CapSat 6

If I saw pics of the bodies in question and they looked good, I would buy two of the Polaras.

That's my plan with at least one of these. My Mom had a '74 Custom Sedan (mid level trim, with door window frames), in Starlight Blue metallic and a white vinyl top...and factory road wheels. It was a demonstrator at my Uncle's dealership when she bought it. I saw Star Wars at the drive-in in this car. ?We ran that for about 8 years- so I have to build that one. My Dad had a '76 ex-Philadelphia Highway patrol unit (unmarked). It was dark green with a plain black (taxicab style, no pleats in the seats) interior, and a block off plate where the radio would have been. It had a 440, and dog dish wheel covers. He bought it at auction for about $200, and replaced the battery & tires. It was the closest thing to a real hot rod my Dad ever owned. I wish he had it when I would have been old enough to drive it. I'd love for Greenlight to follow up with the later hidden-headlight grille so I could do that one. I'd say go "Hunter"/ undercover style with the build, I think that would look good. If you go the route of a mainstreamer, if you could come up with the stock hubcaps from a '72-'74 Dodge Pickup, they're the same style as the stock deluxe caps for this car. I'm going to be using the stock wheels from the recent '75 AMC Gremlin kit, they're not 100% like the old C-Body Road Wheels, but if I separate the trim rings from them, section them and reattach them (or use trim rings from other wheels), I think I can get close enough to that look.

Rob- I meant to type 1/24. I'm going to get both sets and see which look better. This brings me to another interesting observation: - the wheels and tires look pretty shrimpy on this car, but that might be caused by the car itself being so big. The tires on this one are actually the same outside diameter as the ones that come in a lot of the classic Monogram muscle cars (Goodyear Radial GT's in the '71 Hemi Cuda & Buick GSX; Goodyear Steel Belted Radials in the '70 Road Runner & '69 Super Bee). The tires that come with the car are actually wider than the Steel Belted Radials, and about the same width as the GT's. I'm going to try to find a tire that is a bit taller if that's possible, but there do not seem to be a lot of options. I might have to see what Fireball Modelworks has in their BF Goodrich TA's. They do 5 sizes now- I have two sizes (both 1/25 sizes) - one size is too small and the other is tall enough, but too wide.

The bad: - PAINTED BUMPERS??? Most cheapo diecasts get chromed (vacuum plated) bumpers. These bother me. Maybe it's not so bad on the Bluesmobile, as it's supposed to be a dirty car, but it bothers me more on the Chicago PD car. -wheels: the Bluesmobile has hubcaps, where it should have bare steel wheels. I see an upside to this though: it's a great excuse to use Fireball Modelworks' beautiful 1/25 15x7 set wheels as replacements.

I got mine today. Here are my observations: The good: - the body shape and details seem right. This is very important. It looks like a Monaco. When the model doesn't resemble the subject (koffkoffRevell70Cuda), that's a huge problem. - the scale seems right. I was concerned because it looked undersized to me, but putting it next to some 1/24 Mopar B-bodies, it looks huge- as it should. I didn't put ruler to it, however. -

Never say never...after all, It looks like Dom Toretto will be driving one in Fast 8...and Revell has the Fast & Furious license...would be nice if they tooled up a '72 rear bumper, used the twin scoop hood from the Monogram Satellite...new wheels...just sayin'...

jNext up- seats. The black seat is an annual 71. The Orange seat is a '72. The glossy black seat on the bottom is an '87. The '71 and '72 annual seats look identical (perhaps tough to see in this pic). The '87 has had some ugly retooling work done in the coves. I never noticed this before. Perhaps they had to borrow back seats from another tool (Monaco 2 door, or ???). The chassis, firewall, rear axle & engine seem to have continued on in the '75-'76 Road Runners & '77-'78 Monaco Coupes, so this makes sense to me. Are we sure we want this one back??? ? I'm saying this as a current owner of a 1971 Satellite Sebring Plus, so I sort of have a thing for these cars. The Monogram / Revell Kit is looking better and better to me...

So this got me thinking...I don't pay too much attention to interiors (unless they are REALLY off). See the following pics: First pic. The black interior is an original annual interior. The 2nd is an original 72. The third one is from the '87 reissue. It looks like the '87 interior is a straight repop of the '72. There is not much of a difference between the '71 & '72 annual interiors, except that the original '71 has the window cranks in absolutely the wrong place. The interiors in these cars did vary from year to year and model to model (for instance: a base '71 Road Runner would have gotten diffferent upper side panels than a '71 GTX). I think what's represented are the premium interiors.

It would be nice to have the '71 kit back, with the '71 box art, the '87 decals, and new pad printed tires, molded in white. For that matter, if they could find the '72 parts (or even just the '71 GTX grille) it would be nice to have them in the box as well.

Here's a short history of the tool, and what I think is going on: - the '71 Road Runner annual was followed by a mid-year '71 GTX. The differences between the two kits were: Road Runner or GTX grille insert, Air Grabber Hood (RR) or twin scoop hood with 440 callouts (GTX), box & decals. I think both kits even used the same body, I don't remember seeing any engraved emblems on original Road Runners or GTX's that I have come across. - the kit was modified slightly for the '72 annual. The 72 came with a '72 style grille (with a deeper front bumper made to accept the '72 grille), rear bumper, taillights, rear valence. The interior might have been modified slightly. The body got '72 style side marker lights and Road Runner emblems on the quarters just ahead of the rear wheels. The '72 MPC Mopar annuals that I have seen all seemed to have come with '71 style wheels. The '72 came with a new custom front bumper and headlights. The GTX twin scoop hood was the only one included, and the 440 callout detail was removed from it. The 72's came with vinyl slicks instead of the two-piece plastic slicks. - either just before or after the '72 kit was offered, the NASCAR Petty Plymouth was issued. Even though a solid-blue '71 season car was shown on the box, the kit came with a '72 rear bumper, modified from the kit piece. The taillight fillers glued right over the stock taillight details, and the license plate detail was smoothed over on the bumper. The front bumper was a one-piece NASCAR style, that did not use a separate grille insert, and was deeper like the '72 unit. The hood was completely flat- unlike any Satellite or non Road Runner / GTX hood for '71 & '72- it looks like the kit piece is the '71 / '72 twin scoop hood with the scoops filled in. The 2 door Satellite base hood in these years had two prominent hockey stick shapes that stuck out of them- much like the way a '69 AMX or Javelin hood looks. The Air Grabber hood actually is a base hood with a separate fiberglass dome added to it. The rest of the Petty kit consists of the generic MPC stock car chassis, with Hemi & Wedge heads & valve covers for the generic block added to the bumper sprue. The body had it's door handles and side markers removed. - the '71 Road Runner was rereleased by MPC in 1987. This issue was nearly identical to the original annual kit, except that the custom wheels were switched over from Cragars to more contemporary (at the time) Gotti-style wheels, no plastic slicks, and no "1971" license plate engraving on the rear bumper or lower body in the front. I think the body was restored (door handles, side markers) from it's NASCAR configuration. The 1987 issue had a very comprehensive decal sheet, with stock '71 Road Runner graphics in black and white, as well as really nice Superbird graphics (for use with the phantom Superbird parts that these kits came with). - in around 1995, AMT/ Ertl announced a reissue of the Petty Plymouth. A pIcture of a built prototype was shown in a few places. It was announced side-by-side with the AMT Matador stock car, and while the Matador came out, the Petty Plymouth never did. I think it was said that the tooling was incomplete. I couldn't imagine that anybody at AMT at the time would have had second thoughts about issuing a vintage Petty car at the time. I think the body was missing because it was actually still in the '71 kit tooling. - maybe the story that the tool is unworkable is coming from when they went to issue the Petty car? I think the Petty car is where the '72 pieces went & that the '71 tool is probably complete.

Thanks Brian and Scott!

And another really funny thing (to probably nobody but myself): the term "Musclecar". When it came about in the '80's (thanks to magazines like Car Review, later Musclecar Review, and High Performance Mopar), the parameters were pretty tightly defined: any American car built between about 1964 and 1971, performance engines only, with quarter mile .e.t. capability of about 14 seconds or less. Heck- it seemed like some Musclecars weren't even Musclecars according to some of the stricter interpretations. Now- people tend to call any two-door American car with stripes and fat tires a Musclecar. For instance: if an '80 Volare Road Runner were to appear in a new movie, the reviewer would probably say something about it like: "Ryan Gosling looks the part, driving his Musclecar with the fin on the back around town...". That probably drives the editors of those magazines nuts when they see it ("It does 16.70 in the quarter! It's NOT a Musclecar!!!"). I think Hemmings Muscle Machines did a feature on an '80 Aspen R/T a few years back...

Now this thread is finally veering into the true car vibe of the '70's. Personal luxury. Most of the Volares and Aspens I remember seeing on the streets back then weren't base model strippers. They were usually upmarket Volare Premiers and Aspen Special Editions (same for the last Valiants and Darts as well). GM really invented this segment with the Grand Prix and Monte Carlo intermediates. Both of these cars came out at the end of the muscle era and were bigger-than-expected hits. Once the emissions, fuel economy and insurance situations went critical (remember- the Big 3 weren't responsible for the dawn of the Malaise Age- it was "outside market forces"), this of course signaled doom for the musclecar. All of a sudden (as in: really, folks- overnight! If you were a performance car fan and waited for the '72's to come out, you would have been really P.O.'d!!!), multiple carbs and high compression went away, and intermediates got really heavy and cushy. Why? Because wisely, the Big 3 saw that the Monte Carlo was a sales hit, so they went to that spot and shifted the trend. They still had big investments in intermediate chassis, so for the short term, Torino GT's morphed into Elites, Chevelles became Mailbu Classics, and Chargers became Cordobas (or Charger SE's- the kind everybody seems to have forgotten). The Big 3 didn't necessarily tell their public what to buy- it was the result of "outside market forces". The Córdoba might have single-handedly saved Chrysler back in the '70's. Monte Carlos, Cutlass Supremes, and Cordobas were everywhere. Why bother with a performance car that won't live up to it's looks when you could just buy something that would deliver what it's looks promised? I heard about one Philly- area street racer back in the day who swapped a Hemi 4-Speed drivetrain into a Córdoba. That must have been a mind blower to see and hear. One of my Cousins owned an AAR Cuda new. He wasn't even a car guy- just a cool kid with a good job. An AAR Cuda. The car he traded it in on was a Córdoba. That would maybe bother some people. Not him. Sign of the times- he probably got just as much attention from the ladies, if not more, with that Córdoba, so- fine with him. Many car guys also jumped onto the truck trend. Again- no hurt expcations- trucks looked cool, and did the jobs they were intended. They didn't have to haul rear like Musclecars did (although we'll ignore the fast one that Chrysler- described by one automotive journalist as "an arms dealer for speed freaks" back in the day- pulled with the Little Red Express- it not only was a looker, it was just about the most capable new performance vehicle available in 1978). I remember trucks being HUGE during this era. The Big 3 were really trying- look up a few of the interviews with engineers from back then and they'll all say that the technology to wring any kind of power from those V-8's while meeting emissions standards was simply not there at the time. I think that's why for instance it is so easy to get rid of the deservedly- much maligned Lean Burn from those engines. Replace the distributor, ballast resistor and electronic ignition unit with slightly older non-LB parts, switch a few wires, and those engines WOKE UP. I did that with a '79 Diplomat I used to own. Night and day. I would do that to any of those cars as soon as I got one. I think the engineers that put that together intentionally made it all too easy to bypass. So- I think I'm gonna build one of my Volares with a padded vinyl top, and all the chrome. And maybe Hemi 'train. I would really like to have a nice Córdoba kit in 1/25 scale.

That would be the one. The AMT F&F cars came with two hoods: the one pictured, and the same hood with a big rectangular hole in it. These kits at least came with a bunch of extra parts- and you could still build an almost- '69 from the box...

Nice! Looks like a stock kit right there... I tried something else out the other night. With some adjusting, the Round 2 Dukes hood might work, too. This hood is actually incorrect for '69 Non-Daytona Chargers, (the hood vents are Daytona/ '70 only) but they can probably be found in almost any swap meet junk box. It would take more cutting (on the front lip) and some filling (the sides), but it could work if it's all you have. I'm probably going to go the Round 2 hood route, because it's all I have that is extra. Also, my build is still going to be modified, mine will likely be getting a Six Pack scoop...

I have these. Multiple copies of each. I'm not interested- EXCEPT that the box art for both is rockin'! Anybody wanna sell me some boxes when they buy these???

DOOR SCOOP CONTROVERSY!!! ? Ok- the F&F car does not have the door scoops (which is correct for the F&F car). It's all-but-100% confirmed that Revell has been planning another variant of this tool. Revell routinely offers top-option muscle variants of late '60's & early '70's subjects. The top option for this subject is the Charger R/T (also confirmed by the engraving on the grille). ALL factory 1970 Charger R/T's came with bolt-on door scoops as part of the package. Body side tools are very expensive. Revell seems to research their subjects as far as optional or package parts very well (the recent '70 Hemi Cuda being a good example). So- almost a lock that we will see separately-tooled R/T door scoops. If that's the case, then I applaud that decision for a few reasons: 1) it allows a mainstream (non-R/T: base or 500 model) '70 to be built without cutting the doors out). 2) it makes the kit much more useful for track/ NASCAR builders, as most of these cars as raced on short tracks (K&K Insurance car, Bobby Allison's) did not have the door scoops. 3) now we (I) can finally see what these scoops look like on other cars, like the '70 Coronet and '71 Charger. All good.

This is a build of the Revell / Monogram '71 GTX (1/24). That kit has the GTX emblem in the middle of the grille. It's a retool of the Monogram '71 Satellite from the early '80's. The grille in that kit has no emblem in the middle. The 1:1 grilles for these cars were the same in '71- either a Satellite emblem (a rectangular chrome piece with red, white & blue painted pockets in it), a little Road Runner head emblem, or a GTX logo would screw into the same hole. They all had different paint treatments, too. They all have different part numbers, but the grilles themselves are physically the same for 1971 Satellite 2 doors. In '72, the same grille was used for all Satellites, while the Road Runner had a unique grille. MPC did annual kits of the '71 Road Runner (last reissued in 1987 by MPC-ERTL), '71 GTX (a rare mid-year variant), and '72 Road Runner. Each of these kits had the appropriate grille. It would be pretty easy for a caster to offer the MPC grilles, but they would not fit the Revell/ Monogram kits. It is easy enough to add the right emblems to the 1/24 grilles. I have scratchbuilt Satellite emblems, foil-cast GTX emblems (back before the GTX retool was available), and the Road Runner head could probably be sculpted from a tiny piece of plastic or putty.

Great start! I started one of these years ago- using the MPC '69 Cuda as a base. I later sold it off, as I was bucks-up at the time and actually found a 1/24 diecast of the same car. I think if you got ahold of an AMT '71 Duster, that would give you some things to work with. The Duster hood looks very similar to the Valiant Charger R/T's, as well as the windshield frame. The whole chassis and inner front fenders could be used from that kit, too. And the Hemi 6? I was going to start with the AMC straight 6 in the old MPC Pacer kit. Best of luck with this one!

Thanks, Chuck. I'm just doing my civic duty! ? Bill's pics are very interesting, and I'd have to give the nod to Revell for getting the total body shape more correct. Something about the MPC body in the C-pillar area is not quite right--------almost seems "smooshed" or something, and not quite there. Bill G.- admittedly, I had some trouble getting the side-on shots with my phone. They're not the best pics. I don't think the MPC bodies' cabs look so smooshed usually, this might be a result of the bad optics, or the fact that the Revell body is slightly bigger in a few places. I'm actually fine with either roofline/ cab myself. On a side note: I really, really like these cars. I have many, many copies of the various MPC Chargers of this generation, even the stinky ones, and quite a few of the Revells, too. I'm of the opinion that I probably can't have too many '68-'70 Chargers. There is a soft spot in my soul for the MPC kits, which I always thought looked the part. I grew up with these kits, starting with a bunch of the DoH kits I bought on the cheap at of all places- a toy store in Chinatown, NYC in about 1982. I converted some of these into '68's and '70's using resin parts from John Heyer, and sheet plastic for the rear window conversions. It's nice to have the Revell kits now.

Looking at pics of real cars, myself- I like the proportions of the MPC bumper a little better. I'm not necessarily saying that MPC nailed it. I'd still like to see both in paint, but so far, I think given the choice between both bumpers, I like the MPC's a little better. The Revell bumper is not a fail in my eyes, just that I prefer the MPC when I look at the picture references. I feel the same way about the '68 and '69 Revell & MPC kits as well though, so it could be one of those optical illusion-type things, where for some reason the MPC front ends seem more agreeable to my eyes. I'd agree with you as well that the MPC B-Bodies seem undersized. I think they're about 1/25.5 scale...

One more thing I tried out: the Daytona hood does fit the F&F body, but it will need a little trimming. Also, the curvature is a little different where it meets the fender sides, but I think it could be bent to shape. I believe that both 1:1's used the same hood. The '68-'69 hood scallops are wrong for both the '70 and the Daytona. I think the hood was used on the Daytona as a model-year "pull forward" production part.

Ok- I got mine today. Soooo...while hoping NOT to start any controversy, I would like to share my real thoughts here. Whenever a new tool for a subject that I am intensely interested in come out, I now have to play this game: "does it look like a ________". The blank represents the make and model of car in 1:1 that it is supposed to represent. I think that is a fair test, especially after some of the kits that have been put on the market recently (cough'70Cuda)... I say this because it's my opinion that no matter how great the little details are, it's all for naught if the body shape is poor. I build scale replicas, and while I don't consider myself a rivet counter, a 'Cuda should look like a 'Cuda, not like a Camaro's illegitimate son. The answer here: yes, in my opinion, it looks like a '70 Charger. I think Chuck has been spot on with his observations so far (different, although very similar tool to the Revell '68 and '69). All good so far, really. I compared it to some reference pics on the Internet (but not dial caliper style- I just used my eyes), and to me, it looks pretty good. There have been some kits that have been so far off in my eyes that they simply gross me out, and consequently won't be built by me (cough...)...but this is not one of them. I think the heavily hinted-at stock version is going to be a winner. I think Revell actually improved this over the '68-'69 body, in the areas of the door scallops and the wheelhouses (they enlarged the wheelhouses, and made the scallops less pronounced). The only nits I have are: 1) the front fender turn signal indicators seem a little wedge shaped to me, and the front bumper/ grille seem a little tall (especially compared to the original MPC). Neither of these things are bad enough to dissuade me from building it. Overall, my opinion is that they captured the 1:1 pretty well. First pic- top car - F&F '70, bottom car- '69 Daytona. 2nd pic- left car- original MPC '70, right car- F&F '70. 3rd pic- top car- F&F '70, bottom - MPC '70.

If that is so- then I think it is a kit first. That's a great little detail! I'm sure a few Rivet Counters will be using these on other builds.

Chuck - can I ask a question about the parts: -the tree with the rad support and firewall. The two rectangular parts in between the front sway bar and the battery / hood latch base. What are they? Could they be torque boxes for the rear subframe? Or are they something else?