Mark

The other day, I was thumbing through an old issue of HOT ROD (January '65)...there's an article on a cut-down '34 Ford roadster with a Duesenberg straight-eight. A lot of the classic car kits can be picked up for cheap, particularly built ones missing a few parts (or maybe a dusty "mint" diecast?) Lots of neat project potential here...

A few years ago, I bought a Jo-Han '63 Cadillac kit on eBay. It's unbuilt but has a problem typical with those kits: the tip of one of the fins (above the taillight) was broken off. I found the piece in the box, was holding it against the body with a pair of tweezers...ping! Off into Carpet Land. That thing didn't survive for fifty years only for some idiot (me) to lose it...so the search began. It took three hours, but I found it.

The "belt badges" were 1973 only. Some of the drag car kits issued in '73 had them too. MPC's replacement for the "spoof" parts from '71-'72, another misfire on their part. We didn't need no stinking badges!

The '64 SS hardtop bridges a gap in the AMT early Nova collection. AMT never did a '64 kit or promotional model. Chevrolet initially dropped the Nova SS for '64 thinking the Chevelle would fill the void, but brought it back after a couple of months.

Model King reissued it, or rather what is left of it. It was converted to the Boss Nova around 1971.

Maybe mail order, but a more recent deal. The kits pictured are from 1970-71; Ed Roth was out of the picture at Revell after about 1966.

Put your heaviest boots on, and stomp around on the carpet, until you hear a crunch...

I've got a "de-Bossed" Boss Nova in the works...roof hole filled, rear wheel openings patched in, back to stock. All sheet plastic, no parts pieced in from a "lucky find" annual kit body. I've got to scribe the panel lines back in. I've already got three or four stock wagons, so this one will get the door lines scribed to two-door spec, and will get Nomad-style slanted B-pillars. The Boss Nova body needs considerable block-sanding to eliminate waviness in many areas, but like many annual kit bodies it's nice and thick so you can mess with it as much as you like.

For a close-to-stock Vega, take a look at the AMT (not MPC) Chevy Monza. For a pre-75 Vega, you'll want to lose the long "torque arm" that was added for the Monza. The Monza kit parts aren't the greatest (AMT was "offshoring" some tool design during that period) but it is the only stock Vega/Monza underbody out there that hasn't got everything molded as a unit.

A stock convertible could only be '62 or '63...none built by GM after '63.

If it's more than "minor", you can do a partial assembly of the supporting structure (chassis plate and interior side panels), then pull the body into position. Then wrap the out-of-shape areas with rubber bands (difficult) or tack them in place with a hot glue gun (easier). The rubber band method is tougher because you have to be careful that they aren't pulling something else out of shape, also because rubber bands aren't as good as they used to be and dry out/fall apart. I use the hot glue method with Jimmy Flintstone resin bodies. Those are often pulled off of the mold before they are fully cured, which leaves the lower body sides spread a bit further apart than they should be. That affects even the hood fit on some bodies, so it's something you'd want to fix before doing anything else. The "pull it into place and glue it" method will require setting the thing back into the box for a few weeks, but in my case procrastination pays off.

If they don't know anything about them, then why is it that's all you see when you check their prior sales half of the time? Or, you get that "I didn't check this, so I don't know if it's complete or not". The only ones that turn out to be incomplete are the ones they didn't check. It's a Festivus miracle!

I'd go with the annual...I've got a couple of different reissues, and I don't think any of them have the "427" on the scoop because all of them have small-block engines.

If the "frosted" part has a texture all over, that's going to give it amazing powers to stick to the cured mold material. If the texture isn't desired in the finished parts that will be cast, then you will want to smooth the part off as much as possible anyway. That's true for any imperfections in any part you are casting. Would you rather remove a flaw from one piece (the master), or from every single part that comes off of the mold? When making molds, the only time I have used a mold release agent is when mold material is being poured next to already cured mold material. The part itself shouldn't need it.

MPC '79-'88 Mustang (Mustang III?)

Got too much stuff already, but I wouldn't mind getting an MPC '70 "Super Hugger" Camaro (the only MPC early second-generation kit with the non-Rally Sport grille and bumper).

Best later sold the tools for those kits to Aurora. The Best versions are earlier and probably harder to find. The ones pictured might be store display models. I don't know if they were offered as assembled models to the general public, but I would guess not. Keep them as-is, resist any temptation to rebuild or "improve" them otherwise they'll lose value.

Check the interior door panels. That Morrokide is tough stuff!

I'd suspect that the photo is altered enough to get around any copyright issues. It's not like the photographer owns the rights to the Impala SS, staircases, and alleyways.

I wouldn't chance the alcohol getting into the surface of the plastic, and playing havoc even after the markings themselves have been removed. Use a pencil.

Yes. The reissue '74 has the same piece (not the '78 police car unit that the earlier reissue '74 kits had).

Jimmy Flintstone now offers an Econoline pickup body as pictured above. It's mastered off of whatever diecast he got the van body from. Slightly undersize (about 1/25.7 scale) but then again, so is the Little Red Wagon donor kit that the underbody comes from...

The Mercury kit was first issued in '63...probably went into development in '62 so it would have been a 413. I'd like to see how long that adapted Ford/Merc transmission would hang in behind a 413...

Every time gas prices spike here, you get the usual parade of camera-hog politicians shaking their fists and shouting "We're going to investigate this, we demand to know why prices are higher here!" . Then someone whispers in their ear: "...pssst...it's the taxes", and you never hear from them again...

Testors doesn't seem to be reinvesting in their products, then when support drops off they dump them. They've dropped a handful of the automotive lacquer colors rather than fix them in response to a few complaints. When was the last time they brought out new colors in that line?