Chuck Kourouklis

Anybody remember the MPC/AMT '69 Charger with dog dish caps on the cover? With this, the stock '76 Nova gaffe, and any number of AMT boxcover cars from that period also showing wiring and plumbing in the engine bay, I halfway wondered if some of the boxtop-building regulars phoned in a few already-built cars when AMT needed something for the latest reissue. Turnaround time and compensation on those were usually so miserable, you could hardly blame 'em...

Yup, Harry, and just to clarify - it's the circumstances leading to you locking the thread I was referring to when I mention "what happened to it".

Well. Looked at another way, some might humbly beseech the removal of the flags in the pic above - but I wouldn't suppose that had anything to do with the pattern itself. I personally could leave the stars 'n bars a lot sooner than take 'em, but yeah, James, straight BS what happened to your thread. Makes you feel any better, I went and had a look 'cause people here said the model was good, and it do indeed live up.

Hmm. How 'bout that. Good with the truck, VERY pleased about the Cadillac I voted for. Easier to believe it was an actual survey this way - I coulda sworn the results were gonna come up Ford pickup and '65 Impala, 'cause the patterns for those have already been established.

You ain't exactly renowned for building wallflowers, Mr P, but even so, this is some pretty mighty work! Hope the eye thing clears up for you, and soon.

Well now that we've drifted here, let me explain exactly what I was talking about in post #811. 'Cause there's an instant response to the whole price point angle (and on that, by the way, several critics agree wholeheartedly with the central component that car modelers are generally, uh, a bit penurious) that I did genuinely table only because I first saw that little canard as the discussion was calming down some and trying to lurch back on topic. And for reasons that should be self-evident, you can bet I'll get a great deal less satisfaction out of pointing this out now - doing so just doesn't feel any too sporting. But the matter does ask to be addressed: "This is what you get for 25 dollars". Fine, except it's not. Not by any absolute standard. You can get a handful better for 25 - those sweet little Midgets, for example? You can get even more accuracy, anyway, in the most correct truck model of 2015 so far, Revell's '14 SVT Raptor, for less (though you give up detail). And to the credit of this '57 Ford tooling, there's quite a good deal worse you can get for 25 bucks. That's the whole cornerstone of what a lot of critics say - why the inconsistency? There's the start of a really good answer to that question in the price point angle, actually, and unsurprisingly, it's Tim Boyd who expressed it best. But to try to contrive such an absolute out of the price angle, you can't acknowledge that inconsistency. An incremental header panel dimension is just the same as a scale-two-inch roof chop is just the same as a wholly unrepresentative chassis and suspension. It ALL needs calipers. It's ALL rivet-counting. There's NO diffident and circumspect pointing out of minor flaws, it's ALL "beating stuff to death". From all appearances and content, the reality that some manufacturing gaffes are so much more obvious than others must not enter this line of reasoning. And so the preoccupation with gas is actually quite appropriate - all it takes to blow this premise into burnt smithereens is a poorly governed break of wind. But let's ACCEPT it for a minute. This kit is absolutely representative of what you get for 25 dollars. All other 25-dollar kits developed from new tooling are more or less equal in quality. And hey, let's grant the far more agreeable claim that this Del Rio IS pretty dang nice for 25 dollars! Exactly how does that entitle anyone to judge what's acceptable in discussions about that model, and harangue anyone who doesn't meet his deeply arbitrary standards? 'Cause when you pare away all the rationalizations, that's where the trouble starts, over and over again. And you wanna talk "acting the victim" - WHAT IS half of what we see around here if not assuming some victimhood of behalf of the kit manufacturer du jour, and using that as an excuse for personal attacks? Just glad the manufacturers don't act that way. That speaker grille would still be popping up otherwise.

Wow! Assuming that's the case, let me offer my hearty applause to Revell!

Watch out now, Mr H. Pretty soon you're apt to hear allegations of "playing the victim" (which we all know is code for "not taking their garbage quietly"). Hear tell from a fellow scribe who emailed that the grainy finish was as much a surprise to Moebius as it's been to any of us, fwiw. Far as the slidey hoods go (and they do get to flyin' when the cab ain't perfectly level), I'm thinkin' scratch up a tab, make it look like a hinge latch, position it on the underside of the hood so it butts up against the core support, m'self. Cowl edge of the firewall holds the hood laterally, so it's the forward slack that needs checking.

I was letting things go just fine - mostly out of pity - until the personal garbage started up again. When that stops, so will I. And the attempt to qualify my content as gas-throwing speaks volumes - where exactly is my last unprovoked assault on somebody's character?

Thanks, Roger - You've covered the one area I've been curious about as I've waited well-nigh these three weeks for a re-stock on Del Rios from my local pusher. Got a call yesterday that mine was finally in. The irony in your last line is that with ONE EXCEPTION - exploited, naturally, to prove what exactly? That these discussions chill sales enough we still have to wait three weeks for dealers to get 'em back in? - just about anybody who's pointed out a problem in this thread has practically fallen all over himself declaring his intentions to buy at least one irrespective. But even that was not PC enough to forestall all the usual name-calling, doomsday nonsense and fart-talk, evidently.

I am now officially in awe. I think that "hunting wabbits" analogy is FLAWLESS - straight down to the way it usually turns out for Elmer Fudd. I've seriously got nothing but stunned, wide-eyed admiration here, bordering precariously on gratitude. I really wonder now if there's any way ANYBODY could make my points any more effectively than this... this... artwork before me. It's SUCH a MASTERPIECE! LOOK at it - it's not the personal broadside that counts as "nonsense", it's the refusal to eat that scat quietly that's the distraction! Y'all said so yourselves! Please. Do. NOT. Stop. A N Y of you. I cannot recall the last res to speak so baldly and artlessly for ipsa.

Heh, don't get me started on pickup kit floorpans. One of the things prompting me to try my hand at reviewing kits was how nobody mentioned AMT's '55 Cameo didn't even have one. Production is evidently a mixed bag here. My first '71 had its cab smashed, and straightening it has left stress marks in the plastic - those don't worry me so much as whatever "ghost" bend might not reveal itself till the primer stage. My '69 and my other '71 are pretty clean for warps. And from what I hear, that means I was pretty lucky. One nice thing about the windshield design is that snapping it in does help straighten out whatever dip there might be at the forward part of the roof. Seeing this thing go through its various contortions from mockup to production has been a real eye-opener for me.

WERD. The Heller's still pretty okay, but a new Tamiya on that one? 4.2 with headlights still under glass and yesterday, please. Open and FHC, if you would. Lightweight most welcome as a new alternative. Wouldn't they be able to go back to the sedan patterns for the basic engine architecture?

They are on a good vintage kick these days, and I can think of a 250 Ferrari or two (*cough cough, SWB, Lusso*) that hasn't been hammered by Fuji or Hase yet...

Ain't tested it out yet, but I got a bottle o' Plastruct Bondene here sez it handles styrene & ABS. Meant to join same to same.

Not all, just enough. Including one that makes a mockery of your signature:

And that's the little bit in the "Behind The Scenes" flyer featuring the '57 Ford sedan that really piques my interest - there's a strong hint that Revell's pushing to go that way 'round the middle...

And what blows your whole notion of hypocrisy to smithereens is that you make no allowances at all for somebody pointing out the problems and then fixing them. Or even showing people how to fix those problems. In national publications sometimes, and yes, even online forums. But these are the sorts of things such a viewpoint has to ignore in order to make sense and allow such lofty judgments to be passed on fellow modelers.

Huh. There you go. Addresses that issue for me.

Oh no, Dave, you're not the only one at all. That blog at my link catalogued all of this in the name of putting it in one central location. More than t w o y e a r s a g o.

Whoah. It appears some of of you have totally lost the plot on where the tunnel vision and the intolerance really starts in these discussions, and in doing so, you brandish some pretty mighty tunnel vision of your own. When is the last time a critic implied anybody was wrong for liking a kit? "If you don't like it, don't buy it. That Simple." Yes, and this is a model discussion forum, so some of us are going to talk about why we're buying it or not buying it, or why the little issues fall well inside the window of what we'll eagerly accept, or why even the smallest deviation just won't cut it. Personally, I've long thought it pretty impressive what Revell and Moebius are managing to do against the obstacles they face. And that's part of why I keep buying 'em even with the problems I see. But I fail to see how accepting that premise puts a gag order on what anyone can discuss about a given model. 'Cause from the way some of you act, a gag order is exactly what you seem to want. You all have very cleverly gaslit the situation to make Bill out to be the one intolerant of everybody's viewpoints, when he would never be making those points in the first place if you all could just leave the "nitpickers" be. WHO ARE THEY HARMING? But the litmus test is still there: Bill is defending something rational, and you all are attacking from a very irrational basis. Anybody gonna try and steer it back at this point to the damage done to Revell by the ONE recent refusal to buy the kit we've seen in this thread? 'Cause ya cain't have it both ways. If you say "don't like it, don't buy it" and you mean it, then these people who don't buy the kit can't have that much significance to you. On the other hand, if every online refusal to buy the kit means hundreds off line, *gasp*, look at the damage you're doing to Revell's bottom line by telling people essentially to just shut up and not buy the kit. And you'd better believe others are going to see the fault lines in your reasoning, no matter how you refuse to. In the meantime, the situation is very apt just to metastasize from kit critiques in spite of your objections to kit critiques because of your objections. Wanna keep pushing it and see?

Not by any reasonable standard, Andy. But then "reasonable" is the key word, isn't it?

Look, for Les to be put off by the handful of minor issues we've discussed about an otherwise really good-looking kit is strictly his business and his prerogative. What's purest p o p p y c o c k is to try and shill that as a representative attitude for some silent majority of modelers. It is every bit as scientific to observe that Revell's Offenhauser Midget - did ANYBODY have anything less than glowing to say about that kit? not meee - only lasted three years in their catalog, and that the widely lambasted Kit That Must Not Be Named is now in its third catalog year, and therefore, online website discussions really make no danm difference. And is that very scientific? Of course not. What about subject choice? What about preorders? What if the correlation between sales success and longevity on the market isn't entirely linear? But the very number of people 'round here who pile on anyone who notes issues far more serious than bumper guards so strongly mitigates against significant numbers of car modelers as selective as Les, the Midget/LX scenario might as well warrant a research paper by comparison.

Suuuure. And it would be soo much better for Revell if he bought the kit without knowing, got disillusioned and figured ALL Revell kits to be jacked in some way, and refused even to allow for the next new kit as he seems willing to do here... Please, just keep digging.

I'm guessing there's a reason there's been no follow-up from the last Charger Street/Service Vehicle to the current generation, and what a shame. Wonder if the Hellcat would tip that balance any, though... Far as the Bluesmobile/Monaco goes, you might guess there's a start on the pattern work, since they did that 1:18 diecast a while back. Exactly how easy that stuff is to transfer, repurpose, and rescale is something I'd have to ask those with more experience in the industry, though...