tim boyd

Glad to see Round 2 pursuing their product plan - the longnose has been part of their plan for some time now. Bob, my impression was that the LongNose was a very popular kit, at least based on what i saw at the MPC Contests back in the day. I remember looking across the entry tables at 1000+ entries at the 1970 Detroit Autorama MPC Contest and seeing multiples and multiples of three kits = the Monogram BadMan, the AMT Manx Dune Buggy, and that LongNose Mustang. Of course, my memories may not be 100% accurate these days! TB

Hi Claude....like you I had a 1/1 Turbo Coupe...a 1984 with the bright gold clearcoat color I actually got pushed into production (also the silverish blue c/c that year), along with both an '87 and '88 TC. I consider the '83.5 and '84 TC to be a modern classic...and the start of a Ford Motor Company run on the industry that lasted through the rest of the 80s and turned much of the automotive market upside down, particularly so at GM. Anyway, also like you I have pondered a 1/25th pro-touring type TC based on the Monogram Pro Stock, but as usual you've gone way beyond I or most of the rest of us had in mind for such a project. Lovin' it and kudos from this corner....TB

Tom....cool! Bring it on whenever you are ready...cheers...TB

I too have long wanted to build the "revell" livery version of this car and have been building a reference file for several years. The Revell livery car was a different car than the original 1965 A990 based car that Butch ran in the mid 1960s. This car was specifically built by Ron Butler to campaign in the Super Stock ranks during the 1974 season because the NHRA had essentialy decreed that the prior season's Hemi Darts and Dusters could no longer competitively run in Pro Stock. So Mother Mopar boycotted the Pro Stock world in 1974 and several o their drivers campaigned Super Stock instead. This car supposedly had every trick in the book and was "the most feared car in Super Stock Eliminator" according to quotes attributed to the long loved and lost Super Stock and Drag illustrated mag. Some of the references I have seen suggested that it had a four bar rear that year (unclear whether that had leaf springs too or not), one source even suggested the top was slightly chopped and leaned forward with the windshield leaned backward, along with the front end being slightly narrowed widthwise ( I take those latter suggestions with a very big degree of skepticism). Some also suggest the axles were moved ever so slightly frontward and/or even rearward. Whatever, it was a very successful car that year. However, what also intrigues me is the Revell livery. It was there for a reason. You can find what I believe that reason was in my book "Collecting Drag Racing Model Kits" or alternatively, in one of Hank Borger's very last columns in Car Model magazine after it was taken over by Tonto Publishing. I remain amazed that this info is not more widely known in the model kit drag racing community...TIM PS Tom - did you finish your model and if so, is it posted in the under-glass section. Would sure like to check it out! TB

Believe it or not, actually my Mustang GT convertible was a kitbash of the original Revell 2005 Mustang GT full detail kit. The how-to appeared in Scale Auto around 2008. It was an exact copy of my 1/1 at the time other than the wheels/tires from the Revell F150 Harley kit. Revell's curbside Mustang GT convertible came out around 2010 or so...and I never did a project on that kit....jTB

Pete,,,,I might have met Dave Carlock in the mid-late 1970s when I was doing contract work for AMT, but not sure. I do recall he was a well respected member of the AMT team. Sorry I can't contribute more here....TB

Paul...can't wait to see where you take this project. Knowing your modeling and design capabilities, combined with starting with one of the very best hot rod kits ever, this one has great potential! Onward!!!! TIM

I think that there is a good deal of merit in this idea. Revell's Snap Tite can make a pretty sharp curbside (convertible version shown below), but a full detail kit, with all the specs articulated in Maxx's original post, would be a terrific basis for a newly tooled model kit. However, as a retired 1/1 scale marketer and one who has been consulted on future kit ideas by the most of the domestic kitmakers at various times in the past, I have to admit that I am sometimes disappointed in what appears to be a mediocre market response to all-new kits of topics previously committed to 1/25 scale and still sold being sold by competitive kitmakers - e.g. the ancient 1963 Corvette kit sold by Round 2 as mentioned in this thread. So, as a kiltmaker, the discussion becomes "should I commit the effort (funding, headcount, development time, et al) and the future revenue stream to...": a) a world class 1/24th or 1/25th scale '63 Covette kit, recognizing that the hobby store shelves have other offerings of this subject, and many hardcore modelers like us already have multiples of those old kits in our stash...or b) an all-new tool of a subject that was once sold as an annual kit but never reissued (e.g. a 1968 or 69 AMC Javelin, for instance), or c) an all-new topic that has never seen any kind of 1/24th-25th scale styrene assembly kit (1962-64 Ferrari Berlinetta Lusso) ...and for all of the above - ONLY engineered with the investment for a full detail kit including a stand-alone and complete engine and transmission - Asian kit makers, that means you. ***** Those are the types of debates any responsible kitmaker is going to have today. And a decision that I am glad I don't have to make myself. Best...TB

If you are a hot rod builder or pre/post WWII old school dirt track racer builder, be sure to check out item P-96, which I believe is Norm's all-new 1936 "Wide Five" wheels. He cast then from a perfect original part from the earliest of the original Trophy Series kits - not many of those had the parts correctly formed with the deeply inset half-circles around the outer rim, so AMT quickly changed the mode to smooth them over, meaning 98% of those out you out there have the kit with incorrect wheels. UPDATE - Steve PM'ed me that the above order number is out of date; the new one for the original, fully formed Ford Wide Five wheels, he says, is actually P-195 and this is the one with the new wheels as I described above. Should have ventured down to my model cave and double checked first...thanks Steve for the heads-up...TB Norm's are the wheels you need. Tell him I sent you with your order if you wish....Best...TIM

Dennis....ran across this project while I was looking for Tim Slesak's post in your long running thread here....Did this project get finished and I missed it? I have to say those low angle three quarter shots have just about the most killer stance I think I have ever seen in a 1//1 or scale A rod....hope all is well....TIM

What Tim W. said above!!! TB PS - Here's an example of his point. This is a kitbashed MCM cover car from a couple of years back...and I may have used the original MPC Model A roadster pickup cab instead of the Revell kit counterpart (to avoid dealing with the Revell kit the opening doors), but it shows the potential for a kitbashed model based on the newish Revell Model A Hot Rod Roadster and 5WC chassis combined with the body off this new Revell reissue of the Model A Roadster PIckup/Closed Cab Pickup kit...TB

Exactly right. This kit was simply an effort by Revell, back around 1981 or so when they were really struggling, to get another round of factory production off the otherwise factory stock F150 shortbed, which in itself was not a very good replica. Not sure why today's Revell...which generally has been pretty savvy with its kit introductions these days, would choose this tooling for a reissue, but heh...if it helps to generate revenue for some other kit we'd really like to see...well then... Buy it and build it with that knowledge and enjoy it if the subject interests you. Just realize that it is not a replica of anything that ever came out of a Ford factory in that form... TB

Still not here in my environs here in the Detroit suburbs. However, I am concluding that this is just the latest example of mail service here that has really declined big time in punctuality the last two or three months. It is taking first class mail up to two weeks to show up here after the mailing date. Really???!!! Phone bills arriving just two days before the due date? Year-end tax statements showing up two or three weeks after the financial house reported they were mailed? And of, course magazines showing up weeks after newsstand arrival. I've always experienced a wide variety of delivery dates of MCM...sometimes very soon after your Forum annoucement....mostly about the same time others report seeing them in the mail box...and occasionally some days later than most. Something is very different this time...and I do not think it has to do with MCM.... TB

When I was promoted to my first (of many later) jobs at Ford Division headquarters in 1982, a much higher level Ford exec there heard I was interested in model cars and wanted to sell me his entire collection of promos, mostly Fords. I was not then, and not now, a collector of Promos. I referred him to the famous (for us modelers back then) Automotive Miniatures store in a Detroit suburb, but he wasn't interested. Then he offered me such a low price for it all that I said, what the hey, and bought it. Yes, one of the cars was a red 1969 Mustang promo. I recall selling that one alone to Herb and Bill at Automotive Miniatures shortly thereafter for the then outrageous price of $90....and they quickly retailed if for more, I understand. That more than paid me back for the cost of buying the entire collection, which I recall being around 15-20 units. That $90 in 1982, btw, is equivalent to $295 today. So even back then, as Jim suggests above, 1969 Mustang promos were apparently very, very rare and very highly valued even when less than 10 to 13 years old. BTW, sold most of the rest of the collection just a few years ago to one of the premier old kit vendors. One of those cars was a pretty mediocre condition 1964 1/2 Mustang Indy Pace Car (I rean a picture of it in one of my books). He didn't give me an individual value on that one, but I am sure it was one of the more desirable pieces I sold that day, and another payoff for that 1982 transaction nearly four decades later...TB

Ouch....that hurts! TB