Mark

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.

With what you have, the "easiest" thing to do would be to get one of the reissue '65 Riviera kits and start with that body. The back end below the trunk lid is all different; unfortunately you don't have that section to piece into the '65 body.

The MPC Dyno Don Mustang II was a '75. When MPC did funny car or pro stock kits that shared the stock body, they did one per year, in between annual kits, to get more use out of the tooling.

If all of the versions aren't planned at one time, then adding a new version leads to things like: parts not being included that some buyers would have wanted, and parts being included that aren't needed.

The packaging of utility vehicles versus sedans makes the utility an easy choice for most people. Most of us need the bigger cargo space every so often. You buy a TV set or a lawnmower now, hardly anyone delivers those things. You need enough space to carry something that big, a sedan trunk or rear seat ain't gonna cut it.

The only one that is really different is the '74. Changes from '74 to '75 on the 1:1 cars include a slightly taller grille and header panel (to accommodate the V8 option), different hood, and relocation of the fuel filler higher up on the quarter panel. The annual kits (AMT and MPC) have the differently shaped hood opening and relocated fuel filler.

The Revell '62 Dodge was a four-door. Their Plymouth was a two-door; in fact, that was the only one of the Revell Mopars that duplicated one also offered by Jo-Han. All the others differed from Jo-Han or AMT offerings in either body style or trim level.

AMT '59 Edsel.

You answered your own question. When different parts are in the same location on a particular parts tree in two versions of a kit, that means that to include both parts the manufacturer would have to run one set of parts, switch out the tooling insert, then run the same set of parts again. It has been done in the past, but it costs a lot to do that. The wedge engine parts are in the quasi-stock sedan kit in order to differentiate it from the two "factory" drag offerings. Chrysler was concentrating on the Hemi in racing from '65 forward, development stopped on the wedge during '64. The A990 Dodges were built with both four-speed and automatic transmissions. Some probably got switched from one to the other (maybe even back and forth) by the teams that got the cars, depending on whether or not their driver was good with a stick. Moebius is still relatively new to car kits, so they've probably still got some growing pains in this area. With more experience in car kits, there would probably be a lot fewer Plymouth specific parts included in the Dodge kits, and that might have left room for other parts to be included. I might have liked to see both automatic and stick transmissions, an 8-3/4" rear axle in addition to the Dana 60, and maybe an optional A-100 front axle setup. But for being relatively new to doing car kits, they're doing some pretty specialized subject matter and executing it quite well.

The '60 Corvair kit was a four-door because that's the only body style that was available when the kit was released. The '61 promo was also a four-door, but the kit was altered to an incorrect convertible with a separate glue-on hardtop roof which was also incorrect. The annual kits were usually the same body style as that year's promotional model. The manufacturers seldom asked for four-door cars, and the kit manufacturers quickly learned that the four-door didn't sell in kit form. SMP did a '61 Impala four-door hardtop promo but didn’t bother to offer it as a kit. Jo-Han did some four-door kits in the early Sixties but gradually stopped offering them as kits. Bottom line: kids didn't want models of four-door cars, so the kit manufacturers soon learned that and avoided issuing any. Unless it's a police car, or a well-known movie or TV car, don't count on ever seeing it as a kit from a mainstream company.

The two trees pictured at the top are from the '67 GT350 kit...not related to the '68 kit at all.

Barris' shop probably painted other competition cars. Dean Jeffries painted and lettered a bunch of Indy cars in the Fifties and Sixties. The Alexander Brothers painted a bunch of drag cars including those of the Ramchargers and Golden Commandos. (They didn't do the Ramchargers lettering though, they had another guy do that.) And Ed Roth lettered a bunch of drag cars including the Stone, Woods, & Cook Willys as depicted in the first Revell kit.

Are those Corvette units downdrafts? The earliest kit AMT put Webers in was the '65 GTO (possibly the '64 LeMans convertible and GTO hardtop the year prior), and those kits used them horizontally as side-drafts. Either way, those are way bigger than the Datsun setup. If I remember right, the MPC Datsun pickup kits (those with the stock engine) have a pair of side-draft Webers that should work.