Mark

In the early Eighties, I picked up a '60 Mercury convertible promotional model, molded in acetate. This thing was really mint, nice and straight. Not long after I got it, I was awakened in the middle of the night by what sounded like little pieces of plastic falling to the floor. This thing had warped enough to "spring" one fender ornament and both taillight lenses. As of now, I have two acetate promos, both Continental Mark IIs. They're sitting in a box in the basement. I had thought about cutting the bodies apart and piecing them together to make a straight one long enough to pull a mold off of it. Then I got a "mint" diecast Mark II for Christmas one year, and put that in the display case and never looked back.

I wouldn't mess with combining acetate with styrene or resin. Depending on storage/display conditions among other things, the acetate can still start warping at any time. I'd hate to put a bunch of work into a conversion only to have it go wonky on me. Too, the acetate often reacts with other plastics...ever see the fogged/cracked windows or plated parts on many of those old promos? I'd either look for the needed piece in styrene, or make a mold and cast it in resin.

The original MPC '56/'57 kit has two sets of headlight rims if I remember right...plated and unplated. All issues, including the original, have slightly radiused rear wheel openings.

Thanks a lot. What has been seen, cannot be unseen...

Looks like the Russian equivalent to one of those kits that you stick on a Nineties Thunderbird, to make it look like a shoebox Ford...

Pretty sure Ertl tooled a new convertible body for the late Eighties issues...tops don't readily interchange between annual convertible kits and the later body.

MPC used to do that, never saw that in a Revell or Monogram kit. The decal sheet pictured has "6.6 Litre" lettering for the shaker...isn't that the designation for the Olds 403 engine? The T/As with real Pontiac power should have "T/A 6.6"...

Does Georgia use a front plate?

Ford did sell a "base" version without the stripes...not sure if it had the portholes or not.

Shaking is probably the key thing. I tried a couple of them out over the weekend, and was surprised at how close they are to chrome even after seeing the pictures here.

Two rear doors (Thames, '33 Chevy) would make them panel trucks for most people. The '23 T falls into this category too. Not too many kits out there ('53/'54 and '60 Chevies) but probably lots of resin. Jimmy Flintstone's studio would be a good place to start looking.

If you have to put an emblem on something that says "Classic", chances are it is not, and will never be, a classic.

Mercury Cougar body, would be surprised if it still has a Mercury title though. There were a couple of "classic" builders putting together cars like that back then.

Around here, the discontinued items are already marked down. Revell '57 Ford wagon (police version, not the gasser) and (I think) the stock '70 Barracuda, AMT Lawman Plymouth and Crew Wagon '72 Blazer, MPC Volare, Soapy Sales funny car, '60 Corvette, '67 Charger, and '70 Bonneville among others.

Thanks for the replies! The urethane tires pictured are indeed copies of the 1/32 scale tires used on the 1/24 scale midget. This seller is a different one from the one(s) I have seen, who state in their listings that the tires are cast in open molds. That process leaves the inner sidewalls rough and without any detail. That's okay for a 1/32 scale slot car, but on this thing the whole tire is out in the open. I asked this seller about his tires, but have not gotten a reply yet. If he doesn't reply, I'd assume his tires are cast the same way. Looking at the two cars I have, one is missing HALF of the front axle while the other is missing the whole thing. So between two cars, I've got four rear wheels and tires, and one front. I'll probably hang on awhile longer to see if I can't run down an unused set of tires. I hadn't looked at the Surfite tires because I've only got one of those. The recent Revell midget wheels and tires would work too, but I'm not going to part out one of those to fix another, inferior version of the same subject matter. I should start looking at built 1/32 scale snap kits, maybe there is something usable there. I think I've got one tire from the old AMT All-Stars Indy roadster kit. If I had one of each size tire from that, maybe I'd cut some tread detail into them and do some resin casting. I've got to cast front wheels anyway.

I've got a couple of the old Monogram 1/24 scale Kurtis-Kraft midget kits (the ones based on the slot car body, not the larger PC-1 kit). One is missing the front axle, and with it, both front tires. Both the slot car and non-powered shelf model versions used 1/32 scale slot car tires. Revell issued several of the slot car body-based kits in the SSP program, including one or two 1/32 scale kits. The 1/24 scale kits were altered to use available kit tires, but what did they put into the 1/32 scale kits? Someone is repopping the old slot car tires in silicone, but those are cast in open molds leaving the inside sidewalls without any detail. Any information would be appreciated--

Michael's used to be relatively strong in plastic kits, maybe they figured out that they could make more money plugging something else into the shelf space. I haven't made a purchase there in a while, but did notice their stores here probably stock the full selection of Testors bottle enamels, certainly more than anyone else around here. The newer (now biggest in the area) local hobby shop is now doing coupons, so I've cut back on the chain stores except for craft items that I wouldn't expect a hobby shop to stock.

I built an original one two or three years ago, and had another one back when they were new. It only has six wheels, two per axle front and rear. The tandem axle was added to keep the built model from doing a static wheelstand when a car was placed on the ramp hauler.

I'm not so sure the current (Round 2) issue GTO (orange car on the box) has the tree, or any optional parts, included. The blue RC2 issue pictured above definitely includes the tree.

At least they weren't delivered to the wrong house, as happened with a package of mine a couple weeks back. It was a small package, would have fit through the mail slot in the side of my house that dumps directly into the hallway. I checked the tracking right after lunch, saw it as "delivered", and immediately went home to find it wasn't there. The delivery time shown was a good two to three hours earlier than when I get my mail on a typical day. Went to the post office, got the typical "we'll look into it" non-answer. I don't want to go back a third time because then they might start "losing" other mail out of spite...

The small treaded Indy tires are correct for the first issue. AMT used them in the Mach I (chopped '67 Mustang) concept kit also. The larger version of that tire was used in those toylike "big rig" kits, as well as the reissued '63 Ford pickup. I believe the second issue Fireball 500 used the hollow Goodyear stock car tires.

The body in my kit was at the bottom of the box with the other items all on top of it. Mine looked like the one pictured, except the header was split down the center. The passenger side was bent down as pictured, the driver side was still in the correct position. I was able to get it straight, so I won't bother asking for a replacement. They should watch this when packing the kits, though.

The '66-'69 kits had an all-chrome engine; all of the parts were on one tree. It's not the same as the '62-'65 kit engine, but probably won't make much of a difference. Someone mentioned the AMT Ford pickup ('75-'78) engine: though listed on the box as a 460, it's really a 360 (last of the FE series). The only really good 429/460 engine out there is in the Revell '70 Torino kits.

I've wanted to butcher an Anglia body into a Prefect for a bunch of years. My older brother once rebuilt a hacked-up (1:1) Seventies build that never ran, into a running/driving car with a rectangular tube chassis and a 455 Buick engine, and then there's the George Montgomery Hurst Gasser Passer that I've wanted to build a model of. I've fished a bunch of Anglia and Thames panel built-ups from parts boxes at shows, never paid more than a buck apiece for one regardless of how complete it was. Hardly anyone wants to rebuild one of these things. At the last outdoor swap meet, I picked up a mint-in-box Skip's Drive-In issue Anglia, five bucks. I wouldn't bother putting one of these kits on eBay, let alone a built one.

Eldon (the toy company) sold six show car kits in the late Sixties. (Five of them have been reissued by Doyusha a couple of times since then.) They were made for Eldon by Doyusha, and a lot of the parts in those kits are cribbed from other companies' kit parts. Some of those kits had gold/"brass" plated parts. I'm guessing that this transmission might be from one of those kits.