Mark

None of the reissues can be built stock out of the box, only the annual. The reissues all have the 1964 kit chassis (lacks the working springs), chassis has the molded-in exhaust detail removed, engine lacks stock intake and exhaust, no stock wheels or tires are included. The optional (but correct stock) side exhaust parts were deleted also. That said, the reissues (especially the first one, the red "Streaker Vette") are cool in their own right. The molded in black "Night Stalker" (the first one, there were two) was a staple item on K-Mart store shelves for a few years.

The HL stores around here usually sell the racks. The hobby shop that closed a few years ago used to sell them too. Never bought one as I wanted a rack that would hold the tall touch-up spray cans (never got one of those either).

Body is all new. The original (now funny car) body has had all of the panel lines (doors, trunk) wiped off, I don't think it would be possible to put those back as they would be raised areas on the individual sections of the body tooling.

The Jeepster engine would be the way to go. It's not correct for the late (Jeepster) Commando, but with different external accessories (air filter, probably pulleys and fan, possibly exhaust manifolds) it will be good as the Olds V6.

Resin can be done in any number. If that one was done without licensing or permission from Barris, I'd guess the number produced would be extremely low.

The conversion from a Chevy interior is certainly within reach. But the '56 Pontiac is a four-door, so the seats used as a starting point will need a bit more work. The front seat back will need the split filled in, and (in general) the four-door's rear seat bottom is shaped differently from a two-door's at the ends.

The snorkel scoop is the newer design, it worked on both the early and late style Vegas. The early style only worked on the early body style with the vertical grille. The slanted front end pushed the air over the top of the early scoop. I believe it was the Mopar Missile guys who figured out the snorkel style, and then everyone else just copied what they had done. I remember reading about Jenkins testing the two front ends, he claimed the later style had no advantage over the early one.

Check your local auto parts stores and paint jobbers (not chains like Advance or Auto Zone), also NAPA paint outlets. Some may have the capability to mix colors and put the paint into spray cans. This used to be a rare thing but seems to be more prevalent now. Not cheap, but cheaper than having it done somewhere else and shipped to you.

The choices are curious...the Ford engine is one of the four that Revell reissued last time around. That chassis was not particularly hard to find until a few years ago. The pack with the equipment for the dragster chassis (axles and steering gear) is much harder to find. Prior to these being available, the chassis is still easier to find than the equipment pack.

Looks like an AMT body to me. Besides the newer Revell 3W, the only other one I'm aware of is the MPC Switchers body. That one has a separate roof. A windshield frame could be made from a piece of sheet plastic...trace the opening, cut the part to fit, then cut the hole for the windshield leaving a frame. You'll have to work out windshield wiper detail though.

Never heard of Tom Slick. I don't remember Speed Racer either...not sure when those ran. Maybe it didn't run in my area. Not animated, but we did get Dark Shadows...for one day. The local station had a big buildup for it, ran their first episode one weekday afternoon, and got so many calls complaining about it that the next day they went back to the previous programming.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Wacky Races yet, especially with a couple of the kits having just been reissued. I hope those do well, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Neither Hot Wheels nor Wacky Races was around long...no more than one season IIRC. The powers that be decided HW was pretty much a half-hour commercial, and Wacky Races was repetitive and really couldn't go much longer than it did. They did use some of the characters in another show, but I don't remember that one as I was getting away from cartoons around that time. The classic Warner Brothers stuff is the best, though. The later stuff (not just WB) started cheapening the animation, and it's just not the same.

I don't think the top is chopped, so much as I'm thinking the windshield opening isn't tall enough at the top. If you look at photos of 1:1 sedans, the top of the molding around the windshield is about level with the top of the drip rail over the doors. It might be the molding is thicker than it needs to be, it might be that the opening could be filed open a bit higher (say, to the top of the existing molding) and a new upper molding added or scribed in. Yes, it would be nice to not have to do it, but this doesn't look like a deal killer by any stretch of the imagination.

The stock version will be a '64 hardtop, if Moebius sticks to the original plan.

The Milner kit had a few different parts on that tree, including a set of Moroso valve covers that don't really look right. MPC tooled a few parts to try to fake up a small-block Chevy out of the Hemi that is in those kits.

You might consider waiting for the coming Round 2 reissue of the woody/roadster pickup kit. It is based on this sedan kit (fenders and chassis components are the same) and has a rod version. That kit has a nearly all plated flathead engine. You will still need to think about a dropped front axle, as neither of these kits include one. I'd use those solid Halibrand wheels, and scrounge a quick-change center section for the rear axle to go with them. Another option would be to search out the late Seventies one-shot roadster pickup rod issue. That one has a small-block Chevy V8, Corvette rear suspension, and a nice set of Mehelich (Halibrand clone) slotted wheels. Still no dropped front end though.

Quarter windows might differ between '64 and '65, but I'd bet the change is confined to the rear glass. Looks like this kit's glass is sized to fit, not larger and fitted from inside like most old kits. The rear glass from an AMT hardtop might be the base material for making the wider '64 piece.

I haven't bought any of the Salvino kits, but as I understand their plating is similar to Trumpeter's plating which is very different from the metallizing we get in AMT/Revell/Jo-Han kits. The Salvino plating is harder to remove and impossible to strip. Maybe use epoxy to attach their plated parts, that way you only need to get some "tooth" on the plating rather than remove it altogether.

No turbos for me...I'd rather have a slightly too big engine that loafs along, than an overstressed one that isn't up to the job...

Hard to get people to work, when they are being paid so much not to work. For some of those, going back to the regular job would cut into their side hustles...

Well with gasoline, it's always... -It's higher because of increased demand (always around a holiday) -It's higher because the refineries are changing from the summer formula to the winter formula -It's higher because the refineries are changing from the winter formula to the summer formula And so on, and so on. Same deal with car insurance: last time I checked, nearly every vehicle was "higher than average". I only spotted a couple that were "average" or "below average". How do you get an average if everything is higher than average? Must be that "new math"...

Not sure about wheelbase. The only way to check that would be to have the parts in hand. My guess is they will be close, probably close enough.

I'd bet on one size fits all. Tires are relatively costly to tool. Not sure about 1/16 scale, but a typical 1/25 scale tire tool might produce two dozen of the same tire in one shot. That's not to say that Atlantis might cut tooling to produce two types of tires at once, then schedule kit production to, say, have "both" types of kit in the catalog at the same time, to use all of the tires produced. They could also bag the sets of tires not needed at the time, and drop them into kits produced later on.

Not the same part or same tooling, but similar enough to suggest the same master may have been used as the starting point. The 1:1 cars were similar enough in those areas to let them get away with that.

The solvent cement won't work on a resin body, and I don't think MEK will work either. CA glue is your best option. If you have to make it conform to any kind of curve (or not, for that matter) then tack the strip down at one end, force it into the desired curve and tape it down (or pull it taut for straight lines). Then tack it down every so often over the full length of the strip. Then pull the tape off if you used any. Once you are sure the strip is right where you want it, then finish tacking it along the entire length. You will have to sand either side of the strip to clean off any excess CA, but that shouldn't be a problem.