Chuck Kourouklis

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:

Eh, I'll take one. LOVE the trademark evasion on the tires...

The markings on the tires are absolutely anachronistic. The round-shouldered radial look, not so much. And seeing that a 205/70R14 is within the realm of conversion from E78 (10mm difference in width, or less than half an inch) on a tire easily stretched to a scale 15" rim, then if AMT absolutely had to use an existing tire, that E78 was far and away their closest at the time. I maintain that if Round2 wiped the sidewalls on those very tires and then tampo-printed them "Eagle GT", they'd pass muster well enough - particularly if you sanded down the knobbly texture of the treads some. Of course, if they could see their way to new Eagle GTs in the same sizes as their recent Polyglas sets, there'd be a TON of models to use them across 1/25 and 1/24 brands.

Eh, it looks like pretty straight down-scale pantograph of their 1/8 '80 Turbo Trans Am, which is why I'd suspect you're getting the impression of an '80 (and perhaps why Monogram wasn't any too specific about the model year on the box cover). And again, I'll break company with some of the other assessments here. One thing I did not suffer well even as a pre-teen modeler was the slop I was beginning to see from MPC around things like drip moldings, tire design, parts texturing and whatnot. To be fair, MPC's 1/20 Corvette of the time was based on tooling much older than Monogram's, which focused on one version. Monogram's may have been simplified, but they did a MUCH better and sharper job than their contemporaries sitting on a shelf looking looking like the 1:1.

I'd have to disagree with that. For proportions and detail accuracy, the AMT kit actually beats all other comers in 1/24-1/25 3rd-gen Camaros. The Revell kit had a bulky nose and a relatively crude finish in some areas, most particularly the kinda bashed-looking front end. The AMT kit was the only one in this scale to get the properly "scooped" sides of the headlight nacelles in the front fascia. Revell's rubber tires were square-shouldered but sure, I wouldn't mind a set of those for this kit - though if AMT had wiped the sidewalls of its tires and put "EAGLE GT" logos on the decal sheet (or better yet, tampo-printed them), they would have been vastly improved. As it is, the included tires are the only ones this kit has ever had. For whatever reason, even Revell's 1/16 3rd-gen Camaro was markedly superior to its own 1/25.

Don't know if I'd go so far as to say "shame", but sure, I'd grab up a '76-'78. Prob'ly make a Sky Bird outta mine.

For the more base-level taillight treatment, you can find that in last year's Fast & Furious variation of this tooling. Good to see the full-width taillight and door scoop covers nailed down absolutely for this version. And as you can see from the F&F kit or the instruction sheet in this one, the molds are all-new straight down to the chassis and suspension, though they hew very closely in appearance to the '68/'69 tooling. Axle pins and no positional steering this time.

Caps are on the chrome tree fwiw. Tires are the Polyglas made to replace TRX tires from the '91 Baldwin-Motion '69 Camaro onward, tampo printed narrow whites on the bare sidewalls. One possible surprise benefit? The 351 valve covers stamped "Powered By Ford" - weren't these missing from the Mach 1 Special Edition of the '70 Mustang? They DO specificy it's a Windsor this time for the Torino, so the covers don't appear to have the exact shape for the Mustang's Cleveland, scale fudging aside. But now we've at least got something to copy the script from...

Man. Had no idea how badly I wanted that Civic till I saw the announcement...

Based on the results I got with the McGriff OIds conversion, seems like applying the plate decal to thin plastic sheet stock and trimming around it might be a good compromise.