Chuck Kourouklis

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...

This is in NO WAY a challenge, Les; I'm just curious - we're essentially seeing a plain rear bumper that might have better used shortened guards/license plate lights, and maybe some front and rear fender issues carried over from the sedan, or not - nobody's commented on that yet. I won't even begin to question your entitlement to your feelings about the kit. I'm just wondering if these are the issues you're thinking of, or if there's anything else you caught.

This is in (lengthy) response to Charlie Larkin's post above, so please skip this post if the subject matter doesn't interest you. Trust me, I'd much rather I hadn't gotten beaten to one of the three lousy Del Rios my local pusher got in, so I could get some photos and a brief analysis up here. But that ain't the way it worked out, and unfortunately, what follows is topical to the tenor of this thread, if not the title. Your fairness and balance are so admirable, Charlie. And I'd dearly love to keep it classy. That's going to be difficult, though, as long as the challenges faced by current kit manufacturers are exploited for such a corrupt purpose as what we've seen here earlier. Where that litany has constructive use is as Tim intended in the Model A thread – a counterpoint to the “no excuse in this day and age” angle. I personally found the mutations wrought on that poor Moebius Ranger/F100 from tooling mockup to test shot very elucidating, for example. In the end, some folks like Bill E aren't convinced by that rationale and they tell you why. By your standards, Charlie, you might suppose a civil rejoinder or two in this situation, maybe, and then leave it to readers following along to draw their own conclusions. But no. One rebuttal after another dredges that hackneyed “perfect kit” angle, no matter how Bill tries to preface against it, no matter how blue in the face he gets explaining that a “perfect kit” has nothing to do with what he’s talking about – an understandable tactic, because it’s only by insisting he wants a perfect kit that anyone can fake any traction with a rebuttal. You’ve got to sell that demand for a perfect kit even if there's nothing to support it, because only then can you come back around with claims of “overdemanding” from domestic manufacturers. And Bill's patience frays quite understandably when he’s gotta explain for legitimately what, the tenth time? The fifteenth? that he’s not asking for a perfect model. And then his opponents resort to the very basest gaslighting once they've worked him up. (gaslighting defined) But even when he's provoked by such silly extremes, and then made out to be the agitator by pretending there's nothing to provoke him, I’m a little hard-pressed to see where Bill resorts to the classic bullying tactic of calling names. Where cataloguing a manufacturer's difficulties can start to seem a little quixotic – rather like boxing at air or an actual charge at a windmill – is in deploying such a narrative at a thread where nearly all participants have claimed an intent to buy the kit regardless of its problems. In the ’31 thread we actually had someone jumping the gun to such an extent he had to be reminded that nobody said they weren’t going to buy the kit. And for all the fur flying in this thread, most have stated a similar interest in the Del Rio. Sure, you got that steady, “no excuse” drumbeat, but most of the time, the drummers still make it clear they'll take the kit even as-is. So what is that litany really responding to in such a context? What makes it essential to the discussion? Maybe Revell has occasionally fallen all over itself to delay a release at the urging of an online thread, but again, in light of what’s made it to production before, it’s far from obvious just when they've done that. But where wielding those tales of manufacturer woes gets downright abusive is as a carte-blanche justification for attacking anyone who calls out problems in kits. I'm sorry, but as both sides scramble for moral superiority, it’s the critics who actually have the more solid ground. For trying to communicate issues about a model that are on-topic for the discussion, they have their building credentials mocked, they get called names, they get cartoonish, nefarious motives ascribed to their behavior; they are WRONGED. OBJECTIVELY. The “injuries” and "damage to the hobby" motivating Self-Appointed-Defenders are so far largely speculative and imaginary in nature. Perhaps they’re fueled by interaction with frustrated executives pulling their hair out over what’s lost literally in translation from one product development stage to the next, or over a competitor getting exclusive access to CAD on a hot subject; and perhaps they’re fueled by executives who have a tantrum about any review that doesn’t amount to free advertising. But until somebody shows us statistical documentation – hell, scratch that; till somebody shows us even a shaky correlation between negative online threads and revenues lost on a given subject, the basis for a S-A-D attack is all theoretical. The Kit That Must Not Be Named, perhaps? Chugging into its third catalogue year so far, or about as long as the far more favorably reviewed Offy Midget kit managed to last in Revell's catalogue listings, for whatever that may mean in the overall sales scheme of things. Critics: objective self-defense in the name of free discussion about car models, at least at the start of most exchanges. Their “bullying” is basically the sum total of what they don’t allow the other side to get away with. Overbearing at times, but easily outmatched by the S-A-Ds: personal attacks and broadsides, in the name of stifling free discussion about car models, based on a premise that’s hardly even demonstrated, let alone proven. With a reliably healthy dollop of gaslighting besides. THAT would be where any fair analysis dictates it’s really “over and done with”. There's no reason to tolerate that behavior and some of us just aren't gonna do it. But y'know, Charlie, while we all slog it out, I'd hope you won't tire of reminding us how things should be. Seriously. No irony intended here. Maybe we'll all wise up, eventually.

Sometimes opening the box to admire the parts is its own reward.

Well now, it's a little tricky to say - MAYBE there's someone who'd pay over retail knowing he's getting the orange one. Down the road, however, it might appreciate 'cause it's rarer and it's something the box keeps a little "surprise" for you. I side with thems what say model kits are fer buildin', so if you wanna see how that orange would come out finished, go do it! If you'd prefer a white kit, though, that might be reason enough to stash this one.

Tim is one of THE classiest people you will find in this hobby. I may cross pens with him occasionally, but I love the guy. Others… not so much.

"Ace Bandage Guy"? And you wanna talk about who's a bully? Now why don't you explain this "damage" we're doing to the hobby? Revell follows its own MO no matter what anybody says, and despite what appears on any message board, it sells what it's gonna sell, and people buy what they're gonna buy. You really mean to accuse us of sabotaging Revell's sales of that '31 this far in advance? Do you really think Revell is gonna be better off if people buy the kit and find out on their own? Or if Revell somehow offers previews without anyone commenting on the images? Does the raging absence of logic in that scenario really get past you? If there's gas in the mine, there's gas in the mine, and no effort to make it all about the canaries is going to change that. And I got a nearly 20-year track record on congratulating Revell nationally for what they do well, btw. Was anything you ever wrote used by Revell for promotion? 'Cause my conclusion about their '64 Impala kit from 2000 was, and that's far from the last good published review I've given a Revell product. But that all doesn't suit your little funhouse mirror assessment of anybody who'd dare point out a problem, does it? The only one beating anything to death is you with all your pious pronouncements about how anyone who isn't the perfect manufacturer toady is a traitor to the hobby, and your magical-Kresken mind-reading of everybody's motives. Key difference between you and me? I know you're one of the prime drivers of one the biggest car modeling events in the country, and despite your fine little character assassination - and as arrogant as I knowingly get in response to some of the tripe I see - I still can't quite bring myself to the blind, unreasoning hubris necessary for any high and mighty judgments on whatever good you do or don't for the hobby.

*deleted for accidental duplication*

I'll gladly take whatever you call "clueless" as a badge of honor, Geiger. That very inability to resist another personal dig PROVES that if it riles the likes of you, it must be right.

Thanks a bunch, Lee!