Chuck Kourouklis

Y'know, Bill, I really think the wind is just blowing Fujimi right now (the Testors is the Italeri btw). That's probably as you might expect, since Fujimi's is a couple decades newer than the next most recent release. I'd have to defer to someone who's been all the way through the Fujimi kit, but I've taken one of mine through a comprehensive 30-piece mock-up and indications are the fit is very precise. Think it stands to reason its current engineering standards won't give you a huge fight on the way to the finish - though the Italeri kit didn't look so bad for fit either. Not that Fujimi's doesn't have its little issues. The generator/fan belt is a web rather than an open piece, and you'll likewise have to cut out the webbed-over interior panels for the doors for a better appearance inside. The entire drivetrain is arguably a bit blocky and oversimplified. But for the low-fuss shelf model you want, the newest kit really looks like the best candidate. Perhaps not enough to throw away an Italeri if you already have one, but if you're starting from zero, I'd say Fujimi's is the one to go for. footnote: Aurora's is 1/25 but falls drastically short of your overall body shape objectives. Protar's is far prettier if it's not that much more correct, and it's just enough shy of dimensions for the other 1/24 kits it could almost pass for a 1/25 - but it's probably got some shenanigans in store for you to get it together. Gunze's all-plastic version of its High-Tech kit might also approach your objectives if you're good with a curbside, but it's long out of production and pulling some collector prices by now.

Point taken, but irony is more easily identified if it has a discernible basis. Great synopsis, though!

Whut Jon said! Thought we might get a pre-paint but nope! All up to you.

I'm looooong overdue to chime in on how GREAT this work is, Bill! BIG improvement. It's just a pity that circumstances should make you feel constrained to pepper this fine thread with all those disclaimers. As I've mentioned before, there's an oft-repeated saying about what to do with 'em if they can't take a joke. A grown-up audience requires no qualifying language for work like yours.

Yup! Saw a couple perched on top of a Monogram '55 F100 pickup, resisted the urge to shake my head once more at the subject selection, and grabbed the one put aside for me. And y'know, if we're not gonna demand anything more than retread subjects when offered a choice on new tooling, the resulting kits could certainly be done MUCH worse than this. I'm liking mine a LOT so far. Just 78 parts, but maximum leverage on those for detail. They get the entire bed box/fenders/tailgate molded in ONE PIECE - with barely detectable seams! Maybe it's just my ignorance about the process, but I'm all, like, WWWWW-O-O-O-OWWW imagining the molds sliding in and up and out and down to produce that part.

Nobody's said the first thing about throwing away a pre-Fujimi GTO (+Daytona??) stash. There's a lot more friction than slope between anything anybody has claimed in this thread and such an extreme. And maybe the point about hand-built car-to-car variations is so obvious that some of us had actually accounted for that before we made our observations? The rear wheel arches on the Gunze kit just don't match any 1:1 GTO - but even with its broad shoulders and somewhat gangsterish overall take, there's still a lot to like about Gunze's kit. It's certainly more accurate in proportions than the Protar - sorry, but Violati/3851's deviations don't account for all the ways that particular model goes afield - and waaay ahead of Aurora's earliest-breaking kit, which was not only misproportioned, but ugly. At least Protar's is still somewhat appealing, if not correct. For the best mean bi-scale representation among the Series 1 GTOs, Italeri's ever-so-slightly slab-sided body was far and away the best until Fujimi's came along and moved the game on. I personally think Fujimi's is better even than Model Factory Hiro's recent 1/12 variation (and that's one of my favorite kits ever). If somebody showing off a stash of older GTO kits started this thread and a litany of Fujimi GTO posts rained down too late to do him any good, I'd understand the reaction. But this discussion was started by someone who wanted to know before buying, and the responses have been entirely appropriate to that.

They didn't look so disastrous on Revell AG's website, but that's some serious what-da-fudgecake goin' on right there. And Revell AG's gonna splurge on tire trademarking while Revell Illinois won't, eh?

Hey, Alan - Torque boxes seem to be on a tree with stock parts - (check bottom tree left of tires, top right just beside the stabilizer bar). Just to refresh, the unplated tree with F & F parts:

I know that when I don't have a Charger available for rent, I get after a Fusion next (Mustang convertible trumps all else if it's on the menu, though). Think I could just about LIVE with a Fusion ST. Throw my applause in with everyone else's on these new full-detail kits, and the Toyotas will indeed be something new if they go that far. I didn't realize how much I missed these till I saw the new trees.

This whole thing is a new tool, Bill. Totally separate from the Pro Modeler '69/'68 derivatives.

A decal would be ideal, but long as they have an engraved Charger logo, I'm just about as good with foil and paint.

Yup. NNL West '16, Mr Sexton was just fine with the display models being handled. Those weren't painted, but I'd wager that this year as in '16, he presumed we wouldn't be tossing them about like footballs and spiking them in the end zone. Thanks again for the shots, James & Frank!

THANK YOU BLU! Awesome. That shot lays all the lingering questions to rest.

Your English is better than my Italian! Very nice.

Yup! Got one. Looks very nice...

OH - it just occurred to me that I may have come across as if I were asking you to SHOOT all that stuff! Nonononono. That was a commentary on how I hope Revell finishes the kit. Seriously, thanks for sorting out everything that you did!

But... but... I don't understand! (for best effect, try imagining that phrase all breathless and gaspy) If you're not a REEEEEEEAAAALL MODELER unless you take The Kit That Must Not Be Named with a glad scat-eating little grin and just do all the hacking necessary to get the roof at the right height, then shouldn't that same REEEEEEEAAAALL MODELER be able to affect all these changes from the old F100 kit?? . . Yeah, I know. Gets to a point where even I have to admit I'm just being difficult.

Thanks again, Gerry! Speculated that might be the case in the F&F Charger thread 'cause the valve covers aren't chromed. If we just get the R/T rear fascia - and maybe the black HEMI swatches as an option for the hood pretty please? - we should be sittin' pretty. Particularly in light of the full set of Rallyes in the Sox & Martin 'Cuda.

Hope not - supposed to be a full-width taillight on that R/T, and the F&F trees looked grouped in such a way to accommodate new ones for taillights.

Thanks, Gerry! Did they verify a Hemi, or would you be able to?

HHHHHHAH! I see whatcha did there...

Wow, REALLY? Okay then. We're getting different answers on the wheels, but I think I'd just like the Rallyes on the Charger better anyway. Did Hemi 'Cudas come with the Magnum road wheels?

Who, me? I already answered that. Twice. And it's got little to do with the point I'm making 'cause I buy just about any new automotive tooling from Revell.

Yes, the Grand Master IS what I'm talkin' about, but lookie here - there's no denying the new Foose pickup will be leagues ahead of its forebear in design and builder-friendliness. Now that Revell has finally broken out some LIDAR on these (if they hadn't already on the C7 'Vettes), this kit's a lead-pipe cinch to represent its subject far more accurately than the old F100 does its. That Foose's truck is some sweet eye candy was never even questioned in the first place, and now that some of its more desirable features have been enumerated, I begin to understand the rationale a little better. But a little F T F Y is still in order: "Along (what're truly) the same lines of thinking: IS IT ANY WONDER they bring out the Charger? Revell offers several all-new Foose vehicles for modelers to choose, yet they pick one of the two in seven with antecedents in kits already produced. If that's all their customers want, why wouldn't Revell keep generating new tools of previously kitted subjects?" The F100 hasn't exactly been the part of this exercise to discredit that practice. Not really the sort of thing to encourage, say, a '51 Merc over a '49, by way of f'rinstance.

Based on the F&F version, I'd near-as-guarantee you they'll be separate. They'd have had to tool new side inserts for the body mold to integrate the scoops. And yup, you're articulating just what I've noticed. I'm betting there would have been big black HEMI splashes on the hood too.