Mark

The Revellion funny car is based on their Dodge Dart, not the Plymouth. The Revell Plymouth Fury was a two-door hardtop, pretty sure it was the exact same body style as Jo-Han's Fury.

At first I thought the $39.99 price was a mistake on their part. But all three HL stores in my area had them at that price. I checked their website, it's $39.99 there too. That's several dollars higher than retail. Some of the Round 2 kits are priced at $29.99, again some of those are above retail. Looks like they're jacking prices on some kits to offset some of the effect of the 40% off coupon. I've got a local hobby shop that has started e-mailing 20% and even 25% off coupons. His stuff is normally priced at, or slightly below, retail. If I were to buy the Lawman kit from him with the 25% off coupon, it would be the same as, or very close to, the HL $39.99 minus 40%. If it's the same, or within a buck or two, I'll go with the LHS...fellow club member, local small business owner, 10% off for club members (offsets the 8.75% sales tax), and he carries stuff like Humbrol paint and Evergreen styrene that the chain stores don't have. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a good hobby shop within a reasonable distance, though, so those folks have to shop online or wait for the next show. Even then, you should be able to beat $39.99 minus 40%.

It should have the correct body for a 500 or Daytona, with the flush rear window.

For a 500, you want a body from a pre-Round 2 kit. The Round 2 kits have the regular Charger tunneled rear window area. Older MPC and AMT/Ertl General Lees have the flush rear window that was on the body from the NASCAR Daytona kits that were issued prior to the MPC General Lee.

That particular engine is from the '63 Nova wagon. The '62 hardtop and convertible used that engine too, but those had the intake/exhaust manifolds molded as part of the engine block half with the carburetor molded alongside the valve cover. For '63, the engine was altered and reused in the wagon. The hardtop and convertible kits got a small-block V8 (which was not offered by Chevrolet until '64).

It should be easy to assemble, but the engine will be simplified to the extreme, and don't expect much detail on the chassis. The body in this kit was also used for a custom Firebird, with a different hood and nose/tail pieces. Accept it for what is, just do a clean assembly, and it will look good on the shelf.

Corvette

With the Rolls-Royce, I'd try to get an earlier kit if possible. A guy I know bought the last Minicraft issue (the one with the wood trim decal) because he wanted to build one with that decal, as shown on the box. He did get the kit, but the body was really rough due to the tooling being worn out. He wound up using a body from a previously built earlier issue that he already had, and just used other parts from the newer kit as needed. I'd bet that the kit won't be issued again.

The Nissan dealer I drive past on the way home from work had a 280ZX on their lot, in front of the showroom just last week. It was gold metallic, looked like it was a really clean unrestored piece. I can't imagine the expense that would be involved in restoring one, probably way more than you could ever expect to get for it. I didn't see a price on the windshield, maybe they just had it there as an attention-getter.

That "handlebar" part might be a piece of the exhaust from a Revell J-2000 pro street kit. I can't say for sure because I no longer have one, but it does look familiar.

The inner fender is from an AMT '75-'77 Nova.

The El Camino and wagon use different fenders and doors from the coupes and sedans. El Camino doors and quarter panels are the same '68-'72. To convert a '68 or '69 El Camino to a '70-'72 would involve swapping the later hood, and the forward part of the front fenders. For a '70, you'll also need the front bumper from a Monte Carlo. For some reason, GM went with that bumper (round turn signals) instead of the Chevelle unit (rectangular turn signals). I eyeballed this conversion when the '68 El Camino first came out. If I remember right, the new kit is just a bit wider than the old '69 annual kit. The conversion can be done, but it isn't going to just fall together. I'm pretty certain it would be a bit easier using the old '69 El Camino as a starting point, because there is some commonality between all of the old AMT '68-'72 Chevelle kits.

The gullwing Merc looks like it's heavily channeled over a Seventies GM chassis. Look how high the frame is near the firewall. The floor (looks to be from the frame donor car) is awfully high. It looks like the floor is so high up as to leave the chassis as its stock ride height in this application. With the frame ahead of the front wheels as high as it is, I wonder if this guy has a radiator figured out yet. Another case of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should"...

Gotta say, not a whole lot of Merc left in this one...

The custom '32 sedan was never offered by itself. AMT issued a stock/street rod sedan ONCE in the mid-Seventies. It was made up mostly from the phaeton/Victoria kit (engine/chassis/fenders) with the body and windows from the custom sedan, a modified phaeton interior bucket, and a new hood.

Both are Ford products, so the design philosophy behind them was pretty much the same. Leaf spring rear suspension, "shock tower" front with coil springs above the upper suspension arms. If it looks close to you, use it; you can tweak individual parts to make them look "right". That said, the 1:1 '62-'65 Fairlane (and '62-'63 Meteor) have a lot of unique parts. Front suspension rebuild kits are available only sporadically. The lower suspension arms on those cars were originally made as an assembly, with the ball joint riveted in. I was lucky to get bolt-in ones a few years ago. Those are seldom available, and were impossible to get for many years. The front shock absorbers for those cars don't interchange with anything else I'm aware of.

I use the retractable knife pictured above for the sharp curves, and a #11 blade/handle for the straight areas. I worked for two years at a place for a company that had a vinyl sign shop as part of the business. They bought #11 blades in mass quantities, and threw them away after a couple of cuts because even a hint of dullness would make them snag the vinyl. I grabbed the throwaways, discarded the ones with broken tips, and sharpened the rest myself. They're sharper than they were out of the box. I'm gone from there nearly twelve years, probably won't have to buy another #11 blade again, ever.

They fit certain classes very well. Besides the bigger Hudsons, the compact Jet with the big-car engine was also used. NHRA had a rules loophole that allowed pre-1960 cars to use any engine in any body, provided both were the same manufacturer and the same year. Some guys claimed that Hudson sold a kit over the parts counter to do that swap, but I don't think that was the case. Besides Matty Winspur, there was a guy named Ike Smith who ran Hudsons in various Stock classes in the Sixties. I've got an old magazine article on a couple of those guys; one bought his car from a used car dealer for scrap price because the guy wasn't going to put it on his lot. Hudsons weren't worth much in the mid Sixties. There were a few Hudson-powered cars in the lower Gas classes also. The bottom two or three Gas classes were reserved for flatheads, inlines, and overhead valve engines with fewer than eight cylinders.

How much would the double kit sell for, seeing as it would require a larger box and the output of two tools and two molding machines? And, if they were sold together, more people would complain than not: "why do I have to buy both, when I only want one of them?"

The street machine version of the '60 Chevy pickup is hard to find. I don't think it sold nearly as well as the stock one due to the custom grille, and some of the other parts like the wheels which were already dated when the kit came out. It does have some good engine parts though.

When it comes to "kit families" (groups of kits that share a substantial amount of tooling) the Revell Deuces would be right up there. Their '69 Camaros, new-tool Tri-Five Chevies, and the AMT '68-'70 Mopar kits, would fall into that group also.

The Marlin should have been built in its original form, as the Tarpon, on the American body instead of the larger Classic.

I've gotten great results numerous times from Chrome-Tech (one attempt with LMK about ten years ago came back with contamination in the plating, tossed 90% of the parts). I'm nowhere near Modelhaus or Missing Link but over the years I have had thousands of parts plated, from hub caps to bumpers. If your resin parts are coming out pitted, in all likelihood there are issues with the castings, meaning the resin. Maybe the material itself is old, maybe the A:B mix is off, maybe something else...can't diagnose without seeing parts before/after, close up. If you are buying the packaged Alumilite kit, you are probably getting old product. It may have just gotten to the store, but you don't know when it was packaged or how long it was sitting in some distributor's warehouse prior to that. That's not a knock on Alumilite; all of the "hobby" casting stuff is in all likelihood industrial stuff that is past the "use by" window for its original use. It's still good for hobby use but you have to use it quickly once opened. Resist the urge to "save" it for a "special project". Time flies, and before you know it you've got two bottles of hardened goo that's useless. I've tried Alumilite a couple of times but never had success with it; again not singling them out but you might try another system. Unless you've done a lot of experimentation in the past, stick to compatible products from one company. There are eBay sellers offering resins and mold material. Someone who moves a lot of product will have fresh materials in stock. They'll usually offer advice on the stuff they sell too. They want you coming back later for more, so they won't stick it to you by selling you materials that don't work together. At first, DON'T use mold release on parts you intend to have plated. The molds last only so long, so many "pulls" before the heat from the curing resin starts drying them out in detail areas. Once they show deterioration, you won't use them for parts you want plated anyway because they'll require surface prep. I dust molds with talcum powder; it breaks surface tension letting the resin fill in details better. The molds do last a bit longer before showing deterioration also. If you are making prototypes for NASA or the Wayne Foundation, they might require some special mold release, but for hobby castings the miniscule amount of powder left on the molds absorbs into the resin as it fills the mold. It doesn't sit on the surface of the finished casting. The stuff is actually sold by some suppliers as filler material for some resins, and doesn't cause problems with plating or painting. It doesn't have to be cleaned off. When I prep parts for plating, I do wash/rinse them, to get rid of resin dust from sanding the back side of the parts more than anything. I have NEVER had plating fall off or flake off of parts cast this way. Not one, not ever. When I toss a part (I don't strip/replate castings) it's because of contaminants in the plating, or a flaw in the casting that I missed. If you're apprehensive about mold release at all, then do the chrome parts without it. Some of the greasy-kid-stuff or silicone mold releases DO absorb into the resin, and that stuff does cause problems when you can't clean all of it off of the surface of the parts. I've seen problems with bodies from one "volume" caster that tends to blast a lot of that silicone stuff on their molds. Used in moderation, it's okay (I used it on the couple of bodies that I had cast in the distant past) but I've kept it away from anything I intend to have plated. I've still got a couple of cans of silicone mold release; I spray it on my snow shovels and snowblower a few times each winter.

A couple weeks ago, I went to a nearby plaza to pick up something at the Lowe's there. I noticed a Carhartt store had opened nearby. I've got an older jacket with the ends of the sleeves worn through and the insulation falling out, so I thought I'd start looking for a new one. With all the stuff there made offshore, I figured either they shifted production themselves or someone just bought the name and started slapping it on the foreign stuff. The search continues...

Maybe get your feet wet with it, then step up to a quality piece and resell this one to someone else wanting to try it. One problem with the Chinese stuff is you won't be able to find replacement parts if you have the need. Next year, the units they'll be selling will be different, made in a different factory, and nothing will interchange. Kind of like Sears weed whackers...