Mark

The plating is similar to that used by Revell and Round 2. Moebius didn't try to reinvent the wheel (unlike Trumpeter) so they seem to have avoided the pitfalls that did Trumpeter in with car kits.

The Super Clean, though old, is still effective. I've used it on other manufacturers' plating before, and after, dropping the Moebius kit part in there...so it's still good. After thoroughly rinsing and drying the part, I shot it with Dawn Power Dissolver (smells and acts similar to spray oven cleaner) and the plating is starting to budge. I'll leave it overnight and mess with it tomorrow after I get home from work.

Last weekend I picked up a set of wheel covers from the Moebius '71 Ford pickup. I wanted to get an extra one to incorporate into a master that I intend to make castings of. I've got some leftover Castrol Super Clean that normally makes short work of the vacuum plating as well as the underlying lacquer, but the Moebius plating is unfazed by it. Anyone else have trouble stripping plating from Moebius kit parts?

The higher the price of the product, the more correct it will need to be. Working off of a half-dozen photos won't cut it anymore. Because the 1:1 car wasn't a runner, the chassis and (maybe) the interior would leave room for interpretation, but the body had better look right if you expect to sell these.

Packard didn't have a V8 until the '55 model year. AMC bought some of them, but they were never installed in the "step-down" Hudson body. They were used in the '55 and '56 Hudsons which were built on the Nash body. The engine deal was supposed to point towards further cooperation between Studebaker-Packard and AMC, but that didn't happen. AMC started work on their own V8, which was a good thing for them because the Packard V8 was gone after the '56 model year.

The slicks included are the early MPC hollow funny car units, probably too wide for Stock class (but way small for a funny car). But they are the the narrowest slicks Round 2 has, other than maybe the "piecrusts" which aren't the type that was used on the 1:1 car. They're a tight fit, just like they would have been on the real one in those days.

The early issues of the '53/'54 Chevy kits include brief instructions on cutting the doors open. They specify scribing the door lines with a sharp knife. The hot knife would have been overkill as the early issue bodies were extremely thin in the panel line areas. Later issues leave those instructions out, probably in large part because those hinges were so sloppy, even more so than the ones in the '55-'57 kits. I wouldn't use an Auto Cutter for finish work, but I still do use a similar X-Acto tool for rough work like radiusing wheel openings. Don't plunge the thing halfway in, just use the tip, and it works fine for stuff like that. It could be plugged into a Dremel speed control to turn down the heat a bit, which might make it more useful...but I've yet to try that.

The '72 was backdated to a '70 by Ertl some years ago. After that, they or RC2 decided they wanted to reissue the '72 again. Apparently the original '72 bumper tooling was destroyed or discarded in the '70 backdate, so new '72 bumpers were created. The new rear bumper might be better but the front one is worse. It has been reissued as both '70 and '72 since then, so apparently it can be switched back and forth now. I was going to try to rework that later '72 into a '71, but later found a savable '71.

All issues of the '58 have '57 wheel covers (except the Elvira version, which had its own non-stock wheel covers). I'm somewhat certain the first issue was offered in four colors: black, white, red, and yellow. Recent issues are a couple of custom parts short compared to the original issue. Off the top of my head, there's a chrome band that attaches to the bubble top that is no longer included. A custom grille insert for the stock bumper is also gone; as I understand, that part was reworked to create the insert for the Elvira issues.

One should never generalize.

The "Blue Crescent" kit was the '70 annual; a Mach I body but with the Boss 429 engine. Much of the engine and underbody from that kit was recycled into AMT's '71-'73 Mustang annual kits, with the '70 body ending up in a funny car. That Boss 429 is one of the weaker ones out there. The MPC Cougar kit engine pictured is better. The best block/heads are in the Jo-Han kits: Maverick, Comet, and Pinto and Mustang funny cars. The pro stock Maverick and Comet engines have axle holes in the block; larger holes in kits with plastic axle rods as opposed to the early ones with wire axles.

Nope, the mom/pops are the ones ordering the wrong stock, and not keeping the right things available. Sears was an early proponent of playing suppliers against one another. Their present problems are traceable to their still trying to be an "everything" store as opposed to a home/garden store, an apparel store, or an appliance store. They'd be better off getting out of areas where they aren't doing well. They've been closing their tool/home/garden stores, that's probably the area where they have been strong...but they've managed to screw that up over the last few years. I'm done with them, myself.

Around here, you can't go to a flea market, automotive swap meet, or toy show and swing a cat without hitting one or more NASCAR kits priced in the single digits. That said, the 1:1 dirt chassis looks sort of like a NASCAR one except the engine and roll cage are shifted to the rear. Just swapping a stock body onto a NASCAR chassis, you probably wouldn't need to move the roof back like that, but just doing something like the body swap could make an interesting project. There's pro street, pro-touring...why not NASCAR street?

Some of the little guys aren't savvy enough about good/basic business practices, like keeping up your stock. A while back, I wanted to change the heater hoses on my car. The mom-and-pop store had three cartons of one size hose that I needed, and none of the other size. My usual thing is (with auto parts, home repairs, or anything else) if the first place I stop at doesn't have everything to do the job, then it's on to the next store until someone has everything needed. Walmart bashing is a favorite for a lot of people. I'm not crazy about the place myself, and don't go there too often (maybe eight or ten times a year, and that's on a steep decline). But they didn't invent the practice of playing one supplier against another. Ever walk through Sears and notice that this year's Craftsman lawnmowers don't look anything like last year's?

A lot of the smaller stores (not just hobby shops, but hardware stores, auto parts stores, and the like) go under because the carry too much "dead" stock. That's money tied up for the owner, that they have no reasonable expectation of getting back any time soon, if ever. The bigger stores don't let that happen, or if they do it doesn't happen twice. Nothing sits on the shelf for very long...keep everything moving. I'll buy local when I can, but when I see a kit at the local store that is priced above retail, and I can snag the same thing at Michael's or Hobby Lobby with a 40% off deal, guess where I'm going. When the craft/hobby chains started setting up shop around here, the big local shop's response was to raise prices. Not smart.

From the shelf stickers I have seen locally, they will be carrying the AMT Surf Woody, '50 Ford convertible, '67 Impala, 1/32 scale Ranchero, Cushman Duster Kit Car, and a couple of other new items. On the way out are the Revell '70 Torino GT, first version '67 Camaro, and probably the Round 2 Dukes of Hazzard kits (licensing ran out at years' end so no more will be produced).

Every time I walk into a Wal-Mart, I walk out wondering just why I went in. The stores around here quit carrying model kits in 2006 or 2007, but a couple of them have brought them back periodically. Never much of a selection, and the prices were never anything to write home about. Outside of a genuine hobby shop (which a lot of areas don't have now), Michael's or Hobby Lobby are a better bet for kits; the selection is better at those places, and you can usually use a coupon to knock the price down. I was more bummed when K-Mart quit carrying kits years ago. They usually had a decent selection, including a number of things you could count on: AMT '57 Chevy and '71 Nova, the Monogram Early Iron '29 Ford roadster pickup, and at least one version of the '55 Chevy (Badman or the black street machine).

The police car engine was originally in AMT's '70-'71 Torino Cobra. AMT hacked that kit up to create a funny car body, and the engine wound up in the police car (itself converted from an LTD hardtop promotional model).

Mystery Science Theater 3000 did their usual thing with a number of shorts and educational films, this one among them.

Back then, most (but not all) funny car kits had stock "promotional model" bodies with molded-in windshield wiper detail, door handles, and emblems. AMT probably did the longnose version to make it stand out, to let potential buyers know they were getting a non-stock body. The Polar Lights kit is closer to the 1:1 car, but the AMT version is cool in and of itself.

Ed Iskendarian started it with his T roadster...it's had "patina" since he started bringing it back out in the late Sixties!

I've used Chrome Tech numerous times for both resin and original parts, no lost parts. Used LMK once for a couple of racks of resin parts, most came back unusable due to contamination in the plating.

It's unlikely, but I wouldn't mind seeing a '62-'64 Gran Turismo Hawk. To my eyes anyway, it looks right without taking anything away from the original '53 design. Most of the time, either the first version of a particular car is the definitive one, or one of the later versions improves on it and becomes the "best" version. Somehow, with the Studebaker, both the '53 and '62-'64 versions look "right" ...

I've got a black one. I wouldn't doubt that there are white ones though, as I have had other MPC kits from that era that were molded in both color and white.

The first post-annual issue was the Miss Mighty Mopar (in white), in '73 if I remember right. Next one after that was the Great Street Machine (probably also white), then the (black) Killer 'Cuda, then the (orange) Avenger. All of these had the gutted (no exhaust) chassis, and the '68 side markers. The '69 grille, taillights, and hood were never changed. I've got a poorly built Miss Mighty Mopar kit...the body has no side markers on the front fenders. Didn't the 1:1 cars have fiberglass front fenders without side markers? I've got another white body with no scripts or trim on the sides, '69 hood with hood pins, and side markers on the front fenders. I'd bet this one is from the Great Street Machine issue. I didn't get a box or instruction sheet with it, and a number of other parts were missing.