tim boyd

See the box art at this llnk..TB

Magnificent progress and work on that engine/tranny, Steve. Really great that you are taking time to share your work and knowledge here and inspire others to do the same! Cheers....TIM

Great progress....sure hoping you'll have it finished in time for the show!!! Love the shot of the PU and track car together. Very best wishes on bringing this one home. TB

https://public.fotki.com/funman1712/model-car-events-co/2023-detroit-area-a/2023-detroit-area-a/ Thanks for looking...TIM

Dan...man oh man, between this and next year, sounds like we are ALL gonna need lotsa extra dollars!!!! And that's just the Round 2 stuff! TB

Round 2 News at 2023 DAAM Show Round 2 formally unveiled their 1960 AMT Ford F100 3 in 1 kit at the show. If I understood correctly, it is planned to be available for sale before year end. Also shown was the latest test shot status (last time is was just a 3D print) of the Round 2 2021 Ford Bronco, along with test shots of several other recently announced projects. Fresh box art was on display for upcoming releases like the 1965 Chevelle AWB Funny Car kit. It was confirmed that the 1967 Cyclone kit is based on the 1990's AMT-Ertl took, not the original 1967 tool which lost its body to the Cyclone funny car kit back in the day. Perhaps the most interesting news is that Round 2 plans to show 2 other brand new kit tooling releases derived from their cloning program at the NNL East show. Presuming this actually takes place as planned, these kit topics will be absolute blockbusters! 29 images for your review are posted at this link Happy to answer any questions you have, presuming I know the correct answer. Thanks for looking....TIM Round 2 formally unveiled their 1960 AMT Ford F100 3 in 1 kit at the show. If I understood correctly, it is planned to be available for sale before year end. Also shown was the latest test shot status (last time is was just a 3D print) of the Round 2 2021 Ford Bronco, along with test shots of several other recently announced projects. Fresh box art was on display for upcoming releases like the 1965 Chevelle AWB Funny Car kit. It was confirmed that the 1967 Cyclone kit is based on the 1990's AMT-Ertl took, not the original 1967 tool which lost its body to the Cyclone funny car kit back in the day. Perhaps the most interesting news is that Round 2 plans to show 2 other brand new kit tooling releases derived from their cloning program at the NNL East show. Presuming this actually takes place as planned, these kit topics will be absolute blockbusters! Happy to answer any questions you have, presuming I know the correct answer. Thanks for looking....TIM

I'll have more pictures and news posted in a separate link within a couple of hours. And there will be more to come at NNL East. TB

Hopefully more details posted by late this afternoon or evening. Don't know what else Steve is planning to show today, but based on what they were working on as of last fall, there were several other projects beyond the '60 F100 that amazed me and hopefully will see the light of day. Maybe one of them later today? TB

The stillborn sidebar and images as mentioned above are now posted in this new thread. Reading the comments above and comparing them to my sidebar text, sounds like we are largely thinking along the same lines....Thanks for looking....TIM

As mentioned in the nearby thread on the best all time drag racing kits, several of you have suggested that the hobby needs some newly tooled classic 1960's style front engine rail dragster kits. Needless to say, while the chances of that ever happening are remote, I had drafted the following sidebar on the topic for my CarTech Books offering called "Collecting Drag Racing Model Kits", published in late 2020. As it turned out, I had way more material than we had room for in the final publication, so the following sidebar, written in September, 2019, got left on the cutting room floor, as they say in the movie business. But thanks to this forum and the Model Cars Mag team that oversees it, I can copy and paste the stillborn text here for your reading interest. Thanks for looking, and feel free to comment or add your thoughts on the subject if you wish...TIM **************************************************************************** START SIDEBAR: What If Someone Decided to Introduce A Newly Tooled Front Engine Rail Dragster Kit? Yes, this proposition has more than a healthy dose of wishful thinking, but hear me out. It’s not likely to happen, but it’s not an impossibility either. Why do I say that? First, few would have expected Revell to make the investment in 2010 to produce all-new kits of a pair of 1960’s funny cars (the 1969 Chi-Town Hustler and Hawaiian Mini-Chargers), nor to develop a completely new tool replicating their 1960’s “Sizzler” dragster kit, but they did. Second, two of the newest players in the model scene – Moebius/Model King and Salvinos JR Models, are producing newly tooled 1960’s Super Stock and A/FX, and 1970’s to early 1980’s NASCAR Winston Cup racers, respectively. So why not an all-new kit of a historically relevant front engine digger? OK, if you’re with me so far, then what famous rail dragsters would be the best candidates to be kitted? When Jon Asher was Editor of Peterson Publishing’s Drag Racing magazine, he assigned an article to drag racing historian Chris Martin that was titled “10 Best Top Fuelers of All Time”. Recognizing the point at which that article was written (late 1989), just three of the cars on Martin’s list have been replicated with 1/25th scale kits: Don Garlits’ 1986 streamliner, the Walton-Cerny-Moody 1972 rail, and Garlits' first ever rear engine rail of 1971. Noting that MPC’s kit replicated the dragster after Garlits added the enclosed body ahead of the driver’s compartment and rear airfoil above and behind the engine, maybe we should more accurately say 2 ½ (or only 25%) of Martin’s Top Ten list, have seen scale model kits. The biggest gap in model kit coverage of the 7-decade history of fuel dragsters remains the rapidly evolving period of the mid to late 1960’s, so that’s the richest area for future kit coverage. The following front engine dragsters in writer Martin’s Top Ten list have never seen a 1/25th scale model car kit: · 1963-64 Greer-Black-Prudhomme car · 1965-66 Hawaiian car · 1966 Surfers car · 1972 John Wiebe car (Personally, I’d be inclined to add the famous Freight Train double engine dragster to the list - OK, it was a Gas dragster instead of a Fueler - but still…). My point? Any of these four (or five) would make a great subject for an all-new 1/25th scale full detail front engine rail dragster model car kit. So, which one would you choose? And who would you choose to make it – Moebius, Salvinos JR, or the standbys Revell or Round 2 (via their AMT, MPC, or Polar Lights brands)? Oh, and by the way…what were the other three remaining “10 Best” Top Fuel Cars on Martin’s list? The following rear engine railers: the 1983 car of Larry Minor-Gary Beck, Joe Amato’s 1984 car, and Eddie Hill’s 1988 dragster that carded the first-ever sub-five second E.T. Those would make for some cool model kits too! The full article can be seen in the November, 1989 issue of Drag Racing Magazine. *********** The following images and caption were to be used for the sidebar,,, Want a model of the famous “Freight Train” dual engine AA/Gas dragster? You’d have no choice but to kitbash your model together from many different kit and model car aftermarket sources, as builder Steve Perry has done here. The “Freight Train” could be a compelling choice should one of the model kit companies decide to produce a new 1/25th scale dragster kit. (Steve Perry Photos) ***********************************************************

P,,,once again I agree with your observations. When I wrote the book, I had drafted a sidebar with the (IIRC) ten most desirable historical front engine rail dragster kit subjects that needed to be freshly kitted. I had to drop it from the final text due to being way over the book's word and photo count. I'll see if I can find it and if so, I will post it in a new thread in this folder of the MCM Forum...Very best...TIM

P, thanks for the observations, which I largely agree with. I think I made comments near the end of my book on a similar vein; need to dig it out and see exactly what I wrote.... However, I also largely believe that the current fathers of drag racing (i.e. the NHRA brain trust) long ago lost the plot on both the funny car and pro stock class rules. I for one would prefer a much greater emphasis on bodies that look like real cars in those classes, and an equal emphasis on the makes of the competitors alongside the team and sponsor attention. But again, and to your point, those observations may not be relevant to the "fresh/younger" crowd you reference, either! Best...TB PS - in finishing the book I interviewed several kit industry movers and shakers, so to speak, for their observations on the drag racing kit business (some of which is referenced in the book). I was told that at one-point Revell had looked at what it would take to update their last generation rail dragster kit tooling to today's Top Fuel specification, but that the project was put on hold with the Hobbico bankruptcy. It was somewhat suggested, IIRC, that there might be another look there, but it's now 3 1/2 years later and I see no sign of that happening...

Jim....sorry for the delay in responding. Below I have copied the entire text from my 2020 book "Collecting Drag Racing Modell Kits" (still available from CarTech books and Amazon, by the way) explaining my take on this kit series....best...TIM ************************ Monogram’s Rear Engine Dragster Series: When a model car kit is lessor known among collectors, that may have been the case because it was not a very good kit. But in a some instances, the lessor known kit was actually an excellent product that was overlooked by model builders when it was new, and then never reissued following its initial production run. Simply put, in 1973 Monogram unveiled two of the best rear engine dragster kits ever. And although I’m told that sold reasonably well, particularly in the discount store distribution channels, they seemed to be overlooked, ignored, and little known among adult drag racing enthusiasts. Beyond the kit details described below, the coup-de-grace of these kits - never before attempted to this degree in a 1/24th/1/25th scale kit - was the flexible silver vinyl harnesses for spark plug ignition wiring, upper and lower fuel blocks (each with eight individual fuel lines running to the top hat and blower base/intake manifold engine wiring), main fuel and return lines and butterfly linkages running to the fuel pump and tank, and oil line plumbing along the lower left side of the engine block. The original plan was for these harnesses were to be produced in a nylon material, but eventually a PVC-type material was chosen. This new, thicker material didn’t flow properly through the molds, so the molds were modified to larger diameters. This PVC material could have been a bit more flexible, and the wiring was now a bit out of scale, so completing the model with all the lines in place would have been a test of a modeler’s dexterity. But wow! It would be over two decades later until another kitmaker (in this case, Accurate Miniatures) attempted to provide kit wiring like this – and theirs was provided in a kit that sold at a very premium price vs. competing 1/24th scale kits. So just why are the kits below lesser known among scale drag racing enthusiasts? I know of no single explanation some four plus decades later, but I can provide informed speculation as follows. First, Monogram was just starting to emerge from the Mattel and Show Car model kits era, with a reputation for simple to assemble, toy-like kits still very front and center with serious hobbyists. No one would have dreamed of a Monogram kit with this level of detail. Second, as covered in the last chapter, their previous Prudhomme/McEwen front engine dragster kits were disappointing, curbside kits with no tubular chassis whatsoever. Third, the real 1/1 scale Prudhomme/McEwen rail dragsters were very much a supporting act – the real attention was still on their ‘cuda and Duster funny cars. Next, the one remaining magazine covering the model car hobby - that could have carried the great news about these kits – ceased publication just as the kits were introduced (and the new publisher that bought the remnants of the enterprise just did not understand the hobby and the effort quickly failed). Then again, AMT and MPC had just introduced some pretty good rear engine dragster kits, and then Revell hit with their Drag Racing Team kits. Most model builders, given a choice of essentially the same topic in either Monogram’s 1/24th scale or the 1/25th scale kits of the competition, gravitated toward the latter scale. Monogram’s new kits were never reissued, probably in part because McEwen, and later Prudhomme, joined the Revell Drag Racing All Star Team with new kits of their cars, thereby ceasing Monogram’s ability to produce the kits with their headline drivers’ drawing power. Never reissued, that is, until a 2011 release of the tool with a new driver/owner configuration and new box art. (Update - and now due to the efforts of Peter Vetri and his Atlantis Models team - to break cover again later in 2023!) Bottom line? If you’ve never purchased one of these two (now three (update again, soon to be four)) kits, search one out and grab it. They were a benchmark at the time, in some ways remained unequalled today. Even today they largely remain under the radar screen of the adult model car hobby. You’ve been alerted; now you know what to do… Monogram Don Prudhomme Hot Wheels Rear Engine Dragster (#7528) Introduced: 1973. Kit Collector Envy Factor: 4/5 …AND Monogram Tom McEwen Hot Wheels Rear Engine Dragster (#7529) Introduced: 1973. Kit Collector Envy Factor: 4/5 These two kits were identical other than the box art, instruction sheet, and decals. They replicated every single visible part of a real rear engine dragster of the early 1970’s, even down to the two blower popoff valves at the front of the intake manifold. The engines were reportedly molded in a scale that was 10% larger than the rest of the kit, to add to their visual impact. The one-piece tubular frame was enabled by a three- part tooling process, and was injection molded with temporary structural supports to prevent the warping found in many competing dragster kit frames. On the plated parts trees were exceptionally delicate and in scale radius rods, tie rods, airfoil supports, and drag links. The latest Centerline wheels were molded with ultra-fine concentric ribbing engraving. High resolution decals with glossy finish and all car markings completed the kits. The short-lived left and right-side canard wings behind the driver’s compartment were also included. Derivative Kit: Revell Tom the Mongoose McEwen Rail Dragster (#85-4908) Introduced: 2011. Kit Collector Envy Factor: 3/5 The only reissue ever of Monogram’s rear engine fuel dragster tool was identical to the two previous kits, other than the new “Revell” branded box art and decals portraying the updated 1974 “English Leather” livery of McEwen’s digger, black (instead of silver) vinyl wiring, a matte (instead of glossy) finish on the plated parts tree, new and more correct aspect ratio drag slicks, and a completely redone, contemporary Revell-style instruction booklet. ********************************** OK guys, now you know why I said that. And I presume you know what to do when the kit comes out, too (smile). Best...TIM

Thanks to everyone who has commented on this thread. Here is the full text of this sidebar from my 2020 book "Collecting Drag Racing Model Kits". It includes an introductory explanation of how I arrived at my list, which I thought might be interesting to some after seeing all the excellent commentary posted by you all here. Thanks for checking it out....TB ************** The Very Best Drag Racing Kits of All Time… What were the very best kits that moved the drag racing model car kit game ahead when they were introduced during each decade of the last sixty-plus years of drag racing scale assembly models? Here are my thoughts on this subject, along with those of several of the hobby’s most respected drag racing kit builders and historians: revered drag racing model car builders Jim Kampmann and Guy Beaudette, Model Kit Retailer and former drag racer Tom Carter, and model car kit historian Mark Budniewski. Which of these would make your list? In 1/24th-1/25 scale: - 1960’s – AMT Double Dragster, Revell Orange Crate, Revell Tony Nancy “22 JR” Dragster/Altered Double Kit, Jo-Han 1964 Fury/Polara 426 Max Wedge Super Stock annual kits, AMT 1965 Coronet 500 annual kit, AMT Don Garlits Wynns Jammer, AMT “Ohio George” Montgomery’s 1933 Willys, MPC 1967 Color Me Gone Charger, Jo-Han 1968-69 Funny Car annual kits, AMT 1969 Gas Ronda Longnose Mustang, MPC Dick Harrell Camaro Funny Car - 1970’s – Jo-Han Gene Snow Challenger and Mickey Thompson Mustang/Pinto Funny Cars, Jo-Han Sox and Martin ‘cuda Pro Stock, Monogram Don Prudhomme/Tom McEwen Rear Engine Dragsters, Revell Drag Racing Team Scale Funny Cars and Rear Engine Dragsters, MPC Pinto Pro Stocks, and MPC’s Bantam Blast/Wild Wille Borsch Fuel Altereds - 1980’s – Monogram 1984 Camaro and Thunderbird Pro Stocks; Monogram 1985 Funny Cars, Revell Don Garlits Swamp Rat XXX - 1990’s – Revell Pro Sportsman kits, Revell Rear Engine Rail Dragster kits, Revell Oldsmobile Cutlass Pro Stocks - 2000’s – Polar Lights Funny Cars, Revell Chi-Town Hustler and Hawaiian 1969 Mini-Charger Funny Cars - 2010’s – Moebius Models/Model King 1965 Cyclone and Belvedere A990 A/FX kits In other scales: - 1960’s – Monogram 1/22nd scale “Sizzler” Dragster/Altered, Monogram 1/8th scale “Big Drag” Model T - 1970’s - Aurora 1/16th scale “Racing Scenes” Pinto and Vega Funny Cars (the most detailed drag racing kits ever); Revell’s 1/16th scale “Drag Racing Team” Funny Cars and Rear Engine Dragsters (1973-1976) - 1980’s - Monogram’s 1/32nd scale Snap-Tite Funny Cars - 1990’s-present – None

As of March 2023 you can now access my buildup of this kit at FineScale.com without having a subscription there. 21 images with info, how to, and building advice. Hope you find it helpful if you are building this kit, or the companion 1964 442 Hardtop kit....TIM Full detail kit buidup - Round 2 AMT 1964 Olds Cutlass Convertible

....a name we recognize for his contributions to this forum and prior to that, his work as an engineer at Revell, Don is the now the new EDITOR of Collectible Automobile magazine. Following previous editor John Biel's retirement after a r28 year run as Editor, Don has now been promoted to the lead position at this premier automotive magazine that does a terrific job of covering the automotive industry. Big congrats, Don, and best wishes as you steer Collectible Automobile toward its 40th anniversary in a few years. TIM

Thanks Craig....much appreciated. TB

I presume that the box art will be a redo of the original c. 1967 kit release....but until we know for sure, here's another photo of a test shot buildup from the NNL Motor City last November....TB

Craig....I also will be watching thsi one. I am also planning a '32 using the drag city casting body and the new '32 Highboy Roadster (ex Rat Roaster) kit. Mine will probably be Y-Block powered. BTW, how do I order parts from Maple Leaf Modelworks? Thanks...TIM

Thanks for the info Paul. Very creative choice for that rear tire, too! TB

Terrific!!!!! TB

Again, my understanding from the owner of Atlantis is that the Parts Pack Buick tooling or a clone of it, in its entirety, is being readied for a future release of some sort. At this point, I'd say we can count on it, only unresolved points being when and in what kit form it appears. In the meantime, if you are building a scale Nailhead for street use (other than 100% factory stock), my own personal view is that the overall Nailhead in the first issue Revell Model A Roadster Hot Rod and second issue Revel A Five Window Coupe Hot Rod, questionable exhaust port spacing notwithstanding, is still the best kit source for that application. For competition use, I'd place the Revell Parts Pack Nailhead and the unobtanium Monogram Uncertain T at or near the of the pack..TB Best...TB

Just a heads-up to anyone building this kit who is not familiar with the 1/1, unlike the model in the video, the real car (in factory stock condition) has no chrome wheel lip moldings and no chrome moldings on the horizontal roof ribs, either. Didn't watch the video so not sure if this was an intentional builder-added modification, but I don't recall ever seeing a 1/1 drag or custom Nomad with these alterations, either (but I suppose one never knows for sure.).......TB

Craig is correct, and Atlantis is aware of the differences as Craig states. TB