Mark

Hopefully they'll issue this one with other body styles later on. I've got a couple of the Monogram kits (including a stock one) so I don’t need another phaeton. A pickup, now that's another story...

I don't know if the last one pictured can be moved off-center to the steering column, but it does have the "spinner" off to the left. The driver could grab that small handle and turn the wheel like a crank. My older brother bought one of those to flip on eBay about fifteen years ago. It was a GM accessory for a '40 or '41 Chevy. It needed a complete restoration but was all there; a lowrider guy paid around $1,000 for it nevertheless.

The "fat man" steering wheel is an early variation on a tilt wheel. You could reposition the wheel off-center so that an overweight person could sit in the drivers' seat without having the lower part of the wheels rim squeezing him. The earliest ones were aftermarket items, but there were factory accessory ones later on. Some of the lowrider guys like to add as many of the accessories as they can find--but only the factory ones, not generic aftermarket stuff. There aren't any available in kits that I'm aware of, but some of the lowrider model builders are all-in on 3D print items. Something ought to turn up there.

Because.

The Hellcat Charger will have an entirely new body, with the flares molded as part of it.

The motorcycle parts packs no longer exist. Atlantis has confirmed that they did not get them.

The Sslasher had the custom front end parts shown. It did NOT have the Street Funny wheels, supercharger, or exhaust pipes. The coming issue will have the same parts as the issue AFTER the Sslasher (the one with the red car on the box). The parts to build the Sslasher as shown on that box were still there, but the optional items were switched around. The Street Funny front end parts were not in that issue, and will not be in the upcoming reissue. They weren't shown on the box, so the car can still be built as shown on the Sslasher issue box.

The front wheels in the Atlantis kits are unchanged from those in the Revell parts packs. The tires are new tooling however (Revell kept the original ones, to use in kits they kept). The Atlantis front tires look just a bit different from the originals in that the tread area is wider, making the tire look a lot wider. The tires they tooled for the '57 Chevy kits look wider than those used in the more recent Revell issues of those kits also.

It's corporately co-opted anarchy.

The Round 2 pictures don't include the MPC '72 Chevelle, which is to be reissued with the most recent configuration of parts (MPC red "street machine", could be built stock except for wheels). Box art will reportedly be that of the "Sslasher" issue prior to that one, which can be built as illustrated on that box with the parts included. NO RELEASE DATE or other info at this time. It's still in the works.

Ertl did a '70 Corvette retro promo, not a '68.

The Revell 1963 Stone, Woods, & Cook Willys kit (the opening-doors one) is a replica of that car in its early form, and it had a steel front end and hood (with a customized grille). The car later had a fiberglass front end installed to replace the steel parts. The kit has the latch detail.

This car probably ran on alcohol instead of nitro, putting it into the (lower) Pro Comp classes.

I'm surprised there isn't a company in Canada doing those conversions.

I was about to say that. My mom had a set of those on her '77 Cutlass Supreme. The original tires were put on with the whitewalls out, but we talked her into turning the next set to the inside and it looked a bunch better. The AMT '66 Mustang wheels are a different brand but are probably the closest thing to be found. They are NOT in issues produced after the mid-Eighties however. Adding some chrome rings to the front of them will make them more closely resemble the Appliance wheel.

Pat Ganahl later built a '60 Plymouth wagon that appeared on the cover of Scale Auto. I'm pretty sure he also built a model of the John Milner Deuce coupe in an article that appeared in Street Rodder magazine. This was around the time the movie was current, several years after the AMT '32 coupe kit was (at that time) last issued but prior to the mid-Seventies reissue.

I saw the Lancer chrome parts tree (unplated) among the test shots in the short video. I didn't see anything of the Valiant though.

Can't think of one. Chevrolet had the Malibu Laguna S-3, but that was available long before the Can Am.

The rule insisting on using the "factory/showroom" suspension design ended with the downsized cars in 1981. But a lot of the early downsized cars' chassis were cut down from earlier ones, as the more modestly funded teams waited on the big dogs to sort out which chassis layout was best. It's probably a toss up when it comes to the earliest downsized Mopars, but if I were guessing I'd go with a cut-down longitudinal torsion bar front/leaf spring rear setup. Petty was the last bucks-up racer running a Mopar, after he switched he sold off a lot of his stuff to the other racers.

Nope, it has the '78 style rear window.

The blue custom pictured is indeed based on the '78 pace car. I still have the pace car (I collect those), and had the custom at one time.

The "logistics" on the trailer door is hilarious...

Anything with the ammonia odor will have adverse effects on any model kit plating (vacuum metallizing) that you may wish to save. Even if you find masking material that won't affect the plating, whatever you try to use to remove the unmasked plating will probably creep under the masking medium. I'd hand (brush) paint the areas that need to be painted. If you have to add something to the paint to slow its drying and lose the brush marks in the process, then do that.

Cast iron or aluminum?

The wagon taillights were the more popular ones for customizing because they bolted right onto '55-'56 Fords and Thunderbirds. Nobody really used the Mercury passenger car units on other cars, so with no 1/25 scale Merc kits there are no taillights available.