Mark

Here's the Oldsmobile...

The sedan delivery is based on the Switchers sedan/phaeton kit, but was never a Switchers kit by itself. The sedan/phaeton has a goofy shallow interior so it could be built with the body channeled over the frame. The delivery has a full-depth interior bucket with no rear seat, so it can only be built with the fenders (or without, but the body sits atop the frame). The phaeton body (not included in this new issue kit) is actually a bit better than the AMT phaeton, but it has that goofy interior so you have to deal with that if you swap the body onto something else. The 1:1 '32 sedan delivery was virtually hand-built (converted from a sedan) in very low numbers (couple hundred or so). Some of them may have had the sedan rear quarter glass instead of solid panels, but all had the rear door.

It's doable, not necessarily as 100% stock but would be passable as a "street" version, drag car, or as a custom using the leftovers from an annual kit. If I remember right, some of the custom parts are in the recent reissues (gates in the tooling were apparently opened up). I'm looking at reworking one into a '67 funny car body (I know it's available in resin, I just like doing these things myself). I've already restored the wheel openings on the '65 Olds body. I've got a '64 Galaxie roughed in, but might re-do that one to incorporate stock front fenders from a junk body I have "in stock". Often, when these revisions are done, the trim is wiped by grinding further into the tooling. That was done on the Boss Nova wagon body, on some trim that's way down on the rocker panels. I just scraped it flush again and sanded the area smooth. With the Modified Stocker bodies, you can block-sand the sides with a big sanding stick and knock the body sides down to where they were before the tool butchery.

The AMT '68 Camaro, Firebird, and "Chevrolet SS 427" (doesn't say "Impala" anywhere on the box) weren't actually 1968 kits...the boxes read "for '68". In other words, "a Camaro we're throwing out there for '68". The Corvair is labeled that way too, it's just a '67 with no stock wheel covers and blank license plates. It's usually cheaper than a '67 kit now too. If you want a '68 Corvair, you can build one using the common-as-dirt '69 kit.

I don't believe the Barracuda and Chevy pickup were originally MPC. The AMT-issued MPC kits like the '28 Ford, Dream Rod, and Wild Dream/King T double kit were all MPC, including the tires. Even the boxes and instruction sheets for those early kits didn't match up with other AMT kits issued alongside them. That's not the case with the 'Cuda and the pickup. If you take out the Barracuda and Chevy pickup, the AMT/MPC connection appears to have been a late-'63/early '64, into maybe early '65 deal. By then, MPC had its own name out there with the Corvettes and ('65) big Dodge, among other things.

What I meant was that they were all built on one line in any given assembly plant. There weren't separate lines for 150/210/Bel Air.

While we're talking about Aurora, this past weekend I bought a couple of boxes of built kits and parts at an automotive swap meet. In there was an Aurora stock version '34 Ford coupe, looks like it is missing the front bumper and one headlight. The rod version wasn't there, but parts of it were: a few engine and suspension bits, and one of the chrome fenders. There was only one fender, but it turned out to be the right rear which was the only one I needed for the growing pile of parts for that particular car. I'm pretty certain that the fender itself is symmetrical and could be made to fit the opposite side by cutting off the mounting pins and switching them...but it happened to be the one I needed. I also found one of those early AMT '36 Ford stock wheels with the slots around the perimeter...it's unused, and looks like it has all of the detail intact.

I'd go ahead and build them if you want to. The AMT and Revell kits aren't valuable. Same for the Monogram Cord even if it's an original issue; if it is, you might even consider polishing the body pieces and not painting them. The XK-E might be the "most valuable" of the group, but there are other kits of it out there.

The Aurora Jaguar hasn't been reissued as the convertible. Since Monogram got the Aurora tools in the mid-Seventies, they have only reissued the coupe. Since the merger with Revell, this has continued because Revell has its own XK-E convertible kit, leaving no need to issue the ex-Aurora kit as a convertible.

For anything but a custom or (sometimes) drag racer, the chrome should go. All Chevies were built on the same assembly line then, so the Revell 150 kit's color suggestions for individual parts will also apply to the Bel Air,

Lower left wheels are the six-blade caps from the '53 Ford pickup. I've heard them called '61 Buick wheel covers, among other things I can't remember. Not sure what the five-spokes are; they don't look like anything in any of the reissues to date that I can think of...

Didn't Ford change the entire chassis under the Ranger around that time, to get rid of the Twin I-Beam front suspension?

1/25 scale...must be based on the newer '70 kit...

Uh, the recall wheels are on the left side of the plated tree. The white decal stripes are there, right below the black ones...

The side panel of the Corvair and Valiant boxes lists an El Camino (presumably the '60) as being available...but it never appeared in this series.

The AMT '69 annual kit body was apparently reworked into the longnose funny car. The longnose body does use the '69 kit plated parts. The '69 chassis was unique to that kit, not carried over from '68. The AMT '67-'68 annual was converted to the Shelby GT500 which still exists. The AMT '70 was all new. The body got used in another funny car, the '70 chassis was reworked and reused in the AMT '71-'73 kits. The AMT '73 still exists as the Warren Tope Trans-Am racing version. The recent AMT '69 Mustang is based on the undersize MPC kit. The chassis started out under the MPC '66 fastback, and is used in the MPC '73 kit also.

The last '72 reissue has a built MPC kit on the box, but the AMT kit is inside. But the grille/bumper aren't very good. When Ertl backdated the kit to '70 spec, apparently they tossed the original tooling for the bumpers. The "new" '72 has newly tooled pieces that are terrible. So you'd want to find a '72 kit that was made before the backdate job. An MPC kit might work too, but all of the reissues have bug-eyed headlamps, because the original detail was ground away for a NASCAR issue, then re-engraved back to stock after that.

The engine is very well done, however it is a '56-'66 engine (tooled for the Marlin kit). AMC introduced a new engine series during '66 in the compacts, and put it in the bigger cars in '67. The old engines have the distributor at the back, the newer ones in front. The SC/Rambler kit has the newer style cylinder heads, valve covers, oil pan, front cover, water pump, and intake. The coke-bottle Javelin/AMX kits have some of those parts too, but still have the old style cylinder heads. Jo-Han never did a later block or exhaust manifolds. The AMT Gremlin and Matador kits have some good newer V8 parts, and they interchange fairly well with the Jo-Han stuff even though Jo-Han's post-1960 AMC kits are 1/24 scale and AMT's are 1/25. I'm working on building a composite of the best engine parts to cast, if only I wouldn't set it aside every time I see something shiny. Some of the annual kits (Marlin, Ambassadors) have a Man-A-Fre type four-carb intake as an option, as well as chrome valve covers and oil pan (still for the '56-'66 engine). It would make a neat rod engine, in something with an open engine compartment. The reissue AMX kits have a 1970 interior bucket with the high-back seats, also the shifter is from a later kit. But the instrument panel is the right one. Yes, those Oldies series kits are cobbed together from various years' parts...but I'd still grab more of them if they ever came back, and still pick them up from time to time when the price is right...

If you want a rod version, there are other ways to go. The MPC '28 Woody and roadster pickup kits (reissued once as AMT/Ertl) include a rod version with a nearly all-chrome flathead engine. MPC also did a one-time-only issue of the roadster pickup with a small-block Chevy and a Corvette rear suspension. All of those are based on the '28 sedan fender/chassis so the parts will swap pretty easily. The Chevy engine sits in the roadster pickup at a pretty steep angle so you'll want to tweak that anyway. The Dodge Red Ram engine from the AMT '29 roadster double kit would slip into the sedan pretty nicely, too.

Not the same exact piece: one is AMT, the other MPC. The AMT Merc engine is adapted to a Ford/Merc stick transmission (which would probably last about five seconds behind that engine). MPC's engine has an automatic transmission, either a PowerFlite or early TorqueFlite. The block resembles those in the AMT Imperial kits more than anything. As for options, look at later Mopar kits with the "B" series engine.

The dark blue trailer might be from the AMT '60-'61 Ford pickup kits. The Chevy pickup trailer had four wheels and was long to fit full-size cars, while the Ford trailer had two wheels and was sized to fit Trophy Series cars like the T-bucket, dragster, or '32 Fords. The Chevy pickup trailer was sold separately also. The four-wheel trailer in some of the racing team kits is based on the Chevy pickup trailer.

I can't think of an MPC kit with those hubcaps. Besides the AMT Chevy vans, one of the early Sixties SMP/AMT Chevy pickups had caps like that. I'm thinking of the '62, maybe the '61: '60 had a different style cap, '63 had a cap like these but it was molded as a unit with the outer wheel.

#3 might be from the AMT '66-'67 Fairlanes. #5 is from the Revell '55 Chevy (the opening-doors one). #6 look like the custom version ones from the Beverly Hillbillies truck.

Starbird did build the Futurista. It was built for a particular show but got beat that year by Bill Cushenbery's Silhouette. The 1:1 Futurista was pearl white, not yellow as in the kit. The Eldon kits were all credited to Bob Reisner (who built the dual-engine Invader) but he didn't build all of them. Monogram only did one Barris car: the Bathtub Buggy. Revell didn't do any Barris stuff until the Seventies; the VW with the Rolls-Royce grille might have been the first. Revell did all of Roth's stuff except the Mail Box Chopper which was an MPC kit (that is way different from the 1:1).

Ray Farhner built the Boot Hill Express (actually, there are two of them). That kit came after the Darryl Starbird era at Monogram ended, but before Daniel came in.