Dave Darby

They look great!

I had a bagged version of that I picked off off ebay back in 2015. Somebody was dumping a bunch off cheap. It's a super nice kit, with really good accurate detail.

It's a newly tooled kit. But I do agree about the price point. Revell prices their curbside kits lower than their full glue kits.

You squeezed the Ala Kart interior in quite nicely too. That's a neat rodney!

Looks great on the Roadster as well.

Subject, execution, and color, all top notch. Absolutely beautiful build, Steve!

That's one sweet Bird!

Ha, I just saw this after 4(!) years. Giving it a well deserved bump.

Comet tool is likely gone. The 63 Tempest was modified to an AWB car.

The headlights on the 56 do not have the chrome reflectors behind the lenses. The lenses have pins that go into holes in the body. I drilled mine out on both my 56 and my 57. The 57 got reflectors from a 56 Victoria, while my custom 56 T-bird got the Lucas Flamethrower headlamps from the 55 Nomad. I think chassis wise, the 56 would make a very good donor for the 57.

The 56 wasn't really quite up to those standards. The engine is rather dodgy, and missing fuel pump detail. It suffered from being designed post - Mueller era. I built a very customized one for my wife, and sourced a lot of parts from the old 57, including the not so chunky windshield frame. It's not a bad kit. It just could have been better. It's certainly a lot better than the 58 Plymouth.

Exactly how somebody needs to do a Deuce frame. Then we'd finally get some accurate rails!

Looking good so far! I drilled my headlights out, and added the reflectors from the 56 Ford kit, with lenses from the 50 Ford Convertible. Good call spacing out the taillights. Way more realistic. Here's my review of the current version of the kit. https://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/187750-round2-57-thunderbird-amt-139712-2023-complete-detailed-review/

In most areas, I find the Monogram 56 better than the AMT 56. Proportionally however, I think the AMT 57 beats both of them.

The roof by Drag City Casting is based off of the Craftsman kit version, which is much better than the glue kit version that was added to the second issue in 1966. It's really nice. Both of these roofs are from Drag City Casting.

According to what I've read, and According to the instruction sheet pictured, the 57 kit from 1962 was derived from the promo tool. In fact, if you compare, most of the promo parts will interchange with the glue kit. There were actually more than one 57 Tbird promo tool cut. That may be what the Craftsman version was derived from.

Looking good! Definitely following this build.

Next time you're at Hobby Lobby, pick up an AMT 63 Impala. It has a whole set of those American Daisy mags.

The rear piece is from the AMT 1961 Falcon Ranchero Styline kit.

The engine in these kits is closer to an FE engine, so the closest bet is the Y block from the one issue only Revell stock 56 F100. Following that, there's any number of Y blocks, from the Revell 57 Fords, and the AMT 56 and Fords. But they will need the exhaust manifolds with the front crossover pipe added or made. When dual exhausts were added, they'd either run a pipe off the front left manifold, use headers, or the rare 57-64 C Series cabover Rams horn manifolds. Regular LH passenger car manifolds dumped into the steering box.

I'll second that they are some fantastic builds. As far as Atlantis having the tools, at least as far as the 1/24th stuff, that isn't too likely. Revell Monogram just reissued the 32 Roadster a couple of years ago, and I think both the T and A (last seen as the Blue Bandito) are still with Revell/Monogram as well. Maybe they can be convinced to run some retooled parts, although the Boss A Bone, being a Tom Daniel design is likely out of the question.

I'm in the Midlands (Columbia). What city are you in?

The top is too tall, and the front wheel openings are too long. The grille looks off to me as well. The Monogram 57 Chevys share those issues. That was a definite low period for the Monogram design department. Funny part is how many toys that were mastered off of those kits, that share the same inaccuracies.

I very much agree with that. That's one reason I did not use the word "just". I have built plenty of models "out of the box", especially during my box art building days. And, it is relaxing. I actually have a few that are simply polished plastic. But I've been kit-bashing since I started building, at around the age of 6. The whole point of building models is to have fun, so basically, "you do you". My point was that if you are an out of box builder, it's going to be rare that a manufacturer is going to build precisely the configuration of kit you are looking for. Hence, perhaps people should spend less time bashing kit contents, and more time kit-bashing. It's fun.

That is so very true. And for builders like me, a kit is just the raw materials of a project. I don't just see what it is. I see what I can make it into. When I was in art class in Junior High, we got to pick our own projects to work on. My best friend and I picked model cars, and our teacher told us "Absolutely not!" as his view was that they were like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. My friend and I were able to make the case that we didn't build straight out of the box, and that we cut and swapped and customized our projects. He let us do it, and we both got A's. That said, the changes Revell made to the 32 Sedan made it even closer to what I would want than before. But again, are you a builder or an assembler?