Mark

Revell reissued all of their '62 Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge kits as Metalflake versions after the initial issues sank like a stone. I've got a '63 Revell catalog; should look at that to see if those are in there. The "paint it on the inside" deal didn't really work because the bodies were thicker (a LOT thicker) in some areas than in others, and that's not even getting into the chassis mounting posts, molded-in radiator wall, or interior mounting bosses. The Metalflake issues have custom parts. I'm not sure if the original issues did or not. I've got a first-issue Dodge Dart four-door hardtop, but it's still sealed. I haven't looked at it in a long while but I don't recall optional parts being mentioned. One of my older brothers was building models back then; I remember him telling me about one of his buddies trying the "paint it on the inside" method back in the day and being bugged by all the stuff on the inside of the body. Had they been designed with that in mind, they probably could have pulled it off to some extent. I've got an Imperial four-door hardtop kit now; didn't get it for the Metalflake deal but rather because I wanted the four-door to go with the AMT hardtop and convertible, and the Metalflake kit was the first one I ran across. If I'd found the regular issue first, I'd probably have snagged that.

He's got a Ford Econoline van body out now; I just picked one up (he's selling direct on eBay now). It looks like it's mastered off of a diecast one that I saw somewhere awhile back. The castings look good; really clean, nice panel lines, and not nearly as much mold release as on earlier bodies. It measures out slightly undersize (1/25.7 or so), but then again the intended chassis donor (IMC/Lindberg Dodge A-100) is similarly undersize, so everything should fit together pretty well. Hopefully he'll eventually offer a pickup version as well.

Right after I dump HCC, they now have to start doing some decent articles... Thomas Graham has written books about Revell, Monogram, and Aurora. Nothing about AMT (or Jo-Han); from what I have heard he isn't a "car guy". With the founders of those companies long gone, we'll probably never see anything on them in any great detail. I haven't got the Aurora book, but the other two are very good. The old Rod & Custom Models magazine had short articles on several companies also. No real history provided (there wasn't as much of it in 1964!) but some good pictures of work in progress.

I've got a built one (not built by me) and it's really nice. The main thing you have to watch for with JF bodies is that the rocker panels are often further apart than those of the donor kit's body. They tend to de-mold the bodies before they are fully set (probably to save wear and tear on the molds), and they then take a set with the sides bowed out slightly from pulling them off of the core of the mold. This affects hood fit on Fifties cars with taller hoods. Before starting any alterations to any of the donor parts, you need to get the body pulled 100% into the correct shape. If the rocker panels are further apart on the resin body than on the plastic one (hold the two bodies bottom-to-bottom to check), you need to mock up the resin body with the donor chassis and whatever interior, and pull those body sides in. When you hold the resin body with the sides pulled in to match the donor kit body, the donor kit hood should fit either body exactly the same. Don't use rubber bands to pull everything into shape. They dry out, and will often pull other areas out of shape while correcting the areas you want to fix. I stick the body sides to the chassis with hot glue, and let the whole thing set for a week or two. After that, you should be able to peel off the hot glue and the body should stay in the corrected shape. I've done a couple of them ('51 Chevy sedan delivery, a couple of '53 Studebaker bodies) in this way, and in each instance the plastic hoods fit as well as they do on the original kit bodies.

That's what happens when you are working in a narrow driveway, and can't back up ten feet to get a view of the whole thing...

That's not the first issue with the pickup parts; there were three prior to it. The currently available issue (not the Three Stooges one) has everything that's in the kit pictured, plus the coupe body and interior and better tires.

There was a Rod & Custom Sketchpad (not sure if it was in the regular magazine , or R&C Models) where the trailer was turned into a futuristic semi-tractor. The body of the trailer was turned back-to-front and the larger rear half of the bubble left off. The original rear portion of the bubble became a windshield/canopy.

The camper originated with the '65 El Camino annual kit; it was included in one issue of the '59. It doesn't really fit the '59 very well.

It's coming this year, I have seen it listed in a couple of places. Not sure which issue will be replicated this time. The parts in previous issues are unchanged except for one Seventies issue that left out the trailer. The new one will have it though. The 1:1 was supposedly stolen in the early Eighties, and buried somewhere by whoever did it. I don't think it had been shown anywhere since the mid-Sixties.

I remember seeing model kits in Sears around Christmas every year too. One year (probably 1969) I wanted to buy one the day before Christmas. Had to have it, the box art was so cool. My parents told me "you'll probably get a few models for Christmas", but also said I'd saved the money so I could spend it on whatever I wanted. So I got my AMT Chevelle "Surf Wagon" kit that day. I did get a couple of kits for Christmas, but not another Surf Wagon. I don't think I saw that issue again in any of the department stores, and didn't see another one until many years later.

I remember seeing model kits in Sears around Christmas every year too. One year (probably 1969) I wanted to buy one the day before Christmas. Had to have it, the box art was so cool. My parents told me "you'll probably get a few models for Christmas", but also said I'd saved the money so I could spend it on whatever I wanted. So I got my AMT Chevelle "Surf Wagon" kit that day. I did get a couple of kits for Christmas, but not another Surf Wagon. I don't think I saw that issue again in any of the department stores, and didn't see another one until many years later.

AMT only did a couple of windshields with the molded-on mirror that I can think of: the Nova, and the '68 Camaro Z/28. That one was done during the Lesney era. I remember seeing a Matchbox car or two with that detail, maybe Lesney thought it would work in 1/25 scale also. When Ertl took the mirror off of the Nova windshield, they did the same with the Camaro also.

Some guy did taunt an alligator there. After that, everyone called him "Lefty"...

Aren't the Raiders headed there?

I'll check again, but the Jo-Han engine is on the small side and has an axle hole through the block. Too, I'm pretty certain that engine originated with the '63 American, so it would be the earlier six. The later six came in during '64. Excellent engine, I put over 200,000 miles on one...still ran great when the body fell apart around it. AMC still used the flathead (!) version of the older six through '65, but I think they had gone completely over to the later engine for '66.

AMC completed the Jeep deal in mid-1970; they took a year or so to convert everything away from the engines Kaiser had been using. Some Wagoneers (and probably Gladiator pickups also) had already been built with AMC engines, so that one would have been done first. The CJ was probably next to be switched over. The Jeepster (Commando) seems to have been last. '71 still had the V6 engine, '72 got the restyled front end (lengthened a couple of inches if I remember right) so the AMC engines would fit. The MPC '72 kit still had the V6 so it is incorrect in that regard. The postal Jeeps got converted towards the end too. I'm pretty sure the '71 version still had the Chevy II four cylinder engine. Either AMC got a bunch of those engines in the deal and used them up, or maybe the contract required that engine and couldn't be changed. Those early postal Jeeps also had a Powerglide transmission with a small torque converter.

In the late Seventies, my older brother bought a bunch of stuff from an auto parts store. They'd relocated up the street from another location (lost the lease), and the new place was bigger so they could put more merchandise out. He found/bought/resold a bunch of early Sixties kits (they had stuff from the latter half of the Sixties), a couple of Erector sets, tin toys, all new in the boxes. In 1977 I had just started driving and had graduated high school, and heard the guy was closing up shop at the end of the month. He didn't have any kits left, but I bought several Revell parts packs at retail price, and got the store display along with them. I asked him what he'd take for the display, his reply was "buy the stuff that's in it, and I won't need the display any more!". I took that home and stuck it in the basement. In 1989 when I bought my own home, I took everything out of the display to box it up separately for the move. The display still felt heavy considering it was empty. I looked at the back, and there was a flap that opened to the underside of the display. There were twelve parts packs in there that he and I overlooked. Probably a good thing, as I had just about enough money to pay for the thing when I bought it in the first place. I've still got the display, I've only seen one or two others since then.

Not competitive as in "on the field", but rather competitive as in the potential selling price of the team relative to other teams. Now that LA has two teams, which city will be the next boogeyman (the place they mention for a potential move next time someone wants a new stadium)?

My MPC '66 Corvette is gray too. It didn't include a big-block engine, but MPC did include a second set of cylinder heads and valve covers to dummy up the small-block. They're pretty lame. As for molded in color annuals, the MPC '65 Dodges (the full-size cars, not the Coronet sold by AMT) were both molded in gold. Sometimes extremely swirly, brittle gold. I've got a convertible kit with a body that is in three or four pieces, broken along the swirl lines. The convertible I built in the early/mid Eighties didn't have so much swirl in the plastic, and I don't remember having any trouble with that one. I want to stick the second one together with the custom parts. I've got a couple of hardtop kits too, no problems with brittle plastic in either of them. A few of the AMT '63 annuals were molded in color. The Mercury Meteor was molded in light blue (in addition to white), and the Fairlane was molded in light blue, cream, and white. I've heard of Ford Galaxie convertible kits in light blue too, but I've never seen one of those.

In 1975, my mom wanted to check out a new "discount store" in a nearby village. It wasn't a typical store, it was more like a steel building with only a couple of windows. Anything not sitting directly on the floor was placed on those adjustable metal shelves like you'd have in a garage or basement. Mom was underwhelmed to say the least. I don't remember too much about what they were selling, but it was mostly hardware and household items. The stock was probably bought from some other store that had closed. There was one "toy" shelf, and I noticed one kit there, and it was opened. Checked it out, missing decals but otherwise all there. The box was a mess. I paid a buck and a half for it. MPC '71 Dodge Demon. I knew it existed, but I'd never seen one before. It was probably ten years before I saw another one, and I haven't seen too many of them since then. The following winter, the roof of the store collapsed under the weight of a snowstorm and it wasn't rebuilt. I don't think they were doing well enough to bother to reopen elsewhere.

The AMT Flying Wedge, Prudhomme Wedge, Sand Dragon, and Ivo mid-engine dragsters (neither of which are being reissued that I know of) are based on AMT tooling. The just-released Prudhomme Yellow Feather, and coming-soon McEwen (non-wedge) are both based on the Garlits Swamp Rat 14 which is an MPC tool. Both have 426 Hemi engines, but are different from one another.

The AMT dragster was issued in several versions initially, including a Tommy Ivo dragster, the Flying Wedge, the fictional "Copperhead", and the "Turbosonic" which also included a turbine engine. The McGee wedge (and a second Ivo version, the streamliner) were issued a couple of years after the others.

You've got to disassemble it. The stuff that removes paint from metal will annihilate the plastic parts, and anything that won't wreck the plating on the plastic parts won't touch the metal.

Nope, it always ran a Chevy. First a small block, later a big block (once they were allowed in the smaller cars), then the big-block with a supercharger . Shores is said to have been first to call the big Chevy the "Rat Motor". The injector scoop was lettered "Rat Motor", that would seem to back up that claim. The frame is way, way off when compared to the 1:1 frame. The 1:1 frame was wider through the middle (frame rails closer to the door sills).