Mark

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?

While flushing money down the toilet for 25 years with Saturn (it never turned a profit), also with buying Saab (which likewise never made a dime under their ownership)...

Also, briefly, editor of CAR MODEL Magazine ('67 or so)

Unless the carb(s) are in plain view on the finished model, generally the manufacturer is going to put the effort into other parts more easily seen. That said, a number of recent (last twenty years) kits do have two-piece carburetors (or units of multiple carbs) with decent detail.

It'll throw the proportions off. Too, the Merc has a vee'd windshield and a hood that's rounded in the front. If you cut one car down the middle and add in a strip cut from the middle of a second car, the windshield and hood will extend forward a bit more, unless you alter the angles. I can't see the need to widen the car more than a couple of inches on each side, even to fit the body onto a newer chassis. You can probably widen the fenders a couple of inches on each side without getting into too much work. If you need more width for wider suspension, you could flare the wheel openings. Some guys do that now when they stick a subframe under an early Fifties car, to try to hide the width difference.

Regulator/water trap turns any compressor into an air brush compressor. Even better, you're not listening to the thing running all of the time while you are spraying.

The original annual kits had the wide stock car tires pictured above. They look cool on the model, but don't give you a lot of movement in turning the front wheels. The GT Radials will allow for a "tighter turning radius" and still give that funky late Seventies vibe. I had a set of those on my 1:1 car in 1980...absolute krap tires (lasted only one summer) but looked great...

I've got a Riviera but haven't checked it; it'll get built stock anyway. The annual has a vinyl roof while the reissues don't...wonder what happened there? The leftover custom stuff could go on a reissue anyway.

Actually, a lot of kits with photo box art have "prototypes" pictured on the boxes. The original MPC '69 4-4-2 box shows a Jo-Han Olds with an AMT Chevelle chassis stuck under it. (Look at the front bumper on the stock version.) The original '62 Bel Air (dark blue car on the box) shows a Modelhaus Bel Air. The first issue '62 Impala convertible box has a built test shot that didn't have the door handle detail added yet. Revell was in on it too: a lot of their 1/25 scale Seventies funny car kits have built 1/16 scale cars with the wiring left off. The front wheels and tires are the giveaway: they're way too good...

I never just bought the pre-wound spools, as some of those weren't wound correctly anyway. But those things do wear out and the occasional replacement is needed. And everyone has their own special design, so you are stuck buying replacements from them. I showed the guy at Sears the difference between the tool batteries: one contact was moved only slightly, just enough that the new battery would not work in the older tool. Even he agreed that there was no real reason to do that other than to make the old tools obsolete. He didn't design the thing, so it's not his fault. But then again, with a straight face he was still expecting me to replace everything and buy the new stuff at Sears again! I was looking through some stuff the other day, and came across a Sears gift card I got last Christmas, so I'm stuck going in there at least one more time. I'll probably buy a decent torque wrench and a six-point socket for when I put the winter tires on the new car.

Sears does that too...buy a Craftsman weed whacker, and less than two years later you can't get a spool for it. Same for battery-operated portable tools...buy one and soon afterwards they change the design so the new batteries won't fit the old, still-good tools. That's when I quit going there.

Not really...when was the last time you saw a Toyota Camry kit? Nobody is doing a current F-series Ford either. For much of the Seventies, the Olds Cutlass was the big seller. Jo-Han only issued the '75 as a snap kit, and then only because GM paid for the tooling...

Now that I think of it, oddly enough the '69 Buick Wildcat probably had them.

Thankfully...

The Manx had two of the hollow tires, for the rear. I'm not positive, but those tires may have "for racing use only" sidewall markings. AMT didn't put them into a lot of kits at first. I don't think the '69 Chevelle or El Camino had them, but the '69 Corvettes probably did. The '70/'71 Camaro (same kit for both years) definitely had them.

I'm thinking '66-'69 Continental, not sure of the year though. AMT probably stopped doing interior updates after the last promotional models, so it could be more than one year.

My annual hardtop kit has the blue/red stripe Firestones, while my El Camino annual has blackwalls. AMT put the red/blue stripe Supremes into some of the reissues of earlier annual kits in '69 also. I had a couple of the "Havana Banana" '65 Olds kits with them. AMT only had one hollow Goodyear tire back then, it was a NASCAR tire. They used it in a few other kits like the Meyers Manx, and used it in a few street rod kits in the Seventies.