Mark

I wasn't referring to Round 2 combining parts from the two kits...just me.

The fanatics who want an absolutely perfect Ala Kart will combine the best parts of the two kits. The reissue having improved decals will sell a bunch of them, if any other fixes are made then even more will be sold as a result. Others might disagree, but my chosen "best" parts would be: Old kit: engine, body, interior, possibly some chassis parts. Hood/grille shell need work; hood sides should flow smoothly into headlamp bezel portion of grille shell New kit: probably most of the chassis, tires (correct "rubber rake"), also look at the exterior chrome parts vs. old kit Elsewhere: wheels. Old kit has all four the same = wrong. New kit wheels are nice for something, but better ones for this car are out there Decals: maybe the Fred Cady sheet, maybe early original kit with all of the scallops. Early issues had decals for top and underside of fenders, later issues had smaller sheet with only top side. Reference would be mainly the excellent Rodders' Journal article on the restoration.

Top two are MPC, bottom one looks like Revell.

Their price is $29.99. I found one there a couple of weeks ago and bought it. With the 40% off, and sales tax added, mine came in under $20.

Methinks that Camaro is a '73 annual. The front fender emblems might read "SS 350"; if they do, it's a '73. There was no SS in '73, but MPC did the promos '71-'73 so AMT wouldn't have known that.

The tires on the 1:1 stock Nova are small and narrow. We're used to seeing altered cars with a bit more rubber on them. The first change I made on my Fairlane was to switch from 13" tires and wheels to 14". I have since gone to 15".

There is only one cab, so once it was corrected all kits produced after that will have the corrected one.

If I owned one of the affected vehicles, I'd drop a short note to someone at the manufacturer, also to the dealer where I bought it. "This problem, your knowledge of it, and your proposals (or lack thereof) for solving this problem, will carry considerable weight in future decisions I make regarding vehicle purchases..." Probably won't affect their decision making one way or the other, but then again in ten years someone there might just figure out why their sales dropped like a stone... As recently as 2021? There are going to be a bunch of people screaming about this, as they are still making payments.

Barracuda front bumper is Jo-Han.

Bottom one is '63 or '64 Ford Galaxie.

White one is from either an early Sixties AMT Pontiac Tempest, or Buick Special wagon.

'62. '61 had some wild custom parts, but different from the '62. I bought the leftovers from a built '62 a while back, the box contained all of those parts plus the fastback roof.

The Revell '69 Nova will be closer as a starting point. I don't know too much about the Revell kit, but I think one of the versions had a big-block engine.

That looks like a reproduction promo (it's too straight to be an original). The plastic may be ABS (harder than styrene), if that is styrene cement on the roof then you may be able to sand/polish it out. I wouldn't worry about foil or added details, the wagon was produced in big numbers by Jo-Han standards so it is not particularly rare.

It's a '68, the last of the three Novas he raced. As I understand, he never drove it, it was campaigned as a number two car with another driver. He ran the first of three Vegas in '72.

The engine in the annual kit was a 327. Not sure about the stock intake setup, but the '65 fuel injection setup was still included. A pair of undersized "427" cylinder heads and valve covers were also included, as an option.

Can you see a seam on the underside of the body? I'd think that, if the part doesn't look as though it can be separated from the body, the parts might be welded together with cement. The undercut on the bumper (how far it tucks under at the lower edge) would indicate a separate piece to me...just a question of where it joins the body.

That is exactly the part I was thinking of. I have a couple of earlier issue kits, should check those to see if that was there from the start...

The Camaro and Mustang II had printed cardstock ramps. The box side panel artwork showing the ramps was reworked a bit, to make them look different from the ones in the Ford and Mercury kits.

I'd check the body against earlier issues of the same kit. I've thought of "core shift" more as a misalignment between outer and inner halves of a mold. Something like that would result in an interior bucket or body being paper thin on one side, and overly thick on the other. A 1:1 engine block with core shift might have cylinder walls that are thinner than desired in critical areas.

The Corvair's tire caps were in the RC2 bland-box reissues of the '69 kit (not sure about the Round 2 issue as I don't have that one). They don't fit the tires now in the kit though.

The Mach I, Autolite Special, Superstang, and Iron Horse all have the same chassis. It's modified from the one that was used in the annual kits (dual exhaust detail added). They are pretty much the same kit, with detail changes and different optional parts (in the case of the Mach I, none at all if I remember right).

Back then, annual kits came with four vinyl tires (on occasion, six, when two slicks were included). None of this "four stock tires, four custom tires, and two slicks" like some of them have now. No annual kit, AMT or Jo-Han, had more than four tires in the box prior to '64 except for the ones that included a trailer! AMT started messing with plastic tires in annual kits for '66. A few kits had plastic front tires, some had plastic slicks, and a few had those tire caps where a different look was desired for a racing version that wasn't a drag car. The plastic tires and slicks carried over into the altered wheelbase cars in '67 and '68, probably to help keep the price down on those. The first run of the '33 Willys coupe had plastic tires also, but later runs had vinyl. I guess buyers would tolerate plastic tires in sub-$2.00 retail price kits, but once you hit two bucks there had to be vinyl, even if they weren't as good as the plastic ones.

That's exactly what it was.

The final sale amount of this one item reflects an excellent reputation which has been carefully built over a long period of time. I did a couple of builds for payment a while back, which taught me that I simply cannot do good work to a deadline. If Mr. Hettick can get what he gets for his builds, more power to him! I don't understand the negativity. If someone takes notice of it (similar to that WSJ article of a while back), it will lift the entire hobby, and people not currently knowledgeable might just take notice and think in more positive terms...