Mark

Roundup is on the high side on their out-of-production stuff. Model Empire was higher still. The Pacer is one of those reissues that were pretty much scarfed up by those wanting one. I don't recall any great clamor over it, but apparently Round 2 managed to make enough of them to satisfy the demand and not have any wind up in closeout stores at the end. Keep an eye open, one will turn up.

Free eBay listing's bring out the nutty asking prices. Asking isn't getting, but when you can list over and over at no cost, that's what happens.

Funny car kits with bodies tooled specifically for them were the exception, not the rule, back then. This was true into the early/mid Seventies. AMT usually used their stock bodies after they were no longer needed for stock annual kits, while MPC used theirs to wring one more use out of each years' annual body (promo, stock annual kit, funny car kit). Jo-Han often made the funny car an alternate version in an annual kit from 1968 through 1970. For '71 and '72, some kits got two issues: stock/pro stock, and funny car only (using the stock body).

I'm thinking eBay operates with the same mentality that supermarkets use when, every year or so, they move some items from one aisle to another. The thinking seems to be, the longer you are in the store, the more you are likely to buy.

eBay Motors. "Over 100 million parts, ALL of which will fit EVERY car you attempt to do a search on!"

It would have been easy for them to throw in the towel after the krap storm that got thrown their way four years ago. A whole print run destroyed in transit because of a distributor. Other operations have shut down over much less. I took the gamble on a lifetime subscription five years ago. It again would have been easy for them to reorganize with a slight change in name, and use that technicality to void all of those subs. But they didn't do that. My issue arrived Monday. I've read it cover to cover except for one article, and I'll get to that today or tomorrow. Then, I'll be waiting for the next issue...

Well, Atlantis IS announcing coming availability of more items to be produced from the stockpile of tooling that they acquired. It's one thing to buy tooling, another to actually get items produced from it into warehouses and onto store shelves (cough, Jo-Han, cough...)

The Grand Prix lettering falls through the cracks, as MCG has not done a photoetch set for any GP. Pontiac used that style lettering for quite a while, but only one GP kit ('65) pops up every few years. And that one doesn't have "Grand Prix" spelled out in that lettering style, unfortunately.

The promos and snap kits had molded-in plated headlamp detail. The full detail kits have clear lenses.

The roof ribs on the van aren't a big deal...a few measurements, some Evergreen strip stock...done. The drip rail circling the roof is another area needing attention...same deal. Use liquid styrene cement on that. I think I started at the end of the track for the passenger side cargo door and worked forward and around the roof...tack the end down with CA glue, apply solvent cement to the rest. The solvent cement will let the strip stock flex a bit at the corners. It does take more than one piece to go all the way around, make the join in a straight area near a corner. The new decals for the boat sound great, but I need another one of those Chevy vans like a hole in the head! After putting a full interior in the Dirty Donny version (among other things) it's going to be awhile before I tackle another one.

Strange thing...even AFTER some of the new kits are released AND are pretty widely known, there are still people out there willing to pay decent money for an original or an earlier version. Nova station wagons, '60-'63 Ford pickups, you name it. I didn't cut loose any of my Ford pickups or Novas, as they are already paid for, and I did gather up some needed Modelhaus small parts and kept an eye open for parts trees and other things over the years.

After the NASCAR version but before the SSLASHER came the Super Stocker (dirt track) version, with its hacked-out wheel openings.

At least, punch a few holes in the lid...

The monster truck is based on the full detail annual kits (one of which was the SS). So the cab should be the very same one, barring any alterations to the trim that may have been made between the production of the two versions.

Engine is from the AMT '62 Buick.

Bench. The MPC kit is based on their Switchers series kit. Some new parts were created to make the Milner car, but only enough to get the kit into the ballpark.

The '55 Chevy is probably the "easiest" of the Revell tri-five Chevy kits to work with. Atlantis will have to tool another set of tires for it, as the '55 didn't get converted over to the (wider than original) two-piece hollow tires by Revell. Those won't fit, as the inner wheel houses on the chassis are quite narrow. One side is narrower than the other, something to watch for if you are working on one. The Revell Hot Rod magazine issue had wider tires and really wasn't buildable out of the box due to this. If Atlantis gets to the '56, they had better tool some new clear parts as the original front and rear glass falls through the openings in any issue past the mid-Seventies. I'm surprised they didn't at least tool a new rear glass for the '57 hardtop.

The paint section is virtually zero. No Duplicolor to be seen. I was kind of expecting to see something after the Pep Boys locations here got away from selling auto parts.

I picked up a '60 Ford pickup yesterday. The store I stopped at also had one Demon kit on the shelf.

She had both a Satellite and a Mustang at different times. The Satellite was a '71-'72 style though. Both AMT and MPC made funny car kits with the '73-'74 body, but I don't know of any 1:1 funny cars with that style body. She also had a short-lived Barracuda, an ex-Don Schumacher car with an extremely crude paint/lettering job that was thrown together in a hurry after a crash.

I wonder which AMC cars used this transmission. I thought they used Borg-Warner automatics through '71, then used 727 Torqueflites built under license from Chrysler from '72 on. Too, I'm pretty sure the AMC cars bigger than the American used a torque tube rear axle setup through '66 or so, which would mean the AMC version of this transmission would be somewhat different from the ones used by GM.

Pretty sure Olds had the starter on the left (driver's) side in the Hydra-Matic days. To install an Olds engine into an early Ford, the transmission adapter moved the starter to the other side. So that transmission is for a Cadillac engine. Pontiacs used Hydra-Matics in the Fifties also, but I don't know of any kit that includes a Poncho mill with a Hydro.

Looks like a Hydra-Matic; if not from an Olds, it's from a Cadillac.

This has been a thing for a bunch of years. My first three daily drivers (one car, two pickups) were manuals. The first (1979 AMC Spirit GT) once got taken to the dealer, or for tires, I can’t remember which. This would have been in the Eighties. None of the men working there that day knew how to drive a stick, but the (female) service writer did...

The new-old-stock front fenders on my '62 Fairlane are in red oxide primer, as is a NOS front bumper splash pan I have. I think I have a spare NOS fuel filler door also, again in red oxide. The used hood I unbolted from a junkyard car about fifteen years ago also has red oxide primer on the topside. Most of the metallic blue paint on it was burned away, apparently by the Arizona sun. (Though the car was in New York, it had Arizona plates on it.) The part number was stenciled on the underside of the hood, most of which is also red oxide primer. I suspect the hood was not original to the car I removed it from, as it was minimally painted on the underside unlike the original hood on my car (which was swapped out due to some rust at the front). The replacement was probably NOS prior to its being installed on the Arizona car.