Mark C.

Looking great! I’m very impressed by how well the logos came out on the caps! Thanks for sharing the process of creating these parts. Someday I’m thinking that I might try the digital printing thing (for personal use, not making parts for sale) and this is a nice window for us to see how it all plays out.

A minor point that I'm curious about on the '60 Nomad - did they fix the taillight situation? The original promo/Craftsman kit had triple taillights (well, 2 taillights plus backup lights) like the Implala, whereas the 1:1 wagons had 2 taillights per side. I've attached an illustration from a 1960 brochure and a pic to show what they should look like. Either way I'm buying multiples, but I'm hoping that this has been fixed up. Thanks Tim, for the pics and info, and Round2 for bringing back some of these kits I've wanted for decades!!

Wow! Both have been on my list! Must haves… multiples required!!

Looks great on CAD. Looking forward to your prints!

What you have done looks great so far. I can’t offer any advice on 3D printing but will offer encouragement to keep going! Looks like you are on the right track, and I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before you can work the bugs out. My preference for the hubcap logos would be the embossed/stamped look that I could detail paint to get the desired appearance. I prefer that over decals, and it would be more prototypically correct as well. However, if it’s not possible to capture that detail in the print, then you have to do what you have to do. Keep up the good work!

That looks good to me, but I’m far from an expert on the topic. I know almost nothing about 3D printing over and above what I have read on here and other forums, so you should probably take my ideas with a grain of salt. I was just thinking that allowing kit tires to work would give your potential customers more options, like a chunky snow/dirt tire, etc. For me, I like the OEM cheapo steel wheel/dogdish hubcap look, so whatever tires you come up with would be fine. Are you planning to do both Chevy and GMC versions, or were they the same across the divisions? I thought they each had a different logo but I might be thinking of earlier year models.

For tires, I’d like to see something that is modelled after whatever originally came on the truck when new. I’m not an expert on these trucks to know what that would be specifically, but since the wheels and caps are OEM style then perhaps that’s what the tire should be. There are lots of other tire options out there that could be used as long as they fit the wheels, so that might be another consideration - make sure the wheels are configured such that they will fit a typical model kit tire (though even that could be tricky I suspect). Just one person’s opinion, so just take it as that.

Awesome!

Sounds good! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. As a suggestion, if you could include pics of the actual printed product (when they are ready), it’s much more helpful to the customer than a digital rendering of what they are supposed to look like. Of course I’m getting ahead of myself… take your time and get the parts looking right, and I’m sure you will do well. Best of luck!

Although I won’t be there, I hope some kind soul will post pics here for all to see! Always excited to see what Steve and crew are digging up for us! (Though my wallet will be less happy!) Thank you for all your efforts, Steve, and for keeping us regular guys in the loop!!

Interesting. I was looking at using some of those wheels and caps for a future project. Do you have a website?

Another thought for the grille is the one from the old ‘69 Charger 500 kit. The 1:1 Charger 500 used a ‘68 Coronet grille, but I don’t know how the fit would work out from the model kit side of things. You would still have to add the D O D G E lettering as well, I think.

I saw on your website that you will be offering ‘68 and ‘69 Beaumont conversions as well as Acadians of that era. Very pleased at that! I would be doubly pleased if you could offer full wheel covers to go along with them, but I’m happy to get whatever I can! I’ve long been a fan of these Canadian cars (having owned one many years ago, plus my dad worked for a Canadian Pontiac dealer in the 1960s and 70s), and couldn’t be happier that you are offering these!!

Excellent! Really appreciate these conversions. I've been wanting to build some Beaumonts and Acadians for years!

I have been looking at your website, and am thinking about getting some of your conversion kits as they look very good. I was just thinking about what to do with the old AMT '72 Chevelle with the awful looking egg crate grille. If your conversion that you made for the AMT '70 Chevelle (which Round 2 converted back from the AMT '72 that I have) would fit this kit, I'd get one for that. Otherwise, I'll do something else with it (short track car, probably) and buy a current AMT '70 to use with one of your conversion kits. I expect to put together an order one of these days.

Thank you! It would be cool to have a kit of one of those trucks for a stock twin six application. You could make it a tow vehicle for a twin six Bonneville racer! lol

I can picture that combo in a vintage Bonneville salt flats racer! Which GMC trucks would have come stock with the V12? I assume only the large heavy duty lines?

Yes, I was thinking about that possibility as well! I like doing mainstream cars, so might be a good starting point for a ‘71 or ‘72 Malibu.

Just a little surprised that we are still talking about this. I have to say that I just tune into the videos to see the contents of the kits, if I'm trying to decide whether to buy one or not. Like many models I see posted, there are always things I would do differently, but at least the builds give the viewer a heads-up as to how things go together, and we all know as modelers that to build a kit so that it looks great every time, we have to put more time into it than we'd care to admit. So, IMHO the service is just giving us a glimpse into kit contents and assembly, and doesn't have a goal of winning model contests with the results. Honestly, unless it's a person's full time job, I don't know how one would slap together so many kits, produce videos of them on a time deadline, and still have time for a real job, a family life, etc. When building a model is just a hobby, you can work on it as your free time allows, but if it takes a year to put one together, it's no problem because it's just for fun. Not to mention that we all go into building slumps from time to time, when the motivation is just not there, and the last thing you want to do is work on a model... that's where the time deadlines come into play IMHO. Also, we've all experienced times when certain models just seem to fight you, with no apparent rhyme or reason... the ones that people just put back in the box to deal with later (or subject to rapid disassembly, if you know what I mean...). I say cut the guy a break.

I'd be in for some Galaxies. Toss in some Bonnevilles from the period and I'd be doubly happy. Not that i'd turn down a '68 or '69 Impala while we're on the subject...

Thanks for this wonderfully detailed article. It clears up a number of mysteries for me, including the Hurtubise Chevelle being out there in both the ‘72 and ‘70 versions, and how that tied into the Super Stocker series. My head is still spinning when thinking about all of the tooling changes, back and forth, for both AMT and MPC versions. I have to say that one of my more memorable disappointments when buying a model was thinking I was buying an MPC ‘72 Chevelle as pictured on the box, only to find that mess of an incorrect egg crate grille that was done to the AMT tooling. Many thanks to Steve G. and co. for bringing back the MPC ‘72 and making sure that the abomination that was done to the AMT version remains an interesting footnote in history. I never did build that kit, but it might just end up as a short track stock car one if these days, with the grille and headlights removed!

Well that's most interesting, Tim. I never realized before that the Road Runner had fixed quarter windows only unless the power window option was ordered. It seems a little odd that they wouldn't have offered manual roll down quarter windows as an option (a buddy of mine once had a '73 Satellite Sebring with manual roll down quarter windows, so the parts were available). My Dad sold Plymouths during part of the 1970s, and had brought home a few '73/'74 Road Runners, but as a kid I paid attention to the cool stripes and hood scoop, etc, and don't recall whether the rear windows rolled down or not... I was only interested in performance stuff at the time anyhow (when he brought home the 1975 Road Runners I thought they would be even faster because they had 4 exhaust tip openings instead of only 2! lol). Perhaps you have already seen it, but the dealership data book includes info about the quarter windows, among other things of course: https://www.hamtramck-historical.com/dealerships/1974PlymouthDealershipDataBook-04.shtml

Another tidbit that’s kinda unrelated to Dusters, but on the topic of Chrysler 2-door philosophy is that the low line ‘71-‘74 B-bodies (Satellite/Charger) had fixed quarter glass, with no regulator to roll up/down, nor even a flip out feature. Seems odd, since outward appearance was exactly the same as the hardtop, except the window couldn’t move. I had a ‘74 Charger back in the 1980s like that, complete with slant six (yes, it was slow, but looked great!). Presumably this was completely a cost cutting measure, to allow them to advertise a lower sticker price, and I have no idea how many were made like this. However, the hardtop body style was living on borrowed time by then (with opera windows and such coming into style, plus the whole rollover safety issue that almost cancelled the convertible forever), so maybe folks weren’t all that concerned whether their windows rolled down or not (speculation of course). Then there was also the ‘73-‘74 Charger SE with the fixed quarter glass covered by a piece that made the quarter glass look like louvers (and combined with a vinyl roof)…

Wow! Thanks for that. I’m always fascinated by the behind-the-scenes stories from back in the day. I wasn’t aware of the curved glass issues for the doors, but now that I think of it, the Valiant/Dart glass was quite flat in comparison. I will have to keep an eye out for that issue of CA. I did look online and found a messageboard thread where some guy was trying to convert his Duster to roll-down quarter windows. I believe in the end there was a member that would have restricted the pathway for the glass to roll down, which probably relates to the tooling cost you mention (likely in relation to keeping common inner body construction with Valiant). The other issue he faced was that, being flip out glass, it was the exact size of the opening, and thus was too small to contain the attachment points for a regulator (which would normally be covered by the body skin). Most interesting tangent!

That very well may be true. I was thinking about it from a corporate design/engineering/product planning point of view, but you're right in that it just may have been physically impossible to do.