Mark

Canadians will have to start making copies of Testors or Krylon Short Cuts labels, to paste onto Tamiya spray cans for the border crossing...

Train show season is approaching...if you've got any in your area, go! Lots of used stuff turns up, including items bought and never used. If you know what you are looking at, there are deals to be had. As a bonus, there are occasionally deals on model car kits, new and old. Prices on those are often lower than at toy shows or model car club meets because most people are there looking for train stuff. The biggest shows will have a good tool/supply vendor or two. The train guys buy all sorts of neat tools that you don't see at toy shows or model club events, and you don't think you "need" until you see them.

Absolutely none. Some of the Monogram early Ford kits were reworked to eliminate all of the optional parts in the mid-Sixties. The chrome trees were even shuffled to move the stock parts together more closely. That would indicate that, even then, Monogram had no intention of going back to the multiple version kits.

The Firebird was the Camaro. Same separate roof, same interior. The body was slightly different (lower body side trim) but the Firebird had the Camaro cowl panel (neither kit had windshield wiper detail). The Firebird did have a Pontiac engine. It had custom grille detail on the front bumper. The rear bumper was completely custom, it looped around the custom taillight insert. Not looking at the kits, I believe both kits had a set of Keystone mag wheels as one wheel option.

That's a "for 1968" AMT kit, meaning it wasn't 100% stock as delivered. Basically a mildly altered '67. Upholstery pattern is non-stock, and there is no stock trim on the body. I'd be inclined to keep it as-is, but then again I've got a pile of parts to build one or two of those, and plan to do so.

The Superbird is actually molded in blue...is that an early one with wire axles and one-piece tires?

That's one of the first items Round 2 issued. Someone is buying them if HL is still putting them on the shelves...

Not just sitting inventory, perhaps licensing period has ended. When that happens, the company producing the licensed item has to stop on day X, but has a specified period after that to sell off the items. If too high a percentage of total production goes to closeout, that can be a bad thing. A small amount every so often is tolerable.

That e-mail mentions kits manufactured exclusively for Ollie's, but the two kits I saw earlier today have been available elsewhere. In fact, the local IPMS chapter met earlier this week, and those of us who entered the "summer challenge" had to bring our finished models. One guy who normally builds aircraft chose the Jungle Jim Vega, and did an extremely clean build on it.

I believe the Mustang (and the Multi-Maverick) were pearl blue. Montgomery's earlier cars were a solid color, 1952 Cadillac Pastoral Blue.

It's been a long, long time since I have seen it, but I recall Duplicolor having a spray can product called "blender" or "panel blender". It may have been a clear coat (cars weren't clearcoated in the Sixties), but now I'm wondering if it wasn't a spray can thinner intended to soften the OEM paint in areas adjoining the repair/repaint area.

That's not something I have heard or read anywhere.

I'd disagree on the Grand Am. Though only Mickey Thompson used that body (he designed it, and nobody else was allowed to buy one, except one guy who bought a complete car) that kit was by far the biggest seller of all of the 1/16 scale drag cars that Revell did. Prior to finding that out, I always wondered why Revell never did a Grand Am in 1/25 scale. It probably would have cut into sales of the bigger one.

It's true, I got one today. They only had a couple of Atlantis kits, the other one was the ex-Monogram 1/32 scale dragster. On one hand, I'm hoping this doesn't become a trend as Atlantis is a smaller company. If they end up dumping a lot of car kits to closeout, that might discourage them from digging deeper into the vault. On the other hand, this could be a one-off thing as the JJ Vega was issued on the heels of the Green Elephant issue, and the 1/16 builders may not have wanted another Vega right away. The lack of Revell markings on the box art photo may have played into it too, though they are on the decal sheet. The fuel line material is improved over the Revell issues, and the new tires are better than the new ones Revell tooled for the Hawaiian Charger they did a few years back.

The Beetle body shell supposedly has great crush resistance. One VW book had a picture of one underneath a Ford pickup that had landed on top of it after crashing through a bridge guard rail. The roof sheet metal was messed up, but the structure didn't crush to any great degree...

Apparently he's tested the idea, and it works well enough that he's announcing it to the world. Anytime you're using something in a way it's not really designed to be used, or using paint materials from different manufacturers or systems, TEST, test, and test again before going near anything of value.

No, someone from Moebius has addressed this and the '68-'72 Chevy pickups.

With the MPC kits, probably no difference between '79 and '80. Not much, if any, difference in the actual car.

If those were 1/25 scale, they would probably be more readily available as they'd probably have been reissued multiple times over the years. The 1956 versions, that is. Revell updated all of the cars in this series to 1956 spec, and later reissued some of them as custom-only versions. Those were popular when new, before AMT and SMP in 1958 (and Jo-Han in 1959) basically rewrote the rule book for model car kits to 1/25 scale, with one-piece bodies and clear windows. If they are in decent unbuilt condition, are complete, and could be had reasonably, they could be good trade material.

Next year, according to anyone who is even remotely connected to Pegasus and/or Moebius.

Yes, late '74 release AFTER the '75 annual. The annuals started hitting department store shelves as early as August.

'63 and '64 bodies are on the tough side to find, at least clean ones. It seems that many of them were assembled by kids who had to use every part that came in the box, as well as the entire tube of cement.

Nope, nope, and nope. '75 body on this built one, notice the revised hood opening. The Dyno Don kit was run after the 1975 annual kit.

Altering the front fenders would be a piece of cake compared to the work needed to put a '63 or '64 rear bumper on a '65.

Of all the kit manufacturers, Jo-Han was way more tied in to promotional models by percentage of their production than AMT or MPC. You could count on your fingers the number of Jo-Han annual kits that were not first made as promos. But even they figured out that kit buyers didn't want four-doors. The last Jo-Han annual four-door kits were done in '62 (Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and Rambler Classic). Jo-Han did do a number of AMC promos that were not offered as kits, including a four-door or two. MPC didn't do any four-door annuals (promo or kit). Probably just the luck of the draw, the manufacturers they were doing promos for likely just didn't want any. After 1960, AMT did the Lincoln Continentals for a few years, and one Ford LTD, mainly because they already had the tooling costs paid for via the promo business. Even then, they initially announced the '70 LTD as a customizing kit but walked that back and just offered the promo in unassembled form for a buck. You could make a good argument that the full-size and luxury cars didn't matter one way or the other, because they wouldn't be built as racing versions. Anything else, though, a four-door kit just wasn't going to sell. And everyone had that figured out by the end of 1962.