Mark

The roof piece is from the AMT '62 Corvette hardtop (annual) Stylizing kit. It wasn't in the convertible annual kit, and of course not in any of the reissues. There were clear panels that fit the notched areas, and those had pins that allowed them to swing up. That was the only hardtop included in that kit. A stock one wasn't included. So, if you bought the '62 Corvette hardtop annual kit, and built the stock version, you ended up with a convertible, same as the convertible kit...which you could have bought for half a buck less in '62.

Yes.

Left: Fireball 500 trailer. Right: 1964 Corvette convertible trailer. I do not have a complete '64 Corvette Sting Ray kit. No trailer, only the car. If indeed the two Corvette kit trailers are different, then the Fireball kit's trailer is derived from the one that was in the '64 Sting Ray, not the convertible. Chris' photos above give the illusion that these trailers are different lengths. They are the same length.

The movie cars were Luminas (not Malibus) and were made by Monogram (not AMT).

Someone has stated that the trailers in the '64 Corvette kits (coupe and convertible) are different from one another in regards to the arrangement of those holes. As similar as the Corvette kits were, we now know them to be unique tooling with no parts shared between them. The coupe exists today as the '63 coupe. The convertible (what remains of it) exist as the soon to be reissued custom '68. I have had both '64 kits but never at the same time. I'm pretty sure I have one each body style now, but only one has the trailer. I never bothered to check against the Fireball 500 trailer because I was never crazy about that trailer anyway.

Showroom stock conversions of the MPC NASCAR kit (and the AMT Malibu, which is an earlier one) seldom look right, as the roofs on both bodies are altered quite a bit, and seldom corrected in the course of bringing them "back to stock".

Mom's '70 Torino, which my father bought new, but was on its last legs by 1977. My older brother ended up with it, he wanted the 302 for a Falcon sedan delivery he'd bought. I learned to drive stick in his '64 Chevy II, which had Fred Flintstone floors by early 1979. I ordered a new car with a manual transmission not knowing how to drive one, and learned about two weeks before it came in. The day I picked it up, I drove it about 200 miles. It was missing a part for one of the gauges. One of my brothers was off work that week so he took it to the dealer about a week later, it already had 900 miles on it. The car I bought in 2017 is an automatic, but that first car, and the two trucks I bought after that were both manuals. I practiced parallel parking with a '66 Impala with manual steering.

There is a Revell '77 Monte Carlo, but that's way different from a Malibu. Not one piece of sheet metal shared between the two.

Which, the Nova drag team? Nope, it was issued back in the day.

Woody Gilmore frame, same as in the Tommy Ivo dragster which was likely the first one planned, with other releases thrown in to maximize use of the tooling. Garlits usually built the frames he used, but not always. If I remember right, in his book he mentioned buying the ex-Jungle Jim dragster that the Attebury Brothers had built and (briefly) campaigned with JJ's name on it.

If the Duplicolor sprays have propellant in them, they can be used. (If not, decanting is an option.) The stuff does settle, so if they have been stored a while they must be remixed. I give them several shakes over time, shaking of course until the agitator rattles. Fully mixed, the little ball inside should glide around the bottom of the can when the can is gently swirled around, for lack of better wording. If it doesn't move freely, you've still got settled solids at the bottom of the can.

The Barris Cruising USA issue does not include stock parts (only those needed to build the car as shown on the box). The AMT/Ertl late Eighties reissue does have stock parts, but is molded in yellow, also every one of those I have ever seen had bad plating. I'd chalk those two up as ones to avoid.

It's an ugly (for a car) shade of green as I recall. I have seen '64 Petty Plymouth kits in that green also. I do remember them being solid and opaque with no swirling, which would be about the only redeeming factor.

That's why it would fall at the low end of the price scale versus other kits in similar condition. It ain't easy being green...

I ran the business office for a community of Catholic Sisters for fifteen years. I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I saw any of them wearing a habit as pictured. And those instances were always at fund raising events, where there were older benefactors present who had attended Catholic school and were used to seeing the Sisters dressed in that way. Most of them didn't even have one anymore.

You can try mineral spirits applied to the joint, or soak the body as though you were removing paint. But in cases where the parts are fused together like that, the solution usually involves sacrificing one part (glass) to save the other part (body). If that is the MPC kit, it is 1/16 scale.

Is there anywhere you can cut that part of the pipe, remove it, and then rework it to fit? A small photoetch saw blade that fits into an X-Acto or similar knife handle is what I'm thinking...

I haven't seen one of the Revell 1970 Sox & Martin kits lately, but I have heard of those selling for stupid money. Of course, not having one, all of a sudden I've got one eye open looking for one...not that I "need" one...

The green one will be a later one, so for an unbuilt one it will be at the lower end of the price range (though $65-75 wouldn't surprise me these days). An early one, in white plastic, with decent decals, wire axles, and one-piece tires ought to cross over into three-digit territory. I'm glad I got what I got when I got it...

Lindberg got into the 1/20 scale stuff because the guy who was running Lindberg had gotten MPC into 1/20 scale in the late Sixties.

"Place" the engine on the stand...with a heaping helping of cement to keep it there...

The Dyno Don pro stock Pinto was a '74. There was also a Gapp & Roush '75 Pinto pro stock kit.

Front part of the body may differ in some way also. I actually have an original issue of this one, so I'll be passing on the reissue even though it will have a way better decal sheet included.

The AC version is much like the '68 annual. But there were a number of revisions for another, later issue: the Greenwood GT from the mid-Seventies. The hood was altered, wheels changed, molded-in exhaust detail removed, interior altered, and fender flares added to the body. The Greenwood version body has only three vents per side on the front fenders where the earlier versions had four. So this issue will differ from the ACcellerator in several ways.

It's the AMT dragster chassis, same one as in the wedge body kits.