CapSat 6

Mr. Gurney’s attitude when pulled over by the brown Dodge patrol car was hilarious!

It seems that big and little Cragars and “Turbo” style mags seemed to be the most common to be used on vans back then. The MPC GTO kits have nice “Turbo” style mags. I would not be surprised if they show up at model swap meets reasonably from time to time, but to be honest, I haven’t really been looking for them lately.

No problem! The Vectors could serve as ‘70’s Van Wheels, but maybe better ones could be found in MPC’s recent ‘67 and ‘72 GTO’s- those turbo mags are maybe more suited to custom vans.

The same old MPC Goodyears and so-so Vector wheels that have been in every other Dukes issue, along with the nice new Torq Thrusts that were put in the recent ‘69 Cuda and ‘67 Charger kits.

Hmmm...that buildup actually looks dark blue, while the illustration on the box looks black. I ended up cracking and buying one of these. Yes, it has it’s shortcomings, but I still like this kit. I just wish they would find the correct hood and grille inserts one day.

May he rest in peace. First Brock Yates a few years ago (whom I had the pleasure of meeting- very nice guy- I was a little apprehensive about it, but it was like talking to a buddy in no time), and now, this. My Cannonball heroes are now gone. If you ever get the chance- the book by Brock Yates - “Cannonball!” Is a great read and tells the story about how Mr. Yates invited Mr. Gurney to drive with him in the race, Mr. Gurney initially declined, citing sponsor obligations and other concerns, but then at the last minute, joined in, did the race like the true pro that he was, and seemed to enjoy every minute of it. I just this week blew apart my old build of his Trans-Am AAR Cuda. I built it in around 1993 and I hope to freshen it up for the first Philly NNL, coming up in a few short months:

If I were to try to make a body like this, the approach I would take is: start with a Revell 71-74 Charger Body, as that body in stock form will have the same front window as the Cordoba/ ‘75-‘77 Charger. You could blend in some pieces from an MPC ‘77-‘78 Monaco 2 door - that’s the closest thing to the Córdoba that was ever offered in 1-25 scale. Those Monaco’s aren’t really pricey if you find them as builts- you could use a rough one for the body.

My call would be to bring the long bed Dodge Pickup kit back. The last stock issue was the 2 wheel drive Little Red Express, of course. If if they could find the tooling insert(s) for the 4x4 parts and wheels, they could first give us the Warlock 4x4. From there, they could use the long bed bed, bench seat interior and chassis last seen in the Monster Truck issue from the mid 80’s. The last time the 4x4 suspension parts were seen was in the Thunderstruck long bed pickup. The stock side trim has been wiped from the bed and cab, but to me - no big deal- make lemonade out of lemons- create a nice decal sheet for a stock Macho Wagon, and put it in a retro box, in the style of the Blackbird Firebird Trans Am, the original Warlock and Little Red Express -a phantom box, one that never existed back in the day. While they are at it, keep some of the custom puller parts from the Monster and Thunderstruck issues. This would take an absolute minimum of investment, assuming that the proper tooling inserts could be found. For the prices nice ones trade for, I think the market would support this. Here’s a short bed, but you get the picture:

Now I have realized that I need the Monaco.

I think part of it was: "the rumble from the large V8 vibrates my bowels intensely". I have that text somewhere- I'll see if I can dig it up soon and post it. It truly belongs in a museum. Why did I not buy one of these kits when they were more easily available? Oh yeah- that's right- the contents were actually worse than the box art and descriptions. As a whole, though- they were so bad that they were good. On the flip side of this- Yodel issued their Dodge Monaco and Plymouth Fury 4 Doors as part of a "BigAmerican" series. They had custom wheels, seats, rear spoilers and steering wheels. The contents of course, were the iffy Yodel kits, but- that box art was actually pretty good, inspiring even. It's as if they imagined the "Most Interesting Man in the World" as a Hollywood stunt driver. It makes me want to take one of those Dukes Cop cars and clone one of these.

More vintage sports cars for sure- I tend to like the big British GT’s such as the ‘70’s Aston Martins and Jensen Interceptors. Also, I’d like to see at least one nice big scale factory stock Mopar, preferably a 1/12 ‘69 Dodge Charger in the same style as Revell’s ‘57 Chevy, ‘63 Corvette and ‘69 Camaro. If they did a Mopar like this, I would buy several. And while we are at it- we need a Hellcat of some kind. Such a significant car should not be MIA in scale.

And I thought the box art for this, with the guy with aviator glasses, moustache AND Daisy Dukes was funny! This just won the board!!!

RMR Resin might still be doing the wing and nose cone...look them up - unfortunately, I can't access their site from my current location. Perry's Resin used to do a whole Daytona body, but I'm not sure you would be able to get one from them at this point.

RMR Resin might still be doing the wing and nose cone...look them up - unfortunately, I can't access their site from my current location. Perry's Resin used to do a whole Daytona body, but I'm not sure you would be able to get one from them at this point.

The gray rear bumper in the first pic is an AMT 1/25 bumper...these taillights seem to fit it very well. You’ll see in the last two pics that the stock steel wheels and hubcaps are nothing to get excited about...

Here’s my public service for the week... - pics of my Yodel “BigAmerican” Plymouth... Notice that the box art is super-nice. I’m thinking of cloning one of these street machines from an AMT Monaco...

Being offered at Speedway Gasoline stations this year...1/24 scale, in plastic...$19.99

You might have to keep your eyes open at toy shows, thrift stores and swaps...you might not find Lionel cars, but I do remember other manufacturers doing 1/24 diecasts for mass market, being available for $10-$20 at toy stores back then. I would figure any NASCAR diecast from 1995-2005 era could work. I have a few of the Dodges from that era (which would have used a similar engine to the one in your profile pic!) that I remember picking up for not a lot of $$$...I think they were made by "Winner's Circle", maybe Hasbro or General Mills? Generally, they were available at Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, etc. back before the bottom fell out of NASCAR replicas completely. There are one or two used toy stores around where I live, I would bet that they might sometimes have "played with" cars like these that you could use to raid for the chassis & interiors. You could always check to see if you have any used toy stores in your area. When you get into replacing the windows, you might have to be more specific to find the Ford or Chevies that you will need. Also- there are several vendors on eBay that part out older (1990-present) Revell NASCAR kits, you might be able to buy glass sets for a few of these cars that you might be able to adapt. I'd stick to using chassis intended for diecasts, as I think the Revell model stuff would be too fragile under diecast bodies, although windows and other small parts might work from model kits.

I have the Yodel "BigAmerican" (Street Machine) Plymouth Fury- IIRC, it comes with the Fury Grille only, but it comes with two sets of taillights. I'll check it when I get home and post something tomorrow. Also- in regards to the dog dish caps in the Yodel Kits kits - yes, they are sub-par. Fireball Modelworks does a set of Police vented dog dish caps with 6-hole police steel wheels, and those caps are really beautiful. The Revell '70 Road Runner caps are great, too- but unlike Fireball's caps, the Road Runner caps do not have the vent holes in them- they're much more like the earlier style ('70-74) cap. Also, the Revell 6-hole wheels are not very nice. Personally, I think the Yodel Fury/ Monaco's body is a little misshapen. I would much prefer to start with the AMT/ MPC 1/25 car, perhaps the Yodel bits can be adapted to the AMT/ MPC kit. Lastly- I believe Missing Link resins (Kevin Lutz) does an earlier Fury Grille in resin...it's a nice repop of the MPC '75-'76 Road Runner grille. You could use that, but then you would either need a '75-'76 "Fury" Road Runner front bumper (which has no turn signals in it, since they're in the grille in a '75-'76 Fury), or you would have to fill the turn signals in a later Monaco front bumper and replate it. Also, you would have to come up with round headlights. For the headlights, you could probably just remove the quad headlights from the Monaco bezels, build a new back, and put the larger round "high beam/low beam" headlights of your choice in them. That's why the old Scale Squads piece for the earlier Fury is a one-piece part- which includes the header panel / grille/ headlights and front bumper all in one.

If you go down the page on this link, it describes Round 2’s tooling inventory program. They are looking at everything they have to see what they can reissue. The ‘64 Cutlass tool is shown in one of these pictures. Looks like they would have to repair the roof for that one at a bare minimum. http://www.collectormodel.com/page/11/?s=Round+2+models&x=49&y=9#sthash.JEJCCam1.dpbs

I always loved this pic...

Who wants to create odds? Here are my guesses: Manufacturer (in descending order of the best chances): Revell, Moebius, Round 2 Make (in descending order of the best chances): Ford (always the crowd favorite), Dodge (Mopars are undeniably hot right now, and there are some truck opportunities that are compelling), Chevrolet, Plymouth (see Dodge), Pontiac, Mercury, Oldsmobile (Vista Cruiser, anyone???), All others... Here's what's overdue in my opinion: 1) Hellcat 2) Hellcat (at the very least, this powertrain should exist in scale)+ 3) Hellcat (ok, I've made my point) 4) 1968-69 Mercury Cyclone 5) 60's Dodge Pickup 6) 1964-66 Plymouth Barracuda and Dodge Dart 7) any 1967-77 Ford Ranchero 8) 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger I guess we'll see...

I’m simply stating my opinion. If you go to one of the major Mopar shows and see what the complete junk cars and parts are trading for these days, you will see that almost anything by way of a B or E body is considered restorable now. I do realize that many years ago, nicer ones were likely junked or parted, simply because it made economic sense then to invest the time and money in the nicer ones. I’m not even criticizing the build itself. Artistic vision is important to me, and I can see that the creator was going for something here. Still- it does look like this one was actually saved to an extent, and to that, I might be inclined to ask the question: could this have been done to another car that was perhaps less rare and / or desireble, or more common, and a similar artistic result would be achieved? I think so. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the opinion I’ll stick to. Artisitc value is undeniably a matter of personal taste. Times have changed now - they’re certainly not making any more of these, so they are now out of reach for the average hobbyist to enjoy. Mopars of this vintage were never thick on the ground, and are and will probably continue to be very desireable, and the prices for everything from the best cars right down to absolute junk parts reflect that. In the end, I realize the builder bought it and did with it what he pleased. That’s his perogative. Feeling about it the way I feel about it (and saying so) is mine.