Mark

For anyone who cares, here are the '55 Nomad pickup version roofs. Left: reissue piece. Right: first issue piece. From the looks of it, the original part's tooling was altered to produce the newer piece. Why, nobody knows...

Oops, forgot the '62, and I've got one of those!

I'd bet Round 2 will eventually get around to the Ivo streamliner, and improve on the small/incomplete decal sheet that was in the original...

Nope, that's correct. Chevrolet initially dropped the Nova hardtop and convertible, but reinstated the hardtop and SS. With the convertible gone after one year, that means there was never a Nova convertible with a factory installed V8.

The Nomad is (in most issues) a 3 in 1 kit, don't forget the custom pickup version.

The 1:1 Streamliner was actually the previous car with some updates. Ivo mentions in his book that AMT wanted to get another hit off of the dragster tooling, and offered him enough to convince him to paint the "new" car blue instead of his preferred red, so they could mold the kit in blue. Up until this picture appeared, I was puzzled by that info as my Streamliner kit is molded in white.

The original pickup roof is the entire roof except the A pillars and vent frames. You were supposed to cut off the whole Nomad roof leaving those areas in place. The original piece didn't match up well with the windshield. I've got one of the original pieces, but it's warped. I don't know why they (re)designed it the way they did...I'd have just cut the roof off at the tail end of the B-pillars, and fashioned a surround for a new rear glass that would have plugged into the space. I've seen a couple of Nomad/Safari wagons turned pickups; I recall one had an early Comet sedan rear window, the other may have had a Thunderbird glass back there.

Some of those wheels in the Boyd Coddington kits are really out there...the '57 Chevy wheels place the brake rotors BETWEEN the wheel halves...

4 is from the AMT Meyers Manx. 1 might be '62 Ford; I remember some of the Ford kits having the interior mounting posts closer together than usual.

Those wheels took up space on the parts trees that would be needed for the more normal wheels that were in all of the other issues. When those Boyd kits were issued, they included only those wheels...several knowledgeable people stated that the deal for those kits specified that no optional/other wheels or tires were to be included. Some of those kits also included non-stock suspension parts. I picked up the '57 Chevy out of curiosity...the rear axle was changed to some sort of goofy articulated setup that never appeared in the real world.

I'd bet on the first issue box art, even though the custom pickup roof piece in that one is different from the one in all of the other issues.

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.