Mark

The test shot photos shown here earlier indicated a fastback. The 4-4-2 wasn't offered with the formal roofline.

Well, if "Moebius" isn't spelled correctly, credibility starts to drop immediately...

They wouldn't be included if they weren't needed.

Fake, fake, fake. Lettering leans the wrong way. Always leans forward on both sides. The Candymatic lettering should be on the quarter panel, not the front fender.

That's an annual alright! Jo-Han really upped their game for '64. All of their '63 kits had engines but they were simplified. The '63 interiors all had front and rear seats molded as a unit with the bucket. The '64 Dodge and Plymouth kits had separate front and rear seats, and a much better engine than the '63 kits. That said, I'd leave that one the way it is, and build a Lindberg sedan as one of the actual race cars. The Lindberg kit is a Hemi car, but the Color Me Gone sedan has the wedge engine.

If you have to use the public facilities anywhere (especially at stores), be paranoid about super glue on the seats...there was a rash of such incidents at Home Depots awhile back. Much as I'd hate to get "stuck" in such a situation, man would I hate to be one of the emergency responders that day...

There was a Ramchargers '64 hardtop, but it was never raced. It was a display/backup car. One of the East Coast car magazines had it for a couple of days, and actually drove it on the street! The article was reprinted in one of the muscle car magazines in the Eighties. The hardtop was a wedge engine car. The Jo-Han 1964 annual kit had the wedge engine, with the cross ram intake and also the cast headers that didn't make production. Jo-Han reissued the '64 hardtop kit in '65, except the engine was changed to the Hemi. The '65 reissue kit has all of the customizing parts, still has the Polara side trim on the body. They issued it again in '68, this time with no side trim and no custom or showroom stock versions, but with a complete early Logghe chassis included. The annual and the first two reissues were in flat boxes. A 1972 or so reissue went to the more normal (for Jo-Han) narrow/tall box, and eliminated the Logghe chassis, leaving only the super stock version. The Ramchargers decals were eliminated also. All of the Hemi engine versions have the wedge hood scoop and incorrect fenderwell headers. Those headers weren't used with the Hemi, or even on all of the wedge engine cars. To build the Jo-Han kit as the display car would require a switch to the wedge engine, and probably some tweaks to the interior and body side trim also.

After what they have done with Testors, why give them any money? Leave Rustoleum products for the lawn chairs (if even that).

Not sure what (chemically) makes them different, but you might get better results using acrylic paint (no solvents to attack the silver).

Revell put the characteristics of both flares on the body, so they could use it in both kits. They did something similar with their custom Camaro and Firebird (ignoring that the doors differ between those two) and again with their Monza/Sunbird body. That said, I'd clean off the mold release on the body, rough up the backside of the flare, and fill it with epoxy putty before going at the flare itself. And, I'd use a file and leave the Dremel tool on the sidelines for this exercise. It looks do-able, just go slow.

The original "red" version had slotted wheels. They are very nice. Other good parts in this kit (especially for their time) include the rear suspension parts, hood scoops (both versions), rear axle, and Lakewood scatter shield. Front axle is good too, just remove the molded-as-a-unit front shock absorbers which are strangely located. If you are expecting modern accuracy and detail, you will be sorely disappointed. This is one of those "accept it as it is, nostalgia exercise" kits; nothing more, nothing less.

Monogram never offered this kit as a stock version. As for it being hard to build, one guy I know who has bought a bunch of collections over the years has, for a long time, seldom bought one that didn't have at least one of these Chevelles in it. They wouldn't have sold so many, over such a long time, if nobody had been buying them!

Definitely not those. The correct (Ansen Apollo) wheel is pictured elsewhere in this thread.

I'm thinking that taillight lens is from one of AMT's early Sixties T-Bird kits, probably one that had Stylizing parts in it. I've never had a complete kit (I've concentrated on stock versions of those) so I don't have any of the instruction sheets to verify this.

The Hurst wheels, being newly tooled, are on a separate parts tree. They should be bagged with the other plated parts.

The wheels pictured are the Hurst mags from the GTO kit. I didn't get the reissue '66 Hemi Under Glass Barracuda, but I would guess they are in that kit also.

The '65 GTO reissue does include a set of Hurst mag wheels. The wheels in the Avanti are Halibrands, those are already included in a parts pack along with three other sets of wheels and wheel covers.

Well, AMT did have the Chevy promo contract in '64 (they kept it through '67, and lost it to MPC for '68). With the indecision by Chevrolet about the Chevy II itself, it's no wonder there was no promo for it that year. They didn't order one for '66 either...they likely figured they didn't have to promote it, they seemingly sold all they could build in those years.

AMT could have revised the Nova wagon to '64 trim on their own dime, or even just reissued the '63 version in '64 as they had done with the Ford pickup kit. But they didn't, which would seem to indicate that, like the Buick wagon before it, the Nova wagon kit didn't set the world on fire in terms of sales.

I visited one of my brothers yesterday; he gave me a pile of magazines. Among them was a February 2022 issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines. That issue includes an article on one of the 100 Thunderbolts, with some commentary by its original owner. The car was an automatic as delivered to him, but Ford gave him the parts to convert to a four-speed along with the car. Apparently they knew right off the bat that the automatic wasn't going to cut it.

No AMT '64 Nova. Some articles about the Chevelle have stated that it was originally supposed to replace the Chevy II entirely. Chevrolet backed off on that, kept it but initially dropped the SS, hardtops, and convertibles. Another compromise brought back the SS and the hardtop, but not the convertible.

Few Thunderbolts kept those original automatics. Most were converted to manual transmissions immediately. The word about the automatic got out quick, racers who were allocated a car would try to get a manual.

That looks like the Lincoln automatic from the Revell Thunderbolt kit.

No kit V10 that I'm aware of...maybe there's a 1/24 scale diecast with one. Watch those diecasts though, many are described as being a particular scale on the box, but measure out much smaller. There are 3D printed variations on the V12 mill, like an ARDUN hemi-head conversion, or finned "aluminum" heads. One of those setups could be right for a custom Lincoln.

The MPC flip-front '53 (cab and bed very obviously cribbed from AMT's kit) has the "toothless" low-end grille, but it does have headlamp lens detail molded as a unit with the grille. MPC's truck has chrome bumpers too, should anyone want a set of those for an AMT pickup.