Mark

They have abandoned and alienated the people who built them. First by analyzing how well some people were doing, then trying to grab as much of that as possible. Second by trying to become another Amazon, leaving the remaining sellers behind because they (eBay) weren't able to squeeze any more out of them.

Not positive about this, but the Revell '57 convertible kit might have one. If it does, it would be the style that attaches to the rear bumper and not the type that moves the stock bumper further away from the body.

I'm still wondering why so many military subject model kits get lumped in with the automotive stuff. I guess eBay uses the "supermarket" business model, where they move items around the store every so often. The longer they keep you in the store, the more you are likely to spend...

eBay Motors. 92,000,000 auto parts and accessories, which, in any search you attempt, ALL of them fit YOUR car!

The one-piece units would have to be better finished, then plated or at least powder coated. Two-piece, stamping for sheath has to be decent, lug nut underneath can look like krap as long as it works.

Only one reason manufacturers use those two-piece lug nuts...they're CHEAPER. They've been using them for years. Condensation gets between sheath and nut, causes rust, expands the inner part a little bit spreading the sheath. Throw in freezing moisture in certain areas, and top it off with the grease monkeys using the rattle gun to loosen and tighten them. I replaced them with solid nuts on a couple of vehicles, current car had solid ones as built.

I'd rather have a "too big" engine that loafs along much of the time, as opposed to "sending a boy to do a man's job". A turbo is fine for a momentary power boost for passing or going up hills, but using it to crutch up a too-small engine isn't going to end well.

The two front springs are the same width, just the arch is different.

"Suicide style" still uses a leaf spring; there's no setup I'm aware of where a rigid attachment to the frame is used for a front axle, even on a drag racing chassis. With the "suicide" setup, instead of the leaf spring attaching to a full-width crossmember, it instead attaches to a narrow perch that is itself attached to the front of a crossmember. It looks more fragile, as if the perch has the potential to break off and let the front of the chassis drop to the ground...hence, "suicide style".

Two words... "Safety equipment"... Read the info on the can. For the stuff we're doing, a dehydrator might be the way to go.

Don't let Popeye find out...

J.C. Penney tried to eliminate "sale pricing" a couple of years ago, and just sell everything at their lowest price every day. Their sales tanked, and they wound up going back to business as usual. I guess most people want to go away thinking they "got a deal".

Powertrain was changed quite a bit between the Hemi Under Glass and LA Dart. Besides the whole setup being reversed (to put the engine behind the rear wheels), it was changed from fuel injectors to a supercharger, and the headers were changed. There were other tweaks to the chassis also, like the roll cage being altered. I believe the Barracuda had the back of the cage behind the shortened interior bucket, while the Dart has the whole cage inside the bucket. I'm pretty certain most, if not all, of the engine was retooled including the block.

The MPC '71 Camaro molded in white is a tough item...all of the ones I have ever seen (including a couple of them I had/have) were yellow. From where they seem to turn up, many MPC '71 kits molded in colors (not counting the pre-fogged custom jobs) were sold in the Eastern half of the country with the white ones going west.

When a particular kit is listed, you should be okay. The "assortments" or generic descriptions are another story. You might think you are getting a Supernatural Impala because of the item pictured, but you might wind up with a 007 Mustang kit.

Two different things here. The 1:1 Nova with a swapped-in small-block with FI was, and is, certainly doable. Several were built back then using the Corvette FI setup. The V8 installation parts were available at the Chevy dealers' parts counter on day one. The AMT wagon kit has a straight six engine (no factory V8 in '63, even though the '63 hardtop and convertible kits had it). Optional parts include a Hilborn type aftermarket racing injection setup. Looking back, anyone building racing injection setups back then were probably already making one to fit the Chevy II four cylinder engine, as it became instantly popular with the midget racing crowd. Since that four was literally two-thirds of a Chevy II six, putting together an injection setup for the six would have been pretty simple.

The six-cylinder engine FI setup is aftermarket. Hilborn, or other fuel injection companies, didn't offer injection setups for every single engine out there, but could probably piece together existing parts to create one for a paying customer. Those weren't timed FI units as would be used on a street driven vehicle, but constant flow fuel injection as used in a racing application. Some guys did run those on the street, it could be done, but it wasn't done easily or often back then.

Those were in the '41 Willys gasser kits also (the newer one, not the old opening-doors one).

The AMT five-window seems to have been an effort to salvage something from the extremely bad '34 two-door sedan kit. Its chassis and engine(s) were saved, I seem to recall that the only body panels carried over to the coupe were the hood side panels, but I could be wrong on that. The sedan had some things about it that were slap-you-in-the-face wrong. All of the 1/25 scale Model A kits had wider fender units than that '34. You ain't gonna tell me that Ford narrowed their cars for '33-'34, and that all those Model A kits (which are all pretty comparable) were, and are, incorrect. The '34 sedan was the odd one out. The AMT '34 three-window might just be the worst 1/25 scale car kit ever made by the original AMT company. It's way, way off. The Revell John Buttera '34 was just an effort to wring a couple more kits out of that excellent '26 T tooling. Why they didn't just do a '27 roadster and/or coupe is beyond me. My bright idea, which I haven't even tried to this point, was to slice the roof off of the MPC '34 Ford dirt track 3W coupe body and graft it to the AMT 5W lower body. But I haven't even pulled the two out for measuring, so who knows if that will work...

Supplies and tools are "necessities" that you are likely to buy regardless of price (within reason), while the kits themselves are impulse purchases that you can be swayed into with a coupon or percent-off sale. Kind of like supermarkets seldom having staple items on sale (except for maybe milk or eggs, and that's to get you in the door). Grocery coupons are often for items you seldom buy, or haven't bought before, in order to sway you to throw one into the cart.

Both of the Switchers '32 Ford kits use the same engine, chassis, fenders, and most of the plated trees.

I picked one of those up some years back, not complete but it had most of the parts unique to that issue. The coupe body is disappointing, looks way undersize (especially the trunk area). The assembly sequence is goofy too, the cowl is separate and has to be installed after the interior. Atlantis has made some noise about doing a '27 roadster body, maybe they'll do a decent coupe too.

I have all of the RC2 Switchers and Switchers based reissues (T roadster, '32 roadster/coupe, '32 phaeton/sedan, American Graffiti coupe) but there was an issue of the '32 roadster/coupe AFTER that, in original Switchers style packaging but without the MPC logo as I recall.

The coupe kit is a '49, but the hood, grille, and rear bumper (slightly different) from the '50 convertible kit drop right in place as both kits were created alongside one another. There are other slight differences between '49 and '50, but between the two kits someone wanting a '50 coupe (or '49 convertible) should find what is needed.

The rusted rear wheel openings on newer pickups are in many cases caused by the foam that is put behind the panel by the manufacturer, so you can't feel how thin and tinny the panels are now. Nope, can't just use a heavier gauge sheet metal...let's just whip some foam in there instead...