DRIPTROIT 71

This one really stands out!! Great work!

Looks amazing! Great work for sure!!

Looks great!

Looks pretty awesome!

Looking good!!

Looks amazing! Very realistic!

This one turned out great!! Very nice work! The reflector tape really finishes this one off! Looks great!

I don’t pay collector prices either, but sometimes I pick up a sealed kit. Let’s face it, most of us have a lot of kits that we will never build whether we consider ourselves a collector or not. If the kit is old and sealed, I wait until I am going to use it to open it. I have picked up two resealed kits, both were trailers, one at a great price and one at a decent price. The Mack that I was in question about does have a price sticker, but it is a generic one. It looks pretty authentic, but since it is noticeably lighter than most truck kits, I was a bit skeptical. After listening to you guys I am more confident now. I buy to build, but would never pass up on an old sealed kit at a great price. I didn’t pay much more for the Mack than the reissue, and I purchased it was before the reissue was released. Thanks for all of the information!

Thanks for all of the information guys!! Casey, I checked the Mack kit and it does have the hole in the plastic. Jason, it does look slightly yellowed compared to the reissue. My main concern with this kit was that it seemed a bit lighter than the reissue. After finding that my flatbed had been resealed, I pictured opening the Mack to find somebody’s leftovers. I think now that it might be legit. I bought it before the reissue was released, and now that the reissue is out, I wanted to leave it sealed, but be somewhat confident that it hadn’t been resealed with part of the kit removed. Thanks again guys! Brian

I like it! This was the car to have when I was in high school. A friend of mine had one very similar to this. He traded his 68 GMC pickup for it. Nice work! I like what you came up with.

Thanks Casey! I didn’t start building models until about 78 or 79. I remember those holes on car kits then, but I couldn’t remember if they were on the old semi kits or if earlier kits had them. Those holes were always my starting point for tearing the plastic off of a new kit. I have an old Matlack Mack that I am suspect of. I will check for that.

This has probably been covered before, but is there a way to identify if a vintage kit has been resealed. I mostly only build semi trucks, so my question is sort of specific to the Early semi truck and trailer kits released in or around the 70s. I have picked up some “sealed” kits over the past couple of years and the plastic on some of them seemed a lot thicker than I remember it being back in the day. If my memory is correct those old kits had very thin cellophane on them. The seam on the suspect kits seemed especially thick. One particular suspect kit was an Ertl Great Dane flat bed trailer. I went ahead and opened it and some of the inside parts had been re-bagged I usually buy with the intent to build, so it is usually irrelevant, but I sometimes leave a vintage kit sealed just in case I never get around to building it. I would hate to pass one on in either a sale or trade that had been resealed or even worse, not be complete. I thought that maybe some you expert collectors knew how to spot a reseal job. Thanks, Brian

Thanks Carl! It is 1/25th. These were released in several versions; Mayflower, Allied, North American, Bill Elliott race trailer, and I think that this one was an Ernie Ervin race trailer. I think that I used to have a Kraco Indy car race trailer as well. There may be others too.

Resin conversion on Ebay. $35+ $8 shipping. Don’t know anything about the quality though.

That engine looks great! I’m taking notes!

Looks great! The details on the blower just look Awesome!

I always enjoy your builds! The weathering is always excellent!! Of course I like tow trucks too. Excellent work! I like the homemade wheel lift. We considered making something like that for our 69 Ford, but we ended up replacing it with a 93 Ford with a factory wheel lift.

Thanks!!

One chain on each side back then. The “J” hook hooked to the vehicle being towed (swinging in the wind in this photo), then wrapped around the tow bar at the bottom as shown, then hooked at the top of the sling just outside of view in the photo. The excess chain that was left could either be hooked to the chain from the other side or back on itself.

The only way that I’ve gotten rid of them is to wet sand the first coat of paint (lacquer duplicolor) and then top coat. This isn’t an option though on textured surfaces such as the underside of the hood as shown or in the case that I have had before on the side of a Mercury sleeper. Sanding the primer doesn’t seem to get rid of them for me. They seem to bleed through.

Awesome build!! It looks great!! Excellent work!!

Beautiful build!!! Very clean work!! Excellent detail work!! Perfect subject matter!! Top notch work! I like it!!

I’ve heard of doing that. Sounds like a very cool upgrade. I’m afraid that my upgrade days are over for the most part, although I do still have an 84 K20 with a granny box in it. Would love see a picture of the Willys. When Dodge came out with the new 94 style body the output was changed to the driver’s side like a Ford. A friend of mine put a Dana 44 out of a 79 Ford under his mid 90s Dodge back then when he put it on 44” tires.

I used to think that I had some good reference materials. You seem to have it all. I’ve been wanting to find something like this for a couple years. White bought this engine and used it under their name from what I understand, and I’m wanting to build a 9000 project with one of these. Thank you for posting this!!

Dodge transfer cases in 70s and 80s, had same output as Chevrolet on the passenger’s side. We built a lot of lifted trucks back when I was a bit younger. We used to put Gm axles under 70s Dodge trucks Sometimes that originally had the small bolt pattern to have better front wheel bearings. Back then GM axles were pretty easy to come by and easier to get than later model Dodge axles. This was also much cheaper than the conversions to lock outs for those old Dodges. I’ve been into quite a few 208s, a couple 203s, but never had to go into a 205. In “my experience“ (not saying this is law) most GMs 73-77 has 203s and most GMs 78-80 had 205s, most 81-87 had 203s. However the 205 was the case of choice and was often used in truck builds.