Mark

The drag version Deora was a DIY project in a box. Besides lopping off the roof, you had to whack away the molded-in engine cover in the bed, to fit the AMT Hot Rod Shop (parts pack) 392 Hemi. The Alexander's Dragtime version included that pack (unplated) along with the drag strip accessories pack which included a TV camera. Don Emmons was a consultant to AMT back then, he is alleged to have designed some (or all) of the Deora variant kits because the original didn't sell as well as planned. I heard that Mike Alexander hated those other variation kits, the drag version being at the top of the list.

The problem isn't where the item is made. Most manufacturing countries are capable of making something that is as good as the same item made anywhere else. But what happens is, the people selling the item go to the manufacturer and say: we want X number of these, and we want to pay this much per item. Good, fast, cheap. Choose any two.

Different grades of stainless steel, obviously. I have seen so-called stainless steel with rust on it...

If that movie were being made NOW, they'd probably use that same car...only in flat black. They could even use those "wire basket" wheels, the way they are sold now...in black powder coat, without the baskets!

Didn't the movie version have Firestones with huge white letters? Product placement, most likely. IF that's the same car, and it was on the car show circuit with the BFGs, again product placement. I recall reading about someone finding and buying the movie car years later. The fins were literally Bondoed on, he knocked those off and put a stock front clip on it and ended up with a pretty decent car. The windshield and top were chopped years earlier, supposedly very well, and the car had been a finished piece long before the movie people got their hands on it. The Barris one could be a copy, though, he was doing a lot of "possible second cars" long after the movies were made.

The kits with clear bodies would have had the body and other clear parts bagged separately from other unplated parts also.

Chrome parts weren't bagged back then in MPC kits. The unplated parts (body and everything else) were bagged together, probably around 1968. The only kits with bodies separated from other parts would be the prepainted kits, 1971-73.

You can't fix stupid, but in some cases duct tape can be used to muffle the sound...

The first new Monogram car kit in 1/25 scale was the '59 Cadillac convertible, in 1993. As I understand, it was started as a 1/24 scale kit, but management switched horses midstream and tooled it in 1/25. That begs the question, what was the last all-new car kit prior to that one? Or, did they tool any all-new NASCAR kits after that? They stayed with 1/24 for those, to remain consistent with those already produced.

In short, if you want to speculate or dream about whether or not Atlantis has a particular kit tool, take a look at recent issues of the same kit. Made in USA = there's a chance Atlantis has it. Made in China = nope.

Probably doesn't match any particular maker exactly. I think Daniel got the inspiration from a CAR MODEL magazine two-part article from a couple of years earlier. Phil Jensen scratchbuilt a drag version school bus using a balsa wood body and the frame from an Aurora 1/32 scale fire truck kit. Jensen's bus had the four Pontiac engine setup from a Revell Mickey Thompson Challenger I kit. As for the S'cool Bus front clip...while at GM (for a short time) in their styling studio, a young designer came up with a facelift idea for the '62 Chevy trucks. The '62 hood was cleaner and also a lot cheaper to make than the '60-'61 hood. After a short time with GM, Tom Daniel left Detroit for California, where he'd been while in the Navy.

The Skip's reissue has different (custom only) wheels as I recall. Tires were the rubber Goodyears that were used in the stock early Eighties Firebird and Camaro kits if I remember right. Parts like bumpers do fit between the Nomad and hardtop but aren't exactly the same. You'd have to have both kits open next to one another to tell which is which in some cases.

I'd bet that either: -the parts are being pulled out of the tool before being completely cooled (which would happen when production is speeded up) -the heat involved in the vacuum plating process is enough to cause this. Parts tree design (location of where the part is attached to the tree could be to blame also) What happens when the windshield frame is separated from the tree? The more mildly warped examples look like it wouldn't take much to put them right, and attaching the glass would force them the remainder of the way. Not the best solution, but should be workable in many cases.

I have two credit cards, one exists only as a backup. If I'm out of town and the main one is locked or otherwise available to me. I use the main one for pretty much everything, but use the other one for one recurring Venmo transfer every month. That way, I get an e-mailed statement every month (and a paper one too) so I can monitor the activity on the less active one.

I looked into it locally, they don't want styrene in the recycling bin. I do recycle wherever possible, I put that bin out to the curb more often than my trash bin (though admittedly it is the smaller of the two, but not by a lot). With 3D growing as much as it has, sprues might eventually by cutoffs from the printer...

Well, the automobile itself started out as an unreliable, tempermental, not particularly useful toy for wealthy people. Over time, it got sorted out, then the light bulb came on for a few people that, if we can make a bunch of these things at lower prices and sell them to the masses, we can make a bunch of money. Same with calculators, portable phones, computers, and a lot of other things.

Did you ever fill out their surveys? A lot of those asked subscribers to name, and list, their favorite channels. Just perfect for them to decide which channels to move to the premium package! I never had cable. Besides being cheap and not wanting to watch a lot of TV, I didn't see the need to pay for channels I wasn't going to watch: channels in other languages, ten channels of "futbol", and so on. They'd always deny having the ability to offer a personalized selection or individual channels on an ala carte basis. At the same time, they were offering pay-per-view where they could literally offer an additional channel for a specified time window! By the time they came around to breaking out individual channels, too late...I'd gotten used to living without it...

AMT and Revell made '62 Imperial kits. AMT made a convertible and two-door hardtop (some convertibles were in "SMP" boxes). Revell made a four-door hardtop. That bumper looks like AMT, detail is a bit finer than Revell's. AMT rear bumper has "1962" license plate while Revell's is blank.

Coronet hood will be way "easier" to find, as the kit included two hoods. That left a bunch of "extra" hoods in parts boxes once the kits were built. The Fury hood got a lot tougher to find with Modelhaus' closing. I found even less of a '65 Fury some years ago, first thing I did was get a Modelhaus hood next time I placed an order.

When you do leave sufficient distance between your vehicle and the one in front of you, often another driver sees that as sufficient room to cut in...

No. Some of the engine parts were reused in the '65.

1:1 car painters I have talked to, really concentrate on matching the spray pattern on adjoining panels. They have told me that paint colors can be matched better than ever, especially those with clearcoat. The reason for mismatch between adjoining panels on repaired cars is due to the difference in spray pattern between the replaced panels and the (often) robotically sprayed original areas, so they say. So spraying everything at the same time, in the same way, will definitely help.

One might think the '64 GP might still exist, as many of the Seventies reissue "Grand Slam" '65 kits had '64 clear parts in the box (which didn't fit of course). I took one kit back to the store, and opened two more there...all had '64 glass. If I wanted to open another one, I had to take one of them...so I opted for my money back. Another one I got in a collection some years later also had '64 glass. Later production kits may have had the correct piece, but I never ran across one. Then again, the '65 kit has much of the engine from the '64. The same is true of the Bonneville kits...some engine parts (different tooling from the GP) are in '61 through '65 annual kits, and all reissues of the '65.

I would never paint anything in such a way that I'd have to cut through freshly applied paint to separate the parts. That would be like painting a door in your house shut.

Solid color: paint everything separately. Metallic, candy, pearl: paint jambs, back sides, undersides, and insides, then paint everything together. It might be possible to space the doors away from the body so nothing touches, yet everything gets the same blast of paint.