Mark

The Deuce kits have the AOD unit. The only really decent C-4 I can recall is in the Revell John Buttera street rod kits, but it may be on the small side.

Every magazine article from back in the day recommended applying the flocking to wet paint, but a lot of guys used liquid cement instead. That might be the case here, meaning you're literally "stuck" with the flocking short of sanding it away.

I'm convinced that most IT people just fiddle with a program until they stumble into a change that they think looks cool, then they push that change-for-the-sake-of-change as the latest "improvement". I've lost count of the "improvements" that add steps to a procedure, while claiming to "simplify" said procedure. They don't work with the program on any regular basis other than to tinker with it, clutter it up with "new" functions that nobody ever uses, and change the graphics and move the icons around. They haven't figured out that what separates a great artist from a mediocre one, is that the great artist knows when to put the brush down. Get it to work, then leave it alone. It's particularly aggravating when they are doing this change-for-the-sake-of-change nonsense, while existing, glaring problems are ignored. eBay's mission seems to just get you to look at the site longer so they can sell more listings. They're already giving away continuous re-listings to the various "sell a model kit one piece at a time" dreamers...just make those clowns pay ten cents for each re-listing, and watch the site magically clean itself up...

Yeah, they always ran out of the engine from the more expensive car. You never heard about GM running out of Chevy engines, and substituting Olds or Cad units...

The Michaels stores around here have had a pretty lousy selection of kits the last couple of years (one has no Round 2 stuff at all). But they've probably got the complete selection of Testors brush paints. The spray cans were locked up for a while, but I believe they have undone that brainstorm lately.

Make sure the primer is thoroughly shaken before spraying it. The manufacturers seem to be using less "solids" and more solvent in recent years. If you don't shake the can, you are leaving the solids at the bottom of the can while blasting a higher amount of solvent onto the plastic.

I'd check it out in person if at all possible. I don't buy anything at HF that spins at high speed, or supports any substantial amount of weight...

Regular (one part) spot putty is nothing more than extremely thick lacquer primer. It'll come off along with any paint/primer. You don't want to leave the filler on anyway; it's porous (even the two-part stuff) and will no doubt absorb whatever you use to strip the paint. It'll come back to bite you later on.

The ideal chassis to use would probably be the Jo-Han Ambassador/Rebel/Marlin (from the firewall forward) with the rest coming from an AMT Matador coupe. You'd need a stock Matador kit; the later NASCAR and Sportsman issues have alterations like a fuel cell. The resin body is probably being done more with the funny car version in mind, even though the 1:1 never ran as a '69.

The parts only give it the look of the 1:1...the actual car had modifications like lengthened front fenders and radiused wheel openings that couldn't be duplicated in the kit while still offering a stock version.

"Easily" would hang heavily on whether or not alternate versions are designed in at the beginning. What out-of-production kits sell for on eBay, or at shows, really doesn't have any bearing on how well a new kit of the same subject would sell. It only shows that X number of people want a particular kit, and will outbid one another to get it. A lot of those people only want the original, and wouldn't buy the new one anyway.

I bought the two I mentioned (Jinx Express, Vandal) even though I wasn't into the TD stuff back in the day. I've got a few of them now, though. Those two hadn't been out in their original form in quite some time. The one that I think would really sell would be the Quicksilver version of the '60 Chevy sedan delivery. I've got enough stuff to piece one together, but that one seems to be hard to find. Someone who knows about these things once told me that the Tom Daniel and Ed Roth stuff was, for Revell-Monogram, as close as it gets to being able to print money. Maybe that's slowing down a bit, as I saw the Revell Surfite kit (the recent issue, with the figure) on closeout too. They might need to space the reissues out a bit more.

The Tom Daniel kits seem to be losing momentum...I've seen the last couple of them (Jinx Express, Vandal) on clearance. Maybe they're reaching a saturation point...

The Monogram Turbo Chief had a custom hood, with narrower scoops. Revell may have done a snap kit with a similar hood, but I'd bet that if they did, it's not too accurate.

Which kit (Monogram or MPC)? The thing to do first is to see where the interior floor is, relative to the bottom of the door opening. I'd bet the Monogram kit is closer to correct in that respect. The old annual kits sometimes have shallow interiors, and sometimes even leave a gap between the bottom of the interior floor and the top of the chassis. I built an AMT Corvair last year, the gap was incredible (I didn't open the doors up on that one, but did "gut" the interior and stood the side panels up straight to eliminate the "draft" designed into the interior bucket, to simplify tooling). If the interior floor is way higher than the bottom of the door opening, in many cases it won't look right. I'd figure that out before going forward.

There was never a kit with the '79 Formula hood. It doesn't look like it would be too tough to make, using the T/A hood as a starting point. The T/A front fender scoops can be filled in, and the spoilers and wheel "spats" are separate pieces so they can be left off.

The ZZ Top Eliminator kit could be way better than the original, if Revell leaves in some of the alterations they made for the Thom Taylor cabriolet that they issued afterward. The chassis now has the molded-in stock exhaust system removed, and a 9" Ford rear axle included. Now, if they'd only get a decent engine in there to replace that Pontiac mill that they're calling a Chevy...

The Undertaker was rebuilt from an uncompetitive drag car, the Benicki Brothers' "Chrome Coffin". The family operated a chrome shop, so the chassis (possibly the engine too) was already chromed when Carl Casper got it. He swapped the T-bucket body (or maybe reworked it), and replaced the original fuel injection setup with the Potvin/Moon crank-drive supercharger. I've got a magazine here somewhere with a feature on the car in its original form. It wasn't Hot Rod or Rod & Custom, it was one of the lesser-known magazines that I can't remember the name of right now.

The original Seventies issue of the Jawbreaker called it a " '32 Ford rail rod".

The More American Graffiti dragster is itself based on the Ramchargers dragster kit. Besides the Ramchargers, Milner, and Jawbreaker versions, it was also issued as the Carl Casper Galloping Ghost II. But the Ramchargers version was the first one issued.

Taillights on the Villa Riviera (not in the kit, though) are '56 or '57 Rambler turn signals, turned upside down. The 1:1 was a '63. I've got one of those Petersen Publishing custom car "annuals" that includes several articles on various modifications done on that car. Braze everything, then back up the Bondo truck!

The outer half of each wheel has an odd-shaped pin that goes into a similarly shaped hole in the inner half. That's to index the two halves so that the spokes are aligned properly. Those pins/holes might be shaped differently between the two kits, but even if they are you should be able to make them work. The Riviera wheels were widened at some point, by adding material to the back side of the outer half and lengthening that indexing pin. They can be narrowed back to the original width if you are careful.

I'd swap that water pump/front cover piece too, at the very least. The LA-series engines don't have the oil filter up front like the bigger engines.

I don't know anyone at Revell, but I would bet on seeing an AAR based on the new kit at some point. If so, procrastination would pay off...

Tires in this, and the Phantom Vickie kit, are Plymouth Prowler tires. Next time you see a glue bomb/partially built Prowler in a junk box at a show, grab it. Some 1/20 scale wheels can be reworked to fit the rear tires. For the fronts, look for either Jo-Han funny car rear wheels, or Monogram 1/24 scale wheels. The Monogram stuff is hit-and-miss, not every wheel will work.