Mark

The market got flooded with those new-tool Chevy kits. There were four versions out at the same time (basic stock version, Coca-Cola, Pro Shop, and street machine. Toys R Us laid in quite a supply of all of them, then decided to get rid of the model kit shelves in their stores. They blew all of those out for $3.33 apiece. I bought all of the Pro Shop and street machine kits I saw, and resold all but a couple of them later. In some stores, they didn't have any other car kits, those were the ones they had at the end.

When Scale Auto "issued the call" for a new '57 Chevy kit, I thought Lindberg would have stepped up, not Ertl. It would have been interesting to see Lindberg's take on a '57, and to find out which body style and trim level they would have done. When I found out it was AMT, I figured they wouldn't have strayed as far from their original one as they did. More parts, platform interior, things like that. But I thought the body would be closer to the original, with the side trim reworked and maybe the Bel Air "washboards" molded as part of the body like other '57 kits. Strange that the Revell snap '57 hardtop has a lot of the feel of the original AMT kit, while the newer AMT hardtop resembles the old Revell kit.

Still can't warm up to that new-tool '57. That separate (but not hinged) trunk lid that doesn't sit flush when closed bothers me. The separate door handles don't look right also. I've done the alterations needed to hinge the trunk lid and get it flush with the body when closed, but haven't gotten much further with it. I should get back to it.

Can you jiggle the handle via the app? And, let's not get started on possible names for the app..

Don't tell me the toilet will need an app...

Those chassis were probably designed that way so that the parts could be interchanged between cars by builders. Use the front section from the Mustang or Falcon chassis if you are trying to replicate a Chevelle or Nova that had a cross spring setup. Cut the chassis and lengthen it with pieces of parts trees if you want the wheelbase closer to stock, to match a particular 1:1 car. The interiors are simple too, they can be altered if you "un-shorten" the wheelbase on any of them. Swap the blower from the Chevelle onto the Nova if you want a different setup. I haven't tried it, but I'd bet that, for example, the Barracuda body might drop onto the Mustang's interior and chassis if you don't want a mid-engine 'Cuda. (You'd have to move the rear wheel openings on the body, or mess with the chassis.) If not a perfect fit, a piece of sheet plastic here and there might make the interior look like it belongs.

Same basic kit, but flares were added to the rear wheel openings. The Bed Bug issue also had the stock bumpers as an option, the later issues don't include them at all. California Roller has no plated parts. There is an Advent boxed version also, called simply VW Van. Box art for the Advent issue shows the Bed Bug, but the Rubber Duck version is what's in that box.

What they have/don't have is known to some extent by the "hanger shots" that Ertl ran on some of the tooling. It seems that, when time and budget permitted, they'd dust off dormant tools, unblock whatever they could, and shoot plastic through them. Whatever came out would be evaluated, then sandwiched between a couple of sheets of clear vinyl with a coat hanger at the top. That was done with tools in current production too, those were used for QC purposes. I have a couple of those that I bought at the old Toledo Toy Fair shows around 1990. We were once set up next to the Ertl display, one guy gave those a look and went looking for the guy who was selling them. Even Ertl, long as they owned all of the AMT stuff (1982 purchase), never got around to evaluating everything.

Bed Bug was the "regular" version. Deal's Wheels version was called "Van". That one had "1/25 scale" on the box, and both versions had two surfboards and a roof rack.

As an aside, did the 1980 RR have that horn, and did it have the sticker on it? I've got the 1980 Volare brochure, it makes no mention of Warner Brothers, and the cartoon bird does not appear anywhere on the 1980 Road Runner. WB of course holds the copyright to the bird but not the Road Runner name itself.

MPC wouldn't get licensing to do these as actual cars, but they later got licensing for several NASCAR cars and put the decals into those awful kits they did, with the cut-down generic chassis from their Seventies kits and different front clips on a Buick Regal body. All of the sponsors were various brands of tobacco, too, before people got their undies in a bunch over things like that. Just in time to run smack into (or get run over by) the first group of Monogram NASCAR kits...

It's "you're", not "your"...

The horn used in Road Runners mimicked the "meep" sound the animated RR made. The horn used was a forklift item, it sounded like that because of the wire used in making it.

How it works, is you latch onto the latest fad, modify an existing item to take advantage of it, and sell a few of them and make some money. If you examine enough annual kits, you'll see drag versions that don't resemble anything you'd see on a drag strip. Not much different from this, really...

That book was later updated and divided into two volumes. The revised book included a section on aftermarket items, then still in their infancy compared to military and railroad subject matter.

If I'd butchered a Jag to build that, I'd have kept it hidden away, period. He can't claim credit for the side coves...AMC did some sports car styling studies with them around the same time if not sooner. Brooks Stevens styled the Gaylord two-seater in '54 or '55, it had side coves also.

Thankfully that was only done to the late Seventies 'Vette and Firebird bodies. Those funny cars probably didn't set the world on fire sales-wise because they were fictional cars and didn't include markings for actual cars from the era. So the "monster" versions were just a way to wring a few more sales out of them. Besides fixing the body butchery, you'd have to track down slicks and rear wheels to fix them. I believe the front ends were raised a bit by installing the front axle upside down.

Many of the eBay listings are sellers fishing. They'll have the same items, listed and relisted, I have seen some that were listed continuously for nearly two years. With 1:1 cars, it will be listed and relisted a few times, drop off, then resurface a few months later at the same bloated asking price or reserve. eBay neglected, alienated, and drove away the people who built them up, trying to become another Amazon. Listings are way, way down, so give out free/cheap listings and endless relistings to prop up the numbers. Widen search parameters to make it look like there are more items than there really are, to try to keep people "in the store" longer, in hopes they'll buy something. I can't remember the last time I actually bid on an item...now it's just find the lowest Buy It Now deal on a given item...

I've got the '47 Plymouth coupe. Very thick in spots, molded-in grille detail has numerous pinholes, body was pulled off of the mold core prematurely as it rises up towards the front. Every so often, I hack away at it with a Dremel, but in the end I think I'm going to end up doing my own conversion on a '41 body, same as how this one was done.

Then just skip the entire section. Some of us don't mind seeing these posts, they are sort of a milestone. We're getting to where there are one or two (or no) actors still living from a TV show we watched back in the day, or one or two (or no) still living members of some band we followed back then...

Not many builders used the Stylizing parts that were in most of the Sixties issues. If you are able to attend toy or model kit collectors' shows, or otherwise pound the ground, it is possible to turn up a started or built kit with those parts among the leftovers. If not, the custom parts still in the kit will make for a nice build.

It will in all likelihood include the mild custom parts that were in the most recent issue, but not the Stylizing parts that were deleted about fifty years ago.

The completed sales probably aren't far off from those prices. Those kits haven't been reissued, haven't been out since the late Eighties, and a couple of them might not be reissued as the bodies were altered to fit monster truck tires on the rear. The Dodge "024 Charger" bodied cars were going for stupid money even several years ago.

I have not yet had any luck printing my own decals, but with the manufactured ones (kit or aftermarket) I only dip them long enough to get them wet all the way through, only a couple of seconds in most cases. Leaving them in longer washes away some of the adhesive in my opinion.

A lot of those early customs were updated for the show circuit. The AMT '50 Ford convertible kit is a good representation of a typical early Sixties custom that got changed later (Carson top cut down into a landau style top, new wheels and tires). One of the early Sixties ISCA champions, a '35 Ford coupe, was restyled and won the championship a few years later for another owner. Like most of those updates, the original version was better.