me...

If you want a custom Continental, check out Jimmy Flintstone's website. He's got one, maybe two of them with a different roof already grafted on. Hang on to the stock one, either to rebuild or trade.

That, and the "custom" version with the top probably isn't readily available now. I'd guess most of them were bought specifically because that top was included, so the chance of finding a "loose" one would be pretty thin.

I have only seen a couple of tops in resin, none for the Chevelle though. The top from the Revell '72 Cutlass might work...just a matter of finding one...

The mirror in that kit is one of the first things I noticed; like the rest of the kit, it's as nearly perfect as anything Revell has done in recent years.

Those two aren't numbered, but seem to be variations on one edition. I've got one with that style cover, but have five different un-numbered catalogs prior to the first numbered one, #6. Here's the first one...

The first one was 1959. I've seen a grand total of three of them, including one I have now and another I sold a couple of years ago. If you're looking to build a complete set, there was no 13th edition.

When the AMT-labeled series was reissued, Ertl had a booth at one of the shows I had set up at. I won one of the '32 Chevy kits in a drawing, and opened it up to find the street rod version parts. I asked the Ertl rep why they didn't mention or show those on the box, he said it was because the Chevy had street rod parts while the Chrysler and Lincoln had the gangster stuff. Had all of the kits in the series had similar optional parts, they would have included the info on the boxes. It's too bad MPC didn't offer any of them with closed body styles (coupe or sedan). But back when these were created, the closed cars were mostly looked at as parts cars to restore roadsters or phaetons.

Looks like a '72 body. The 1:1 was a '70, but the kit was always a '72.

I'd say $110 is way out of whack for a busted one.

Reissues usually bring a barrage of "let's see if I can unload this before word gets out" listings...

That's definitely an AMT body. The tool that produced the body started out as a 1970, from which the promotional models (and a $1.00 no-engine, no optional parts kit) were manufactured. The promos and $1 kit would have had that molded-in radiator wall. The Red Alert kit was run so many times over several years, that for one run someone may have set the tooling up incorrectly putting that radiator wall into the body.

When the question came up on the (then) Hobby Heaven board, the first guy I thought of was Don Prudhomme. McEwen would have been right up there because he and Prudhomme were joined at the hip for so long. Nicholson was certainly up there too. A lot of other guys/teams don't seem to get past five or six, if that: Garlits, Sox & Martin, Ivo, Montgomery. Bill Jenkins only has three, though I wonder if he held off for a long time due to the lousy job MPC did on that Vega...

I was able to find ten Tom McEwen cars without getting away from 1/24-1/25 scale... MPC 900/12 '69 front engine dragster MPC 855/12 rear (mid) engine dragster Polar Lights 953 Barracuda funny car Revell '57 Chevy funny car Revell H1455 Demon (likely the Navy sponsored Duster) Revell H1463 rear engine dragster Monogram 6763 Hot Wheels Duster Monogram 5695 Hot Wheels front engine "coffin body" dragster (reissued later by Model King) Monogram 7529 Hot Wheels rear engine dragster Revell H1455 English Leather Duster There might be another one or two 1/25 scale cars among the Revell "tin box" Nineties funny car kits, as they did issue several cars in that series that had not been issued in the Seventies. The Graham books don't go beyond 1980. There are at least two 1/16 scale kits, and one in 1/32 scale also. There's also a HOT ROD series double kit with a dragster and a funny car, but I believe both of those are already counted here.

While you're at it, fit the engine lid to the opening...

Got my car insurance bill last week...it went down. Six months' insurance is now only $10 more than I was paying on a fourteen-year-old pickup. Opened today's mail, and there's a refund check for the difference on the previous six months. Not a huge amount, but it's better in my pocket than theirs...