Justin Porter

These are the 1/32nd scale kits. I do have some of the 1/24th scale Initial D glue kits from Aoshima and from Fujimi in stock as well though. They tend to be very easy sells and are often a gateway for Gundam builders who want to try out car building.

Pretty nicely engineered with the focus being on using clever tooling to keep costs and parts count down. I built one of the RX-7's myself and was impressed with what a good little miniature it was even without paint.

I feel fortunate that I don't have to rely on AMT to manufacture model car kits that appeal to kids. Aoshima does it admirably.

Round 2 isn't taking aim at kids with the Hot Wheels packaging but rather at the subset of Hot Wheels collectors who collect the brand just as much as they collect the toy cars themselves. Much like the Coke releases, the hope is that Hot Wheels merchandise collectors see the package, grab the kit, and put it on a shelf as just one more thing wearing the flaming wheel.

Just came in at my shop and I cam confirm the Weber equipped 289!

Well, just as I said, they arrived this week. Unusually, Moebius has followed suit with European and Asian kit manufacturers in that these kits were NOT shrink-wrapped as delivered from the distributor. This also, of course, meant I had the opportunity to photograph kit contents. I elected to snap some pictures for everyone of the Fleetmaster Coupe to show how this reissue has turned out and it is a sharp one!

Decided to do something quick just as a slump buster. This is a 1/32nd scale snap kit by Aoshima of a Mazda RX-7. Aoshima has this whole line of $20 snap car kits that we've started stocking at Haven. I figured what the heck, give one a try, and it was actually a really fun little build. The only thing I added was a bit of Tamiya Black Panel Liner.

Happy to be able to say that these have landed at distributors and I have my stock in-bound. Really excited to be able to put these on my shelves.

The AMT 70's Indy kits are definitely pretty rough but workable. Yours really does look great.

Chris Svensden at Sven's World of Wheels has posted additional CAD renders and drawings for the stock 1964 Comet. Needless to say, it's looking like it's going to be a very nice kit!

I already have a customer who's earmarked his second buy of this kit as a donor to go under the AMT '61 Ranchero.

More pictures from Sean Svensden. Now we have the CAD images of the Pro Touring Comet showing the overall model, the chassis, and the engine bay!

AMT/Ertl was getting a LOT right in terms of trying to push in more contemporary ways with their non-stock versions of the Mueller era kits. Only the '71 Charger could really be called a misstep and that's mostly down to the tragic wheel & tire package. The El Camino is a personal favorite, the '72 Corvette is highly underrated, the Bel Air is brilliant, and the Duster was even pretty cool with its "mini Viper" aesthetic and intake. That's also coupled with the excellent lowrider versions of the Monte Carlo and Riviera, and the 60's custom versions of the '62 Pontiac and '57 300C. It still makes me so sad we never got to see that bullet-nose Studebaker.

I don't feel builders have to defend why they like building certain kits at all. I don't even necessarily feel that these kits don't have a place on the market. What I do see is an immutable truth that new tooling makes my register go ding (Moebius Novas, Revell '71 Mustang) and clone tooling doesn't. There have been - I will grant - a small handful of Craftsman Plus releases that haven't held this as true. The Nova Wagon, the '68 GTO, and the '64 Malibu have genuinely been winners. I don't at all disregard that there is a market for these kits, nor do I feel that Round 2 shouldn't be fulfilling that market. Further, we also have Atlantis fulfilling the nostalgia release market with their acquisition of the Revell and Monogram back catalogs. Do I think there's necessarily room in the market for a third nostalgia brand marketing to nostalgia oriented customers? Not especially. My sales data tells me that the market is already slim for the two we have. A third one, operating from entirely new tooling (reverse engineered or otherwise) with an even smaller catalog of subjects than the first and second, slices up an already thin market. That being said, I can't tell nostalgia oriented customers NOT to want what they want. That's not my place. However, my JOB is trying to understand what casual builders buy. Casual builders are the ones who don't have basements full of previous releases of vintage kits, and aren't necessarily going to track down a Racing Champions era or Ertl era reissue of an AMT kit at a show because they know it can be grabbed for half the going MSRP of a Round 2 release (and I do mean that when we're staring down the barrel of $41.99 sticker price on the Trophy Series '49 Mercury). They're the ones who plunk down their money for a kit of a subject they like and get to play roulette with tooling ages. In an instance where Jo-Han came back as an injection molded plastic kit company, in regular distribution channels, it is LIKELY that they would carry a premium MSRP. That's a pretty common sense statement. That hypothetical Jo-Han would likely be even higher in price than Round 2, potentially crowding a $45-$50 price point. Whether or not they're comparable subject matter, that's still new-tool Tamiya sports car money. And I have no doubt there are likely casual builders who would still gladly plunk down $50 for a Heavenly Hearse or a '70 Rebel Machine without any idea of who Jo-Han was or what they did just because it's cool subject matter. BUT THAT IS THE PROBLEM! As the MSRP's continue to climb and the base of casual builders continues to get younger as Gundam builders and racing sim players and other such hobbyists give model car building a try, they're increasingly finding that they're not getting their money's worth out of those boxes. I want the hobby to continue to grow, and expand, and evolve. I don't even necessarily want wonder kits. Think about a common as crabgrass subject like the 1970 Dodge Challenger. Now recall that we have three positively mediocre kits of it (Monogram 1/24th T/A, Lesney AMT 1/25th, Revell ex-diecast 1/25th). A decently modular 1/25th scale 1970/71 Challenger R/T, tooled to no higher an expectation of detail and fidelity than say the AMT/Ertl '62 Bel Air, with a target MSRP of $35.95, would be a product that would sell by the caseload and that I would happily applaud regardless if it were wearing a Revell or Fujimi or MPC or Jo-Han label on the box. That is literally ALL that I recommend instead of the nostalgia releases for the sake of the hobby at large. Give EVERYONE their money's worth and the sales will come. It's not that bizarre a concept.