OK, got some catching up to do. Shameless "self-plug": my wife gave birth to our second child (boy) a couple of days ago. That means I have to put off building that '80 Volare RR for my first son! (who, BTW, at the age of four is already a Mopar fan!!)
You're absolutely right. I would just feel horrible if I screwed up a kit that I shelled out $150 for!
In fact, after the Virgil Exner disaster in the early 60s, Chrysler Co execs issued an internal edict saying that they would follow GMs designs by 1-2 years. The 71-72 body design was suppose to debut in the fall of '69 as a 1970, but budget problems pushed it back a year. I had read somewhere there were even a couple of "1971 GTXs" built either very late in '69 or very early in 1970, before the 1970 model year had finished, but who knows if that was really true; it probably was a myth. Although with the discovery of those 1972 six pack 440s, ya never know.
It sounds that would have been Tor Red. The real question is, did the spoiled brat wrap that RR around a telephone pole, or did he wrap it around a tree? Because only one of the two had to have happened.
It HAS to be that the tooling is damaged. Why else wouldn't they release it? It seems like a no-brainer to reissue it: there's pent up demand, the kits sell quickly on ebay even at an absolutely crazy high price, Mopar kits are always popular and those cars especially... I mean, maybe I'm talking out of my butt here, but I just can't understand why they won't reissue them. Especially after reissuing the '80 Volare Road Runner. If your gonna do that kit, at least put out the 71/72 as well.. come on!
Is there anyone at Round2 that can confirm/deny that the tooling was destroyed? I'm desperate. If it is true that the tooling was trashed, that would be a real shame. Although, wouldn't they be able to take an original 71-72 kit and reverse engineer it?
And, yes '72 would be ideal! Not that ugly air-grabber hood '71 kit!
Thank you for pointing that out gtx6970. Everyone claims that there was a massive detuning for '72 but that's simply not true. The detuning actually happened in '71 to appease insurance companies. The '68-70 RR 383s were a different story.
The '71 383 and the '72 400 are identical, same block, same NET hp/tq numbers, the 400 just had a bigger bore to account for slightly lower compression. It's the switch to "SAE net" hp ratings in '72 that throws people off.