garagepunk66

An ethical question, if you will indulge me. In more recent years, I have come to regard the Jo-Han 1970 Road Runner as a holy grail kit, while I have watched prices climb completely out of reach. The old Monogram 1/24 kit never did much for me with its wonky proportions, and the SMH Resins kit I got recently is a disaster. I just scored a very abused 70 GTX promo on that auction site, and I am contemplating a Road Runner conversion, using pretty much just the body and front bumper (the rear bumper is broken). I do have a Jo-Han Road Runner grille and Air Grabber in the parts box, as well as several Superbirds, built and unbuilt, as well as the aforementioned SMH Resin kit to pull the rest of the parts from. The plan is to put it on the Monogram 69 Charger Pro Series chassis bits. The quandry is, of course that, once I cut out and fit a Superbird tail panel, sand off the scripts and the wheel opening moldings, it's no longer a GTX. On the other hand, this is one rough character....

Steve, can you elaborate on how you made the breather grommet in the valve cover? Drilled a hole in the end of round styrene rod and rounded the outside radius before cutting it off? Everything looks fantastic

Oooh. Tasty mods and beautiful work. Following.

The Jo-Han Turbine Car has one of the nicest ones kitted IMHO. I like the one in the AMT Chrysler 300C second best

That color is called Lunar Green

The AMT '40 Willys includes one, even though the tank represents an Eelco tank. I believe there is a nice one in the Revell Orange Crate 32 Ford sedan as well

You could easily pass one off as an Art Malone chassis, as Garlits and Malone frequently collaborated together and as such, often shared their innovations. Kellison, the dune buggy and kit car manufacturer, briefly got into the knocked-down dragster chassis kit game around 1964 and those designs are said to be a knock off of the typical contemporary Garlits chassis

The 66 Falcon was not a re-skinned 1965 model. It was indeed a 1966 Fairlane from the front seat pan forward, sharing engine mounting pads, shock towers, engine bay panels, steering geometry, cowl, torque boxes, frame rails, etc. The rear portion of the front frame rails were cantilevered out rearward of the torque boxes separate of the floorpan just as they were on the new for 1966 Fairlane; a feature that was not present on the 1965 models. The engine bay, being identical to the Fairlane, could also accommodate an FE big block using the 390 GT stuff. You can't get an FE mounted into an early Falcon without heavily notching the shock towers. As a former 1:1 1966 390 GT Fairlane owner, I can tell you that it didn't bother me in the least that my car shared parts with the 3rd generation Falcon. It was just another source for parts when junkyard scrounging....

The 1/25 scale Ulrich Mini Men also come with a decent representation of the early postwar Bell helmet. Ulrich has an eBay store and usually has a few available at any given time

Emergency! (AKA Squad 51 in syndication, had a reasonably long run, from the fall of 1972 until the spring of 1977)

Thanks anyway Steve. I have a couple of the Lindberg Plymouths in the stash, will take a look

I will take you up on that offer Steve.

Perfect stance and attitude Steve!

I had been looking for a 67 or 68 Fury builder kit and was thoroughly dismayed at the prices, so I started looking at the distressed promo route. Got a decent black '67 with some weak chrome, a few scratches, a missing hood ornament and cracked windshield for under 60.00 which I didn't feel was too bad at all.

My thoughts on the day 2 concept......The cross-ram did need to be paired with the Max Wedge heads because of the port mismatch and the lack of a heat riser passage in the cross ram intake. However, just after the introduction of the 1964 Race Hemi cars, there were, all of the sudden, hundreds of obsolete Max Wedge powered Super Stockers all over the US. I know this phenomenon well because I was involved a build up/resto of a 1 to 1 Henry J A/Gas car that came by it's Stage III 426 Max Wedge powerplant in-period as a result of this sudden obsolescence. At the time, Chrysler's Inboard Marine facility was doing the assembly and warehousing for the Race Hemi and Max Wedge engines due to the hands on nature of QC involved in engines destined for competition. As you can imagine, there were a number of assembled Max Wedge drag and NASCAR spec engines and components that were already in inventory for racer contingency and for outright sale that were also obsolete for their intended purposes; so, they were liquidated at fire sale prices. I have seen the ads in the late 1964 Hot Rod magazines and indeed, you could order a brand new Max Wedge from Chrysler Marine division probably for what the over the counter price for a 318 poly would cost you. I imagine there were some takers who might have opted to plunk one into his near-new Fury and detune it with an extra set of steel shim head gaskets to drop the compression and slip in a milder Chrysler 300J solid lifter can to tame the beast enough to drive it down the highway

Don't sweat the Lindberg block Steve. It's not too bad at all once it's wearing some nicer heads and intake. I think it actually looks a little better than the Moebius 65 block

Oh yes, I forgot all about the mini-Hydroplane! And I don't think I ever remember the vans with the Honda Odyssey

PM me your adress Steve and I will get them off to you

Steve, if you really want to make that Lindberg Max Wedge pop, you should consider using the Missing Link resin cross ram intake along with the old Revell Tony Nancy wedge heads. This stuff is miles ahead of the Lindberg parts. I have extras I can send you.

While not standalone kits, these add-ins from the late seventies through the mid eighties are pretty interesting. I understand that they have pretty low parts counts, but they all seem to look the part nonetheless. I believe there was also a Formula Vee racer as well (or maybe a smaller cycle-powered single seat open wheeler). Any observations, photos, and references to kits they were released with would be welcomed.

The old Eldon "Invader" twin Pontiac powered show rod had some pretty convincing Mickey Thompson cross rams. The kit was reissued in the eighties by Doyusha. Still pretty rare but maybe someone could be convinced into casting it. Here is one that is built up (not mine) http://www.showrods.com/gallery_pages/invader2.html#

The AMT grille opening is DEFINITELY narrower than the Jo-Han. Vaughn Hart's grille is mastered from the Jo-Han part.

The SCCA created the Can Am series beginning in 1966 in order to have a prestigious race series for group 7 cars that would also attract sponsorships for big prize money and world class driving talent. The Can Am and the Trans Am series also represented the SCCA' s first attempts at a unified, professional race series under a standard set of rules, and a championship structure geared toward the car manufacturers. Prior to 1966, the group 7 cars competed in USRRC sanctioned events. Cars like the Cooper Monaco essentially created the template for all of the Can Am/Group 7 cars to follow

Does anyone cast a flat hood for the Jo-Han 1970 Roadrunner? I just purchased the SMH Resins repop and would like to build a fictitious 1970 A12 car with the lift-off 6 pack hood and need a flat one as a starting point. In a pinch, I would be willing to make something fit that was made for the Monogram 1/24 kit.