Mark

Found these two goodies at the Three Rivers show yesterday. The Pontiac is the nicest one I have ever seen, period. It has a couple of peculiar modifications: the chrome tach in place of the lower grille filler piece, and the Moon discs on the rear only. There was a pair of homemade fender skirts on when I bought it, they appear to have been cut from some large flat piece from the same kit, maybe a tonneau cover for the rear seat area. Those were attached with tiny tabs of scrap plastic, one for each skirt. They practically fell off. There were side pipes at one time but they were cemented only at the chassis end, not to the floor pan or body. I fixed one of these that had the original kit skirts, those butt up against the side trim and the cement usually does some damage. This one is way nicer, but I'll probably keep both. The Falcon is a Craftsman kit that was just snapped together with no alterations. I have wanted to put a hardtop on one. Not this one...other than an unbuilt one, this is now "best" and the couple others I have will move down a notch.

Those parts were shared with the stock kit which was reissued not long ago. I sold two of those (stock ones) yesterday at the Three Rivers show.

Not according to MPC! In their world, '67s had it, as did Bonnevilles through 1970. Mopar guys could still get a Hemi Challenger or Barracuda in '74...

'59-'60 promos were SMP. PMC probably produced those for the toy market. The lack of dated license plates on actual promos was highly uncommon in those days.

Must be a regional thing, maybe doing that to generate more activity in order to keep current staffing levels. I bought an item through eBay on Tuesday. Seller is in Michigan, item is sitting in my mailbox as of a couple of hours ago.

Looks like a job for 3D printing. No GTO kit I'm aware of ever had that air cleaner: heck, the MPC '67 still had tri-power! A molded styrene part won't ever have the louver detail; adding that wouldn't allow the part to be pulled out of the tool.

I've seen too many GTOs with that style air cleaner, to think it wasn't stock. They didn't all have functional hood scoops or the "tub" that seals up to the underside of the hood. That said, some Corvette kits (AMT '55 in particular) had that style air cleaner, but none I'm aware of even attempted to put the louver detail around the perimeter.

Didn't two-seater T-Birds have oil pans with the sump at the back? The Y-block was a legit engine swap for early V8 Fords in the late Fifties and Sixties, look through period magazines and you'll see a bunch of them. Rod & Custom featured a black '32 Vicky with a Y-block that had the supercharger setup, I believe they even did a Model Sketchpad feature on it where they broke it down into components and suggested kit sources for them.

They buy in large quantities to get the price they do, so it takes longer to deplete the stock in the warehouse.

AMT '57 Ford has had them since the early Nineties revision.

YES, it IS possible to remove the molded-in exhaust detail from the kit chassis. It's a real pain, but it can be done. First step is to fill the hollowed-out exhaust pipe detail on the top side. I used "sprue filler" on this one, but someone here tuned me in to a two-part epoxy putty. I'd use that on any of these tasks that I'd consider in the future. Rough up the areas where the epoxy putty will go. Don't bother with the mufflers or the little triangular areas at the front. Those areas can/will be cut out and filled with sheet plastic later. After the epoxy putty cures, shave the pipe detail off. I use X-Acto knives with different shape SHARP blades for most of it. A very slow turning Dremel tool could be used (not the 5,000 rpm that is the "slowest" speed on most of them, you want it slowed to a crawl). Once the pipe detail is gone, cut out the mufflers and small triangular areas towards the front. Cut those areas neatly and cement scrap sheet plastic pieces to fill the resulting holes. After those areas are taken care of, rough up the floor areas and apply a thin layer of two-part glazing putty. After that is sanded, Evergreen strip stock can be used to duplicate stiffening rib detail on the floorpan where the exhaust detail used to be. This method should work for nearly any kit chassis with molded-in exhaust detail. Might even work for molded-in rear axles in some cases, but figure on more work. It's like trying to eat an elephant...one bite at a time...

I see them at the local swap meets too. It's like these guys think nobody else ever heard of Ollie's or HL...

On the 1:1 car, wheelbase adjustment could be made by lining up the front suspension, then shifting the rear axle forward on the leaf springs to center the rear wheels in the inner wheel wells. But swapping the floor pan too will keep the rear wheels wherever they fall. Stretching the wheel opening to the rear should make things match up.

I thought the gasser wagon had vintage aftermarket covers. I'll admit I haven't looked at it in a while, and mine is getting a '70 Torino 429 anyway. The Y-block will get set aside for something else though, probably a Model A coupe. For speed equipment, some of the Revell '57 kits have the factory supercharger option. Make sure you get the right one though, some kits have the chrome parts but not the other parts. AMT '57 Ford has a non-stock supercharger, similar to the factory one but is mounted on the opposite side of the engine. Disregard the fuel injection setup in that kit, the pairs of intake stacks are clocked incorrectly. AMT '56 Ford has a two-fours setup and a nice compact set of vintage headers.

They never advertise the clearance stuff. Some stores have more of it than others, and some have people who literally show up every day looking, and load up a cart when they see it.

Around here, it's people. We've never failed in being able to get reservations at my family's favored brewery/eatery, but when we go there are often a bunch of empty booths and tables, or one of the areas other than the main one is closed off. Tough to get people when so many are still being paid to stay home. It wasn't always easy before, either. The (since passed) wife of a local store owner used to be a manager in a warehouse, she'd have trouble getting people to work overtime on Fridays or Saturdays, even when some of it was double time or even triple. "Nope, Saturday is my video game night". Uh, maybe work one of those, and have a few bucks in your pocket when the next video game comes out? Just a thought...

Frames are different as '56 and '57 were two different generations. But, as Ace says, there are instances where a '57 frame was installed under a '56. Not sure what the advantages would be, though. Those who want a typical Pro Street "tubbed" chassis should look at the AMT '68-'70 B-body Mopars for the rear section. Mid/late Sixties intermediates are generally about the same size as mid-Fifties cars. The parts in the '70 Coronet are a bit different from those in the '68-'69 kits. Rear kickup is higher, rear axle is different. It's a pain to do, but I have removed the molded-in exhaust pipes from a '56 chassis. Hopefully I'll remember to post a picture of it later.

I'm not sure offhand if the K-member is, or even should be, different between the Hemi and wedge engine kits. I always thought that became a thing starting with the '66 cars, as the '64 and '65s weren't sold to the general public. If I remember to do so later today, I'll pull a couple of them out for comparison.

Stopped at the closer of the two area stores yesterday. Same kits being blown out as in other areas, shelf stickers for those marked "D" (discontinued). All of those spaces were empty last week, hadn't seen those kits in a while. One '50 Chevy pickup left...I've got a couple of those already, so someone else can get a deal. Hopefully they'll get some interesting stuff in to replace the discontinued items.

Closer to stock, the ex-Lindberg, now AMT '53 Ford is the closest thing out there. It will probably be a lot of work to fit it to the '56 though, as the areas between the frame rails are deeper than those on the '56 chassis as I recall.

Color Me Gone Dodge is an ex-Lindberg kit, nothing at all to do with the Moebius Plymouth kits.

There are two hardtop bodies, stock and altered wheelbase. The stock wheelbase body has Satellite trim, if you have one of the drag versions you must remove it yourself. I believe the interiors build up on the same platform. Items like the console are separate parts.

Revell '57 Fords all have a good one. Most of the others have molded-in starter detail. Not sure which of them (if any) have Bird rocker covers, though.

The bodies in both kits will be the same, building any of the factory competition cars will require removing some of the trim. You're probably better off starting with the Missile or stock wheelbase Golden Commandos version (same parts in both IIRC). You probably would have to find a rear seat and any other interior items that you might wish to change. Moebius kits often do have extra parts that aren't used in the version they are in, but I don't think the rear seat is among them.

The promos were done differently from the kits, in that plated parts were all separated from the trees after plating and then grouped separately in bins (front bumper, rear bumper, wheels, shifter, and so on). So the bumpers that went on a promo could have been molded and plated days before. There are error promos out there with unintended combinations of different color parts. Those usually came from people who worked for the company, as they didn't otherwise make it out of the building once discovered. With the kits, of course the plated tree that went in the box with the other parts was unlikely to be the exact one that was separated from the other parts earlier. But it was probably molded within a day or so. The Round 2 "catch the Kat" deals molded in color often had plated trees molded in white. I think I had the opposite with a Meyers Manx kit...stripping a couple of plated parts, I found transparent purple bare plastic underneath while the rest of the kit was white.