Chuck Kourouklis

nyuk nyuk nyuk If we had "like" buttons... ?

Funny, 'cause it's just exactly the Black Knight graphics to ramp my interest in this way up. Did Monogram ever offer that version? EDIT: never mind! 5 seconds on the Google machine got me my answer: New decals look more accurate compared to a skim of 1:1s...

GREAT friggin' box, tho...

Ssshhhhh... Why, I once got a short shot from - SHRIIIIIEEEEK - Tamiya! Not just any 1/24 kit either, but on the transmission case of the 1/12 Caterham 7! Maybe it was to check where the QC went wrong, but their demand for me to send in the defective part seemed a little arrogant. All was resolved, though. ? The Vega I'm working on doesn't strictly have a short shot, but you know those swirls you sometimes see where the flowing plastic meets itself from opposite directions as it fills the mold? There's a little divot from that in the lower front fascia. Red paint and location minimize it, though, and I have to speed this one along.

The Impala body is so close to the AMT original that it apparently shares the asymmetric drip molding arcs between driver and passenger side. Still think it might edge out the Revell/Monogram body, and I'm wondering about mixing the Revell dirty bits with it.

Oh what, that horrid, fore-bloated/rear-shortened/pancaked monstrosity that was almost the worst Mustang kit tooled in recent memory? I'll happily put that thing through a verbal wood-chipping anytime anybody likes. It was something rare from Tamiya: A MISTAKE. The domestics took the '94 comparisons by default. In a sleeping walk. The Mustang-not-Porsche they're talking about when they say "GT4", though? A vastly different proposition. Which is why these mythical, fever-dream unconditional complainers are so incomprehensibly silent about it, fancy that. Nova wagon, though? Simple build, shmimple build, pimple build. I wanna see how that thing might look with some Trumpeter guts. ?

Oooh, full-bumper Baldwin. Now we're talkin'.

Welp, since the discussion has bent this way, there's been a little trouble about the headlight nacelles of the Rover, though I couldn't tell you what right now without looking, myself. The Foosillac was very nice for general form, though the top didn't match exactly in the C-pillar and the wheels are problematic (one of James's "ITs" that kills the deal for some but doesn't overly concern me). That Ford pickup, though - BIG payoff from LIDAR. Been quite some time since I've seen any Revell kit look so "shrunken-1:1" as this. If the flatroof 'Stang comes in at the same level, I'll be overjoyed.

1/24 would suit me just fine, but I wouldn't worry too much, gents - Revell Germany may own the shop now, but I'm pretty sure Sexton's still on the case and if so, my money would be on 1/25 for US-targeted releases.

That's right! 'Cause you know what's even easier to let go? That people are going to criticize kits in a forum heading explicitly about "Car Kit News & Reviews." And if you don't like somebody bashing a manufacturer, don't read the thread (hey, at least that suggestion doesn't mandate costing a manufacturer a sale). "There's no perfect model", "it's just a hobby", "if you don't like it, don't buy it (and shut up about it)" - these are all hackneyed angles with false binary choices imposed on them. I'm sorry to belabor it, but people act like these canards are the last word, and they just aren't.

Went in with tempered expectations and I gotta say, for what it is I reeeaaaalllly like this kit so far. More later... ?

Alright, and if somebody could show me all the nitpicking drawn by Tamiya's 300SL Gullwing, say, or even Revell's Midgets or Round 2's 2016 Camaros or the big rigs from Moebius, I'd appreciate it - missed all that somehow. And even if someone can show it all to me, fact is, reality aligns a bit more with certain kits presenting stuff to "nitpick" than it does with miserable hordes desperately digging for stuff to complain about. Because we're not talking "some" here, now, are we? We're talking inevitable dog-piling of a sort to prevent Revell from ever showing the process all on its own as a reason. And that just doesn't happen with EVERYTHING Revell or anyone else puts out. And in well more than a decade of me asking, what nobody's been able to explain to me without some kind of inherent exaggeration or logical fallacy is just what is so upsetting about "nitpicking" on a kit you had nothing to do with developing. Even if you accept the inevitability of some manufactured complaint about any new subject, so what? Somebody brings up an issue. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you likely have evidence to point that out very quickly. If it is there, it means something to you or it doesn't. If a roof 10% too low for scale doesn't bother you, why shouldn't you enjoy the kit regardless of what anybody says? And if it does bother you, is that the fault of the person who pointed it out? Because that's where you see the real dog-piling in one kit thread after another, squarely on that poor idiot who doesn't realize he's supposed to STAY QUIET ABOUT THE EMPEROR'S BLOOMERS, who actually dares to talk about issues topical to forums like these. It's beyond time for people to grow up and acknowledge that even if we're talking about "toys", we're talking about toys taking on a mandate of being executed TO SCALE. And if something is visibly inaccurate, it is entirely topical to discuss that in a forum like this, and wholly counterproductive to hector people for doing so and try to stifle that entirely topical discussion. Will people grow up about this? Welp, as you and Jesse have said, "round and round"...

Oh, now - but isn't that final, squabbling rush to deadline pretty much the boilerplate plot of any product development show you've ever seen, from aerospace on down to cottage motorcycle manufacturing? Of course board meetings are boring, which is why, y'know, you only cover the highlights if you spend any time with those at all. That's why EDITING was invented, you see. Actually, Mark, you've outlined something that's not only got quite the precedent in other industries, but might actually serve to mitigate all this alleged uninformed opinion. Here's a fun trick: say something was LIDAR scanned - somebody criticizes the overall proportions and if the math is on your side, you get to say "GOTCHA!" Sounds like that should be irresistible to some of you 'round here. Of course, the risk in such an approach is that you may actually end up proving that a given kit's controversy is directly commensurate with its flaws; that all this fake-news criticism is actually correct relative to the problems a kit has, that the kits from LIDAR aren't complained about so much. And THAT would tend to erode these sweet little fever dreams of the Complaining Cabal or "professional (insert kit manufacturer here) haters", these mythical klatches of modelers who are never happy with anything no matter what's put in front of them. One discussion thread after another lays bare the lying fantasy of that premise, but if you're going to nurse a certain pathology about kit criticism, cherishing it so much you can't help bringing it up in discussions having little if anything to do with kit criticism, then the never-happy hobbyist is the sort of fairy tale you need to justify that pathology, whether great masses of them truly exist or not. Which may actually be why some wouldn't want Revell to do such a doc. Not that Revell would have the time even if they wanted to. ?

^^Roger that.^^ As for the thread, yup, it's just doing what threads do.

Comes to it, seems a backdating of AMT's reasonable '56 would be one of the less-involved conversions Round2 could do.

How about that Murray Automotive T50, Doc? An F1 for the roaring '20s, 12k rpm Cosser 12, BT46-style fan, Gordon Murray plucking out all the nits that aggravated him about the McLaren? Sounds like a whole lotta YES PLEASE to me, happy as I am about the flatroof 'Stang...

^^THAT right there.^^ I mean, it's not as if "1953" was mentioned anywhere in this thread... repeatedly... but I'ma stop right there, 'cause it took three passes thru the '71 Mustang thread before my penny even dropped on the honest-to-Henry new Revell tool they was talkin' 'bout. ?

*oof* ?

Yup. Not that the others are ugly mind, but the Starliner doesn't scream "FIFTIES" like they do. Its purity and absence of gimmicks give it an agelessness unmatched by nearly any other of the era, and the Exner cars only began to approach its sleekness closer to the end of the decade. But for the Corvette - and only thru '57 at that - GM wouldn't even be in the hunt till Mitchell took over.

X2, emphatically. Uncommonly low-slung and beautiful, especially for America circa 1953.

You're telling me - I got all the way here before I doubled back and caught the "nuance" that this is a new REVELL kit we're talking about (and actually Revell instead of the usual crank-step manufacturer mixup). LIDAR, too? EXCELLENT. Serve it up... ?️

uh... Though it's true I'd prefer the '67 (and a Terlingua/Titus variation would probably justify a '67 more than a '68), there was a bit of a joke in there somewhere. ?

NAAH. '67 is exactly what it should be. . . . (three guesses why I'd say so and don't look too close)

Kool! May have taken forever, but really good choices and work on those two, far as I'm concerned.

(course, I have no problem naming that kit till the beef is home, m'self - it was more a... uuuhh... nod to those who were sick of having their biases and illogic laid bare by that particular example.) ?