Chuck Kourouklis

YYAAAASSS! Awesome. I like picking these up just because new-tool Hasegawa, but I love me some first-gen 7. oooh, lookit the pop-up headlights...

Alrighty then! Differentiated enough for me.

Nope, same - or at least, not perfectly even in that area. Had to hammer it for a review so I wasn't able to fill it.

ZONDA! a w e s o m e. Wonder what's the 'Shima 2000GT bring that the old Hase don't...

I mean I know I've quibbled a bit about the new-tool AMT '57 hardtop, but now that Revell has locked 2-dr sedans and the convertible, it might be high time for Round 2 to pick up the Nomad gauntlet...

Ah, but ya see, you can't make that your GOAL! New tools can only happen entirely by surprise. I know. Got a Tamiya pre-built 1/12 288 GTO to force kit version, and a mint original '67 Cougar when rumors swirled Revell might be on the cusp of something new - and fate just laughed. ?

Oh sure, torpedoing a model dating from the Kennedy Administration proved to be the objective once the name-calling started, but it's a BIT of a walk from "I wouldn't recommend it to anyone" to "I hate it and so should you" in that first post. Again, easy to confuse with taking it all personally. This isn't anybody's mother the o p attacked. It was an old plastic kit. People can realize there's no objective reason to be annoyed by that and decide not to be. Or, they can take grave personal offense and then reverse-engineer a bunch of rationalizations to justify their personal attacks, and that's the conduct that usually drives a thread right off the rails of civility. Again, not to accuse you of doing so, and this thread is more of an exception than it is the usual pattern. I'd also posit that as long as the discussion bends to something informative, it doesn't really matter what the original poster intended. In fact, if there's a take-away message from this thread, it's that if your objective truly is an "end of discussion", then a summary hatchet job is destined to backfire spectacularly. The judgments passed on the foolishness of the buyer and the laziness of the builder have clouded up a lot of what went right in this topic: state your objective refutation, and back it up with photo support if ya got it.

No Sir - that's the 2-door post sedan, and AMT's is the hardtop. AMT mistakenly put a coral sedan on one of their boxings, but it was the new-tool hardtop inside. Nice finishing suggestion for the Revell sedan a few years ahead of time, 'n all... Not to overplay these, but one more shot. Metallic red on the left is the very sedan you linked, Roman Red on the right is the new-tool AMT hardtop:

Sorry, Roger, can't get the link to work.

But when Xingu rightfully brought up the notion of keeping some level of respect between forum members, you seemed to draw a straight equivalence between personal attacks and attacks on a kit: I mean, maybe that's not exactly what you meant, but you could see why some of us might be confused into thinking so, right? Fledgling modelers following this discussion will see properly framed refutations coming in hard and fast, complete with some handsome finished original-tool models to draw their own conclusions from. And while again things may not be exactly as they appear from your wording, pulling the "lazy modeler" card is a value judgment far more arbitrary than absolute, way too frequently leveraged to turn a thread to personal attacks around here. To invalidate someone just because he wants a kit with fewer assembly headaches is problematic. It's when the conversation turns measured defense of a kit into hysterical claims of "raving", and calling people "fools" for buying it that the line is truly crossed.

HAH! The really funny bit is that now I'm hankerin' for another AMT original tool '57. Go figure. ?

'Cause I just like the Revell sedan better from the cowl forward and I think its front clip would improve the new-tool AMT hardtop. Revell's front bumper is much better, and while we're at it, the Revell headlights look more to scale and the sedan's front wheel arch sweep seems a little closer too.

And I'd like to thank you twice over for your kind feedback! As "Snake45" Richard pointed out earlier, it's actually Revell's latest glue-together sedan given the metallic red street machine treatment in those photos, which in fairness resembles a recent boxing of the Revell snapper. As Snake said, I'm not so hot on the snapper, but that doesn't mean it's a bad kit or that anyone should just skip it without giving it a good look. I'm gonna take Snake's point and refine it a bit: inaccuracy is actually in the eye of a ruler; how offensive inaccuracies are is what's in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I find the shallow crown of the snap kit's roof profile over the backlight and the front wheel arch sweep about as bothersome as Plowboy finds the side trim on the original-tool AMT - but that doesn't necessarily mean you nor anyone else will.

THAT is COOL. Man, when I finally get around to hanging a Revell sedan front clip on my next new-tool AMT, that may be just the way I wanna do it! GREAT BUILD.

My pleasure, Bill! Let's not forget these: The 'vert has a bit of an issue around the belt line "kink" as Keyser mentioned earlier but it's still more than serviceable.

With all due respect, NO. Sorry. 'Cause that's what everybody's gonna do now. They're gonna take the exception starting this thread, try to make a rule out of it, and use it as a slippery slope excuse to dictate who says what about a given kit. I've got just as much business telling you to "stop reading if you don't like It" as any member here does telling another what to "end now". How would you like being on the receiving end of a presumption like that?

Noooo kiddin'. Say, 'member that blog you once quipped on me constantly pointing out? Well not for nothin', but But Steve, it's disrespectful ABOUT AN INANIMATE OBJECT, not an individual. As gratuitously dismissive as the original post looks on its face, there's no reason to take it personally. The more effective approach is to offer your counterpoint, and if you have a nice build to support it, all the better. Then, the o p either engages in an honest discussion or hoists himself by his own hanging rope to betray the troll he really is. And I gotta say, as tetchy as a post or two might have gotten, this discussion was almost admirably restrained by the usual MCM dogpile-the-critic standards. Your mileage may vary, but these days, I'm finding it better just to wait, watch for the inevitable backfiring petard, then light it up.

Dodge Aries for the high school course. Then, the first car Mom bought new:

A thread about old threads that itself is three years old... even around here, that's just too meta for me. ?

Got an original '67 Cougar I'd consider volunteering for such a new-tool license to print money... but I prize that sucker and I'd want it back. ?

No prob, Jim.

The Revell kit is the very one, seems to be the box I remember - little puzzled right now that it shows the five-spoke wheels offered in the '56 kits. Quite possibly came with two custom wheel options... That blue boxcover would be the original '60s kit decontented for most of its custom parts. These would be the new-tool boxcovers: The version with photoetch, wiring and vinyl hoses: Custom version with tubs and a big block: Later release with AMT half-assing boxcover photo selection (coupe inside, not a sedan): And the latest, in red plastic:

Huh. I was gonna suggest looking around online auctions for the original issue with the stock wheels, but apparently that's become hen's teeth... A few more of the Revell sedan and the '97 AMT hardtop, just for purposes of discussion: You can see a bit of the comparative "bloat" in the Roman Red hardtop. The bodywork just seems to billow a little more, though most of this effect manifests at the front - the "new tool" AMT model seems a lot more convincing from the rear. It may be helpful to remember that the original AMT kit erred on the side of a slightly leaner and sleeker presentation. Too thick for scale in any event, the antenna is particularly obnoxious on this model. Tried fixing the huge sprue parting marks with a foil wrap, occurs to me now I should ditch that and touch it up with Molotow. This is the "Pro Shop" variant with photoetch, ignition wires and soft vinyl hoses and dagmars. AMT was looking to thump its chest a little and produce a new opus, right about the same time Revell was releasing an all-new '56 Nomad - which became the basis for the '56 Del Ray, which then shared its running gear with the 150 Black Widow and the eventual Bel Air sedan you see here. Though the new tool AMT had a fully separate chassis frame and some other groundbreaking touches, the Revell undercarriage didn't much suffer for comparison in overall detail - and there's no denying the body's proportional superiority, particularly from the cowl forward. Revell's sedan came out some 14 or so years later than AMT's hardtop, and that time was evidently put to good use. For its complexity, the '97 AMT kit builds very nicely. The optional wheel package was a pain to use for the Revell sedan (it didn't at all seem particularly designed for the kit) but I'd guess if you went with the stock wheel option, the building experience would be far better; the rest of the kit was very agreeable to put together. Those stock wheels and tires present a bit better than AMT's, with wider whitewalls and rims a little more flush to the tires.

Kinda like that seafoam green plastic, though. Very vintage. Tim Boyd wrote one of the best comparison articles ever and found this original-tool '57 the best of the lot - not the very highest plaudit, because the contemporary Revell, MPC and Monogram kits dropped the bar pretty low for accuracy, ease of building, or some combination of the two. I'm honestly not super-keen on the Revell snapper/Monogram 1/12, either - roof crown at the rear and the front fender arches weren't the greatest matches to a 1:1. If I were to put a good Bel-Air coupe together, it'd probably graft the front clip from the left one onto the rest of the kit on the right: The new-tool (1997) kit on the right was a game attempt to make a new mission statement for AMT, but I think on balance, the Revell 150/Bel Air sedan variation on the left is decisively the best '57 Chevy kit we've seen so far. That "face" is just bang-on, and the front bumper is not only the most accurate in a plastic '57 Chevy kit, it's also the best-processed. The mold parting lines were moved to the rear edges so there were no obvious seams marring the sides - an industry-first, I think. But even with its wonky side trim and rifle-straight fender/headlight transition, the old '62 kit still looks pretty okay overall.

Yeah, I'm really diggin' that strictly as a piece of new tooling - not so much into rigs, m'self, but I'm sure after one of these. Thanks, Tim!