Mark

The only Revell kits I have found to be more brittle than average are some mid-Seventies kits. And even then, it has only involved certain colors, particularly the metallic bronze and green.

The Revell Mercury is either a '55 or (most likely) '56. If it is the 1958 issue, it is a non-stock '56. That said, the 1/32 scale car kits were always molded in styrene, same as modern car kits. Any adhesives you use with other car kits will work just fine with the Mercury kit.

The "Duster" Dart first appeared in the early Eighties, prior to MPC being acquired by Ertl. MPC tooled a new, funny looking hood scoop which was taller but still fit over the same hole as the original one. The original scoop doesn't fit over the dual quad Hemi, only the single four-barrel carb version. The tool was probably marked somewhere as a Duster, as the Dart was converted from the '75 Duster which in turn had evolved from the '71 annual kit.

Driving for Petty Enterprises, in a Superbird as I recall. As has been said already, the Bird was used only on the long tracks. The regular Roadrunner was used on the short tracks, as well as the handful of dirt tracks NASCAR still ran on as late as 1970.

Not sure about the 4 X 4 versions, but Toyota 2WD pickups used the 5-on 4-1/2 lug pattern for a long time. That's the same as many Ford, Mopar, and AMC products. Only one GM car used it that I'm aware of ('61-'63 Pontiac Tempest).

Like I said, nearly all promo-based annual kits used the convertible version of the interior. Obvious exceptions would be cars that were not offered as convertibles. The only other exceptions I can think of are '69 and '70 Chevelles (convertible rear seat "doglegs" are molded as part of the convertible boot) and the '67 Impala which has the boot "cheated" a bit to work with the hardtop interior bucket. The "automatic shifter and console, with the stick transmission" happened a lot with the annual kits too.

The Mustang II was issued as the Larry Fullerton Trojan Horse, but the first issue of it was the fictitious "Champ". I've got a sell sheet for the first issue but it is lettered "Stampede". Apparently Monogram snuck their 1/32 scale snap Mustang II funny car out first with the "Stampede" name on it, so AMT changed theirs. Not long after it appeared, the Trojan Horse was issued so there aren't many "Champ" Mustang II kits out there.

The actual car used a '71-'72 style body. When the kits were in the ballpark, MPC retouched photos of the real car for the box art: changing wheels, moving the hood scoop or adding windshield wipers to a Pro Stocker, and so on. When they used an illustration instead of starting with a photo, the kit was WAY off.

The kit has its origins in the 1965 promotional model which was offered as a hardtop and a convertible. (There never was a convertible kit.) Like nearly all promos, when both body styles were offered, the convertible interior was used in both. Do a quick "assembly" of the body, interior bucket, and chassis plate, then look at the underside of the interior via the hole at the rear of the chassis where the transaxle attaches. There's a huge space between the interior and chassis. The interior is extremely shallow. I'd consider cutting out the interior floor and adding to the height of the interior side panels so as to lower the floor. I did something similar on a build I did a few years ago, only I used the top of the chassis as the interior floor. Mine was a gutted racing interior. I also stood the interior side panels straight up to eliminate the draft (taper) that the old one-piece interior buckets have. It's a lot of work, but it will stand out when it's done well.

I never had either of the Mopar body kits mentioned; the Charger looked odd to my eyes. The Mopower '73-'74 body is something nobody ever ran on a 1:1 funny car, but (to me, anyway) it looks like one would have looked had someone used that body.

The mid-Seventies chassis with the Donovan engine was used in a few other AMT funny cars: Mustang II, Monza, Pinto, Vega panel (different from the stock length one issued from '71-'77), and Corvette.

I'm not aware of any early Camaro or Firebird kit that included a raised top. The rear window looks way too big for those anyway.

This is one of those deals where you've got to be happy with what was done, as there was no way anyone was going to do a 100% stock one back in the day, let alone now. The politics of the half loaf. As for it already being dropped, the powers that be at Revell probably have a good idea of how many of these they can sell without too many ending up on closeout store shelves. A few thousand is likely it...no more than a couple of shifts' production.

Testors cement is a solvent. It has altered the shape and texture of the plastic in areas where it was applied. You'll have to sand/scrape it off, then rebuild the lost detail. Some of the off-brand cements sold back then weren't solvents and just stuck the parts together. With those, once you separate the parts the glue residue just peels away.

Revell used to use skill levels 1 through 3, now I believe they use 1 through 10.

They're all the same kit, the only different parts involve the grille and grille surround ('74/'75 have different parts than '76). I believe the surround for one style or the other needs to be narrowed a bit to better fit the body, but that is not difficult. The '74 would need a bit of work on the stock exhaust system, as it shouldn't have a catalytic converter. Another area of concern is the bucket seats, which are on the narrow side. Wider seats with a similar upholstery pattern can be found in the MPC Pacer hatchback (but not the AMT station wagon), also the MPC flip-front '57 Chevy and MPC (not AMT) '53 Ford pickup kits.

AMT did the promo for '70, it had a vinyl roof. It was the full-width single front bumper (non-RS) version. The hood was a separate part on the promo, not molded as a unit with the body as with most promos. MPC also did a '70 kit, same front end but no vinyl roof. It was not an annual kit, but was packaged as the "Camaro Super Hugger". MPC got the promo contract for '71 and changed their Camaro to the split bumper RS version, for both promo and kit. AMT did not do a '71 kit but instead continued to produce and sell the '70 kit through '71. Same box (no year on any of them), same stock number. They did the same with their Corvette kits, having lost that promo deal to MPC also.

The SC decals look like Fred Cady's. I've got a couple of his SC sheets, but haven't looked at them in awhile. The whole kit is '66 American. Taillights are different, as is much of the interior. The rear axle ain't right either. Jo-Han probably had the '66 American kit in the tool shop for rework right after they did the Sox & Martin '71 Barracuda. The rear of the chassis and rear axle in the two kits look similar. The engine block and exhaust manifolds are pre-1967 also. I don't plan to get crazy with the couple of those cars that I'd like to do, but will probably just make the best of what came in the box for the most part.

With the two-part spot putties (as well as Bondo, which is a "more coarse" filled that is seldom used for model building), it's the catalyst (hardener) that goes bad way before the filler itself. You wouldn't want to use "expired" material on a 1:1 car because of the cost of the paint going on top of everything. But it can be used on a model, as it won't be exposed to weather or other conditions. Before mixing a batch of "expired" filler, you'd mix the "filler" half, by itself, with a clean mixing utensil, then get some new catalyst. All of the two-part spot putties I know of use the same catalyst. You can get new tubes of just the catalyst at Home Depot or Lowe's (or Menard's, whatever is in your area). Mix a small batch of it, let it cure, if it is mixed correctly but doesn't cure properly then the "old" filler is no longer any good.

That must be a tough detail to get right on those cars. The original AMT and MPC annual kits, then the AMT/Ertl '70 which had been backdated from the AMT '77 annual...none of them got it quite right.

I don't think you're going to find a replacement that just drops into place. You might try modifying the kit piece to make a flatter grille, or just strip the plating off of it and paint it to match the body. I'm looking at reworking the front of that car, but my version is going to take a bunch more work.

Nothing modern, at least in my corner. And there are already plenty of decent Porsches and Ferraris. How about an Iso Grifo or maybe a Gordon Keeble? Or maybe a Type 2 Karmann Ghia, the one that never made it across the ocean? And, I still can't believe nobody has done a 1/24 scale split-window Beetle. The earlier, the better. Maybe even throw a KdF variant in there.

Tamiya does have a bottled lacquer paint line.

"Punishable by a fine" = "legal, for a price"...

Foose pickup is a '56, totally different windshield on top of the '55 and '56 kits being different scales.