Mark

Looking at the recent book on Arnie Beswick, there is a photo of this scoop on his '61, none showing it on his '62 (which had a louvered hood), and it pops up again on his '63 cars (both Catalina and Tempests). Pete McCarthy's excellent Pontiac performance book also includes a number of photos of this scoop, all on '63 cars. Period photos show the scoop being used minus the trim and screen at the front, but cars put together more recently seem to favor leaving the trim in place.

That one is on a later truck. This scoop is an early Sixties item.

I scratched one (dimensions taken from a 1:1 scoop), cast them, and sold a bunch of them, but don't have any in stock, and haven't got a mold right now. I'm going to try to have some more cast to sell at NNL East next April. The 1:1 item is a Ford heavy truck scoop, but GM bought a bunch of them and assigned a Pontiac part number to it. They later had to assign a part number to the hole needed to make the scoop functional. About ten years ago, my older brother scoured a couple of heavy truck junkyards in the area, and scared up a couple of them. Before he flipped them on eBay, I borrowed one to measure for creating my original part.

The current Chevy pickup kit is mostly the AMT ex-GMC, with the interior from the MPC Chevy, and new (at the time of the conversion) engine/transmission, front bumper/grille, and rear half of chassis.

The MPC wheels are six-slot Cragars, one of those styles they didn't make very long.

The parts pack wheels are 4 lug.

'63 Impala annual had Halibrand wheels, similar to those in one of the AMT wheel/tire packs. Those are Hands wheels, I believe those were in one or both of the '63 Corvette annual kits.

It does also resemble the rear fenders in early issue AMT '25 Fords. But all of the Sixties issues I'm aware of were molded in black plastic. I'd still lean towards Monogram, especially if the diameter of that fender is really big. The AMT fenders don't fit over their slicks, if I remember right.

That fender looks like the ones in the Monogram first issue Model A Ford kits.

That looks like a quality piece. I'd build it using as many of the parts you got with it as possible.

Well, automobiles were once considered "expensive and impractical toys"...

The exhaust was removed from the MPC chassis for the first long stepside issue (the gold one with the dirt bike). That version had side pipes, so the molded-in exhaust detail was not needed. I'd suspect that the two pickup tools were combined to get one good one. I built an original MPC '71 Racer's Wedge a few years ago, the cab in that kit had some serious mold misalignment issues. Between the AMT '67 annual, MPC '68-'72 annuals, the stepside, Rolling Thunder, Heavy Pedal, and Cooter's issues, that tool was likely flat worn out. Basing the "new" Chevy pickup on the AMT GMC tool made sense. It probably didn't set the world on fire as a GMC (AMT probably converted it just to make it different from MPC's Chevy). The trim engraving on the current kit is better than the old MPC kit. They could probably have left the big-block in, and the grille could have been done better. But in the end, they made something out of one worn-out tool and one that probably wouldn't have sold well as it sat.

So none of the lowest common denominator will ever steal these things, and none of the "more money than brains" bunch will ever go where they aren't supposed to go?

There was coolant in the block, but it didn't circulate. They would fire up just before each run, and shut off at the end of the run, the engine might run for a minute or so (if that) with plenty of time to cool back down before the next pass.

When you walk down the street, you'll not only have to look both ways when you cross, you'll have to look UP...

Nope, looks like MPC (later AMT). Looks like the passenger side windshield pillar could be bent, too.

All of the AMT C4 ZR1 kits that I have seen have a completely plated engine and transmission. That is probably a regular Corvette. A look at the plated trer, particularly the wheels, would narrow down the year.

For a while now, I've had to walk into the station and ask for a receipt about every other fillup. I keep track of gas mileage, and need to keep track of credit card spending in case the paper statement doesn't arrive in the mail.

Corporate HQ probably told them to change everything. I don't go to McD's often. The one up the street uses the kiosks for ordering. The last half dozen times I was there, I didn't get a receipt because the kiosk ran out of paper and hadn't been reloaded, or was loaded improperly and was jammed. Walk-ins usually take forever anywhere around here, as everyone blows off the walk-in customers to take care of the drive-through window.

Not only do they not know how to drive, they don't know where they are going. But, while they are on the way to wherever they haven't figured out yet, it's an absolute must that they be in front of everyone...

Says "reissue", so I'd suspect the wheels are the five-spokes that have also been used in a number of kits.

The modified Mysterion was issued by Revell a few years earlier, as Dual Jewel. Same dark blue plastic. If the Advent Yellow Fever is based on the Outlaw, it too was issued earlier by Revell, called Canned Heat.

The tooling for NASCAR kits newer than about 1995 is all overseas...no way anyone is going to get it out of China...

Let it sit in some soapy water for a while, then take an old toothbrush and scrub, scrub, scrub and scrub some more.

This kit was mentioned here a few weeks ago. Initially Salvino was going to do this year's car, but with the new one coming for next year it only made sense to switch to that one.