Mark

Some folks' gripe with this kit involve some difficulty in getting the interior and chassis to sit right under the body. The interior bucket has good attachment points to locate it on the top of the chassis, but attaching chassis to body isn't the most positive. Turning the finished build upside down reveals a few gaps too. I've got one that I want to build with a flip front end; I'm going to have to solidify the body/interior/chassis sandwich before even thinking about where to cut the front end.

Yes. Revell bought out Renwal in the mid-Seventies. Not sure if Revell made any alterations or improvements to it though.

Not sure if it is true or not, but there was some talk of Pegasus (owner of Moebius) having acquired the Chevy tooling. No word on what happened to the Galaxie Limited trailers however.

Value would be determined by how many people you can find, who have one of the original pickup kits and want to build the stake version. Round 2 hasn't got the tooling for the original pickup, so I'd guess that the stake bed is long gone too. The motorcycle wasn't released again after its appearance in the '63 Chevy pickup kit. As for the go-kart, some parts are original but most are retooled.

I hit one of the two local stores Thursday, still plenty of good stuff left. The Ford vans dried up quickly; there weren't many to start with and I snagged two. The Copperhead dragsters got snapped up quickly too; again, not many to start with. Thursday they had Meyers Manx and 1/32 scale T-Birds that I hadn't seen before. One Manx and one Ranchero added to the pile...six kits total. I was hoping they'd have some Duplicolor sprays in. Pep Boys has been shutting down their auto parts stores and switching to service centers only. Apparently they started on the west coast and worked their way east...a couple of months ago they got to my area. Ollie's hasn't had touch-up sprays in quite some time now.

Sometimes we avoid the finishing stages because, while uncompleted, the project still has potential. Once finished, the potential is gone.

Revell '31 Ford sedan/sedan delivery. Surprisingly straight too I might add; early issue and more recent issue kits are nice and straight while the Seventies and Eighties issues can be pretty nasty. The Buttera T kits didn't have separate doors.

I have to admit, my timing over the years has been pretty good and I have been able to find pretty much anything I have wanted. The early days of eBay were pretty predictable: one of a particular kit would turn up, bidding would go stupid crazy, then other people who found they had the same kit would flood the market after seeing the first one sell so high. With the stupid crazy bidder now having one, he's now out of the game, leaving the follow-up auctions going for a lot less. A lot of closets and attics got cleaned out in those days, and a lot of stuff resurfaced as a result...

I haven't tried mine, but bought one (and found out after I got home, that I already had one!) The chrome one was ten bucks, the other colors were four, so the chrome one should stick out at the store...

I would expect to lose at least some of the epoxy or two-part putty when stripping the paint. The stripper might not remove the putty, but at the very least will be absorbed into the surface. Trying to prime and paint over that will become a cluster. I would try first to remove paint by sanding. Next up would be stripping, with the proviso that the topmost putty will need to be sanded or ground off and redone.

If the item in question has a bar code on the package, in general the value will drop off at some point. Most times, the first reseller will come out ahead, but that's about it. NASCAR diecasts are another example. People who loaded up on those are finding out that current fans and "collectors" don't care who won some race twenty years ago.

The turbine was in the annual kit only.

The turbine engine was also included in the MPC 1969 Camaro annual kit. Makes sense, since it did share a lot of tooling with the Firebird kit: interior bucket (both had the Firebird upholstery pattern), chassis, and clear parts.

All of the kits I bought at two local stores (two Ford vans, one dragster, one '64 Galaxie) have 2021 production dates on the box trays. From what has been reported here, between all of the stores there are maybe a dozen different kits in this group. If that's all there are, that ain't bad. The occasional item going to closeout isn't a terrible thing. If there were none at all, then maybe they're not cranking out enough stuff. As long as they aren't dumping a large percentage of a first/only production run, again not a bad thing. A couple of these are due to timing IMO. The 3-in-1 Nova wagon came out not long after the Craftsman version...for a few bucks extra you got two engines, a ton of customizing parts, and a trailer. I know that swayed me, though I did pick up a Craftsman wagon after getting two of the 3-in-1 kits. The Ford van came out not long after the Cruising Van issue, that probably affected sales on the later issue. I did pick up a '64 Galaxie out of reflex...as I was walking out of the store, I remembered that I had two more than I thought, having bought two of the Falcon drag team sets...

As I recall, the excellent Dean Jeffries book has parts of the scale drawings of the Manta Ray (that Jeffries submitted to MPC) printed on the inside cover. I've got to admit that, as a kid back then, I didn't get what Jeffries was trying to do with that car. I have grown to appreciate it in recent years however.

I believe it was MPC that made the Manta Ray slot car body...if so, I wonder why it never got issued as a kit, even a curbside version...

Collecting is...collecting. Many of these kits were one-shot deals, never to be made again. The funny cars in particular are way more rare than the corresponding promos. Someone who owns a 1:1 documented Mr. Norm prepared Dodge might just lay out a grand for that kit, to round out their collection.

Being sealed kits, they're strictly in collector territory now. I don't think I'd crack one open now...in all likelihood you'll find tires stuck to the clear parts and/or decal sheet. Besides that, with other kits having been released since, the Charger in particular isn't even the best starting point for a replica of that car. MPC did do a few funny car kits with bodies that closely resembled the 1:1 cars they were modeled on. The vast majority of them, however, consisted of promotional model bodies (minus chassis mounting posts) draped over the chassis in the tooling bank that provided the best fit. The funny car (and later Pro Stock) kits were mainly a way to get a second hit off of the costly body tooling each year. That's why there were kits of Dodge Coronet and '70-'71 Mercury Cyclone funny cars when you never saw one at the drag strip.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting...

"Rare" in Hot Wheels terms means they probably made "only" two million, as opposed to three or four million. The hoarders/resellers have been doing that for many years. This happens with "collectible" figures also. Tactics range from checking stores every day (how much time/gas are they wasting?) to knowing someone who works at the store, and having them set aside the "good" items before they get on the racks. Some stores (Target was one, don't know if they still do it) try to discourage hoarders/resellers by punching holes in the hanging card packaging to deface it, making it less desirable to collectors.

Fishing for someone who is willing to spend that much. Who knows, someone may be out there.

A is '64 Corvair rear B is '62 Comet rear C is '62 Tempest front D looks like '62 Comet front (grille cut off) E is '60 Edsel rear

I'll tip well for decent service. Every other weekend, I'll have breakfast at a nearby restaurant on Saturday or Sunday. I get coffee refills without asking, get steak sauce and/or hot sauce without having to ask twice, and every so often they'll "forget" to put the coffee on the tab. If I go somewhere and get lousy service, I don't pull any nonsense like I have heard other people do...I'll leave a tip, but I don't go back. Poor service is rare around here, the restaurant business is highly competitive and the good business owners cover the basics.

I can see the pre-calculated tips, as fewer and fewer people seem to be able to do math, let alone do it in their head. The upscale percentages suggest the establishment is trying to give their servers a raise, but out of your pocket. They've all been trying to talk tip percentages upward for some time now, just like real estate sales people have been trying to talk commissions upward...

As for the Popcorn Wagon, I'd bet that it did run, even if it just had a carburetor under all that. Carl Casper's stuff ran, all that I'm aware of. He used his Paddy Wagon (Ford FE with four four-barrel carbs) as a push truck for his Young American dragster on occasion.