Mark

The Mini Exotics one that I have (that came with the kit) isn't up to the standards of the rest of the kit. It's molded in three pieces (individual grilles, and bumper) but the pieces don't fit together well, there seems to be gaps between the grilles and bumper. I'll probably convert a standard kit piece to get one. I'm not aware of anyone else offering a GT-E kit or conversion parts.

The wagon interior consisted of the front seat, plus the floorboard forward of that. No rear seat or load floor. I've got a Fleetline interior to cut apart for the rear seat, will have to scratch the load area.

If (big if) one of the kit manufacturers were to take a gamble on anything AMC, my money would be on either the first-generation Javelin, two-seater AMX, or (most likely) both sharing as many parts as possible. That said, if you still want anything Jo-Han, better get going and try to get it if you can afford to do so. People seem to be coming to a consensus that they're not coming back. I've recently seen kits that were in production at the very end (S/C Rambler, drag version '69 AMX) selling in the mid-thirties. For a long time these were pretty easy to get...I don't think that's going to be the case anymore.

The SC/Rambler is still basically a detrimmed '66, with the V8 engine (annual kits had a straight six). Grille, taillights, instrument panel, and upholstery patterns are all unchanged from the '66 (the last annual kits). Rear suspension looks to be a copy of the setup in the Sox & Martin Barracuda (the Rambler did not come with a Dana "60" rear axle!). Hank Borger kitbashed an original '66 hardtop into an S/C in the old CAR MODEL Magazine. Apparently he had John Haenle's ear over at Jo-Han, and talked him into updating the kit in the early Seventies. He should have talked Jo-Han into issuing their Hornet kit as an SC/360 instead of doing those funny cars every year. Nobody ever ran a Hornet body on a funny that I know of, even though the '73 hatchback would have made a slick looking one...

You can cut out the center portion, or leave it in and use the axle boss if the wheels you want to use will fit...

What have you got against Moebius, to wish them out of business?

The engine originated with the '66 Impala. AMT probably didn't want to tool an engine for the kit, so they went through existing tools and found one that fit. Other Modified Stocker kits probably would have been looked at back then, most likely the Ford kits first. The axle holes in the Ford engines would put them too far forward to fit the Ranchero. So they used a Chevy, which in 1:1 doesn't come close to fitting. My older brother put a 302 into a '62 sedan delivery around that time, and it wasn't a bolt-together deal. Ford made a lot of changes to put a V8 into the '63 Falcons.

I ordered a new car with a stick in 1979, not knowing how to drive one. The woman at the dealer offered to show me how to drive it, but when I went back to order the car she'd gone on vacation. I learned it about two weeks before the car came in, using my older brother's '64 Chevy II with floors that provided a great view of the road below. The day I picked up the car, I drove it about 200 miles, mostly in rural areas. I put something like 900 miles on it the first week.

When I take my truck to the dealer, I try to sit somewhere in the waiting room where I can see it. More often than not, the first person that walks out to pull it into the service area opens the door, looks in, then shuts the door and walks back to the service desk. Then someone else walks out, gets in, and drives it in.

That's an MPC kit called the Magnum GT II. MPC created it from the '66 Monaco, and this is why the Monaco cannot be produced again.

You have to make the deal, at whatever is agreeable to the parties involved. I did a '62-'63 Ranchero body for Modelhaus years ago. It was a simple deal ('62 front end on a '61 body, not hard to do) but I cut a mint unused '62 body to get part of the front clip, and those were never really easy to find. And this was a few years before Ertl reissued the '61 Ranchero in 1997. The V8 engine issue Ranchero hadn't been available since '78 or so, so that kit wasn't exactly common when I did this. I swapped the finished body only (which had the hood molded as part of it) for two complete kits, one '62 and one '63. The only difference between the two was the bumpers. Modelhaus sold them as complete kits at first, with straight copies of '61 kit parts for the rest of the kit except the bumpers. They included my name in the price list when it was first available, but not when it was put back in the line after being dropped for a few years. Having my name on it in the first place wasn't something I'd asked for, so when it wasn't included the second time around it didn't matter to me. When I was doing castings, I'd have people offering me stuff to do but I turned nearly all of them down. I remember looking at a shortened wide-box Dodge pickup bed that had a huge gap between the front wall and the bed floor where it had been shortened, and I didn't think the wall was in there straight. Sometimes people think that stuff can be fixed in the mold-making process. Too, they'll load the primer on and wet sand the part to a decent level of smoothness, but the primer is then hiding a lot of sandpaper scratches and such. The mold material will shrink the primer down and reveal all of the flaws, which will then be reproduced in every casting. When I did the Ranchero body, it never had any primer applied to it anywhere other than where I'd joined the pieces together. I'd cut the Ranchero body so as to leave the lower half of the front fenders alone (with the "Ranchero" script intact), and spliced the '62 clip at the narrowest point, the center of the front wheel opening. The rest of the splice was along the top of the body side recess, and very close to the door line. I never even sprayed primer on it, just dabbed it with a brush along the cut lines. 90% of that got sanded off. Another guy sent me a Ford pickup wheel that had five angled slots in it; I don't think any two were the same width or at the same angle. I'd wanted to do that wheel myself prior to that, so I agreed to have that one sent to me in return for three or four sets of castings. Doing the castings for that guy wore out one mold, and I didn't feel like trying to fix the piece he'd sent me. So I made another wheel myself and never used the other one to make a mold again. All of the Ford pickup wheels I sold were off of my own original part.

Something selling for several hundred dollars on eBay doesn't necessarily translate to thousands of sales as a reissue. It only means that a handful of people (as few as two) were willing to beat each others' brains in to get the one that was available at that moment. If another Big Drag turns up in the next couple of days, it'll probably sell for less than the first one, because the pool of potential buyers is down by one for now...

All of those AMT B-body kits include a set of Centerline wheels, but those have more/smaller holes. That particular style was "in" for about twenty minutes in the mid-Eighties. I strip the plating off of those, and cut the centers out. The outer rings are great when you need them for the backs of other wheels. I used them on the backs of some MPC Minilites on a Corvair build a couple of years ago, they worked out great because the outer rim detail was close to that of the Minilite wheel. If you want plated rings, you could whack the centers out without disturbing the plating if you are careful. The Monogram '71 'Cuda street machine kit has two of the wheel pictured at top. They put two in with holes and two without, even though the wheels and tires are all the same size. Some of the AMT/Ertl '32 Fords (Victoria and phaeton) have a set of wheels similar to the bottom ones, but theirs is a Cragar version. Theirs was chrome plated and had the lug bolts hidden under a center cap, which, if I remember right, was chrome-plated plastic and was attached to the wheel so it didn't fall off. I think the cap was hinged and clipped shut like a fuel filler door. You could probably strip the plating from the AMT/Ertl wheel, drill the lug holes, and shoot it with an aluminum finish and call it close enough in most cases.

Every issue since/including the original mid-Seventies Street Rods series will have those parts, though the AMT/Ertl issues will have different tires. I think they actually put Goodyear Gatorbacks into one or two issues. The Thrill Show issue has the three-carb Cadillac engine and Appliance custom wheels but none of the customizing parts for the body or interior. Those seem to sell for more than most other issues though, so don't bother with that one unless you want the thrill show ramps (which are quite accurate).

Haven't ever seen any, probably because the car is a '63 (far tougher to find than a '64).

Check the break rooms at the terminals...

Both of those have a couple of days left, and with a lot of things on eBay everything happens in the last five seconds. I've seen one of them sell north of $80. I wouldn't pay that much for one, but like any other eBay listing, throw your top bid in at the last second and see what happens. It'll be interesting to see what people will be asking for them at NNL East, and if any will be seen in shopping bags as opposed to on dealer tables...

The interior looks correct. It should be molded in red like the body. The chassis and engine are identical to those in the common-as-dirt '66 Mustang coupe kit. That kit combines the Mach I/Iron Horse chassis/engine (which originated in the '65-'66 annual kits) with the '66 coupe promotional model body. (The original annual coupe/convertible kit used a convertible body with a separate, glue-on vinyl textured roof.)

A lot of these folks will have the non-model listings only until they figure out that a lot of that other stuff doesn't sell. They'll still grab model cars at the flea markets and garage sales because they are small, easy to ship, and cheap if they luck into a bunch of them all at once. But you'll still see that "I don't know much about these things" language even when that's all they are selling! They usually do master the fine art of photography for the purpose of hiding major problems with built models, like glue-welded windshields. It doesn't take long to spot these sellers though. If I don't see it in the pictures, I assume it isn't there. "I haven't checked this, but it looks complete" usually translates to "it isn't complete". It's just dumb luck that the only ones that aren't complete are the ones they didn't check!

I quit selling there years ago, but it probably hasn't gotten any easier over the years to set up listings. And once the sale has completed, don't the invoices go out automatically now? So if the listing is set up with an incorrect shipping amount, the invoice that you get minutes after it ends will be wrong also. I've gotten those quick invoices for multiple items from one seller without combined shipping when the individual listings do mention that combined shipping is offered. For me, a quick e-mail to the seller has always cleared that up. I'd chalk it up as an honest mistake unless the seller replies to the contrary.

With the older kits that have the front and rear glass connected together by two strips, most of the time I cut those away and install the pieces separately. Where the rear glass has mounting tabs that slip over posts on the underside of the body, I leave those and trim the rear glass until it's barely larger than the window opening. The edges of the glass can be sanded thin and polished, or painted the same color as the inside of the roof. The top edge of the windshield can be hidden beneath scratchbuilt sun visors. If you plan ahead, you can space the visors down a bit and fit the windshield in such a way as to wedge it in under them at the top without (or with minimal) cement. A couple of drops of cement, or even silicone, at the corners or in an area just below the windshield pillars at the bottom then hold the glass in, and are themselves hidden by the interior. On one recent build, I built the underside of the roof up in the areas next to the edges of the windshield and rear glass so the edges can't be seen. On a shelf model, that's overkill in my opinion, but it does look good.

Either way, you are buying property. When you are renting, you are buying it for the landlord. But most of the people I have ever known who worked in real estate rented, they didn't own a home. I never could figure that out.

Regardless of how large a workbench you set up, eventually you will be working in about one square foot of it. Then you do a cleanup: boxing up the projects that aren't going anywhere, and sorting the tools, glues, putties, paints, and supplies. Then the cycle begins anew...

But those are solid stock. Splitting an entire length of tubing will be tough to do without the cut line wandering around. What diameter tubing are you cutting, how long do you need the pieces to be, and how many are needed? If you only need a few short lengths, it might be better to sacrifice some of the material and get three quarter-round pieces instead of four. I'd cut the tubing slightly longer than needed for the finished part before attempting to split it. If you need a lot of pieces, building some sort of jig would be a good idea. Even something as simple as a length of brass or aluminum channel or angle to hold the tubing straight should work. Putting something inside the tubing to keep it round should be part of the plan too. This is probably the sort of situation where you'd want to get everything in your hands and start messing with it, and as you do that you might come up with an idea that will work for what you want to do.

It may not necessarily be discontinued, it's just that one retailer will no longer be carrying it. They drop kits from their stock when sales start to slow down, because they can put something else in that shelf space that turns over more quickly.