Mark

A recent eBay find is one of the original Stude funny cars, built. As I suspected, the pivot point for the body is too far forward, so much on mine that the builder left the rear bumper off. No pictures right now, as both front wheels and one rear were broken off (that's how it was listed), and the original builder swapped the plastic slicks for a pair of way-too-narrow early Trophy Series units. I've got to reattach the wheels (fortunately the king pins on the front axle aren't busted off) and get a pair of wider slicks back on the thing. I've also got to cut down a set of headers from the 3-in-1 Stude and put them on (the original builder didn't get around to that). The paint job on it ain't bad, and the builder did a decent job on chopping the top with the kit-supplied parts.

The "chassis" of the shelf version of the Monogram slot car. Also, pieces of two of the easily breakable front axle of the shelf version...the main culprit in the disappearance of front tire/wheel units from this kit.

You don't, or at least shouldn't, use water to thin two-part putty. If you do, it will shrink drastically as the water evaporates. If you need to make the putty more pliable as you are applying it, just "roll" it really fast between your hands as you are blending it. The warmer it is, the more pliable it will be when you are positioning it. Water can of course be used to smooth it after it is applied, to reduce the amount of sanding needed later.

I wouldn't bet on a new '71 from Revell. They're selling the old Monogram kit, and selling enough of them that it stays in the catalog year after year.

Probably for the best as far as Round 2 is concerned...you don't want to ship someone a bunch of stuff, only to be paid pennies on the dollar in a bankruptcy...

I have two of the shelf version kits. At first, they were a "two to make one" thing, but even then I was missing a few parts like the driver and the bars that attach to the rear radius rods. Since then, I found another one that had been cut apart but had some extra/unused small parts. I now have one complete one, and another nearly so. The slot car body kit available now doesn't include the shelf version "chassis" parts or wheels. The "chassis" is not detailed, it does include a rear axle however. The front axle would be nice to have. I don't have one whole one, but have two broken ones that I can cut in half and join the two "good" halves together. I'm still looking for one front tire, and a couple other small parts for the second car.

If you are into muscle Mopars, that Charger and the '68 Hemi Dart are both must-have kits. Both are gold mines in terms of parts. And in many cases, you can lift desirable parts for a project AND still build the kit.

The kit is actually quite nice, considering it's origins lie in the mid-Sixties as the Get Smart TV car, which was built for the show by AMT's Speed and Custom division. Though badged as a Tiger (all of which had Ford V8 power) the Get Smart kit had the Alpine four cylinder engine, to make room under the hood for a small cannon that retracted under it. Lesney later converted the Tiger to stock, replacing the four with the correct V8. I remember that was one of the first new kits issued under Lesney's relatively short ownership of AMT. I could kick myself for not buying a bag of parts from the Get Smart kit that included that engine.

Michael's probably gives individual store managers some latitude in regards to what they carry. For a long stretch, the stores in my area were way down on model kits but are now bouncing back. They now have Revell and Round 2 items, with the snap kits being Airfix. The Joann stores have had Atlantis kits, but they're all going away this year (Joann stores, not Atlantis). The stores here never had much of a selection, and never stocked Testors paints as in other areas. Yes, the Hobby Lobby selection is slow to change. To get the prices that leave room for 40% off every other week, they buy in such volume that they're going to be selling the same items for a long while. Too, certain items probably sell well for them even when they don't sell elsewhere. I was in one store yesterday; they still stock the AMT Super Stones Ford pickup which is one of the early Round 2 reissues. HL alone is probably responsible for that kit still being in production.

'60 is completely different, it does not wrap around like '59.

I doubt that a dual exhaust system was avaliable on trucks in '66.

If they have anything. The stores in my area have been in disarray, more stuff sitting in boxes in the aisles than in a Dollar Tree store. A while back, someone mentioned a clearance on Testors sprays. The stores in my area never had them to start with. Location was a problem in some cases. The last Joann's I was in was in the same plaza as a Michael's store.

There is also a stock '67 Cyclone kit available from AMT. The altered wheelbase car's body was reworked from the original kit, so the stock one that is available now is a newer tooling. That said, I think the original body is a bit nicer. So, I'd use that, fill and relocate the rear wheel openings, and adapt the grille and hood from the newer kit.

Even better, you can add a bit of material to the floor on both sides, and reinstall the side panels 100% vertical, instead of with the slight taper dictated by the design of the mold. While you are at it, you can make sure that the interior floor is as deep as it can be. Very early car kits often have extremely shallow interior buckets. Examples of this would be Jo-Han through 1963, and the AMT 1965-69 Corvair.

At the time the '68 was announced, Revell's people were saying that the alteration was permanent, they wouldn't be going back to the '69. Keeping it a '69 would have made more sense had a Swinger version been part of the plan. Otherwise the '68 was the way to go, with the Super Stock Hemi version in the mix. Yes, it isn't a full-on Hemi version (door panel and seats not being included) but it's most of the way there.

There is no Moebius Barracuda kit. It's AMT, it's a '65, and it's coming later this year.

The '69 was only issued once before being converted to '68 spec. No vinyl roof on any '69 kit.

No V8, it includes the stock four-cylinder engine with some optional parts. It's well detailed, as is the rest of the kit.

Pretty sure the Atlantis (ex-Monogram) kit was developed during the period when Monogram was owned by Mattel, and the kit assembly revolves around the body (no chassis detail). The MPC kit does have a chassis, molded in two halves. The body is likewise split down the center (from the engine back) with the front portion being split along the sides. The Atlantis kit is probably easier to build but harder to build differently than straight from the box. The MPC kit is probably more fiddly but will have more parts and more detail.

No license plate, no trim rings on the wheels...probably not secured properly on the top deck of the rail car.

Might just be a misprint.

Handles like it's on rails!

Not X-Acto knives; each has only one collet. The two pictured are different sizes. There are instances where more than one X-Acto handle uses the same blades. The wide chisel blade in the knife at right is tapered down at the collet end. One of the X-Acto handles might accept the Tamiya scriber blade, but you'd have to test fit. But it would have to be a tight fit, if it were sloppy it could move or slip while you are working with it. The off-brand knife handles are often just slightly different from X-Acto making the blades a poor fit. Some are too wide, others too narrow. If the Tamiya scriber blade is a sloppy fit in the closest X-Acto handle, one of the off-brand ones might work, but figuring out which one would be a problem. A lot of the off-brand ones have plastic parts in the collet which makes them a non-starter for me.

The artwork shows a Pontiac engine. Those Atlantis kits include two engines; not sure which other one is in that kit as it has not yet turned up around here. The Chrysler 392 has been used in the Studebaker kit, the small-block Chevy with the supercharger atop the engine is now in the '57 Chevy hardtop kit. The turbine engine isn't really "right" for a dragster (and probably doesn't fit the dragster chassis anyway). So, besides the Ford 427, Pontiac, Cadillac, and the other small-block Chevy, that leaves the Buick yet unused. Hopefully it will resurface in one of these kits soon.

Those were the tires AMT used in their two Indy car kits (Lotus and Watson roadster). The Ford pickup used four of the smaller front tires, as did a few other kits. AMT also had a series of sand dragster kits out around the same time, each of those used four of the larger rear tires as duals for the sand dragster. Their snap-together "furniture van" kit used a bunch of the larger tires also. The original AMT company probably scrapped the tooling for those solid Indy car tires, as the Seventies reissues of the Indy cars used two-piece plastic tires. Those had sidewall lettering that the solid tires lacked, but had no tread detail like the solid tires had.