Mark

I've got a Dunkin' Donuts at the corner of the street I live on. Haven't been there in more than five years. Coffee isn't anywhere near as good as Tim Horton's, and the donuts aren't as good either, be it the quality or selection. There are a couple of two-or-three shop local places that are better, though. DD opened a bunch of stores in my area about ten years ago. One of my brothers knew one of the guys who was behind the move...guy was bragging that they were going to "knock Tim Horton's out of the box". Didn't happen, DD shuttered about half of the local locations pre-Covid. The guy didn't account for the many Canadians that cross the bridge and shop here, also that the first Tim's outside of Canada opened here, and is still in the same location nearly fifty years later.

For all purposes the TV car is the '69 convertible kit. It has all of the stock parts included. I bought one years ago off of a seller's list. It was listed as a "MPC 1969 Coronet convertible". When it arrived and I saw that box, my first thought was "the convertible boot had better be in there, or this guy is getting this thing back!"

MPC couldn't make that kit as a '68 because they had already altered the tooling to produce '69s for the promo contract. They probably had the custom parts already worked up for the '69 kit, and just rebranded it as the TV car.

Molotow is an ink.

I've never seen that at a donut shop or fast food place. But, the times I went to the DMV office downtown (on work business) the line would always be super long, winding back and forth, meaning you'd be in line an hour or so before being served. It never failed...after half an hour or so, some joker would walk in claiming he just stepped out of line to get some piece of paperwork he'd forgotten. Of course, he was just trying to cut the line. When the line was that long, they gave everyone numbers like at the supermarket meat counter. No number...hey guy, we saved you a spot in line right at the back.

The four carb could be a Cragar, same as the one Ed Roth used on the Excaliber/Outlaw. (Cragar made speed equipment starting around 1930). I'm not positive but I believe Man-A-Fre came later, after Revell tooled most of the parts packs in 1962.

If they do a Falcon GT with the "Super Roo" package, count me in!

I can't find the issue right now, but there is a Joe Henning article in Rod & Custom (not the short-lived models magazine) about scratchbuilding a 1911 Marmon Wasp Indy car (first winner). I'd swear that that article mentioned that he'd used tires from a "long forgotten" AMT 1915 Chevy kit. He might have had that confused with the "1911" kit though. Now I've got to dig out that magazine...

I've always thought MPC chose the wrong body styles for their '32/'33 kit. I'd have picked a coupe first, the open version should have been a roadster and not a cabriolet. A sedan or sedan (not panel) delivery would have been good choices too. Pre-1932 Chevies weren't popular as rod material because of the structural wood in the bodies. The running gear wasn't as robust as with same period Fords. Other prewar Chevies that would have made good model kit material include the '34, '40, and '41. Coupes first, then roadsters or convertibles. Sedan or delivery would be good too.

This one is only a concept, no dimensional info or scale drawings. Making it into a kit would be starting from scratch. They'd have to locate a 1:1 example, and photograph and measure it. Not many of these exist. It would be a neat idea, but there are other early Chevies with better sales potential.

Left: Seventies Banthrico, probably 1/25 scale. It's about the same length as the one I built, but a bit wider. Right: Eighties Ertl, 1/43 scale. I'd guess a stock version was also offered.

At least one of us thought that there should have been a kit. I built this in 1978. Body, trunk, fender/frame unit, windshield (no glass, didn't think ahead on how to install it cleanly), radiator scratched from sheet plastic. My mom headed up the custodians/cleaning personnel at Fisher-Price Toys' home office in East Aurora, NY. She got passes to bring home things the design staff were tossing, as long as nothing gave away any future product plans. Among that stuff was a couple of partial sheets of styrene. I couldn't get the stuff locally back then, and thought that was a real score. All of these parts were made from that styrene. Fenders were bent with a heat gun. The rounded cowl corners were cut from some long-forgotten kit part. Mine is an Amesbury Special. I couldn't figure out how to do the cowl on the Royal Mail body. Front suspension is MPC Ford Pinto. Engine/transmission/rear end are AMT '55 Corvette. Seat is cut down from an MPC Dodge van piece. Wheels are the Jackman white spokes from an AMT Ford van. Those were a fad on street rods for about fifteen minutes back then. Paint is Dodge pickup light gray, airbrushed on. Left over from a Lionel train restoration I painted for my brother, who would have the train colors matched with automotive paint. The train restoration paints weren't very good. The original mockup was dark metallic green, with '63 Corvette knockoff wheels and the front suspension from an AMT '65 Nova funny car. I don't know why I changed it, nor why I used those Chevy pickup taillights! Built from a couple of basic dimensions and a single photo in a Petersen Publishing Chevrolet book. I keep thinking I'll come back and do a better one...

I've got the Bearcats kit. "From the hit TV show!" Someone brought a built one to the club meeting a few years ago, along with the DVD "set" containing the entire series. As I recall, one disc...six episodes...

The BB isn't something you can look at strictly in the "car" category. The movie/TV items dwarf many car kits. Round 2 has tooled brand new Space: 1999 items. I can't say I ever saw the show, or even know it could be seen where I live. I only remember seeing the original kits in MPC catalogs. New items from a TV show over forty years old, that to my knowledge hasn't set the world on fire in reruns? That right there says a lot. As for curbside, that makes perfect sense. How often was the car's hood ever shown open on the show?

No.

"Logistics"...someone is routing the items so as to keep every truck or plane full, or nearly so. They don't look closely enough to see that they manage to accomplish that by keeping some items in transport longer than necessary. Every load is a full load, that's what counts.

Starting the tracking when the label is created is probably just the most pragmatic way of doing it. It isn't the PO's, or eBay's, fault that some people seem to take advantage of that by creating labels as soon as they know where to ship the item.

You might want to search out the recent Rodders' Journal which included an article on Project X. More info can't hurt. Pontiac rear end would have been '57 or so through early Sixties. AMT '62 Catalina unit would work. The Olds/Pontiac rear end swap needed rear wheels with a non-stock offset to fit really wide tires. The swap was so popular that a couple of aftermarket wheel companies catalogued wheels for it. The Pontiac probably got switched out for a Ford 9" in the Eighties, when putting those in everything became the rage.

They aren't making this because it's an Imperial. They're making it because it's the Green Hornet Black Beauty, which by accident of circumstance just happens to be an Imperial. It won't likely be compromised by any ability to build a stock version.

The TV/movie guys outnumber the car guys...that's the market this is aimed at.

The military tire could be done in hard resin. I was looking at doing a similar tire myself a few years ago. I'd look at commercially available resin military tires in other scales. Most leave the feed tags and other extraneous resin in place to save time, leaving removal to the buyer. Looking at a few of those should give you a good idea of how they are doing it. If several casters are doing things in one particular way, that should point the way for you.

If you are starting out, don't experiment right off the bat. Get all your materials for both molds and castings from one source, that way you will know they are compatible. For how to design the mold itself, you will want to examine tires cast by others in order to get ideas. Most of the hard resin tires I have seen, have at least a bit of material in the center that needs to be trimmed out. Putting something in the center (not a wheel, just a filler piece) would make the mold fill more quickly and easily. Most cast tires I have looked at have a feed tag (entry point for the resin) somewhere on the perimeter of the tire. The feed tag isn't huge but needs to be big enough that you can get enough resin (hard or soft) into the mold before it begins curing. The tag is clipped off and the area smoothed over after the resin cured. That military tire is an ideal piece to learn on, as it has no detail in the area where you would put the feed tag. I have cast thousands of parts but never got to soft tires. I do know that I would make the mold one piece and slit it open only enough to get the original tire out. I'd make the mold with the tire standing vertically, feed tag on the bottom to hold the tire in place while the mold material cures.

If you are really into these styles of rods, think about picking up a book or two on constructing a 1:1 version. Vern Tardel, Tex Smith, Pete & Jake's, and So-Cal Speed Shop all did books explaining chassis building, and with plenty of pictures of examples of their work. I'm never going to build a 1:1 rod, but it's nice to know where things go and how they work, so your model build is realistic in that a full size one would be functional. I went to a swap meet at the beginning of May...bought one book, and grabbed a Tex Smith book on "fat fender" rod construction off of a "free pile". Old Speedway, Bob Drake, and So-Cal catalogs are worth grabbing too...often free or nearly so.

Luc's English is way better than my Flemish. I only know the "good words" in Polish. Pierogi, golumbki, and so on... ...and I know only enough French to get slapped by women...

The reboxing of items like the race car hauler indicate that Round 2 thinks the market is ready to absorb a few thousand more of them. "I can find an earlier issue kit at a show", some might say. But there are those who don't know about or go to those shows, and the places where they buy kits don't have any of these on the shelves. Remember, back when these kits were first issued, they'd be out continuously for a few years straight, with maybe a change in box art or two over the run. So bringing it back relatively soon isn't a big deal.