Chuck Kourouklis

Revell's Preferred Partner LHS dealers should be getting 'em in NOW or very shortly - that's where I got mine, 'cause, uh... let's just say I don't quite have the rapport with Revell to get advanced samples. Should be a couple weeks at most even for the non RPP shops who are reasonably on top of things. And if you like the '68/'69, my guess is there ain't much you won't like about this one. That's for this Fast & Furious kit, now. No official announcement on the next version yet, even if this kit itself serves as a very loud unofficial announcement.

No Sir! That's another factor convincing me a factory stocker is a-brewin', 'cause otherwise, that console we're not using for this one don't make much sense.

Heh, that's means your '61 and my reviewing career are right about the same age... *busily shopping bifocals for the next killer MCG set...* No prob at all, Kelson!

From the author of the Coral Aura hisself! Why thankya, Sir!

Yup, this: Once again, my local RPP pusher apparently got a jump. and for thems of you what paid attention to the skill level and parts count announcements, allow me to confirm a suspicion you might have developed: This sucker has a lot more in common with the ProModeler '69/'68 variants than it does with the diecast. It's very slightly simplified in isolated spots, but it hews very closely otherwise to the previous masters and design. As it's been with the Rat Roaster, various '90s Monogram NASCAR kits, the running gear of R/M's '55 and '56/'57 Chevys, and confusingly retooled recent Mustang kits, it's very easy to mistake parts for carry-over from the '68/'69 - but except possibly for the tires and axle pins, EVERY PART IS NEW. Many of them may be so identical as to interchange with their '68/'69 counterparts, but virgin steel was cut for this one. Not used for this version are a console and its trim plate on the chrome tree. The rear bumper is the only stock piece on a separate chrome tree that includes the wheels and many of the race parts, including a nicely done injector scoop from a sliding mold - yes, there's an inevitable parting line, but it's pretty faint. The white F&F parts are grouped in a similar way. Not only that, but there are even more blatant clues a factory stock Hemi R/T draws nigh: A private brain trust with whom I first shared this and I are of the opinion that the grille may just be a tiny bit tall for scale - but that engraving is just stupid better than what the preview shots indicated, and the overall piece is comically ahead of what AMT tried to foist on us a few years back. And lookie, an "R/T" badge... And if Revell were going strictly after the Toretto car, I doubt they would have bothered to include the chrome lips around the wheel arches. Remember, this is NOT the '68/'69 shell. In addition to the obvious changes up front, there are subtle revisions to the backlight contours, the door scoops, and the fender arch shapes themselves. This kit is juuuust about to the '68/'69 what R/M's '62 Corvette is to their '58/'59. As in that scenario, the new tooling ditches poseable steering for Revell's current pin axle wheel mounting, and the engraving - still very sharp - isn't quite so razor-edged as the ProModeler antecedent. The interior and body do seem decently updated to '70 specs on a first sweep, but the true MoPar cognoscenti may find some nits I don't immediately see. Sliding molds provide great relief detail on the instrument panel pad in one piece now, and the reintegration of the transmission halves with the engine block, relative to the '68/'69, indicate the Hemi will be the only engine, at least initially. You won't have to de-chrome the valve covers either - but that strange bracket poking up from the back of the oil filter in the '70 'Cuda is also present here, and it makes me wonder if there isn't something I'm missing in all my Hemi reference. But what I'd observe overall is this: unless you've gotta have a street '70 sooner than later, or you want the previous tooling's poseable steering that badly, or you'd really rather a Wedge than a Hemi, I'd hold off on the kitbashing just yet. It seems VERY LIKELY a pretty cool factory-stocker is well on its way. Open for questions and added shots as I can get to 'em. Anybody can slap one together in a week, you're more than welcome, happily invited in fact, to post it here - but let me anticipate certain pot-shooters by making clear I've got other kits in the cue for publication and busy weekends besides, so the MAIN POINT of this thread is the in-box examination of the raw parts, and any snide broadsides about not building it quick enough for somebody's personal taste will MISS the point (as the authors of such generally do, and resolutely).

No, I think you know now, Bob. Wipers were the first thing to catch my eye. Passenger side rear corner of the hood is definitely less-than-curbside in fit.

Oh yeah, hysterical. Items 1 AND 2 at the blog in my signature, posted for over three years now.

Just not overly impressed with the styling or the fact that it's not a lot improved for visibility, and pretty bitter that it's gotten everything all bass-ackwards with the Mustang in having not only the power advantage but lower weight now. I'll probably get the snapper and a couple of the glue kits.

Yup, AMG-Benz in the Pagani and that doesn't impact Bob F's point in the least. Oh Tim - disrespectful? Highly inappropriate? At least there's a really pretty and refined DBS model around this half-engine - you wanna talk Tamiya treating a subject with out-and-out scorn, you'll find something MUCH more convincing in their '94-'95 Mustang kits. Maybe those kits still gave AMT and Revell a cold thrashing in material quality, but as accurate depictions of an SN95? They were downright comical - squashed, foreshortened, and something rare from Tamiya - a big mistake. And as operatic as that Aston V12 is, it's essentially the architecture of two Duratec V6s, right? 'Tween that and those Mustang excrescences, maybe it's not s t r i c t l y Aston-Martin getting dissed here... Downie's got the plot - in fact, he's describing my exact experience of that yearly comparison review some 14 years back. A domestic kit has its engine, but for its @ 90s parts count depending on the version, it fights me at several stages of assembly. Meantime, the Tamiya curbside with a count in the 130s just flies together. It's got a rally-oriented cockpit that routs the detail of the domestic's engine bay and interior combined, and I'm able to get it decently finished for photography in 3 days because it has NO. temperament. of ANY kind in the build. And then injury follows the insult: A Fujimi curbside presents its advantages in a more comprehensive interior and an intricate chassis, also with no assembly problems of any kind, again at a significantly higher overall parts count. An Astro van. An Astro Van?? YES. And according to a significant number of readers, I should have penalized the Japanese curbsides - patently superior in design and engineering, obviously more detailed overall, and un-de-NIably more pleasurable to build - simply because the domestic had an engine and they didn't. And you should have seen the contortions people put themselves through to rationalize that as an objective observation when it was anything but. One reader went so far as to say a model car without an engine was like a human figure without a head - and if people don't IMMEDIATELY see what's so laughable about this analogy that nobody should even bother expressing it, I don't know if I can explain it to 'em. If anything, the reaction to all this cemented for me just how absolutely subjective that viewpoint is. And that's coming from the position of having the exact same opinion myself - usually I know what I'm getting into well in advance, but on those rare occasions I purchase a curbside unawares, I still feel that sinking pit of disappointment in my gut. But that's NOT based on ANY inherent shortcoming of a curbside kit. In the cold light of rationality, there is NO necessary design or engineering shortfall in a kit lacking an engine, particularly if every other aspect of the kit is executed well. Like many, I was conditioned by domestic manufacturers to expect an engine. It is THAT CONDITIONING which leaves me disappointed with a curbside. There is NO RATIONAL WAY to mandate the lack of a fully replicated engine as an intrinsic fault in itself. Without a full engine, the model has nothing to run on? Well without opening doors, you have no way to get in one. Without good suspension detail you've got nothing to smooth the scale bumps. And again, most importantly in my eyes - you may pull a Bo Duke through the window, you may man up to the rattling of teeth and kidneys, you may get the thing coasting downhill without an engine - but without poseable steering, you have no way to control its direction! Classic slippery slope argument - but in this case, I defy anyone to show me the definitive logical stop on that slope. Maybe the lack of an engine indicates other design shortcuts in the model. Maybe the curbside nature of a kit heralds an overall lack of detail and development. And in those cases, the kits have problems bigger than the omission of an engine. But strictly in itself, the absence of a complete engine is NOTHING but a divergence from a prospective builder's preferences or expectations. And there's no experience like having to hustle a problematic domestic together back-to-back with a well engineered Japanese kit to bring it all into focus. (OH, and in case I need to explain it, that's just for the room here, maybe for those who haven't yet decided. I know better than to try to change anybody's minds.)

Kinda with Harry on the pre-print assessment, but I'll deal. THANKS MUCH for the overview, Tim! Yeah, the tire profiles. Used to be Revell doing the proper low profiles while AMT did 15" EVERYTHINGS, but a funny thing happened on the way to the aughts - Turns out tire profile was one of a few key advantages AMT's 5th-gen (top, Red Jewel Tint) had over the (bottom Inferno Orange) Revell kit. The GT and C7 'Vette indicate R/M have found their way back, though. I'm also an engine dogmatist even though I don't argue like one - though I WILL say poseable steering is just as important if not more so, 'cause you see far more cars out in the wild with their wheels steered than with their hoods open. Ham-handed tie rod is okay, long as there's an undertray covers it up. Rest looks pretty bitchin' to my eye...

We need "like" buttons 'round here.

I'm gonna turn one mindless, long-blathered cliche upside-down and say I wanna see it in my hands before I render a final positive verdict - but that Bronco does look beautiful on the trees.

Only caveat I'd have about the AMT lowrider tires and especially the Pegasus meats or the Revell lowrider /Miata Dunlops is that they're a bit beefy in width (but great if that's what you're after). Something similar in size that came out with next to no fanfare are the more vintage compact tires in the most recent '61/'60 Ranchero "Little Elminator" reissue (may even have whitewalls iIrc). Thems what need a more strictly period-looking tire, those might be worth a look.

Yup. Mine too.

16 for your same brass-gear Bugatti, Harry, a few years back. 'round 12 for complete DeAgostini subscriptions. Warped ABS in the McLaren MP4-23, was gonna stop at the much-cleaner Countach... but then they had to offer the '67 GT500. 7 for the Pocher Aventador, with a reservation on a Huracan and whatever comes of the 300SL. 'round 5-6 on MFH 1/12 Ferraris and their Cobra.

You're absolutely right, Mike! It seems from the initial version of that post to the final, I left out the word "decent".

And it'd be what, 'round 70 bucks? I'm trying to remember the last evening out for two you could get at that price. Heck, dinner even.

Too true. Our '67 289 2-bbl still managed a brash little junior rumble. My ol' '93 5.0 sang like Pavarotti, obviously a reference for my Coyote, which sings like Bocelli. Never got used to the gargle or bus-like mid-range drone of my LS-1 - but its off-line snap and willingness to rev for a cam-in-block was a nice compensation. Even those lousy 4.6 mills made good pipe music...

Very nice, Bill, and yes, your assessment of the '68 is plenty apt, perhaps for these reasons: There's this weird subtle "hump" in the transition from the fastback pillars to the roof in Revell's profile; AMT's is smoother as is the 1:1 there. Revell has lower wheel arches on the front fenders and higher ones on the rears, as if they were reversed front-to-back. The plastic conversion has some subtle improvements in the front end around the headlight nacelles, but putting aside headlight size, AMT'S is just scads better there. And finally, AMT's suffers from none of the rocker panel angle compromise that Revell's diecast-derived kit does. Revell's own '67 GT500 diecast is considerably better than the '68, even with the same rocker panel effect.

I'll play. Right on your primary focus area, AMT's '67 Mustang is pretty decent, 90's-typical full detail with platform interior and some intricacy in engine and undercarriage. Basic trim level, front suspension could use a bit of trimming at the spindle/brake interface to help tuck front wheels under fenders, building otherwise pretty straightforward. Headlights a bit small. Revell's '68 diecast-converted plastic kit, Bullitt or GT, is a box of interesting parts to mix with an AMT '67 - certainly better headlights and more suitable tires - and otherwise not much on its own. It's even money you'll get the '67 GT500 interior instead of the '68 pieces; the body's kinda garbage in accuracy, and not just in the typical diecast-accommodated rocker panel stuff. Wish I could at least say it's easier to build for its simpler, promo-style metal axles and reduced parts count - but if you have the wrong interior, it jams up the hood hinges something fierce. Roger the above on the '69. There's a resin conversion to de-monstrositize Revell's front end a bit, and the 428 CJ engine is sharp, but again, otherwise not great on its own.

As the consensus has ultimately directed, Fujimi. Fujimi, Fujimi, FUJIMI. I do like the Gunze kit, and it wasn't strictly a curbside - there are versions with pot metal engines out there: The Fujimi kit has come in for some criticism because the front end looks a little too "snouty" and sharp - but the comparison pictures show that Gunze's rear fender arches deviate far further off the norm than Fujimi's front end. The Avon tires aren't period correct but they're sized right. And if you have to go the one-piece wheel route, Fujimi's really are some of the best Borranis ever executed under that limitation. You want the straightest route to the best-looking GTO out of a box, it's Fujimi, and by a margin.

Yup - reason I pointed out MPC put an optional V6 in the kit before the actual Chevy V6 hit the market is 'cause I wondered if MPC anticipated the 2.8, conjectured the Buick, or just did up some generic V6. Actually picked an original '84-issue kit up not long ago, should pull it down and have a look-see. Considered the S10 and the Syclone as well - maybe the S10 induction could pass. Only kit I can imagine with the 3.8 in 1/25 is the AMT Anniversary Turbo Firebird, if they actually did up the engine. Used to know one way or the other, 'round a quarter-century ago...

Hmm. Good question. Optional V6 in the MPC Fiero (tooled before the actual Chevy V6 Fiero hit the market)? Don't know if the 6 in the recently reissued Opel GT is in that family, or if it's commensurate in detail. If the AMT 20th Anniversary Firebird Turbo has the engine it's supposed to, that minus all the induction is the closest I can conjure.

EXCEPT that as Steve pointed out very correctly above, the AMT '68 Camaro recently reissued and generally available now was a new tool for around 1983. Not so sharp as Revell's '69 but considerably advanced over standard '60s-early '70s promo chassis plate/metal axle practice. Haven't been thru an AMT '68 but would not be at all surprised if it were easier to get together. Loved my Revell Yenko '69, but getting it down on all fours was a pain and a half.

Didn't promise perfection, now, just something that looks a li'l more like it than the Moebius piece - which it does, faint as such praise may be. Less work to correct, anyway.