Mark

The earliest kits (late Fifties into early Sixties) sometimes had separate tooling for the parts intended to be plated. Most kits after that have everything molded together (except clear and red clear, of course). After everything is molded, the "plated" tree is separated and sent off for plating, then reunited with the other parts when the kits are boxed. Sometimes plated parts were molded in clear plastic, like early Sixties Revell kits. Aurora molded a lot of their plated parts in black plastic. For some parts, like the sports car wire wheels, sometimes the plating didn't draw into the recesses which made the wheels look better, as if someone flowed flat black paint into the recessed areas.

Still on Round 2's website, so I would presume it is still a current kit.

That's the one. There were only two Drag 500 sets, the other one had four front tires and four smaller slicks.

More like 15 years ago. Time is like TP: the less you have of it, the faster it comes off of the roll...

Another thing to watch with a lot of Jo-Han annual kits (and especially USA Oldies reissues) is the track and/or how deep the tire is in the wheel well. The Oldies in particular have those short plastic rod axles and inner wheels with short bosses that put the wheels too far in, leaving a narrow track. A lot of them sit too low also. Jo-Han probably used some of those parts in several different kits leaving them having to compromise them to fit everything. Mock up the body/chassis and move that stuff around to get the right look. If you lengthen the wheel back axle bosses, you could also ditch the plastic rods and use wire axles instead. It also wouldn't be hard to make new axle blocks with smaller holes right where you want them.

You could open up the hole in the tire, or file down the area that goes into the hole, to eliminate the interference. The wheel could then be epoxied into the tire. With the 1960 annual kits, the wheel cover attaches to an open rim which then goes into the tire. The wheel covers stick out quite a bit on those, you might think about other wheels and rims to get a cleaner, more correct look with those.

Volare/Aspen weren't awful cars in and of themselves. They were actually intended to replace both the Valiant/Dart and the intermediate cars. Just rushed to market too fast. The front fenders rusted, but they did on most everything else back then (like the AMC product that I owned then, and though it bothered me at the time, it didn't stop me from really liking that car). The styling of the Mopars was really pretty nice, the '80 is nicer than the earlier ones IMO but I'd bet someone at Round 2 wishes MPC hadn't updated it back then. MPC stopped putting the year on the annual kit boxes after '78. They put those plastic strips around the boxes with the year on it, sellers could tear those off later. For a few years before that, they were printing boxes with "new" (or just blank) instead of the year, for some department store chains that were tired of blowing out "last year's kits" when the year changed. AMT did that for several years too, but they got away from annuals entirely after '77.

Of course, "strength" of the dollar is a misnomer, especially if you are looking at retirement plan statements lately... that's as far down that rabbit hole as I'm going to go, and please, don't nobody else go any further...

I'd think anything that is abrasive enough to remove the paint will probably roughen the surface of the plastic. I wonder if it couldn't be dialed in to give plastic a texture, like to restore carpeting detail where an ejector pin mark was sanded out. Or to add cast surface detail to an engine block or exhaust manifold.

Someone on the HAMB mentioned in a thread about the Hershey swap meet, that fewer Europeans would be coming over this year because of the economy over there. I checked and found the dollar virtually on par with the euro. For the longest time, it seemed a euro was worth about $1.60-$1.65, that seems to have changed for the moment.

The preliminary box art sometimes doesn't catch all of the details. I'd suspect the reissue will still have the molded-in bumper guards, and the box art of the actual kit will reflect that.

Got mine yesterday, it's back, and it's as good as ever.

Maybe some careful perusal of available 3D printed items could turn up an engine that is closer than any of the kit parts...

They are definitely Jo-Han. If they are one-piece, they are "early" production but not the earliest (earliest were Goodyear on both sides). The one-piece version would have come in the Sox & Martin '71 Barracuda, Don Nicholson Maverick, and Eddie Schartman Comet Pro Stock kits. The 1:1 Firestone Drag 500 slicks and front tires first appeared in 1970.

Isn't there an insert piece that is trapped between the wheel halves, and which sticks out of the hole in the inner half?

This truck has always been an F-350 Camper Special, but the box art illustrations on most of the different issues over the years seems to try to fudge it into looking like an F-150...

Different builders might have different criteria for "best". Early on in the thread, I specified "most accurate to the 1:1 counterpart". You could go with "best raw material", as in, which kit is the best starting point. Revell's Anglia and Thames kits might fall under this. Engine is good, but I've never seen one of the 1:1 cars with an Olds engine. Chassis isn't great: frame is wrong for a stock unit which would have been required in 1966 when these were first issued. Frame rails on these cars form part of the door sill and run very close to the outside of the body in the area of the doors. I never liked the transmission tunnel in these kits, it reminds me of HVAC ducting. But these are the only kits of these cars in 1/25 scale, and the bodies are about as good as you can get in scale. You might wish for clear headlamp lenses and plain interior side panel pieces, that's about it. The powertrain and chassis parts can be used in other things, so there is some value there.

In these kits, the interior "tin" parts were also molded in clear red. Having to see through two or three layers of clear red won't make the engine too visible. I think I found a set of interior parts in non-tinted clear. If you have a clear body kit, you might think about just painting it with a candy color instead of laying out the bucks for the clear red body kit...

Both the Charger and Barracuda were molded in clear and clear red. The box bottom had a small opening towards one corner so you could look inside and see if it was a red clear one. The red clear ones were a small percentage of total production. I've got one of the Barracudas. No idea what someone would or should expect to pay for one now.

Only flaw with the Montgomery Willys over the years has been tires. The earliest kits had beautiful slicks and pretty good front tires, but they were plastic. Kit buyers didn't want plastic tires in a (then) $2.00 retail kit, so AMT quickly switched to so-so hard vinyl slicks and way-too-tall Trophy Series front tires. Round 2's reissue had MPC funny car front tires, closer to correct size-wise.

Only one manufacturer has, or has recently, made each in kit form. AMT and MPC made '68 Mustang fastbacks in '67-'68, the AMT being the better of the two. Revell has made one more recently, it is the most readily available one. Only MPC has made a '67 GTO. The tooling was modified extensively after the original annual kits were run, and restored in the early Eighties. Reissue kits aren't as crisp as the annuals, to say it mildly. Annuals being tough to find and expensive when you do, the earlier a reissue you can find, the better.

I'd second the original Revell Stone, Woods, & Cook Willys. The only "error" I can see with that kit is that the decals always included in that kit depict the car after the custom front clip was changed to one with a more stock looking grille opening, with '58 Ford grille mesh instead of the Everflex exhaust tubing custom grille. The photo of the 1:1 car on the box was doctored to change the grille, the original photo appeared in period coverage of one of the NHRA meets from 1963. Someone should think about a proper set of earlier decals for that kit, the Stone-Woods & K.S. Pittman version for example. I'm surprised Revell themselves never did so. The newer Revell '41 Willys coupe is a good kit too, but that one incorporates features from several cars so that it could be packaged and sold as different cars with no change in parts. The missing passenger seat (then required for Gas class) knocks it out of the box too. By "best", you can get different criteria. My definition of "best" would be which kit is most accurate to its 1:1 counterpart. The aforementioned Revell Willys, the AMT George Montgomery '33 Willys, the Revell Tommy Ivo Showboat dragster, the Jo-Han Gene Snow Challenger, and both cars in the Revell Tony Nancy double kit would qualify, as they weren't made "generic" in order to be sold as multiple cars. Many later funny car and dragsters by AMT, MPC, Revell, and Monogram are very good kits, but don't quite chin the bar as most were deliberately designed and manufactured to be sold in multiple versions, on occasion with some unique/correct parts for some versions but generally only those that showed under casual scrutiny. That's not to dismiss them though. Drag racing is a niche category, and on occasion some rework and parts swapping is needed to build an exact replica. Most anyone who are into building drag replicas go in knowing that, and for the most part are happy to see the fundamental aspects of the 1:1 car in the kit box.

The assembled models seen on Lindberg kit boxes always look like they are way low in front compared to the rear. I'd mock up the chassis and give it a look, to see if it is level or not when assembled according to the instructions.

Modelhaus offered a resin four-door, but good luck finding one now. Model Car Journal once ran an article on converting one yourself (before the Modelhaus body appeared). I believe the conversion used a '66 Mustang coupe roof as the starting point.

How are these steps covered in the instruction sheet?