Mark

MPC was usually a year behind with funny car and pro stock kits back then. The Muldowney Plymouth was issued after the '73 annual kits so it used the '73 body. The '72 body was in use in the Richard Petty NASCAR kit around that time. Round 2 has the luxury of nearly fifty years' hindsight now.

All except the red stock-only issue have duals. The original issue of yours is the only one with custom headliner detail, clear red taillights, and thin white line US Royal tires. Unfortunately the last two items were bagged together...

The Roth version of the '56 pickup definitely does not include the single exhaust parts. It's strange in that Revell took the trouble to put the stock wheels in, but chose to include the engine and exhaust parts from the street machine version. That one was more like the original issue, not 100% stock but "near stock" with reversed wheels, dual exhaust, and a T-Bird intake setup. Roth bought his '56 pickup brand new and didn’t own it very long, he never messed with it other than the paint work and tonneau cover. The only issue of the Revell '56 pickup with the single exhaust parts will be the 100% stock one that was molded in red.

If you like squirrels being squirrels, check out YouTube. People build nesting boxes with cameras inside, and they seem to prefer using the boxes much of the time. It's insane how small and helpless they are at birth, and how they grow so fast. Ten weeks or so from birth, they're pretty much ready to set out on their own.

Those are for the '60 Ford. "352" round decals are for the valve covers.

In many areas they have rid themselves of the actual lines (they have in my area), so maintaining those is no longer an issue. They're just going to squeeze as much as they can get out of the remaining people who still want a phone in the house.

I've got a squirrel drey in one of the tall trees at the back of my yard. I don't know how many occupants it has, but while I was mowing the lawn one was leaping from tree to tree, pretty high up. They're gathering and stashing food for winter, so that one has been really busy lately.

Probably the ex-Styline kit that Round 2 has issued once before.

The Land Rover being the "short" one might have something to do with no reissues, though you'd think Revell of Germany would have had that out at some point. With the new one they have, now there's no need for the Monogram one. Maybe Atlantis has it, in which case licensing might be a thing. With that probably being the only such item they have, it probably isn't a high priority for them right now. Other Monogram kits never reissued could include the Uncertain T and Futurista. Both appeared in two boxes each, but were in continuous production so they could be considered one issue with a rebox along the way.

The Monaco body was heavily modified to produce the Magnum GT II kit. That kit has a different interior, so no telling if it was new or altered from the original unit. The underbody parts are pretty much unchanged though. I'm surprised the Magnum never resurfaced after it's only issue. MPC had a habit of bringing things like that back in the Eighties.

If you are using thin wood for decorative purposes, like boat decking or interior paneling in a van, with super glue it can be tough to avoid the glue bleeding through to the outer surface...just something to think about.

I'd file the grip from a piece of sprue, leaving a "stalk" to form a boot. As for the boot, that looks like a job for epoxy putty.

What type of wood, how thick, and for what purpose (decorative, structural, other)? Is the wood covering the plastic, or vice versa?

The newer issues are pretty much like the Ertl issue pictured. Few, if any more, unblocked parts.

Stage Ghost body looks way undersize for 1/16 scale. A Raiders' Coach body would probably be "close enough"...

Certain kits are just plain hard to find in unbuilt form. I've been hanging around toy shows since the early Seventies. Honestly, I can say that I have never seen very many unbuilt AMT/SMP 1958 or 1959 kits over the years, same goes for Jo-Han 1959-61. The occasional built ones still turn up from time to time, but few appear without some sort of personalization as was encouraged in the instructions. Trim removed, turned into stock car racers, and so on.

If you get the itch to build the Stage Ghost with a different body, just start with the Lindberg 1/16 scale T-bucket. They reissued the Bull Horn and (I think) a second version since Round 2 took over. Same chassis, Pyro scaled down the Monogram Big T for that one.

The '62 Galaxie hardtop was reissued once, minus most customizing parts, in 1969. I have heard that the AMT and SMP 1958 kits were still available through 1959, as most of the 1:1 cars were completely different for '59 leaving the tooling for the '58 versions unaltered. Supposedly the boxes for the "reissued" '58 kits have different stamping on the end panels, but with any unbuilt '58 kits being few and far between now that would be impossible to verify.

Correct, promo item handled by (some) dealers. A few dealers still handled them, others didn't want to bother. I bought a carton of '84 Corvette promos from a dealer, sold ten of them to pay for the two that I kept (which are still probably worth about as much as each of the ten that I sold in '84). When the Buick Reatta and Regal promos were current, I swung by a couple of Buick dealer parts departments looking for them. The counter men looked at me like I had three heads.

It's not a kit, it's a promo. Just sold in unassembled form. These started with the '74-'76 Formula Firebirds, and changed to Trans-Ams for '77-'81. Like the '70-'73 Formulas, these (except the '77-'81) could have been assembled as easily as other promos. I suspect they were done this way so the "kit size" box could be used, allowing photos of the 1:1 car unlike the normal promo boxes that were used then. The '77-'81 Trans-Ams had those diaplanes and rear spoiler that would have been tough to put on during promo assembly, and the '79-'81 ugly nose piece didn't fit very well even in the kits. If the '77-'78 was tough to assemble as a promo, the '79-'81 was impossible. Too, if these had been sold alongside kits, there would have been a bunch of people asking why they didn't have opening doors as shown on the box. Heck, the T-roofs weren't even cut out on these.

No MPC branding on that unassembled promo. Those weren't sold in stores like the regular kits.

That's an unassembled MPC promo. The Firebirds were sold unassembled from 1974-1981.

I did say MPC. All MPC Challenger kits had the dual scoop hood.

Left one is MPC '70-'71 Barracuda (their Challenger kits never had a shaker hood). Right one is the optional drag version hood from MPC '73-'74 Challenger annual kits.

If the plastic is brittle, the posts can snap. I have had it happen with AMT and Jo-Han bodies. The fix is to cement the broken off piece back in with liquid cement, then sleeve the post with a piece of styrene tubing.