Justin Porter

I'll fully concede on the revisions being made to the body as being worthwhile. I'll dispute on MSRP, though. Currently Stevens International is showing $30.95 as MSRP while Hobbytyme has not given a set list price. Those are my two primary wholesale accounts. Which wholesale distributor is listing $26.99 because I'd LOVE to be able to purchase and stock Round 2 product at that number instead of my going rate against $30.95 and up on Round 2 auto kits.

Firstly, I don't begrudge them to the builders that enjoy them nor do I disagree that they represent the broadest range of kitted domestic subjects. I don't even necessarily dislike that Round 2 has taken the time to resurrect this or similar kits for those who want them. I will, however, contest the idea - and contest stridently - that it was the combination of AMT, MPC, and Johan who pioneered the detailed automotive model kit in plastic. Factually, it was Gowland & Gowland and their acetate Highway Pioneer kits in 1/32nd scale, marketed under their new REVELL brand name that first brought detailed scale miniature kits of cars to the public. In ostensibly 1/24th scale, you would point to Monogram and their Midget Racer as one of if not the earliest detailed model car kits. The SMP kits wouldn't debut until 1958, EIGHT YEARS after Revell's Highway Pioneers and TWO YEARS after Monogram's Midget. To offer up the idea that the idea of the detailed model car kit comes out of the Annuals, or that it would not have come to pass without the Annuals, ignores the far greater historical contribution to the hobby of modeling that Revell and Monogram have made domestically than AMT, MPC, and the like. Yes, there is the "subject matter" statement to make. This is subject matter that interests many domestic builders. No doubt about that. But that doesn't make it good and that doesn't make it good for the industry at large.

Yes. Yes I did. The annuals were a byproduct of an unusual time when certain "model" companies could pad their bottom line by offering unassembled examples of dealership advertising giveaways. AMT, MPC, and Johan were being hired to produce these marketing trinkets and then could add a nice profit cherry on top by tossing decals and instructions in a box with the unassembled leftovers. They had their place during a very brief window in the history of the hobby, and they vanished in the same breath as the competitiveness of the domestic auto industry. I understand their place in the grand scheme of things. I don't regard them with the fondness that many do. I feel their legacy is more of a hindrance than a help to domestic model kit manufacturers who still struggle with the very concept of "A detailed miniature of a physical object".

I have nothing especially against curbside kits. Quite frankly, some of the nicest kits I've built are curbsides like Aoshima's MGB or Hasegawa's Miura. I don't even think that $30.95 (Round 2's MSRP) is a bad price point for a nice curbside. I don't think this will be a nice curbside. I think the body proportions will be good but the headlights will be chromed, the door handles will be molded in place, the windshield wipers will be molded in place, the glass will be three scale miles thick, the interior will be an unrealistically shallow tub with barely any side panel detail, there will be no inner pillar or headliner detail, and there will be large exposed EPM's in difficult to fill locations. I understand entirely that the market Round 2 aims at doesn't often cross-shop Hasegawa or the like, but when Round 2 keeps pushing their MSRP into that realm, it's important to keep in mind that for all the "They fixed the Boss Nova body!" goodness, they're still not matching the quality of offering of their competitors.

I have a Studebaker Avanti project that I got totally burned out on because I was trying to do things like correct a molded in starter and remove ejector pin marks in chrome parts and on and on down the list. And I adore the Studebaker Avanti as a gorgeous car but just couldn't keep beating my head against the wall that was the AMT kit with my tools and techniques at the time.

It's definitely not the tool-cutters in China who are the problem, but rather the lack of fundamental oversight on the finished product by those who were in charge at Revell at the time of those kits. If you actually look at military kits done by purely Chinese companies like Takom or Meng or Ryefield they're outstanding kits generally accepted to be leaders in their genre. In particular, Ryefield has positively smashed nearly 25 years of uninterrupted dominance in the 1/35th scale Tiger I market by Dragon. No one who has ever opened the box on one of those kits would place the blame on Chinese manufacturing. The blame lies squarely on Revell having spent decades upon decades designing down to an unrealistic price point to suit a big box retail business model that no longer exists.

Loving seeing these updates to an older resin kit. Probably one of my favorite forms of modeling is builders who look at a part and just say "That doesn't look like the real thing" and then proceed just as you do.

My 6 year old knows "Doc Hudson". He has no idea what a Ford Maverick is. Like it or not, Pixar's most profitable movie franchise has had a huge impact on youth awareness of that particular classic stock car. Kids who were 6 when Cars first came out in 2006 are now 20. Oddly enough, some of them grew up to like cars, and some of them build models, and they're most often my Moebius Hornet customers.

Wait, so you're suggesting that rivet counters don't just spontaneously generate issues with kits if they're properly designed from the get go? That's absurd! That would suggest that they merely want accurate model kits!

Can confirm. At the moment one of my distributors (Hobbytyme) is Out of Stock on the Vega and the other (Stevens International) has it still listed as TBA release date. Would have been in less of a holding pattern on the Vegas if Rye Field Models hadn't just rolled out their full interior Sherman and if I didn't have such a run on Eduard's MkI Spitfire.

NMF - Naked Metal Finish, like on a B-29 Superfortress or F-86 Sabre. NMF build techniques range from being unhappy with a single shade of "silver" or "aluminum" to attempting to cover the whole build in Bare Metal Foil to careful multi-toning with metal paints like from Alclad, Vallejo, or AK Interactive. Heck, I enjoy working with Vallejo Metal Color and Alclad and I avoid NMF airplane builds if I can.

It's been some time since I've moved one of the AMT '58 Edsels so at least in terms of the most recent reissue it hasn't been a door-buster compared to other kits. It's not a kit I wouldn't stock at all, but it's definitely a "restock as needed" on my list rather than keeping a supply on hand. But I will also say this, 50's cars seem to be more of a turn off to my casual builder crowd than a turn on. Big swaths of chrome trim that either need foil or careful detail painting make for a daunting build regardless of which particular big American barge it happens to be. It's like how on my aircraft side, NMF airplanes aren't as popular as ones with easier to master OD or solid block camo patterns.

The Tamiya street car kit remains a strong seller at my shop on account of Tamiya keeping the MSRP low and the kit going together reasonably easily for its age. There's definitely room in the market, though, for an updated version as I agree that the interior really isn't up to snuff in terms of detail and the engraving on the chassis could be much better. It would be nice, too, if Hasegawa engineers the kit with male hubs instead of female hubs so that aftermarket wheel sets could be readily used. That's one of the big Achilles heels of the Tamiya kit from a lot of builder's perspectives.

I don't at all disagree with the folks who are unhappy it's a Mustang. I still want a modern 1968-70 AMX. I'm baffled that the Austin-Healey 3000 has never been offered in plastic. I think that it's incredibly frustrating that your choices for 50's Cadillacs in plastic are limited to either the Monogram '59 or the Arii '57. I consider it bizarre that an ancient Revell kit remains the best option for a Ferrari 308GTB. But I know my shop will sell a bunch of these Mustangs. There is no good kit of this car, even if there are kits of this car and kits of other cars that have the same name as it.

The bean counters have it right. Revell hasn't offered this subject. So they've never made a dime off of 1971-1973 Mustang kit sales. They will get this kit to market and it will not only be better detailed than the comparable Round 2 reissue of old MPC tooling, but it will also beat Round 2 on MSRP, meaning that they'll corner the market on what is a popular subject. Right now, from my distributors, I could order any one of THIRTY SIX different 1/35th scale Tiger I tank kits from EIGHT different manufacturers. In the rest of the modeling world, the more popular a subject is, the bigger the pie is that the modeling companies want a slice of. You see this with P-51D Mustangs and Tiger tanks and the Bismarck. It's actually a weird incongruity that auto kit manufacturers will simply let a competitor have 100% of the sales of a particular subject instead of, you know, COMPETING with each other by offering unique or superior products.

What can I say? It's exciting news and should put to ease anyone who was worried that Revell wasn't going to handle American domestic cars anymore in new tooling since the latest tooling had been a Land Rover and a Jaguar.

Revell USA has just posted pictures to their Facebook pictures of a 1971 Mustang undergoing Lidar scanning with the words "The start of a 100% new tool from Revell, beginning with 3D Scanning a '71 Boss 351 Mustang!" attached. Seems that the worry as to whether or not Revell was still going forward with new tool domestic subject kits can be put to rest.

Firstly, thank you for offering your patronage were it geographically feasible! Every dollar in the till is one we didn't have before. As to the inventory question, in truth that's one of the things my Dad and I set to resolve that we disliked about some of the bygone local hobby shops previously. In many cases, they simply refused to stock anything that the owners felt were too niche or too expensive or that they personally didn't hold an interest in. Admittedly, our on-hand quantity (speaking to kits specifically) tends to be in the ones or twos of a kit, but that allows us to keep a greater variety on hand especially on the military side where there are so many countless manufacturers. Generally speaking, the only times where we hold things to an "as ordered only" item if at all possible is on very large kits like the Trumpeter 1/200th scale battleship kits or if there's an HKM 1/32nd scale 4 engine bomber that we don't currently have in stock. These are items that represent multiple hundreds of dollars in cost AND a large amount of shelf space. We try not to bring them in as speculative items very often. Although we usually have at least one out of the line of kits on hand in order to demonstrate that yes, we do handle that line and are aware of that product. And while I understand shops and their approaches to kit stocking varying from ours, supplies running thin is inexcusable. Lately it has been excruciating for us to wait on wholesalers to restock on high-demand colors of Tamiya 23ml jars (our biggest paint mover by far) and we absolutely hate having ANY outs on our paint wall.

Haven't had that experience yet but I have spoken with builder who come in for supplies - paint and tools being my leading revenue streams by far compared to kit sales of any kind - who when prompted that I just brought in X new domestic release inform me "Yeah, sorry. Picked it up with my coupon at Hobby Lobby." As a little "peek behind the curtain", that Hobby Lobby settled on 40% off strikes me as no accident as that is the going rate of initial wholesale discount that most distributors (certainly my primary ones) offer to small shops. Effectively, Hobby Lobby coupons at a rate to where local shops have to sell at cost to match them and on volume items like domestic auto kits that's practically untenable. The route my shop has taken has been appealing to local "serious builders" by instead offering club discounts to both local and national organizations such as IPMS and NMRA. It works, plus it gives us an ear to the ground on upcoming product buzz, but I won't deny that Hobby Lobby's practices have a decidedly aimed feel.

I'll say this much. Yes, Hobby Lobby eats into a chunk of my shop's "square box" domestic car kit sales. Their ability to fire sale kits with those 40% coupons does some genuine damage to the overall volume of our domestic car kit sales. But in doing so, that just means that domestic car kits have become a shrinking sector of my business with increased focus on military kits, Gundam, and imported car kit brands that Hobby Lobby has no interest in stocking. I don't fault Round 2 and Revell for allying with Hobby Lobby. It keeps them around and I do keep their products because even selling a percentage of their kits that my local Hobby Lobby does still represents a good amount of sales for me. However, I know what I have to do to justify my business to my customers, and that means a steady commitment to "Heh, can't get THAT at Hobby Lobby" to keep them coming through the door.

So here's the first auto announcement after announcing the GM licensing deal.

The Snoopy kits will likely sell well for their production run if they come in at a reasonable MSRP. For me, they're perfect sub-$20 impulse sale items to folks who are looking for something to pass the time. I'm expecting I'll probably sell a few to my regulars for a laugh and a few to my casual browsers who will think it's cute. As a retail product, I'm honestly excited for them even if I wouldn't build them myself.

Looks great and makes sense that a fellow NE Ohioan would build Bobby Rahal's car so well.

Looks great! That's easily one of my favorite Tamiya kits so it's always good to see one built.

Count me among the buyers on the Kurtis Midget. It was such a lovely kit and it delivered nearly everything a vintage open wheel fan could want of the subject. At the same time, I'm not shocked either that it wasn't exactly a cash cow. More surprising, though, is that the "new tool" Funny Cars - the Hawaiian and the ChiTown Hustler - also seemed to sit on shelves much longer than anticipated. Though quite frankly the best selling Revell race car kit I've had in my shop since we opened has been the IMSA Ford GT.