Mark

I'd bet on less Ford, Chevy, and Mopar, and more Ferrari, VW, Audi, and BMW.

Latin...the dead language that will live forever. Did the casino put up a sign with information on how many losers there were, and the average of how much each one lost?

Fred Cady made the Judge decals (including wheel arches) in multiple color combinations (two sets per sheet as I recall). Out of production, but you should be able to turn them up on eBay.

The green seat is MPC; "Street Savage" Camaro (1980?). Blue one is from the MPC '81 Turbo Z issue Camaro. The two-piece seats are likely AMT Camaro. The 1:1 Camaro seats were based on the Vega bucket seat but were wider. All of the MPC stock Vega kits had a one-piece interior bucket (seats molded in as a unit) so the only way to get the narrower Vega seat would be to cut them out of an interior.

The first-issue Revell '57 Chevy had the US Royal tires also. The center holes are a bit larger than typical AMT/MPC to fit Revell wheels. Keep in mind too, these tires are made of that nasty "plastic eating" vinyl. If you use original tires as opposed to modern copies, either mount them to resin wheels or use a good "barrier" on your plastic wheels where they contact the tires...

I was looking around on eBay, there are a bunch of miniature electric motors available. One was just over 1" in diameter and about 1/2" long (not counting the output shaft). It's just a matter of experimentation to find gears that would work, after figuring out which battery/batteries to use. A wind-up "build your own clock" motor would cost more, but should be even better because it's already set up to turn slowly...

Mix them before adding anything to them. If they are liquid, they should still be good. I'd mix each one (if you have multiples of one color, do them all at once) then keep an old paint brush and a piece of sheet plastic handy. Dab a drop or two from each bottle onto the sheet plastic and see how it dries. You might get a bottle that takes too long to dry; in that case either it's not fully mixed, or maybe that one shouldn't be used.

I'd rather see an old thread brought back, than see two or more on the same subject. Especially when someone cranks up a new thread without having seen another one that was started the same day...

Right up until it is finished, it still has the potential to be better. That's what might be at work here...

The chassis is from the '65-'66 annual kits. The '66 body was then used, with a new chassis, to create the mid-engine funny car kit.

More regulations, more safety features, more convenience features, and everything is more complicated. With more safety stuff, if you have a good driving record your insurance should be reasonable. I switched out of a fourteen year old truck to a new car last fall...insurance went up less than $100 per year. Are you talking actual prices, or sticker prices? Seems like GM in particular always has some sort of deal going where they're knocking about twenty percent off of the sticker. Why they don't just price the thing at the actual selling price is beyond me. "I got a $50,000 truck for a little under $42,000". No you didn't, you got a $42,000 (if that) truck. Thank Iacocca for those stupid rebates, they've been a noose around the neck of the domestic auto industry ever since. The second (and last) truck I bought was virtually identical to the first one...same truck, only sixteen years newer. Short wheelbase, regular cab, two wheel drive, V6, stick. Same color, even. I paid right around $10,000 for the first one, in 1988. The 2004 truck had power windows and air conditioning that the '88 lacked. Sticker was just under $20,000. Throw in two rebates that totaled $2,500, also the interest saved via zero percent financing, and a $1,000 or so discount on top of all that, and I figure I paid $15,000 or so in real money for that one. Figure in sixteen years of inflation, and the A/C on the newer truck, and I'm thinking the newer one was actually a better deal.

Check again...the Dream Rod was never reissued. What it is now, is what it is, and that's what it has been for fifty years or so. As for a resin conversion back to the Dream Rod, you'd need a ton of parts, the body being one of them. There were numerous changes made.

The chassis is based on the stock Cadillac unit. I was a bit disappointed with that, as I expected it to be a complete aftermarket chassis. I bought two of these kits. The "parts car" will probably give up its powertrain and wheels to an Eldorado Brougham (as soon as I can find a built one to cut up, to fix the proportions of the front clip). But the chassis will stay with the body, and there will be enough left that I can swap in another engine and wheels and have another complete (though different) car. The chassis would be an okay swap into another late Forties/early Fifties car, but under anything else it will look out of place in my opinion. Yes, someone could fabricate a chassis that looks like this one, but under a lot of cars it won't look like it was designed for that car. Again, just an opinion...that, and $1.79, will get you a medium coffee around here...

They used to...not any more. They tried to reinvent everything...gimmicky working steering in the Novas (steering wheel actually turned the front wheels) but to do that they ran the exhaust down the wrong side of the chassis. Weird wheels and tires, where you had to stretch the tire over a huge wheel. Metal plating that is impossible to remove, and sometimes dull. Photoetch hood hinges that are difficult to assemble and seldom work. And, in the Pontiac kits, too-thin hood and trunk outer panels that were warped while still attached to the parts trees. There just aren't enough people out there willing to pay the premium for a premium" car kit (the Fujimi Enthusiast Series being a prime example).

Pick up a Trumpeter car kit, build it, and get back to us...

The AMT '69 Cougar underbody ought to work; after all, it originated with their '67/'68 kits. It's got incorrect inner front fenders, though. It's been a while since I checked, but I seem to remember the windows from the AMT '66 Mustang coupe fitting a resin early Cougar body pretty well. They have to be cut apart and fitted separately, but I usually do that anyway. If these bodies are as close as suggested, the Mustang windows might work in the MPC body too. It's worth a try if you have one of the Mustang kits sitting around (most everyone does).

The funny car kit was MPC, the '67-'68 annual kits were AMT. They were competing companies at the time those kits were originally made, so one is not converted from the other.

It still had the Ala Kart version included, decals and all. The late Sixties box art (two of them) just emphasized other versions that could be built using optional parts included in the kit. AMT owned the car from '61 or '62 through around 1970, so they didn't have to pay royalties to anyone.

It's still spelled "cheese"...should still have at least some cheese in it. When you see "cheez", "wyngz", or "choclaty chips", then you are definitely getting Soylent Green as opposed to any semblance of the real thing. When I was in the mood for that stuff, I'd go for the store brand anyway. The more yellow, the better. Same goes for cheese twists (or puffs). I'm behaving lately though (lost ten or twelve pounds recently, fifteen or twenty more to go), job search coming later this year or early next year. So a lot of that stuff is out the window now (actually, haven't had the cheap mac/cheese in some time anyway...)

They haven't had a "kit area" on the shelves for many years. Around fifteen years ago, they had an "end cap display" (freestanding temporary cardboard display) of pre-Round 2 AMT car kits around Christmastime, but that was pretty much a one-shot deal. Last year I spotted a couple of AMT Ecto-1A kits among the 1/24 scale diecast, again no "permanent" kit selection. Even when they did have them, the selection was middle--of-the-road bland, like Walmart used to have. No toy store around here has had a go-to kit selection since Child World, and they're long gone.

It wouldn't take four years to settle an estate in many cases. I went through that with my mom's estate a couple of years ago, it took little more than one year. If I were on Facebook, I'd dump it.

Not the exact same kit, but you could build the funny car off of those instructions. You wouldn't have all of the parts though. The funny car is pretty much the annual's drag version. The body was altered with radiused/flared rear wheel openings, and the funny car chassis had the molded-in exhaust detail removed.

I've got two of those: one MIB, one builder. I didn't know about it back in the day, learned of it when I found the builder some years ago. AMT got their use out of that Falcon tool...

There was a '69 Falcon funny car kit, after the annual but before the Modified Stocker. Basically the annual kit with radiused/flared rear wheel openings, and the exhaust removed from the chassis. It came in a narrow box like the AWB kits. The Falcon and Fairlane were on the same basic body for '66. The sedans used the same roof and doors, and the wagons were the same except for the front clip. The Mustang stole sales from both the Falcon and Fairlane (so much for Iacocca's "marketing genius") so both cars were consolidated onto one basic body. The Falcon coupe and sedan were on a shorter wheelbase though. Ford Australia tied the two cars more closely together; they did build Fairlanes with Falcon front sheet metal because some of the body (Fairlane quarter panels) was imported, so the rest needed to be locally made.

The chrome one with the rectangular lamps? AMT '69 Torino fastback, as is the piece above it (for the rear of the car)...