Justin Porter

One thing I have genuinely seen is that late 40's and early 50's subject matter does sell well particularly to customizers and to replica stock builders. Historic and iconic curiosities that haven't been in styrene before are ripe subject matter for such a kit. This is why we have seen such a rise in commercially available 3D files for such vehicles. As to "no significant movie history" that's a bit of an absurd statement given that the car is straight up name-checked in a classic line from one of the most beloved media franchises on the planet.

Here's a suggestion that I would say would actually move a fair number of kits - whatever blueprints/research/tooling bucks might still exist of the aborted '50 Studebaker two door project from the end of the Mueller era need to be employed to finally give us THAT kit as conceived.

It was during the heart of the Racing Champions ownership that also gave us the much maligned '58 Belvedere and new tool Ala Kart, so getting things right wasn't job one at AMT during that unhappy period. The thought process was a very callous "What do kids care as long as it has the logo on the box?" This period went so far as to revive the MPC '69 Camaro for a FnF sequel Yenko Camaro release. Famously, this is the '69 Camaro kit that is so proportionally off that the Monogram Rampage Camaro was considered an improvement.

Spending a lot of time in online modeling forums that were more tuner/exotic build oriented back when those kits were new, I can tell you that they helped sow the initial seeds among millenial model builder backlash AGAINST AMT. The line was roundly mocked for badly proportioned bodies, basic detail inaccuracies (such as the Eclipse having the base model FWD non-turbo driveline!), being the "wrong" scale as their audience primarily were 1/24th scale builders, lack of stock options, and (the biggest crime in the tuner modeling world) absolutely horrible wheels and wheel attachment method. This year at Shizuoka, Aoshima announced an all-new tool MkIV Supra that replicates the famous orange Supra from the first FnF movie. Given that the Aoshima kit will be nicer and quite likely cheaper than the AMT kit, it would be daft of them to go head to head in the marketplace on that release.

Agree WHOLLY there. A direct comparison would be the Red Wheel '48 Caddy which is currently $198 at Spot Model but has this for kit contents.

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.

Another post from Sven's World of Wheels confirming the stock Comet. "Here is the artwork I created for the upcoming all new Moebius 1964 K-Code Mercury Comet. This version will be stock and have an accurate stock K-Code dual 4-barrel 289 engine and full detail chassis. No release date yet, but tooling is finished and production is being scheduled."

There are several things that can and will kill a hobby shop in the current climate. Here's the five biggest pitfalls that I see entirely too often. 5 - Narrow Focus Even the shops that are primarily RC or primarily railroad are taking a beating right now with escalating costs of merchandise, growing overhead, and reduced discretionary/leisure spending. It's a bad time to "stay in your lane." 4 - Aging Inventory This is slightly different from narrow focus in that shops that aren't turning shelves are shops that are letting rot sink in. I've gone so far as to start date tagging inventory on my shelves so that I know when it's time to give long-time residents the boot in favor of something fresh. 3 - Presentation Matters While there's a lot of charm to the classic hobby shop vibe that feels one part hardware store, one part best friend's basement, it's DEVASTATING to actual retail sales. Shops that are neat, orderly, departmented, artworked, planogrammed, and otherwise INVITING to first-time shoppers create second-time shoppers. 2 - Going Quiet You absolutely cannot afford to shut up about your business. Social media in particular offers multiple avenues to promote products, sales, and services. Don't have something to talk about? Share someone else's news as many manufacturers in the hobby space have highly effective social media channels creating weekly or even daily content. If you aren't in front of potential customers' eyes, then you're not even at the back of their mind. 1 - Every Dollar Counts It's a very easy trap to fall into to start to disregard smaller items and smaller sales, but you HAVE to treat customers who just need a bottle of paint or a roll of tape or pack of #11 blades with the same encouragement, enthusiasm, and dignity as you do your high rollers. Treating every customer with value and decency, remembering that their positive experience will keep them coming through your door and ringing your register, will ultimately keep the lights on, the shelves stocked, and the hobby thriving. At least, that's one Hobby Shop owner's take on the business.

Anyone who claims video games offer instant gratification never actually attempted to beat one. Have you ever engaged with the speed-running community? Or guilds of online RPG players who sink years of time into co-ordinated campaigns with other players? Or tournament fighting game players? Or are you just basing that off of "I put a quarter into Space Invaders this one time and it wasn't my thing." More to the point, frankly, the "modelers not assemblers" line is about as tired as they come. Yes, our hobby has had its Augie Hiscanos and its Gerald Wingroves and other true artisans. But choosing a badly engineered kit as the basis for your build doesn't automatically make you the Bernini of polystyrene. It's a weird WEIRD behavior to naysay people who say "You know, this product makes the hobby more enjoyable and more accessible for more people. Why don't we do products like this more often?" on the grounds of "Because if they don't do the work I do they aren't as good at enjoying themselves as me."

The fly in the ointment of your theory is Revell. The new-tool Revell 1971 Mustang Mach 1, kit #4555, carries at it's absolute steepest (distributor Stevens International) an MSRP of $28.95. This is a kit that very neatly fits in with your "state of the art" definition, being an exceptionally detailed kit that was 100% new from the ground up. The immediate comparison would be AMT's upcoming 1966 Shelby Mustang. This is one of AMT's "cloned" kits, which is to say that it's derived from and/or engineered to replicate a vintage kit. Nearly the same age of tooling (regardless of cloning), from the same distributor (that is to say, Stevens International), and the MSRP on the Shelby is an eye-watering $41.99. That's a full $13.04 MORE than the Revell and in a strange moment of serendipity, $13.04 less than the equally state-of-the-art Tamiya kit of the modern racing GT4 Mustang. I think there is an exceptionally valid question to be answered as to WHY we give Round 2 the leeway to "save money" on intentionally retro kit design while remaining at a consistently higher MSRP than Revell and Moebius and only being beaten for the top MSRP spot by Salvinos JR; a company with a truly niche product that's entirely USA produced.

There are certainly quite a few underserved categories that you would think are in the wheelhouse of the domestic label kit manufacturers. Full and midsize personal luxury coupes - malaise era or not - are certainly among them. A good example of the potential success can be found in Revell's recent G-body Cutlass. That being said, Moebius currently is neck deep in new-tool projects, Round 2 isn't terribly interested in cutting all-new tooling, and Revell has gone all-but silent when it comes to communicating future domestic auto projects, leaning more heavily on marketing their upcoming 1/32nd scale military aircraft kits.