Mark

Chassis and engine got reused in the '68-'69 Torinos. The body likely got scrapped once those parts were removed. There was one reissue of the '67, during '67, in the flat box that AMT used for a few kits at that time.

I can't see any state with inspections letting that thing anywhere near a road. I'm thinking that, for whatever reason, that thing only moves short distances back and forth on private property, like at a marina or campground. Why it wasn't just built as a trailer and moved around with another vehicle would be the next mystery.

Even the Revell engines aren't a drop-in fit. These parts packs were designed to work together to an extent, but some finessing will be necessary to get everything to look just right.

I thought Round 2 did do a short run of the kits in this box, as an Auto World store exclusive.

I'd like to watch someone change a tire on it. Or do the brakes...one wheel at a time, who has a lift that could handle that thing?

I never paid attention to that particular kit, didn't realize the boxes differed like that. For many years, you could walk into any K-Mart store in the country, stroll over to the model kit aisle, and count on seeing that kit on the shelf. That, the AMT '57 Chevy, Old Pro Nova, Red Alert Chevelle, MPC '67 Corvette, Monogram '29 Ford roadster pickup and at least one version of their '55 Chevy...

Same parts, different decals. There was an MPC Ramchargers Challenger funny car kit in 1971, but it had the earlier style Logghe chassis which was not correct for a Ramchargers car. The body in that kit still had stock trim also.

The highest retail price I ever saw on a "regular" AMT kit box was $2.50 (-250 suffix). This would have been in the mid-Seventies. Retail jumped to $2.70 and then $3.00 in pretty short order after that.

And, Pontiac got away with the '64 GTO because it was a "package" and not a stand-alone model. '65 brought the 400 cube limit, so it was made a separate model that year.

I don't think the 336 was ever actually reduced to 326. It was just GM policy at the time to not advertise engines larger than 330 cubic inches in their intermediate cars. The 336 bore/stroke setup had been used earlier in GMC pickups when they used Pontiac V8 engines. Later the policy was nothing over 400 cubic inches. But they let Buick slide with their 401, because the next-generation engine was on the way. They also let Olds off the hook with the Hurst/Olds because the 455 engines were supposedly installed as part of the conversion. It wasn't known outside the company for many years that the 455s were actually put in on the assembly line.

Those wheels look like the optional ones from the first issue '70 'Cuda, painted.

What do the wheels look like? I'm thinking Revell (1/25 scale) '70 Hemi 'Cuda.

I haven't tried it on in a while, but as I recall the SMP '61 top wasn't even a particularly good fit on the SMP '61.

Some of the MPC Impala kits had those mag wheels, but the backs with separate brake rotors point to the Corvette kits. I'm pretty sure they had those wheels from '68 through '72.

Was the plastic still "soft" when you primed it? If so, it might be too far gone to save. The combination of materials and paint removers used may have been excessive.

The figures are undersize and were molded in a flexible material that no paint or glue yet known to man will stick to. I never gave the ones in my kit too close an examination, but I'd bet they don't depict specific band members. There was quite a bit of turnover in the band in the 1967-68 period, with the two guys pictured on the original box (Revere, and singer Mark Lindsay) being the only mainstays.

You've got to picture these things as being of the time in which they were conceived. I've actually got an original issue Raiders' Coach kit (was started when I got it) and still want to build it. This was from the period when the guy who founded MPC really believed that pretty much any car kit, if well-designed and well-executed, would sell in sufficient numbers to justify its existence. And, he was right way more often than he was wrong. I might see if I can pick up a new decal sheet from someone parting out kits on eBay, but I still do want to build one of those.

I too looked at both the stock only (first issue) and custom only (second issue) and didn't see anything resembling that part. There's a later "big custom wheels" issue, but as I remember most of the unique parts tooled for that one were very toylike and probably wouldn't have included something like that. If you were going to use it for some other build, what did you intend to use it as?

What's the kit behind the Raiders Coach? Note the sticker in the upper left corner of the box behind it...

The hard body slot car guys use the bodies and sell the remainder of the kit. I've bought several kits that way, and also parted out a couple and sold the bodies.

Anything to indicate size? If you have the custom only version, and that part isn't mentioned in the instructions, then it will be one of a number of parts for the stock version that slipped into the custom only kit.

T326 is the showroom version. The NASCAR version is the Bobby Allison car, I believe it was issued only as that car until the Model King reissue many years later. The built one has decals from another kit, most likely the AMT NASCAR Torino which was the Jo-Han '72 racing version in an AMT box.

We sometimes like to talk about the "new" styrene in kits as being "cheap", and the "old" stuff was always better. Not always true. In the late Eighties I built a mint-in-box '62 Fairlane kit, to match a car I still have. I'd just had the 1:1 car repainted in a 1979 Ford color. The kit body soaked up Duplicolor primer like a sponge. It took many, many thin, carefully applied coats of primer before the plastic was smooth enough to take paint, with no loss of detail. From the looks of it, you might have a rare bird there...a kit body that someone shot with what looks like automotive primer back in the day. I'd agree with the majority here...if it hasn't come off yet, it likely ain't gonna come off. Give it a careful sanding and cleanup, and proceed from there.

There is always the option to simply not look at threads that aren't of interest...

Too late, that train pulled out of the station long ago...