Justin Porter

Eager to see how this goes together for you. I keep staring at them knowing I'll have one soon enough but never seem to pull the trigger. lol

My distributor lists the MSRP on the kit as $32.95, which is ultimately about right on par for a Round 2 kit currently. Interestingly, the '67 SS427 2dr that this kit is based upon is still listed at a $28.95 MSRP so there's a little price creep tied in with the retooling and the licensing for the show.

It must be something on ROI that's not adding up because I did just a little brief check-up on Scalemates. The newest GTO kit tooling is Polar Lights' pair of full detail snappers from 2005 (1964 and 2004). Then you have Revell's lovely '66 kit which bowed in 1998. The Monogram 1/24th scale '69 goes all the way back to 1982 and the Monogram '64 arrived in 1985. For such a popular and genre critical subject among domestic car builders, the Pontiac GTO has been utterly shafted when it comes to tooling.

In a kind and just world, there would be modern tooling of any if not all of those three. How warped is it that the closest to a modern GTO Judge kit there is comes in the form of 1/24th scale Monogram tooling?

Built that particular kit myself last year and it's such a dream of a piece. It's a shame Tamiya has only issued it twice. Yours is looking particularly good with the little additions to flesh it out.

Not necessarily. The new NSX kit has excellent engine detail and an MSRP of $53. All the same, as has been pointed out, modern racing builders don't necessarily WANT engines for building. They want accurate bodies and well-fitting interiors that make for excellent decal canvases.

This is quite true. Tamiya has had huge success with their AMG GT3 kit which has similar engineering. Offer an accurate body, a complete interior, and choose a subject that has a ton of attractive liveries then let the aftermarket decal producers like Shunko or Indycals or Studio 27 do your sales work for you.

Wow. Way to really scrape the bottom of that barrel, Round 2.

Absolutely. MAYBE if DaimlerChrysler had played nice in the late 90's/early 00's with licensing fees on Chrysler you would have seen Tamiya release a kit of the Daytona winning Oreca-Viper GTS-R but that's about as "international broad appeal" as the Viper ever got. It's a bit of a bummer because at that time you did see Tamiya kits of McLaren-Mercedes F1 cars and Mercedes DTM cars, but not Chrysler products.

Tamiya does very well with American subjects but primarily in the more lucrative air and armor segments in the hobby. I've sold a TON of their all-new for 2019 1/48th scale P-38F/G Lightning. Tamiya generally does about 4 to 10 new tool kits a year across their whole line and usually only one to three of those are cars because cars just don't represent the sales that air and armor do. With that in mind, they're always going to choose either the most globally appealing (LaFerrari, 300SL Gullwing) or the most domestically appealing (A90 Supra, NSX) car to produce. You might luck out with Nunu, though. They're being very aggressive with their lineup of GT3 kits and enough vocal builders with open wallets might actually convince them to kit a C8-R.

Not going to argue there. It's definitely not the Tamiya F1 crowd that's at my counter simpering and stewing about drug and department store prices from 50 years ago, but I didn't want to be too pointed.

Fixed it for you there, Luc.

According to distributor Stevens International, current Round 2 MSRP on their AMT '69 Chevelle is $30.95 while Revell's MSRP on their upcoming in July '69 Chevelle is $26.95. True, decades of cheap secondhand AMT '69 Chevelles are out there, but new on the hobby shop shelf there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to buy the AMT '69 Chevelle.

Being an old Aurora tool, it's a bit of a weird homunculus of MkI and MkII with most of the details being sheer guesswork given that the kit was tooled while the car was still being refined on track. Even the contemporary IMC kit outshines the Aurora in just about every respect, but with the existence of the excellent Fujimi MkII kit, there's simply no reason to bother with the Aurora tooling.

I'm always psyched to see one of your builds, Alex, but admittedly this time I'm following primarily because this is one of those "just what DOES that one look like built up?" kits. I always vaguely recall it being in the Tamiya catalog but I never saw it on a shop shelf or saw pictures of build-ups like some sort of mirage.

Lovely build!

Should be a fascinating build. I see the Aoshima long tail kit built so much more often than the Fujimi short tail or street car.

That really does look amazing. Always great to see one of the Monogram Classics built.

Looks great! Those Zero paints really nail down the Gulf hue.

Just finished this Tamiya 1/24th scale Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4. It's painted in TS-47 Chrome Yellow, with Fujimi 18" Sportec wheels in AK Real Color Gunmetal. There's a few glitches here and there but it was meant as a fun side project from some of my more involved builds.

So, this popped up in the "Future Releases" section of one of my distributors, with a TBA on release date and a surprisingly reasonable $249.95 expected MSRP. Judging by the inset image, this may simply be a reissue of the Tamiya kit, possibly with updated decals. Given how long it's been since the kit was available it will still be a welcome return. Who knows, it might be Ebbro's toe in the water for 1/12th scale kits of their own.

Looks like it turned out pretty well!

I would have to say those results are worth the fight.

Not one of my favorites to work with. I did this Nova as a commissioned body for a local slot car drag racer and all it seemed to be was misery eliminating mold lines and block sanding to try and get some semblance of smoothness out of the panels. No amount of sanding seemed to get the grille to line up in a satisfactory way, and every pass with the flexifiles meant that much less surface for glue, meaning that to make the front end sturdy enough for drag racing duty I ended up with a puddle of epoxy in each front fender. It's a nicely proportionate body, and the detail is quite solid, but I wouldn't build one for myself.

I've never understood the "Moebius = Tamiya" comparison. For certain, Moebius has lovely detail and engraving, but at the same time I want to grab their tooling staff by the shirt and scream at them "UNDERGATES!!!"