the other Mike S.

Wow! That looks great! It’s even better (more realistic) looking than the 2dr coupe.

The side window aperture stills looks a little too narrow to me. I wonder if reducing some of the lower window sill height/thickness would make it look better. I know you can sand some of it off when building it, but can they still change this in the CAD stage before cutting the actual tooling?

GM did an even more clever facelift/modification of that platform for the first gen Seville. They had to slightly lengthen the chassis, add more body mounts and chassis braces to attain a more luxury feel for Cadillac buyers. However, it was basically an X-body underneath. They even shared the same roof stampings (front half) until Fisher body figured out a way to add the Seville specific C-pillar/backlight without welding. I really like the ‘75-‘79 Nova and I hope Round 2 reissues it again since the last “retro” release was very short-lived.

As long as the body is accurate, that’s all I care about. No chop top greenhouses like their recent Jaguar XKE and older Mustang LX notchback kits. Even Moebius has a slight chop top in their recent test shots of the upcoming ‘65 Chevy II gasser kit. However, I think they plan to fix that before it gets to the final tooling stage.

It didn’t look that bad on the Beretta because the real car had them nestled up against the A-pillar. The Corvette mirrors were mounted separately on the door so it looked more obvious. Like Rob Hall stated, they probably made them that way to fit in the regular promo boxes and not have small parts that would break and fall off. The odd thing about the Beretta was the molded in mirrors were actually way too small in scale compared to the real car. They looked like small little knubs on the model car body. No doubt made that way to fit in the regular promo boxes that year. Well, at least they were not as egregious as Johan by actually shortening the model car body a few inches to fit in the promo box. Johan did that to the ‘59 Cadillacs so they could fit the cars in the standard size promo box without having to invest in a slightly longer box.

I don’t think the previous issue was testing the waters per se. The second issue with the trailer is just another way for them to amortize development costs in the initial tooling investment. I think it would be better to offer the trailer and race parts as a separate parts pack release. Maybe they will offer the trailer and race parts as a separate kit on its own after they see how well the second release sells at a higher price point with those parts.

I never like the molded into the A-pillar mirrors on the convertibles. That seemed to be a lazy design effort from (MPC) AMT/Ertl.

The MPC ‘81 Camaro Z28 was last reissued in ‘86 as a “Pro Street” model with non stock wheels and tires. Also, it came with the earlier style ‘78-‘79 style hood instead of the “Cowl Induction” hood from the ‘80 “Super-Z” and ‘81 “Turbo-Z” annuals. So, either the tooling was lost for that particular hood or they just used the ‘78-‘79 hood for some reason. The bumpers were not too bad, but the rear bumper was way too wide and overlapped the body sides. The rear spoiler was a pure eye ball effort so that would need to be completely retooled to look accurate. The big block is actually not too bad since it fills out the rather stark engine bay quite well. Other than that, it wasn’t a bad kit and would be great to see reissued again. The ‘72 Chevelle is another I would like to see reissued again. I don’t know what they did to the last reissue where they fubared the front grill, but it didn’t look that bad during the SS Slasher and the ProStreet reissues of the early ‘80’s. They could even crib the wheels from the ‘86 El Camino SS kit and offer a “Heavy Chevy” building option.

The Caprice selling like a hot fart in church? No way, no how, in any shape of the word for that particular kit. When the last Retro release came out, I made sure to buy two for the stash knowing they would sell out quickly and be very hard to find after that. And, guess what? I was 100% right. All of the hobby shops around here quickly sold out during the initial release. It’s due for another reissue IMO. Also, what happened to the recent 1/16th scale ‘82 Firebird reissue? It suddenly vanished from most vendor sites with ridiculous prices being asked on Ebay. That one, I don’t get. Did the tooling get accidentally destroyed after the latest reissue or something? The 1/16th scale ‘79 Firebird Trans Am reissue is still easy to find at very reasonable prices.

I agree with the ‘76 Caprice and the ’80 Monte Carlo. We haven’t seen those in over a decade while the other stuff seems to be recycled every other year. Another one I’d like to see again is the Squad Rod ‘79 Nova. The newer Retro release came and went and now prices have gone through the roof for that version as well. Also, I’d like them to offer a stock version with the stock wheels and tires like the original annual. They can easily crib the stock wheels from the old ‘86 El Camino SS kit. Or, if they wanted to tool up some new base model hubcaps for it, that would be great too.

I’ll take the original body with the incorrect driver’s side window opening since people are still willing to pay $300+ for an original promo with those same major flaws. What I’d like for them to do is find the old engine plate for it so they could do a “Craftsman” style kit. The convertible shouldn’t be that hard since they did offer one back in the day. That is, if they can find the tooling insert for it. I think the bodies were the same tool except for the missing roof section on the convertible. Maybe “Mark” on here would know for sure…

Can you include hearses/ambulances in this discussion? The Johan '66 Cadillac and the AMT/Polar Lights "Ghostbusters" '59 Cadillac.

I think if Round 2 does more kits like this (and why can't they with the 3D scanning/cloning technology now being available ), I'd like to see them molded in color that can be polished out. Whenever I mention something like this on the forums, I always get shot down by the rivet counter club. You know, the guys who can spend weeks scratch building a '34 Ford hot rod chassis in brass with full working suspension. Funny thing is, they themselves will go on a gush fest rant about some old Craftsman glue bomb they acquired on ebay and are now restoring it back to original condition. So, it seems there is a viable market, a business case, a ROI, whatever you want to call it, for simple/easy to build kits and people will buy them. Maybe not kids which have been traditionally the market segment for these back in the old days. However, the market that exists now is better because they have a lot more buying power and have sentimental value towards these simplified rather crude "Craftman" style kits. They remember building them as kids themselves in the golden age of modeling back in the '60's. Full detail kits do have their place and I am grateful for their existence, but so does the wonderfully simple to build Craftman style kit.

The hood is totally different. You would need the '69 GTO hood from the "Arnie Beswick" funny car which is completely stock as far as the body is concerned. Either cut it out or cast a copy of it. I think Reliable Resin makes a resin '70 GTO trans kit as well. It's $$$, but their reputation is not the best from the model forums I read.

I think the '70 GTO would sell in the needed numbers. All of these recent super stocker/circle track reissues are great for the race car fans, but what about the replica stock builders that would like to have a stock version? Since the '72 GTO reissue is fairly recent and plentiful to find in the secondary markets, bringing back the '70 GTO again would be a no brainer. If Round 2 was really smart, they would modify the '72 tool with a separate front clip so that they could be switched back and forth between the two model years. That way, if they wanted to reissue the '72 again, they do it very easily by including the '71-'72 style front bumper clip and hood and visa versa for the '70 GTO style front bumper and hood. The '69 GTO Funny Car is another one that could be easily converted back to a replica stock version. That one would be easy since it would only require a new interior to be accurate. However, they could get away with using the '72 interior bucket for less accuracy. The chassis could be borrowed (with an engine plate) from the '71-'72 GTO. They could reissue it as a simplified "Craftsman" style (easy) kit. I would have no question that would sell very well. If they wanted to be more adventurous, they could open up the hood and release it as a full detail kit. And, if for some reason they wanted to reissue the old funny car kit again, they could do it by just closing up the hood and substituting the stock style interior bucket and chassis for the funny car parts again.

I wonder if this kit was originally planned as a 1/32 scale and then it got upsized to 1/25th for some reason.

Thanks Mark. I knew you would have the definitive answer. lol! I have one question though. How would they block the flow of injected plastic for the '72 body cavity tool with the intergrated front bumper/grill, substitute it for the separate add on style '70 GTO front bumper, and then go back again (after the conversion) to molded in bumper/grill of the '72? I do remember that the '72 wasn't offered at the time the AMT/Ertl (Mpc) '70 GTO came out in the mid '80's. Since the '70 is probably the more popular of the two, I wonder why they just didn't just leave it as the '70 GTO like they did with (converted from '72) AMT '70 Chevelle?

Well, if it's truly a cloned body, (though I do remember reading, on here, that it was just the top half of the body tooling that was restored), then that is a huge landmark moment for Round 2. However, Lindberg had achieved this with their cloned copy of the Johan '79 Deville body for the Hopper line more than a decade ago. If the Nova wagon body was, in fact, completely cloned from an old kit, that opens up a plethora of long lost kits that can be produced again. Will Round 2 do it though? Don't get me wrong, I like the wagon and bought two for myself. However, I just hope this isn't a flash in the pan to impress the new owners (private equity group) so to speak. Sometimes when great things like this happen, it just stalls out right there. I do hope I am proven wrong and we get to see more "cloned" kits like this in the future.

The issue released in circa '87 was a new tool, I believe. I don't think it was based upon the existing '72 GTO which has the front clip molded to the body. The '70 Super Stocker with the molded on front clip (?) appears to be the old promo tool which the original annual was based upon. So, this makes me wonder what happened to the AMT/Ertl version from the mid '80's. Of course, Mark is the resident guru on questions like this. So, I will await his answer on what happened to the (stock) mid '80's AMT/Ertl (Mpc) '70 GTO.