tim boyd

What constitutes skill level 3 at Revell these days? Most importantly, does the current Revell definition of skill level 3 typically include a complete, standalone engine/powertrain? TB

Craig....really interesting to read your solutions to the upgrades we all want to make to these kits. Any recent progress to post? And best wishes for bringing this one home...TIM

To further your point, the MPC 1965 Dodge Custom 880 convertible kit also included a 426 Hemi engine option. It was identical (same tooling masters) to the AMT (nee MPC) 1965 Coronet 500 engine, except for omitting the blower upgrade parts.

Me too! And a retired fellow Ford executive and good friend with a 1/1 collection of about 12 vintage cars also wishes that Mother Mopar had done this for the 1968 model year. I dream of building one just that way (in scale), but also with the '66 300 and '67/'68 Fury fastback roof, and with the planned but cancelled mildly detuned 426 Hemi Tri-Power (yes, there was a Chrysler product planning product letter on this as a follow on to the planned but cancelled '66 300M Street Hemi.) I also used the same fastback roof on my scale project recreating the planned but cancelled 1966 Monaco 500 Street Hemi, which was at one point proposed to use this same roof as well....TB

Just heard from the owner Peter a couple of days ago. Sounds like more is coming....TB

Yes, fit was fine, don't recall any major issues. Will definitely build another....TB

Trevor, interesting that you noticed the red seeping out; I had not noticed this myself until I was looking at the enlarged photos on a laptop screen a few weeks ago. This model was built with the MPC hollow bigs-n-littles and after 40 years, it is showing the effects of the tire material damaging the styrene. Others of my models built back then, with those MPC tires, are now showing a similar result. On another model I will post soon, built at the same time, there was much more damage. I was somewhat successful at trimming it off with an X-Acto knife, but not completely so. Oh well....old age - I guess it catches up with our models just like it does with our bodies....! tB

Very, very nice! Congrats on a great model....TIm

Thanks Chuck. And yeh, that seems to happen a lot these days!....TB

Yep....my bad. Will fix now...TB

...and just in case you were wondering about that trailer hitch.... Smile...TB

This is a model I built about 10 to 15 years ago or so. It's an attempt to revisit in scale the 1/1 scale "Street Freak" era of the 1970's. For inspiration I re-read some of the Hank Borger stories in Car Model magazine...you know, the Ghost Dancer, the Corvette, the great writing recreating the era when the neighbor down the street started up his bad boy machine with open headers on Saturday morning....you remember, right? (For those of you, probably most of you, who missed out on Hank's articles, they were not only instructive and creative, but truly entertaining as well....). As the model was the basis for a published article, I had to limit parts sources to a few kits. The body was the old RC/Ertl reissue of the MPC 1967 GTO kit, with much massaging to the body to resolve the many problems with the surfacing of the body. The chassis came from the flip-front MPC '57 Chevy Sedan Gasser /'53 F-100 pickup kit tooling, while the engine (if I am recalling correctly) was partuly based on the Revell '68 Firebird kit, but with the pretty meager blower setup in that kit replaced with much better part box sourcing. Paint was Testors Lacquers, with real lace overlays. I was always really happy with how this one came out, but I don't recall hearing much, if any, feedback on it. Maybe it was (still?) hopelessly behind the times, or alternatively, premature to the eventual/expectation of a return of 1/1 scale Street Freak fascination???? Anyway, enjoy the pix....and sorry for the lighting on the engine pix....TB

Yes, the Bond DB5 (cool!). Hope it actually has a stand-alone scale engine under the hood (oooppppsss....did I actually just say that???) But did anybody also notice this listing? Gift Set James Bond "Ford Mustang Mach 1" (Due September 2023) NEW TOOL I've pretty much told everyone to eventually expect a second hit off the '71 Boss 351 tool, and that it would likely be a SCJ Mach 1 or one of the other 429 Cobra Jet options. But I certainly did not expect it to debut under Bond licensing. Let's hope this website posting is fully accurate information and a preview of what to actually expect next year rather than a hasty "jump to conclusions" misdirection on my part.... TB

David....glad you enjoyed the article(s). I just wish there was wider awareness of the publication among the model car community as I think others would find it informative as well. Thanks for the heads-up back to me, and sure enjoyed our back-and-forth discussion on early 1970's Mopar B-Bodies. Now, where's that 1/1 scale 1974 SSP I've been looking for (smile). Best...TB

Jim is correct about the notch in the frame for the pipes from the Sanderson style over the frame headers to the underbody mufflers being unique to the newly issued kit (and of course the previous Rat Roaster kit that formed the basis for the new release). And while the Rat Roaster (and now fresh revised reissue) tool is clearly based on the work for the original Revell 1996/97 series of '32 Ford Hot Rods, there are refinements and revisions that would only have been made possible by it being produced in fresh tooling. Build the two Roadster kits (the '97 and the '22 revision of the Rat Roadser) side by side and you'll see what I am talking about. Just one small example? Compare the door handles of the original kit with the ones in the new one. Far more sculptural and finely wrought. Want a bigger one? The '32 Ford siderail frame sweep is handled much more deftly - requiring much less effort to refine - than on the original '32 Ford Hot Rod kit series. Yes, there are carryovers from the original 1996 design effort - that tab for the brake booster and the K-member as just two examples - but having built both versions, my take is that the newly reissued version based on the Rat Roaster is clearly superior and I will be using it as the basis of all my future '32 Ford hot rod projects (other than, of course, the SBC engine - smile!) TB

Tim....that is looking so, so fine. Any thoughts about taking the set to GSL in early May? Happy Holidays to you and your wife....stay warm up there, too! Cheers....TIM

David....yes you are correct, the only high performance engine in the '74 Sebring Plus was the 400 4bbl that included duals and the "bazooka" exhaust tips. There was some thought at the time that the 360 E58 was actually a faster car due to very similar hp ratings (245 vs. IIRc 250 net for the 400 combined with the lighter weight of the 360), so for me that was a key factor in going for the 360. Also, my Dad had bought a new '73 Coronet Crestwood with the 400 4 bbl and duals; it was a good engine but not nearly as responsive (even taking into account the difference in vehicle weights) as my 360. So that, and the lower purchase price for comparable equipment, was the deciding factor in favor of the RR vs. the SSP, as like you, I actually preferred the overall appearance of the SSP. The luggage rack was a factory option in '71 but was dropped (I believe in '72) as part of the product simplification effort at Mopar. It was still in the Parts and Accessory catalog, though, so I bought it through the dealer parts dept. and installed it myself. It looked very cool but was highly prone to rusting after just a couple of years; big disappointment. Yes, I finally built a replica of my real car in 2020; construction details were covered in depth in the Kalmlbach special issue called MuscleCars, Retro Mods and Pro Touring, currently available at their website. Here's a photo of the model... and thanks for the questions.....TB

I think the above recap is an excellent description of the changes that would be necessary to do a Super Bee kit, and as a result a good explanation of why a 1968 Super Bee kit variant is very unlikely in my point of view. Some of these changes to accommodate a SuperBee would be impossible to achieve without mods to the newly done body tooling pieces, which in my view is very unlikely from a business case perspective. Historically, the 1968 Coronet R/T was the much better seller than the 1968 SuperBee which of course was a hurry-up mid year intro and never got any real market momentum in 1968. (Of course, it handily overtook the R/T the next model year, and then only added to its desirability as a kit topic with the A13 SixPack addition at mid-year 1969.) Which means from a kit marketability point of view, a kitmaker would not want to irretrievably change a tool to the less popular version in the 1/1 scale world... BTW, no insider info here, only my thoughts.... TB

I believe these are the first full color pictures of this model to be "published" in their entirety. The original model was built for an early (c. 1980 or so) version of my then-monthly "Modeler's Corner" column in Street Rodder magazine. I remember building it when I lived in East Lansing, Michigan, my first of an eventual 11 different locales in my 35-year career at Ford. The model was based on the MPC 1933 Chevy Panel Delivery kit, which was issued only twice, first as a double kit with the 1932 Chevy Roadster body in 1965, and then as a standalone kit in 1966. The Panel Delivery body was effectively destroyed a couple of years later when MPC retooled for their "Barnabas Van" kit, and by the time I built this kit, it was already very hard to find. I built it in the then-popular "resto rod" guise, with a completely stock exterior including dual sidemounts paired with modern chassis and running gear. When I took these photos a month or two ago, I was shocked to rediscover the amount of added engine and chassis detail I had included in this project. The engine was loosely based on the SBC in the original MPC kit but with then-current intake and exhaust conversions. The front suspension came from a Monogram 1978 or so Camaro kit (although it was reversed in direction for this install, which is pretty unrealistic in a 1/1 scale application). The rear suspension was converted to parallel leafs with accessory coil overs, mounting a late model axle/differential. Those sweet wire wheels were found in one of Monogram's street machine custom versions of their 2nd gen Camaro tools. The body colors were taken straight from some outdated Ford parts department touchup cans I bought (I was a Ford zone rep at the time). The cargo compartment floor was real wood; some type of exotic African type of whose name I have long forgotten. The quarter panel graphics came from the Monogram 1939 Chevy Sedan Delivery. I always thought this was among my better street rod models, I particularly liked the stance of the finished car, and I still do today. Fifteen additional overall and detail photos follow below. Comments and questions welcome...Hope you like it....TIM

MPC was at their summit when it came to new kit design in the late 1970's to early 1980's. So when they introduced their first annual kit of the 1973 and later Chevy pickup generation, I had to build it as soon as it was introduced in late 1977. This new MPC annual kit for 1978 was the only one of this generation (the kit tool was updated every year for several following years) to be provided in the 4x2 configuration, IIRC. While based largely on the kit, the model included a number of mods such as the big'n''bigger tires on Cragars and sidemount headers from the concurrently introduced Revell Pickup and Vans Parts Packs (anyone remember those???). The suspension was lowered and the interior featured bucket seats, also from the Revell Parts Packs if memory serves. The graphics and the very nice tubular grille came from the MPC annual kit, and the engine intake setup may have also been kitbashed; can't recall for sure. Anyway, this was a really good kit from MPC and due to subsequent revisions to the kit tool, this particular kit version remains a very rare bear discovery these days. Thanks for looking....TIM (PS - please excuse the ajar hood in the picture above).

This one was completed around 1987 or so when I did a whole series of front and mid engine dragster models. It was based on the MPC Garlits Front Engine Dragster with a Boss 429 engine (probably from the Monogram Vandal/Vambulance kits) and a paint layout devised several colors of 1/1 scale automotive pinstriping tape.... After checking this one out, be sure to take a look at Jerry's Boss 429 FED build also posted in this folder for a really well done take on this build theme....thanks...TIM

Very, very creative and extremely well done, Jerry. I too did a Boss 429 FED; I'll dig it out and post elsewhere in this Drag Racing folder. How cool would it be to have both lined up at the tree in a scale drag racing diorama? Congrats and best wishes....TIM

Carl....thanks for the comments on my old model posts. I'll try to keep at it. The runners, I think, were simply cut from Evergreen or Plastruct U-shaped channel ....super quick and easy. Of course, to be fully accurate, it would probably benefit from some diamond plate along the horizontal surfaces.... Best....TB

I don't have any insider info on this, but MPC was already doing some really nice kits at this point in their corporate existence. At that point in time, the Japanese kits were still designed around electric motors and not even close to American kit detail (IIRC, the Tamiya Mercedes 500 SEC kit was the first full detail Japanese assembly kit, and it was first issued around 1984...followed a couple of years later by Hasegawa with their Jaguar XJ-S kits, and soon thereafter by the Fujimi Enthusiast Series kits. (If I'm wrong on the timing here, I'm sure one of our more knowledgeable board members will set us straight...)....TB