Mark

Fake, fake, fake. Looks more plausible than many of them, though...

You will have to go through a wholesaler to get kits. You'll pay more, but you will be able to order the items you want, when you want them. Neither of the two shops in my area deal directly with the manufacturers. Some aftermarket items can be bought directly from the companies making them. I believe Model Car Garage has an area on their website where you can apply to purchase their products for resale. Most of the guys doing casting or decals on the side will probably not offer a special deal to hobby shops as most of them can sell everything they can make without doing so.

Jim Keeler used two-part dental resin many years ago to fill the engine block for a contest winning funny car build. Later he built another car, writing step-by-step articles along the way that appeared in the old CAR MODEL Magazine. The short block (constructed with a Revell Parts Pack engine) had a crankshaft that turned, and the pistons went up and down in the cylinders. If I remember right, he used metal tubing for the cylinder bores and used the dental plastic to fill in around them. He built the engine for the article car around a Jo-Han engine block that didn't need the dental plastic, but he also repeated the original build to show how he'd done the contest entry. I messed with dental resin in the early Eighties, trying to cast parts with it. I did get some good parts but the stuff really heated up when the mixture "kicked", and that tore up the molds. Back then I was just trying to figure out how to do it. The railroad and military builders already had a strong aftermarket back then, but the car guys didn't. I probably got the idea to try the dental material from the CAR MODEL article. I was surprised at the time that I was able to buy the stuff without having to be a dentist. Some of the other materials and tools were "restricted", not to mention the meds, but you'd have expected that. I thought all of the materials would have been restricted. The materials described in the video are called "acrylics". The stuff I had back then certainly wasn't. The liquid half of the material was called "styrene monomer", and probably should have had a huge skull-and-crossbones on the package. That stuff smelled nasty, and you didn't want to be shaping it with your fingers in the way this guy was handling the new stuff in the video. I tried the baking soda/CA glue filler a couple of times but found it hard to work with, a lot harder to shape than the surrounding plastic. The dental resin I used was pretty much the same (harder than the surrounding plastic) so I never used it as a filler, but it did work great for bonding pieces together. I'd use something else on top of it to do the finish work. I've got to fix the sound on my computer and watch that video again...I didn't pick up what was going on with the clear parts. That's something I'd be interested in...

They're not under any obligation to provide specific information. For now, the item is not available from them, and that's that. That's all they are going to say about it.

I can't see paying a premium for one just yet. Both the roadster and coupe were, and are, hot items, and you get the impression that the powers that be at Revell know this. They've done well with all of their rod subject matter, both newer tools like the Deuces and reissues like their Model A pickup and sedan. They know what they are doing (except maybe for picking their manufacturing facilities)...they'll cut a replacement tool and crank more of them out. They might have to change their production schedule around, or wait for an opening...but they'll do it.

Nothing real about "reality TV". If I ever ran into the gecko, he'd end up as a green smear on the underside of my shoe...

The roadster body is a '28/'29...very different from the '30/'31. Aren't both kits out of production due to whatever happened?

This is an AMT chassis, not the one used under the MPC funnies such as the Bounty Hunter and Soapy Sales kits. Back when all of these kits were first issued, AMT and MPC were competitors and not owned by the same company as is the case now. Besides the Mustang II, the AMT chassis was used under a '73-'74 Plymouth Satellite, a mid-Seventies Corvette, a Ford Pinto, a Chevy Monza, and a Chevy Vega panel (not the sort-of-stock looking one AMT did from '71 through '77, but another, longer one). The AMT Satellite body was blocky looking as I recall (I never had that kit). MPC did a Shirley Muldowney funny car kit with a '73-'74 Satellite body. Her 1:1 car ran the '71-'72 style body. MPC molded their stock Road Runner kit body with a molded-shut plain hood, and tooled different bumpers for it to make it look more like a one-piece fiberglass body. Nobody ever ran a 1:1 version of that (73-'74 style) body that I can think of, yet two companies made kits with it.

Just do a decent curbside chassis (one that is better than the flat slab included in the original kit), and an interior that is full-depth (unlike the shallow one with no driveline tunnel that the original kit had). It'll sell in decent numbers because of the accurate-looking Jo-Han body and trim. The trick here would be to not spend so much money on the new parts so as to make the kit unprofitable. Keeping things simple would go a long way in that direction.

It was the last Mopar to have a flathead, but AMC offered one in the American as late as 1965.

Lots of "I feel that"s and "could it be"s in there. Sounds like someone constructing a story for when it crosses the auction block.

The Mustang II was first issued as the "Champ", a fictitious car. That issue wasn't around long before the Trojan Horse appeared. Apparently AMT lined up a deal to put Larry Fullerton's name on the kit after the Champ was issued. The "name" funny car and Pro Stock kits seemed to be more popular than the fictitious ones back then. AMT issued the same few kits (Mustang II, Monza, Pinto, and the stretched Vega panel) with the beer decals later on; maybe they were trying to wring more sales out of them by doing that.

It was a '66 Chevy pickup, produced from the original SMP/AMT tool. Someone else produced 500 or so assembled promo models from that tool, but the kit never appeared.

I apply it and let it thicken a bit before putting the pieces together. When I'm applying temporary glue, I don't do it with the intention of handling those parts again until the next day so drying time isn't an issue.

I've always used Elmer's. Cheap, it holds, and it's easy to remove. Works for me.

If it's the one molded in dark red, it's the most recent issue. RC2 announced a reissue not long before they folded their tent, but it never appeared. The body was used in a couple of NASCAR kits (with that generic chassis) and some restoration was done to get it back to stock. A couple of areas aren't as crisp as in the annuals, but it's a serviceable kit. The reissue didn't have the station wagon conversion parts included, and it didn't have any stock wheels, but other than that it was pretty close to the '74 annual. Just the other day, I was looking at a built '73 annual that I've had for a while. When I got it, it had been converted to the wagon but the wagon roof and glass weren't part of the deal, and the hood was missing. I've since found a couple of hoods as well as the (used) wagon pieces. It's assembled fairly cleanly, should rebuild easily. I should get on that one.

The multiple-belt setup had to be molded with the "steps" in it. If it were molded with grooves between the belts, it couldn't be pulled out of the tool. You could scribe the grooves using the molded-in steps as a guide and then file away the steps, or just file away the steps and end up with a single wide belt. Other more recent kits have stepped areas instead of grooves on certain parts; if you have a Revell Deuce three-window kit, check the trunk lines on the body...

Revell-Monogram did, but that one is 1/24 scale and the engine is noticeably larger. The AMT Duster kit includes a six-pack setup, but the builder here wants a single four-barrel intake.

I'd wager that you couldn't find a person in that factory that has ever seen a picture of a '57 Chevy, let alone an actual one...

Those wheel covers are from a Monogram '58 Thunderbird kit. But, I have seen a review or two of that kit saying that they are closer to being accurate for '57 than '58.

#1 AMT '55 Nomad, #2 AMT '57 Ford.

The Model King issue Cyclone includes stock Cyclone Spoiler decals for 1970 and 1971, and also has the stock wheels on the plated tree. I don't have the Round 2 Allison issue, but I understand the stock wheels aren't in that one.

If you want a showroom stock Cyclone, get one of the Revell '70 Torino kits. The Torino and Cyclone are based on the same unit body, the Torino has the correct engine, and a lot of it fits very well considering the kits were engineered thirty years apart by different companies. The Torinos have separate door handles and side markers, the engine compartment is a good fit too. You'll have to do a bunch of work to convert the interior though. I'm working on one myself (using an original Cyclone interior) but I have seen another one done using a converted Torino interior.

Don't they say six more weeks of winter most of the time anyway? Chances are, there will be six more weeks of winter (which makes the prediction right), and if there aren't six more weeks of winter then you'll be happy about it and forget the "prediction" anyway...

Around here, one store had the MPC NASCAR '71 Cyclone, Jawbreaker, and Cosmic Charger, AMT '70 Impala, and a couple of newer Revell kits (I think they were the Foose Challenger and Camaro). They might add a couple more at some point, generally about eight or ten kits get broomed out every time they reset the stock.