Mark

It's cribbed from AMT's kit...look at the top of the MPC kit's chassis. It has some of the "trunk mat" detail copied from AMT's kit. You can even see remnants of the engine block seam on the oil pan on the snap kit's one-piece chassis. The snap Willys sedan delivery is pretty clearly copied from AMT's kit, as is the snap '40 Ford coupe. There are some interesting differences though...the snap Merc has 1950 front fender trim, the Willys has a stock grille, running boards, and '34 hood sides.

AAM did the stock Lincoln. I'm pretty certain that one was widened a bit also.

If the decals were printed in reverse, they wouldn't look as good from the back side. Soak a decal you don't intend to use, and look at it from the back side...doesn't look too good. You can dip the decal, then while it is wet transfer the glue to the front side and then apply it on the inside of the glass. But it probably won't look right due to the non-scale thickness of the clear parts. If you replace the kit parts with thin clear styrene, it might look right though.

Apparently we "need" the current rollover standards to protect idiots like him. That's partly why newer vehicles have smaller windows, which have led to other unintended consequences like children being left in hot cars. The stupid/expensive rear view cameras are also "needed" because of the small windows.

The Magnum was based in large part on the '75-'77 Charger/Cordoba, itself built on the bones of the '71-'74 cars. The master for the resin Magnum was likely converted from the MPC '77-'78 two-door Monaco kit; it too shared a lot of inner and underbody structure with other midsize Mopars. I've wanted a Magnum stock car body myself, but want to do the conversion myself and will start with the Monaco. I'm not saying that my conversion will be better (or even as good); I just like to do those things myself. The Anglia/Thames running gear looks a lot like the larger Ford stuff, in miniature. The engine would be a four, a flathead but not the Model A/B unit. The foreign Fords used smaller engines created for their home market, to fit in with England's "taxable horsepower" formula. The Prefect (four-door) had a slightly larger engine than the Anglia (two-door); I'm not sure which engine the Thames used but it was probably the bigger one. Ford Australia mixed everything up; they built both Anglias and Prefects as both two-doors and four-doors, and probably utilities as well. The Aussie Anglias would have had the small engine, the Prefect the "big" one. The stock frames are way different than what was cobbled up for the Revell kit; as I remember, the frame rails formed part of the door sills on the stock car. I built a more stock-looking street rod Anglia many years ago, would like to do another with closer-to-stock running gear and a V8-60 flathead engine from the Revell Kurtis midget racer kit. The miniature V8 engine seems like it would be a good fit in the Anglia. My latest "stockified" project involved turning the AMT '65 Olds 88 Modified Stocker into a NASCAR version. I've got the wheel openings filled back in to stock spec, flares and all. I might do another one to get a body to use with the original kit's custom parts. I've also got a '64 Galaxie started in similar fashion (I know it would be easier to use the curbside version body, but I like doing things the hard way). I've also got extra '65 Fairlane and '66 Skylark Mod Stocker kits that might also get "stockified" someday...

As I remember it, the 1:1 frame was made up of pretty thin stock (for an American car, it would have been heavy gauge sheetmetal back then). It was several layers overlapped in some places like the X-member. The truck my brother had, had been sitting in a dirt floor building in Ontario for a bunch of years before he bought it, so the underside was pretty scabby. He cut the frame up with a Sawzall, didn't use any of it. I want to build a Revell Austin as Jim Oddy's gasser, which would have used the original frame as a starting point. I did use the Datsun frame under an Orange Blossom Special '37 Chevy pickup many years ago; it fit that pretty well. I lined up the front wheels with the wheel openings and then cut the kit's bed down (and moved the rear fenders) to match up with where the rear wheels ended up.

The last time my buddies and I watched one of the "Jackass" movies, one of the things I said was, "what kind of shape will these guys be in when they are 60?" Same goes for Man vs. Food, though that guy soon quit doing the challenges by himself and recently lost something like 80 pounds.

For reference info, go to: www.austinworks.com...lots of good stuff there, including a frame diagram that you could print out and resize to 1/25 scale. If you want a frame that's "in the ballpark", the MPC Datsun pickup unit is pretty close. The rear kickup doesn't match with the Revell interior floor though, and the suspension has to be changed. My older brother built a 1:1 pickup about ten years ago, starting with a rusty stocker. As I recall, the Revell kit body bears only a vague resemblance to the 1:1 in regards to the body creases and the shape of the windshield. If I remember right, the stock Austin engine is the same one that was used in the Nash Metropolitan, and it was used in a number of other cars also. I remember the stock radiator looking like a large heater core, and the stock brakes were hydraulic in front and mechanical at the rear. The pickups were converted from sedans also; a lot of the body work on the rear of the cab and the bed was of poor quality as-built.

I'm in a "cruel" mood at the moment...let's let Darwin thin the herd a bit. As long as innocent bystanders don't get hurt...

Sears really needs to 'fess up, and tell us what happened to Roebuck... Seriously, they screwed up when they started switching suppliers so often on items like power tools and lawn equipment. Used to be, you could buy a lawnmower and then walk in and buy an accessory for it a couple of years later because they were still selling the same lawnmowers. Now, you've got to know when your lawnmower was made, because they switch suppliers every year or two. Your lawnmower might have a Tecumseh engine while the current ones have Briggs & Stratton powerplants, and they will only have parts and accessories in stock for the ones they're selling now. They might save a couple bucks per unit (that doesn't get passed along to the customer) but it's shortsighted. Same goes for power tools. I tried to get a couple of new rechargeable batteries for a circular saw. The current battery doesn't fit the older saw because they moved the contacts on the battery. Not much, but just enough that they don't interchange. Nobody is going to convince me that that change was made for any reason other than to make the older tools obsolete for most folks. 90 percent of the people who find that out will buy new tools from them, then go home and toss their older/perfectly good tools in the trash. I'll go to a battery store and get the batteries I have rebuilt, which means Sears won't sell me the replacements. They won't sell me the tools again either. If I were to buy any other rechargeable tools, I'd probably go with a non-store major brand; they'd be more likely to stand behind their product after the next-generation item is introduced. They shoot themselves in the foot with parts prices too. I wanted to pick up an extra remote for my mom's garage door opener. For what they wanted for one, if I wanted two I'd have been about as well off to just buy another complete garage door opener, which includes two remotes. Of course, the newer remote might have come from a different supplier and thus be incompatible with the older opener... Maybe in the Sixties or early Seventies a store could be everything for everybody, but those days are gone. Montgomery Ward failed long before Sears; maybe someone at Sears should have seen the writing on the wall. Someone should have decided if Sears should be a womens' fashion store, a mens' clothing store, or a tool store, and then gone in whatever direction they thought was right. My brothers and I have my dad's tools; nearly every one was bought at Sears. I can't remember the last time I bought anything there; the last couple of times I went in there were the "garage door opener" and "rechargeable battery" episodes, when I just walked out disgusted. Remember when nearly every K-Mart store in the country was laid out pretty much alike? When I worked out of town, I'd hit the K-Mart if I needed to pick something up because I didn't have to walk the whole store looking for something. I remember the hobby section was pretty close to the center of the store, automotive was at the back, ladies' stuff was pretty much at one end because that's where I'd have to go to catch up with my mom and my sister. When they scuttled that trying to go "upscale", the train pretty much jumped the track. It's not upscale, it's K-Mart; they were making tons of money, why not just leave it alone? In my area, they're down to one store now...and the last time I was there, you could fire a cannon down most aisles and not hit anyone...

Not necessarily looking for much stuff anymore, so maybe it's a good thing that eBay has worked so consciously to discourage me from poking around there as much as I used to. I mainly do searches now. Still, there are deals to be had. I've been trying to finish off a collection of the early Pyro 1/32 scale cars (not the "classics" or "brass" cars, but the no-vinyl-tires, no-chrome, 50/60 cent ones). I found one of the tougher ones (the '52 Chevy wagon) with a B-I-N price that was less than half of what I'd seen others sell for. It had only been listed half an hour before I saw it. Today, I found a dealer selling Model Car Garage photoetch sets for about 10% less than MGC gets for them, with cheaper shipping. I've still got to go direct for a couple of them that this guy didn't have, but still I saved enough to pay for a couple of sets. I still buy modeling supplies, tools, and CDs. It's just not what it used to be, and a lot of that is of their own making.

If they are in mint condition, original issue kits aren't affected much by reissues. It's the built, half-built, "projects" and the like that are affected, and those are the ones that usually get dumped into the marketplace when a reissue is announced. The Tom Daniel and (Revell) Roth kits, in original-issue, mint condition form, still change hands at strong prices because some collectors want the originals. The original issue has a forty or fifty year head start on anything with a UPC code. I'm pretty certain Monogram used the cellophane wrap on their kits well into the Sixties, possibly the early Seventies. I've never paid too much attention to Monogram stuff from that era, so others will know better than I.

I hate plowing through the "sell individual parts from a new kit" listings, as well as the over-and-over-and-over-again listings. I've been seeing the same three Pyro kit instruction sheets over and over again for the past three or four years. These kinds of deals are what happens when eBay gives out free listings to pad up the number of listings in a given category. Every once in a while, you'll see a bunch of totally unrelated items dumped into your search too.

I'd bet that the oil companies are getting involved in other forms of energy, more so than we think; they are doing it under the radar. I don't watch much TV; most of what I do watch during the summer involves baseball. In nearly every game I've seen, the background signage includes billboards for "Gulf Electricity". If electric cars become more mainstream, and quick charging becomes likely, the oil companies will be in on it because they already own a lot of the convenient, strategically located properties on which to place charging stations. Charging stations will simply replace existing gas stations here and there. They've got their fingers into every conceivable alternative...I'd call it "covering all of the exits"...

Are they selling for high prices, or are people attempting to sell them for high prices? Big difference there. The announcement of a reissued or reconstructed kit usually brings a tsunami of eBay listings of originals, in hopes of catching the uninitiated off guard. The Street Fighter, Tijuana Taxi, Rommel's Rod, and Dragon/Circus Wagon reissues all brought similar consequences...

The AMT kit IS the 7 Liter version.

The custom parts are only in that first issue. You might still be able to locate one, though. The basic kit has been reissued a a street rod and the ZZ Top Eliminator, the street rod ("Early Iron") issues (coupe or cabriolet) should have the body with no alterations. The ZZ Top and Thom Taylor issues may have the body "smoothed up" a bit. You should be able to track down an unaltered body; that is, if the one you have can't be fixed.

Lost likely means scrapped. May have been thought of as having no value for future reissues at some point, or could have been worn out or damaged enough that it was deemed not worth repairing. Everything is "on the books" with a value assigned to it. When a company has an especially good year, they will scrap "obsolete" items and "write them off" to remove the item from the books and reduce their income (and also their income tax) for that year. If storage space is limited, they will thin the herd every so often to make room. I've heard from two parties that were interested in commissioning a private-label reissue of the Ford pickup, that it was searched for and not found (or otherwise it was determined that it no longer exists). If it's not there, it's not there. The Chevrolet pickup tool was updated through 1966 to produce promotional models; it still exists but is likely not part of the Round 2 inventory. Someone has (or at least had) it, because in the Nineties there was a reissue promo model produced from the tool. American SATCO announced a reissue of it in kit form after that, but they never followed through on it. Years ago, I spoke to someone who worked for Lesney during the period they owned AMT. All of the tools were moved from the AMT building in Michigan (which had been sold) to Baltimore. While there, some items were stored outdoors which isn't the best environment for tooling with fine detail. From there, everything went to Iowa after the Ertl acquisition of AMT.

There's an Englishman named Pete Frame who has written/drawn several great books illustrating the "family trees" of rock bands. The trees illustrate the comings and goings of individual members, some passing back and forth between several bands before settling into the roles that they were best known for. He's covered a bunch of acts: everything from Fifties stuff to the late Seventies punk rock scene (probably more in later books), bands popular both in England and the USA. There are a lot of them that, by the end of their existence, were down to one founding member (a few even had nobody left from the original lineup at the end). They're loaded with interesting trivia too...if you see one, grab it. You'll get your money's worth in reading with any of them; even the bands you don't care about or have never heard of have interesting stories...

I remember not many stores carried Jo-Han kits. The bigger department stores around here (in those days, K-Mart, a local chain called Twin Fair, and a Northeastern chain called Two Guys, based in NJ) seldom stocked them. Oddly, a number of drug stores did carry them, as did some Woolworths stores on occasion. I wasn't a hobby shop denizen until I was out of school and working (end of 1978) so I can't comment on the situation there. Most of the Jo-Han kits I had early on were mail ordered from Auto World. Now we think of their subject matter as neat, but back then model building kids wanted Corvettes, Mustangs, Barracudas, and Chargers. The Bonnevilles, Impalas, Galaxies, Cougars, and the like usually could be had on closeout when next years' kits started coming out.

The '68 police car came out during 1968 if I remember right. The conversion could have been made once Jo-Han knew that no more 1968 promotional models were needed, and that the 1969 fullsize car was an entirely different animal. That ad is from 1970, because of the Superbird (which likewise was altered from the regular Roadrunner after production of that kit ended). I doubt Jo-Han ever intended to produce a '69 or '70 police car. They didn't do a whole lot of kits that weren't constructed on the bones of a promotional model. I wonder if, at the time that ad appeared, Jo-Han knew their promo model business with Plymouth had come to an end. They lost Dodge after '64, Chrysler/Imperial after '68, Plymouth after '70. I've thought that their Challenger funny car and Barracuda pro stock kits had their roots in failed attempts to get back Chrysler promo model contracts. For '71, Jo-Han went big into racing subject matter, being left with promotional model business from Oldsmobile, Cadillac, AMC, and a thin sliver of Ford/Mercury stuff. Seeing the Ford logo on a Jo-Han kit box (the Maverick) was something of a surprise back then. Of the kits pictured that were actually produced, the drag version ambulance is by far the toughest to find IMO. It was only produced for a short time.

They are clearing out the stock '50 Olds, but will be carrying the custom one judging by the shelf tag I saw. Other items on the way will include both issues of the Revell '62 Corvette, their '58 Corvette, '67 Camaro, and '70 Torino, and the AMT '53 Studebaker, '67 Chevelle, and '62 Bel Air. The store I went to already had the Revell '57 Chevy convertible.

I have yet to see the accessory that improves the appearance of a PT Cruiser or HHR. I'll exclude wheels and tires from the discussion. The stick-on portholes, fake wood, stick-on '57 Chevy style side trim, pinstriping stickers with an inch of clear carrier sheet all around the designs, replacement grilles, chrome overlays for bumpers and door handles, and (my favorite) the stick-on hood scoops serve only to fuel the fire for those who hate those two vehicles. The PT in particular has a couple of unflattering views at the front, caused by the wide grille, itself necessitated by the transverse engine, wrong-wheel drive layout. But, the designer (same guy did both) still did okay with them, and they generally look best when left alone. At least I haven't seen one with a fake convertible top with a sunroof in it...

Maybe they could put together a tour with the Beach Boy and the Allman Brother...

Those rear wheels look like the ones from the Monogram flip-front '66 Malibu (the black one). Best Super Tricks I've seen. I've measured a set of 1:1 rear wheel halves, and the Monogram units are the most correct ones out there. I'm trying to put together a front wheel that's as good. The stance on this build looks just right. How good/bad a job did the original builder do on cutting the body panels?