Mark

The AMT Challenger has a convertible body with a separate, add-on roof for the hardtop version. There are two Revell kits. One is the ex-Monogram T/A which is in 1/24 scale. The other is the ex-Vanishing Point diecast, now molded in plastic. Claimed to be 1/25 scale, but little different in size from the 1/24 scale one. The Lindberg (ex-PSM) kit is a crib of the MPC annual. It is a '72.

50th anniversary of Niagara's final season (1974). I understand much of the actual track is still there, though both ends have been dug up and all of the buildings are long gone. I was there only once, in 1973. My older brother was racing a '66 Chevelle in Modified Production at the time.

The Ideal Indy car kits were created by, I believe, a company called Best. Ideal acquired the tooling for them at some point. The Monogram Kurtis was pretty much "it" for 1/24-1/25 scale Indy cars until AMT tooled the Watson roadster and Lotus, then IMC jumped in and did another Lotus soon after they got up and running.

The Badman (and later, the black street machine version) were staple items on K-Mart store shelves for many years. You could walk into ANY K-Mart store in the country, walk however many aisles back and across to the toy/hobby department, and there it was, provided they weren't sold out. Monogram had a good thing going with the Tom Daniel kits. Molded in the main color, kids had to only paint the details. Mom, Grandma, or Auntie bought a kit, and one of those Testors paint sets with the six or seven bottles of paint, a tube of glue, and a paint brush. Instant birthday present!

Tom Daniel probably used "396" in the original design, as it probably looked better with the stripe. Each number ("3", "9", "6") probably just looked better when squared off as they are, and those numbers filled the space in the break in the stripe. Monogram probably left the small-block just to be able to use more of the original version '55 tooling. Same reason they left the molded-in exhaust pipes on the chassis, and left the molded-in rear seat in the interior. And they still sold millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, of that version of the kit. Not everything makes 100% perfect sense, or, in cases like this, even has to.

There are other ways the PO messes up in sorting mail. For some reason, two or three times a year I get the mail intended for someone on the next street over, but with the same house number. On those days I end up wondering where MY mail went, because the next street over in the other direction is a main drag, with different numbering.

I'm saying '61 on the Thunderbird interior because it has mounting tabs at the front. It's most likely from a '61 Styline hardtop, because (a) the hardtop kit had the hood molded shut, which would make way for the mounting tabs at the front, and (b) the upholstery stickers. The '61 convertible kit, as well as all '62 and '63 kits (except for one '63 hardtop reissue) had a separate hood which would not leave room for the front tabs.

The Jo-Han chassis is from a Cadillac, it looks like the USA Oldies '64 unit. There's a chance it could be from a '63, but it's most likely '64. The Thunderbird interior is probably a '61 convertible piece. The other chassis and interior are AMT Gremlin parts.

If your kit has the two-piece tires and slicks (most Seventies and Eighties issues did) then there's certainly room for improvement. Just go back to the solid one-piece units that the kit started out with. The slicks can be found in a bunch of other Revell kits (Ford Thunderbolt, Tommy Ivo Showboat, Tony Nancy 22 Jr) while the fronts are in some issues of the '31 Ford, Anglia, and Thames panel. The wheels are correct to that car, not much wiggle room there. Atlantis has retooled similar tires and slicks for their Fiat altered, but those have no lettering. Revell's are better.

Like that color!

Verizon...'nuff said....

Those who use them as part of their job probably change them after each job. For what we’re doing, it's probably possible to go a lot longer between changes. But, I'd give some thought to how the filter should be stored between jobs.

AMT '65 Riviera has one too.

As far as the wheels go, one thing you can do is remove the out-of-style centers and replace them with something more to your liking. The outer rims are often quite nice, and you already know they'll fit the tires that they go with. I've done this with these pickup wheels, as well as those ugly three-slot ones in the Ranchero kit.

Important: do the cleaning before doing ANY sanding or grinding on the body. Otherwise, you're embedding mold release into the resin.

Be sure to use 'em before the cans start leaking...

With Sixties tooled kits, the Classic cars will be better. They've got more detail, as they sold at a higher price. The guys who worked on the original kits put more effort into them, as opposed to the annual kits which were always done under a deadline. And the Classics didn't sell as well, so the tooling didn't get worn out. And they seldom got reworked into other things to wring more uses out of the tooling.

The Shelby chili mix kit changed hands a few times. Kraft had it for a while. I did try it once, but I prefer the more familiar style myself. One of the two bigger grocery store chains around here carries the Shelby product.

Anyone else remember when Carroll Shelby was riding high with his original Cobras and GT350s, and was selling other stuff like shirts, jackets, and beer glasses? He had a deodorant too...called "Pit Stop"...

No kits. Jo-Han made all of the American kits that were ever offered, all had full wheel covers.

There's no IKEA in my area; as I understand the nearest one is a couple hundred miles away in Pittsburgh. Years ago, I bought a curio cabinet figuring that, when I owned a house, I'd eventually use it as a curio cabinet. It's still in the spare room, along with the 7' long store cabinet that I had the glass cut for. Many years ago, at someone else's house I spotted a Timex watch store display case with a few model cars in it, and that stuck with me. Ever since then, I swore I was going to find one of those for myself. A few years ago I picked up a couple of them, and found a third one last summer. No two of them are alike, but that's what makes those interesting. They're plastic, as long as they aren't cracked or deeply scratched they clean up pretty nicely with some Novus plastic polish. I've also got a display case that my dad made for me when I was about ten. He passed away a year or so later, as I remember that might have been the last project like that, that he did. Don't bother with Plexiglas or acrylic shelves; they'll sag. Glass ones can be had for about the same cost, maybe a bit more. You'll only need to spend the money once, so may as well get glass.

Too, the old Motor Racing Replica News magazine did a pretty extensive article on correcting the AMT Watson kit, and the changes needed to build replicas of other Watson cars. I understand that someone was selling a CD with all 41 issues on it, you might look into finding either that or the actual issues. I'd try to get the CD if possible...well worth the effort.

I don't know if the "kit" played a part, but I do remember one T roadster with the Watson style nose. A guy named Chauvin Emmons owned it (he was an upholsterer, as I recall). I think it had an injected Olds V8 that resembled the setup in the AMT '40 Ford sedan kit, and I'm pretty sure the car made the cover of Hot Rod in the early/mid-Sixties. Watson seemed to be the dominant roadster builder in the early Sixties, the end of that era. Frank Kurtis absolutely dominated Indy in the Fifties, he was so busy that he let a couple other guys build copies of his design. I remember reading that he got burned out on Indy cars in the early Sixties when he went there one year and noticed that half of the guys he ran into in the pits still owed him money for cars already built. There's a late Sixties Rod & Custom article about him and his later activities, he was building vehicles with starters for jet engines for the military. They paid on time...

All of those cars differ in seemingly minor ways from year to year, and definitely from car to car. The AMT Watson was modeled on the 1963 winning car, but reviews I have read mention that it wasn't 100% accurate to even that car as the model was finalized before the real one was. Depending on which car you want to build, figure on changing the nose section, possibly the hood, maybe the tail section and the exhaust, and probably the wheels.

And, by the way, those cabinets look extremely nice. If I needed another cabinet, I'd be looking for one of those.