Mark

If anyone is looking for the Revell Foose FD-100 '56 Ford pickup kit, HL is restocking those. I saw them at a store in my area the other day.

The Maverick could conceivably be tooled as both Stock and Pro Stock, but the Vega would have to be done as the drag version only. It's just too different from stock. A stock Vega kit would be a non-starter anyway.

Nice save. The slicks are Jo-Han, the front tires are actually original to the kit. Ertl did some strange things early on, they hadn't gone through the tool crib and identified everything yet.

Yes. In addition, #1 is from the Revell '56 Chevy, #2 MPC '69 Mustang, #3 appears to be the Revell Henry J/Willys pickup/Austin seat, #4 AMT seventies Camaros, #11 AMT '55 Nomad, #12 MPC Mustang II, #14 MPC Vega pro stocks (Jenkins, Larson). The upside down seat might be from the Monogram Hurst Hairy Olds.

They might do 30% off next week, and alternate with the 20% until after Christmas. If you absolutely have to have something, hold off until then.

The Revell Willys pickup, Austin, and Henry J kits have the fiberglass seats as pictured (though the upholstery pattern is probably different). The new-tool Willys coupe has one seat. (The old, opening-everything Stone, Woods, & Cook coupe kit has different seats altogether.) The Revell Anglia and Thames panel truck have what look like 'glass seats, with headrests molded in. Their '53-'54 Chevy kits have similar seats, but those look like crude copies. Other kits I can think of would include the AMT '33 Willys, and MPC '69 Mustang (those seats are a lot smaller than the others). I've got a set of MPC seats that look a lot like the "Ted's Aircraft Interiors" units pictured. I think they are from the '73-'74 Challenger and Barracuda annual kits with the gasser version included. Not positive about that, not that you'll trip over one of those kits anytime soon...

Those particular seats weren't fiberglass, they were some sort of solid, lightweight plastic, molded around some steel inserts here and there for mounting purposes. Those were first used by the dune buggy crowd, with drag racers later picking up on them. I remember first seeing them in Pro Stockers early on. Those were really light. A guy I worked with bought a '58 Corvette with a pair of those seats in it. The seats were mounted without tracks and couldn't be adjusted, so he decided to replace them with stock seats. I bought those for my brother, who was putting together a Ford Prefect at the time: rectangular tube chassis, aluminum interior floor, the whole bit. I hauled those over to his house in my hatchback, and remember those things were really light even with the upholstery on them. If I remember right, the upholstery was pretty easy to remove, but I don't remember how it attached. Fiberglass seats for drag race cars came in in the early Sixties, around the time 'glass bodies and body panels came into widespread use. (There were T-bucket bodies and other parts in the mid-Fifties, Dee Wescott started making early Ford fenders in the late Fifties, but IMHO it was Cal Automotive that really got the ball rolling around 1960.) Cal Automotive made fiberglass seat shells; if you have any of the Revell parts pack body kits, all of those include at least one.

The same body side tooling is used for both the hardtop and convertible. The original '69 El Camino (unrelated to the current '68) used different tooling for its body, so it didn't have that trim.

I've got a couple each of the X-Acto right angles (the "L" shaped one, and the triangular one). I've also got several stainless steel rulers, one is thick and heavy so it stays where I put it. I thought I had one with cork on one side, but I was mistaken.

The plastic stubs go in front. Ertl eliminated the front wire axle and filled the holes in the engine block halves years ago. The stubs should be shown for the front suspension assembly, unless someone at Round 2 scanned/copied an early instruction sheet.

Nope, the driver is on the right side. Judging by the Holden in the other lane, that car was in Australia.

None of these kits ever had recessed areas or cut lines for the windows. The pre-1975 issues all had open side panels on the body, and separate inserts (with/without window openings) that went into the body from the inside. The early bodies had a separate hood also. The revised body had the open side panels eliminated, round portholes added to the quarter panels, the rear door window openings eliminated, and the hood molded shut. The A-Team van had the quarter panel and roof ribs added, sunroof and spotlight holes added to the roof, and portholes filled in.

To make the body "more like the earlier versions" which didn't have the ribs. Only the A-Team issue had them. No big deal to add them with Plastruct strip stock, but then again I would have just left them on.

The roof is the same in that respect. There are differences between the two bodies, but those involve the raised ribs on the roof panel and quarter panels (A-Team body has them, Rescue Van does not).

Or the full-depth sedan delivery interior bucket. The sedan had a goofy shallow interior, so it could be used to build the fenderless/channeled version also...

One of the employees was probably cherry picking the cartons in the back room, before anything went onto the racks. Once, I walked in when an employee had just finished putting out Hot Wheels cars, and a co-worker was berating her for not letting her have a look at everything first. "My husband gave me a list of things to look for...", hubby probably set up at toy shows selling them at a premium...

No Cosworth Vega kit, at least not in 1/24 or 1/25 scale from AMT, MPC, Revell, or Monogram.

The Hemi Hunter/LA Dart has the wheel openings too far back on the fenders. On top of that, the styling crease just above the wheel opening is on the "soft" side, and on top of that there's no front bumper. The original Demon kit has issues: besides the incorrect front wheel openings, the hood is extremely flat. MPC tooled only the upper half/outer surface of the hood, and used the existing Duster tooling for the underside. The Duster hood is a lot flatter than the Dart/Demon hood, so the end result isn't the greatest.

The Firestone 500 tires were in the AMT (produced by MPC) Car Craft Dream Rod also.

Those six were it. The Studebaker was a "Bonneville gasser", no slicks were included but you still got the dragstrip starting line display base. There are two versions of the Willys kit: early ones contain the double kit with the custom '32 Ford sedan, later ones include only the Willys but include both coupe and pickup versions. Same stock number. The box art shows only the Willys coupe. A sealed box kit won't give you any clues as to which version will be inside, though the double kit would be a bit heavier than the coupe/pickup version...

As much as possible of the strip to be removed should come from the widest point of the body side. You'd find the wide point, then take half of the section amount from above that line and the other half below. It isn't necessarily a straight line, it might follow the side trim. If you want to keep the trim intact, that might force you to move it a bit. I don't have that kit within reach, but if the quarter panel has a styling bulge in it, the cut might jog up/around it, to keep that intact. If you aren't keeping the side trim, the cut should probably go up/over the front wheel opening also. I'd work strictly on the sides first (right up to where the body sides meet the back end of the car), then tackle the front and rear afterward. You might end up taking the rear material off of the bottom and keep the original trunk opening as-is. Or shorten the trunk lid (height) and keep the area below the lid intact. With the front, you could remove material from the lower edge of the hood and move the grille opening up, or leave the hood intact and end up with a lower/smaller grille opening. It will come down to what you think will look better.

How stiff is the stem wire? I'm fiddling with making replacement hinges for an old Revell '55 Chevy, using paper clip wire. For the trunk and hood, I'm working with the bends already in the paper clip, using the large loop at one end as part of the hinge. For the doors, I'm leaning towards just straightening the wire and re-bending to match the hinges in the kit, so I don't have to mess with filling the slots in the door panels and cutting new ones. One suggestion: on the trunk hinge, make the retaining tube (the one attached to the body) longer, so there's no side-to-side slop when the trunk is opened.

Last year, I picked up a built '66 Rambler wagon that was cast from the promotional model. Model King has been selling some resin kits at NNL East the past few years; I got a '64 wagon from him, but not a '66. Has anyone ever seen the '66 for sale? I wouldn't mind getting another one...

2X on the side and top views. I'd get two bodies (maybe even three) rather than trying to use flat sheet plastic for the stretched areas. And, I'd think it through; you won't necessarily splice pieces from one body into the other. You might have to cut the two bodies at different points and join the two "long" pieces together to get it to "flow". For the narrowing process, I'd work from a center line as opposed to narrowing anything by a specific amount. Some of the narrowing will involve V-shaped pieces being added or removed to change the taper of the front end. Definitely not a beginner project.

Round 2 quit at the right time (if not a bit late) with the slot cars, judging by the numbers of them that got dumped into the closeout stores.