Chuck Kourouklis

How very enlightening. Thanks, Mike!

They were more unibody than I reckoned - I was not aware of the continuous floor pan between cab and bed. See, I was having trouble with "unibody" for the exact reason you list, 'cause I was certain they ran a full ladder frame. But while they're not exactly body shell and subframe in the passenger car sense, the term's better justified than I thought.

Yeah, I'm kinda havin' a "DUH" moment about it all now - wasn't aware the floor was continuous, but integrated bed quarters don't really work unless they have that foundation, do they? Hmm. True unibody then. Wow.

Welp, it's been pointed out that 9 months is on the rosy side, assuming nothing goes wrong, to get any presentable plastic in a box. That means hammer-to-the-floor, NOTHING going wrong, maybe 4th quarter '18. For ONE of them, because the decision hasn't even been made what comes first. Account for history and Murphy's law, I'd put 'em somewhere early-mid '19, m'self. They can take till 2021, far as I'm concerned, if they use the time getting 'em dialed in. Oh, whatever will I build in the meantime...

Begging your pardon, Mr M, but one can point out something in the drip moldings on a mock-up without passing judgment on your final products exactly because these are the mock-ups - right? Having them too flat would not be something unique to Moebius; the two manufacturers who have covered this generation of Nova before did the exact same thing, and this is an opportunity for Moebius to distinguish itself with a small but distinct improvement over its predecessors. Isn't the mock-up stage exactly where it's to your best benefit to hear about some of these things? Better now than after the steel is cut, or am I wrong? Perhaps this is already an item in your first round of notes? I might understand some exasperation in that case, but it's not as if we had any way of knowing that. And it's not as if I pointed out that precedent established twice before your effort without necessarily linking it to the possibility that you'll correct it before production. It also seems I got it entirely past you that I thought the '65 looked pretty good - good enough to convince me the subject might be more interesting than I first thought.

Uh, yeah - I can sympathize with keeping things in their proper forums and all, but it waddn' Matthew introduced the subject of trucks into the whole new release discussion, it was Moebius. Anyhoo, I too was kinda like "meh" to see the Novas. These do have small blocks, though, and while one can hope Moebius doesn't totally flatten the sport coupe drip rails like AMT and Trumpeter before them, the post sedan does look pretty tuff. Tube frame reinforcements in the engine bay? Yup, that one has my attention. Though I'll probably give in to the '64 too, 'specially if they get the greenhouse right. The only way I could be happier about the F-series trucks would be to have the integrated-bed Styleside from earlier in the '60s (sorry, but unless the cab carries actual structural load that I'm not aware of, the use of the term "unibody" for these just throws me). Serve those right up soon as you got 'em dialed in, sil vous plait Moebius. *edit* - hmm, digging into F-series history a little deeper, apparently "unibody" is more apt than I first thought...

COUGAR... ooooooooooh... I'd be all the blablabla over that in as many variations they cared to make!

AND they'll widen the track a bit, which I don't think will suit this kit badly.

See, what tickles my imagination is the "all-new" tool angle - By way of f'rinstance, the '70 Charger is all-new tooling (and nice), as was the Stacey David Deuce kit (*cough*). So that could be one direction, and malaiseBirds, early B-Bodies, and '20s Ford variations might fit that approach. Then there are the all-NEW-new tools without reference to previous patterns, like the Foose truck & Caddy or the '50 Olds. Comes to that, the single thing I most want that intersects with sales potential might be this: One can dream. For a few more hours, anyway.

Luc, ye'r a kool sort. Hate to come across as pickin' on ya. But the problem goes a little deeper than you stating "toys" as an indisputable absolute. To start with that much-abraded premise, sure, if you come at it from the outside angle, you don't look at things too close, it's easy to confuse model kits for Hot Wheels diecasts kids push on the floor or for the drug store R/Cs youngsters can plug 'n play - particularly when toy manufacturers have the resources to produce more accurate proportioning than you see in some model kits. That's the casual appraisal of plastic models, the Ebay/Retail assessment, and frankly the incomplete one. Coming from the other direction is the very definition of a scale model itself, which in the very word "scale" mandates the closest proportional miniaturization possible of a full-size subject. There's hard math involved that a scale model is by its very definition supposed to conform to, and when a model is off by that definition, it fails in a primary objective. It may be cleverly designed, highly detailed, and well-engineered for fit, but if it doesn't pass the sit-there-and-look-like-the-1:1 test, people are not wrong to point that out. Trivializing things to the "toy" absolute is the favored approach of those who try to argue that it IS somehow objectionable to do so, and it's just so much misdirection to bolster a very poorly justified personal reaction to kit criticism. Not to say YOU'RE doing that, just pointing out the most common abuse of that argument. But the deeper issue as I see it is the appeal to relative privation. They're getting gunned down in Texas churches, Iranian missiles are aimed at Saudi Arabia, people are dying in Puerto Rico. It's all true, all very worrying. And absolutely off-topic to anything in this forum, at least till they change its topic. If somebody takes it upon himself to try and mandate how everyone should behave in an exchange as if a given manufacturer of nearly 75 years' standing will wither at the slightest dimming of unalloyed, golden-rayed praise effusive, it's not off-topic to point that out. That's about this forum, and "real life problems" are totally irrespective to such a discussion.

Tom, Tom. Do you seriously not expect some kind of push-back after commanding everyone to dial down the "negative noise"?

That's right, everyone. Feel free to hector and dictate to your fellow forum members of course - but WATCH WHAT YOU SAY about poor widdle Revell. Which I guess we're to treat as some sort of corporate snowflake… that by some miracle hasn't, y'know, melted in the past 70+ years of operation.

Well well, I'm about on Jesse's page, how about that? I believe Bill implicitly on every drawback he mentions, but for the exact reasons listed just above, I still hold the Slingster to be Revell/Monogram's best of 2013 - in no small part because of the source material and its history. In my estimation, it was analogous to the new-tool Rommel's Rod and Tijuana Taxi, and I figured accuracy standards to be a little relaxed from the start. Unlike the Kit That Must Not Be Named or the 'Cuda from the same year, which gave you every reason to expect otherwise. Thank the Almighty above for those little LIDAR guns. And BERNARD - exquisite finish and commentary as always! And with all due respect, one of the biggest root problems in forums like these is that an association is ever drawn in the first place between one modeler's commentary on a kit and how much fun another is supposed to have with it as a result. In any non-hysterical terms, one has NOTHING TO DO with the other. Imho, people who "get" it understand that from the start.

Ah, Tim, such an incurable tantalizer. Can't really get with too many more malaise mobiles, but hey - if they keep it up with the LIDAR (or in Moebius's case, adopt it), they can sell me just about anything.

Hmm. Pad-printed tires - the Firestones, then? I seem to recall this one initially offered with the plastic-insert BFG Silvertowns that debuted on the '57 Chevy from '98. Eh, well. Never got the Conti kit either I don't think - just the excuse I didn't need.

I was being a little tongue-in-cheek, but the Tamiya XT - I forgot about that one! Thanks for the reminder! Gonna go plop one in the warehouse... **edit** Hmmph. Scratch that. Evidently it was Search where I last saw that and not Link - and Search is all plumb out. What I'd REALLY like is an SVX. Coulda swore somebody had a plastic 1/24, but it just don't google...

An Isuzu Gemini?? A car so inspired they needed "EEEE-SSOOOOO-ZZZOOOOOO... that's okay, kid, I can't say Chivvarray" as an ad campaign? That's got to be one of the eyebrow-raisingest, chin-scratchingest, w-t-ever-loving-effingest subject choices known in the history of hobbydom. Not even a Piazza/Impulse? I'll have one.

DOOOOOOOOODE... Just noticed yer sig! You watch Regular Car Reviews? Romie and Regular RULE.

Yeah, 'member those. Think there was a '69 Charger with dog dish caps on it? My shame-on-AMT moment came much earlier, when they pictured a 2nd-gen S10 long bed on the cover (1:1 vehicle, no model shots) but gave us the same ol' short bed from the previous year. Think that was '95 or so, and one of the things launched me into kit reviews was that no published review of that kit troubled itself to point out such a significant deviation. But after being fooled once, it was all shame on me thereafter. Engine wiring, parts that were plainly never in previous issues of the kit, the fact that Racing Chumps was bleeding the brand a bit by that point; those were all pretty clear indicators their builders were kinda half-a$$ing and sending in previously-finished personal models instead of content-accurate builds - in all fairness, probably for less-than-half-a$$ fees and turnaround times. That the box cover's original annual long-bed '60 Chevrolet pickup looked so distinct from the newer-tool short bed was plenty clue enough for me of a mistake rather than new parts for the newer kit.

Hmm. Bit of an education for me, since I thought red lines were done even earlier, by '68 or so. But I too would applaud the way Revell handled the door scoops.

Meanwhile, I could swear I saw something here about Round2 re-releasing the Dodge D50 pickup. It's somewhat possible I crossed it with the street reissue of the Datsun pickup, but not that likely - am I imagining things?

This is a reissue of a kit first offered by Revell US around 1992-93. It was originally billed as a 1/24 kit, as you can see on the box cover: Molded in red plastic originally. Its tires facilitated an avalanche of Revell low rider kits soon thereafter.

Far as the ProModeler-based '68-'69 are concerned, this one may have master patterns and several design features in common but the tooling is all-new. Axle pins now and no more poseable steering. For whatever reason, the motor mounts aren't staggered in this as they are in the '68-'69. Very subtle body shell differences beyond the '70 update to the front end. Looked at the Rallye wheels from the '70 'Cuda, and those have a deeper boss, which may act to widen the track of the Charger a bit if you use them.

And Aoshima went there because even with the EM kits on the market for around 25 years, there was still more demand for a state-of-the-art Countach kit than there was for any other exotic - according to Aoshima's research, anyway. Fujimi vet here, managed to wrestle a 5000 QV together. Great detail, no big problems when working with the subassemblies - but really white-knuckle when you try to get all the inner fenders and ducts into the body work. Depends on how fussy you are about such things, but back-to-back Fujimi 400 to Aoshima 400, the Aoshima just looks more on-the-money, in many subtle ways and some more overt. Have not done the Aoshima yet, but building ease was a mandate in the design. For this you sacrifice operational hinges on the doors, absolutely complete suspension detail (we're talking the full length of those trailing links at the rear), and about the 50% of the engine that's invisible anyway. One other issue that a few build-ups have had some difficulty concealing: the rocker panels are separate on this kit to ease chassis installation. On the other hand, molding refinement in the Aoshima kit is superior, even if it's not quite as detail-crazy as Fujimi's. Nothing makes this clearer than a comparison of doors between the two kits - Aoshima's are far more completely developed and shaped to fit, right out of the gate; even if they operate on non-prototypical hinges, Fujimi's are still pretty crude by comparison. For ultimate detail, it's still Fujimi EM - and there's a pretty serious cost in builder-friendliness in some areas. For noticeably better accuracy at what's likely to be far less of a building headache, Aoshima's probably the better bet. Even without building it - but having thoroughly examined it - I'll third the motion on that one.

Kool! Neither here nor there, not that it'll happen in our lifetimes; but I'd get after a kit of one. Closest we've got (not the same, just the closest) in plastic kits is probably this 1:35: