Justin Porter

Running my math against cost, $65 might be cutting it a bit thin but I could see it as a reasonable enough price given that the NuNu Lancia S4 is on my shelf for that same price. Thing is, the tooling of this kit doesn't FEEL even like a $65 kit. It's most immediate comparison - to me - is the Tamiya Alfa Giulia GTA and that was a kit that I put on the shelf for $32. Even if I stuck a "new tooling" cost creep onto this and bumped it up to $47 dollars like the Tamiya 240Z Street Custom, I'm still feeling comfortable. I feel badly too because I WANT to encourage Italeri to tool up new kits. There's a host of neat Italian cars that they could tackle that would be amazing. Maserati Mistral? Alfa Romeo GTV6? Fiat X1/9? It's fertile and untraveled ground. But good heavens does it look like we're going to have to pay dearly for it.

So. Good News and Bad News. Good News - at last ONE of my wholesale distributors has listed the Lancia Fulvia as inbound. If your local hobby shop deals with Hobbytyme out of East Hartford, CT, then they ought to be able to stock kit #3670 for anyone interested in what genuinely looks to be Italeri's nicest 1/24th scale automotive kit in a long long time. Bad News - MSRP according to Hobbytyme is a blistering $81.99! Even being full detail, nicely engineered, and including photoetch, this price definitely moves the kit out of impulse purchase range. There's no listed MAP so far, so certainly shop around for whichever shop is offering the price that suits you best, but it made me quite sad to see a kit with such potential basically being priced out of the market.

I'd be happy to see a new tool '70 Sport Fury too (though somehow I think its 300-H sibling might be a bigger seller). Like I said, it's for purely commercial reasons that I want to see kits like the '67 Camaro back at my distributor. The way that the reissues of the Model A's, the '32 Tudor, the Del Rio Wagon, and the '64 Impala have sold for me, or for how consistent sales have stayed for the '68-'69 Chevelles and the '69 Novas, all tells me that the smart bet is on solid all-around kits of practically universal subjects with a smattering of options at a sub-$35 price.

I understand it's still early days for the 2026 "plan" at Revell, but I admittedly was hoping for something a bit more blockbuster than these. There are a huge slate of high demand recent kits in Revell's tooling bank that should be very high priority to have back into production. Kits like the '67 Nickey Camaro or the '62 Corvette Gasser have an eager audience clamoring for them. I'm asking primarily from commercial interest. Personally, I'd love to see a return of the full detail Maserati Bora.

The international companies aren't especially focused on new cars so I think this is somewhat of a wrong head. Right now, the big focus in new-tooling has been doing new kits of classic subjects that either have been overlooked entirely or that have only had kits that are contemporary to their subject matter and thus aren't of modern quality. One of the best examples of this is Aoshima's new tool Nissan 180SX. Fujimi and Tamiya have offered this car for decades in their line-ups, but both kits debuted over 25 years ago and don't feature the detail or the modular design necessary to offer a wide variety of kits from a single tooling suite. There are easily dozens of domestic subjects - many of which are not in the least bit obscure - that absolutely need modern and adaptable tooling. Just coming immediately to mind are subjects like a '34 Ford 3 window coupe, '53 Cadillac Eldorado, '71-'73 Buick Riviera, '70-'73 Dodge Challenger or a track roadster style T.

For the most part, the limiting factor on the domestic kit companies is that they have a much more niche product than the global companies like Tamiya. Tamiya can count on selling a new tool kit like their Porsche 911GT3 RS or their McLaren Senna in every corner of the globe. Further from that, scale modeling is a much more popular pastime globally than it is in the USA. Not that it's unpopular in the USA, but it's not nearly as common a hobby as golfing or bowling or fantasy football leagues or so on. What this does mean is that the international companies aren't rolling the dice nearly as much with new kits of their subject matter as the domestic companies are. This is partly why Revell - an international company with a domestic face - has placed greater importance on new tooling of international subjects with instantly recognizable marketing tie-ins like the Aston Martin DB5. There's also a certain amount of market ambivalence that's hard to overcome. Domestic car builders, in large numbers, aren't nearly as fussy over details or accuracy or even fit as even their import building cousins are, let alone military builders. Typically, domestic car builders place higher importance on low price point and included options than anything else. One need look no further than the frothing glee you'll see in domestic leaning car modeling social media groups when Ollies rolls out their latest batch of Monogram reissues "because they're so cheap" even if they're kits that are known trash like the "Rampage" '69 Camaro or the ex-Revell Travolta Firebird Fever custom. If reissues of kits that were never very good are what the bulk of the market wants, as long as the price is low and there's some extra decals and wheels in the box, then that's what the manufacturers will make.

How? They only have released one production run of the Comets thus far. If they choose to fix the script gaffe, they will have to stop production on run #2, perform modifications on the body mold, potentially run a body batch to offer to customers who want corrected bodies, and THEN issue a production run with corrections. Factor in shipping from China and it could be 2nd or 3rd quarter 2026 before "Comet" is facing the right way.

The quality of the design of this kit really gives me a lot of hope going forward with the Craftsman Plus range. The chassis and interior look to be quite nice and the body is very crisp looking too. If the kits going forward are more like THIS instead of promo rehashes, I'll be quite pleased.

Truthfully, that's been a VERY frustrating thing. I have two distributors from which I get Heller kits - Stevens International and Hobbytyme. Thus far, NEITHER have listed the new tool 205GTi as even a TBA release. The same situation currently also haunts the new tool Italeri Lancia Fulvia.

This will undoubtedly be popular as the full size WRX STI is always a winner. It's also a really good sign to see Fujimi returning to the fray with new tooling given how quiet they can be at times - Evangelion Lobsters notwithstanding.

In the case of a more premium company like Moebius, I think the market is already willing to bear it. More critically, the Moebius Pro Touring Comet currently sits on my shelf at $38. The K-Code at $35. On the opposing shelf, the Hasegawa Toyota 2000GT and Volkswagen Beetle sit there at $26. The kits that cost $9-$12 LESS - even granting that they are older tooling (1993 for the Toyota and 1990 for the Beetle) have metal transfers included. Heck, the $32 dollar Tamiya Lotus Seven includes photoetch and turned aluminum intakes. I don't think it's unreasonable to say "Maybe combining a different approach for details AND offering your customers more for their money to reinforce your position as the premium manufacturer in your genre is a good call."

The Monogram Esprit is such an obnoxious contradiction. Impressive levels of detail crippled by positively horrible fit. Your build of this notorious kit looks fantastic! The choice of color really suits the car.

This was a really fun build! I made use of Quinta Studios' 3D printed decals for the interior, factory 16" alloy wheels and metal transfer badges from ZoomOn, and gave the car a nice coat of Cobra Motors Bayside Blue under their 2K Clear. The result is just a nice factory stock FD RX-7 that I like to think of as a classy addition to my fantasy garage.

This is an excellent case for why domestic kit manufacturers should adopt metal transfers like those used by Tamiya, Aoshima, and Hasegawa for scripts and badges.