Chuck Kourouklis

How very strange. Comes down to it, from both a product and management standpoint, Revell has essentially been Monogram in 1/25 since the late '80s. But even though the distinctions started getting fuzzy when Monogram released that '59 Caddy in 1/25, I can't see any rhyme or reason to a Del Rio suddenly in Monogram packaging with a Special Edition photo scheme. Don't know if Special Ed is quite to pasture just yet - the A has been listed as such in the second quarter flyer.

What piques my interest are all the patterns Revell has in play right now. Beam axle - check. Finned drums - check. Vintage Bias-plies - check. Now between this surface-scratch of goodies in the A, and the panoply of powerplants in the '32 - plus the odd '40 steering wheel here and the stock firewall there - aren't we only a rear buggy spring and axle away from a 100% traditional Deuce? I mean sure, you could raid a few kits and you're golden. But if Revell were to cut a tree of Deuce-specific parts from these masters, add leaves and a banjo, and make a modified reissue of the '96-issue Deuce roadster...

Wait for my workbench, nuthin'. If that A-bone is HALF as brilliant as it looks on the flyer, I'ma call it a hit right now. Just in the pics I see a whole lotta what peoples' been clamoring for forever...

Hah! Yeah, I made a broad reference to the facts as I vaguely understood them in a one-sentence sweep for that review - and I think that was based on an exchange you and I had! Moldy topic or not, I enjoyed seeing this too. The landscape is vastly different now, but I wonder if there was any horse-trading ever done in the context Bob described. "You're doing an X? We were gonna, but we're also looking at a Y - how 'bout you do your X and leave the Y to us?" Yeah, Bob really seemed like a class act, based on my limited forum exchanges with him.

Man, I'll TAKE the 1/16 van, i8, and 918, Tamiya or not - they're only doing what any self-respecting German kit manufacturer must. Speaking of, though, what with Z8 and M1 reissues, M3 DTMs, and now this i8... what's the holdup on a vintage 1600/2002 again? Or a 3.0 CSL?

Yeah. Intakes of the Aoshima preview shot look possibly a little more Lambo-esque... but can we rule out an F1 short tail? Hmmm... Countach 'n Anniversario work just fine for me.

Oh, I hear ya, Mr Boyd. I LOVE me some engines. Endorphins git to showerin' this swiss cheese brain of mine when I see block reinforcements and freeze plugs and dipstick channels just waiting for me to add a little scale tube. I love drilling for ignition wires and plug boots, I love winding little throttle springs, I luuuurve making the bitsy '70 LT-1 pollution control lines that nobody else thinks about. Now, you back out for a second, you start to realize that you see cars in the wild far more frequently with their doors open and ABSOLUTELY more often with their front wheels off straight ahead than you see 'em showing off their engines. Even so, I don't penalize models for lacking opening doors and steerable wheels any more than engines, though if I get my druthers, there will be a full, 100% mill there, 'cause that's what American manufacturers traditionally prioritized and that's what I've been conditioned to prefer. But back in 2002, when Revell/Monogram had its back against the wall and the '68 Firebird represented a considerable backslide by the design standards they had achieved up to that point, that kit found itself sorely out-engineered by not one, but two curbside kits. Tamiya's Mitsubishi Evo in particular had cockpit detail to thoroughly outclass anything under Revell's hood, and Fujimi's lousy Astro van wasn't far behind in interior detail and it had really good suspension detail too. Neither of those two kits had fit vagueness or temperament of any kind. For overall detail and building ease, it was a pretty cold thrashing, and there was no way I was going to prop the Firebird up artificially just 'cause it had an engine, particularly not with 50% fewer parts that were fussier to boot. That was my message to the manufacturers, and it's a bummer the rankings fell by the wayside shortly thereafter. 'Cause even with that controversial humpback chop, Revell would have taken it worldwide with their custom Merc in 2007. Partly because the global market was soft that year, but mostly because that Merc was the biggest tour de force we'd seen from Illinois in quite some time. Once cars are routinely parked with their hoods up, or that Italian exotic power-under-glass paradigm proliferates all across the board, I'll reconsider a full engine as an objective criterion. But far as I can make out right now - and as much as I personally would WANT that complete powertrain - there's simply no logical mandate to prioritize a fully depicted engine in a lesser kit over a kit with half again as many parts that builds a lot better and features far more comprehensive undercarriage and interior detail, even if it's at the expense of a closed hood. But whatever. And a Happy New Year to you too, Sir!

The Murcielago has a ten-piece upper block, exhaust, and intake insert, plus the pan down below. The R-SV version adds 12 separate venturis and a few other bits to bring the total parts count of that insert even with some of the better full engines I'd have gone with the McLaren, not just for the engine, but for the pretty comprehensive rear structure too - but strictly speaking, without a discount, full Japanese retail on that one breaches the proposed cost limit by 35 cents. The Murcielago even at full retail comes in around 36. And as you acknowledge, this is perhaps the single most crucial area where you and I part company: I consider each engine situation ad hoc, and in a circumstance where you get 3/4 of an engine in a bay where you're just not going to see it very well anyway, I fail to see how a kit with 160 crisp, well-fitting pieces comes up short by any rational engineering and design standard against, say, a full-engined 120-piece kit with a wonky wheelbase and details that get less accurate the more you pore it over. Against a 160-piece high-water mark like the F1 GTR, on the other hand, well sure - but the F1 technically breaches 40 dollars in the most optimistic full-retail scenario. I'm actually exactly on your page where it comes to what I want out of a kit - full engine, sump to beauty cover. But I view that as a strong personal preference, not an objective standard for evaluation.

Dee-lighted about the DS! Now we're getting some Frenchies I really wanna see... YES. Yes yes yes oh pretty please, oui.

Well, here's one from Aoshima that pretty much had its nasty little cell block way with nearly anything else from '14 under the listed parameters: Unlike Revell's '67 Camaro, this thing actually got better the more you looked it over. Thanks to the yen exchange rate, it came right under the $40 ceiling at the start from Japanese vendors, and is now discounted deeply enough to be only a couple dollars more than the typical domestic release. Pretty sure it's PE-free too. Their McLaren F1 would be another, but I think it's pricier and comes with photoetch. Probably should be limits of some kind, 'cause if not, this thing would rule the roost in '14:

Okay. That was funny.

Woooww, the brass monkey nads on some of you guys. You really got your nerve pontificating on name-calling as a last resort with a guy who A) has raised a specific challenge that none of you has met, and was NOT the first name-caller in this thread. But I guess a broadside like "jack wagon" is exempt if it lines up with your particular ideology, right? And how Revell models are any more off-topic than the innate hypocrisy in whining about "whining", or all these sarcastic references to "experts" when all you need are TWO WORKING EYES, has yet to be demonstrated. Bill may have made nicey-nice, but the friendship of some of y'all could not be more meaningless to me. And that's why I will continue to thrash this issue whenever I see it and have the time. The blog linked below is nigh unto TWO YEARS without a challenge now, if we're gonna discuss who really lacks an argument, and instead of seeing that your moves have been been anticipated and debunked in advance for their folly and chronic repetition, you lot just figure out new depths of the same sort of inanity to plumb. "Drive Dave Metzner off" - ?? Maybe he's just a little more adult and quite a bit less idiotic than you credit him. And sure, putting myself in Dave's position, I can easily imagine a visceral frustration in seeing my products nitpicked for flaws I may have seen myself and been unable to correct, or forced to let go for scheduling and budget exigencies. But as a reviewer, I am bound to catch what I can and point it out. You may have to go up hill. Both ways. in a blizzard, with nothing but a notebook to fend off a Chinese-speaking grizzly bear, just to get a product that's close, but not everything you wanted, on the shelf. And on a personal level, I WILL sympathize deeply. But if I see an issue and fail to point it out, that becomes about me not doing MY job a whole lot more than it's about anyone at a model company not doing his. And that one modeler who appreciates the heads-up is worth FIFTY of you all knicker-twisted over the critique.

Got my '06 Concept a bit deep in the stash to make a direct comparison this quickly, but my guess would be the Revell production car chassis would fit in sooner. Because AMT's was designed from the start not to have a bunch of detail between body and chassis, particularly up front, it's got a fairly comprehensive system of locators, pins, and bosses molded directly to the body shell underneath. Not only would these need to be removed to clear the Revell parts or probably even the AMT Concept, they also have implications for "ghost" marks on the body shell; AMT has separate front and rear fascias, and you need guide coats of primer and a fair amount of prep to find and fill all the subtle sinks. Because Revell integrates everything into one basic piece with a smooth underside, it's cleaner and needs less prep; it's mostly the hood's undersurface detail causing some ghosting on the outer surface.

Have a look and see whatcha think, Joe: This is AMT's. My sample was a huuuuuuge PIA in terms of getting wheel bosses and brake rotor pieces to coexist - but after that, I came away with the impression that it catches a few subtleties that this one does not: Here's Revell's and you're catching it from the good side. Far more detailed, goes together without major problems; but lookit what you get for stance o o b: Once you've been through all the grinding necessary to force the wheels on, AMT takes a better set, with more convincing tire profiles to boot: I think the rear view tells a story too. Check the rear edge of the 1:1 decklid, and you'll see it's pinched and contoured - More like AMT's and less like the broader slab just under Revell's spoiler. AMT's hood comes separate and the vinyl bits paint up just fine with Tamiya TS. But it's still going to be a serious undertaking to stiuff the AMT shell with Revell guts.

Even a moderator who disagrees with the basic premise has called that kind of tripe out.

Well before it recedes entirely in the rearview, I thought Russell Cook had a great response in post #125. Having lost track of the last build I did purely for myself - gotta say, without deadlines prodding me, I'd have probably gotten a lot less done over the past few years - my quickest response to the initial question would be you should NEVER stop building for yourself. But I'm gonna turn the question a little and ask it from another facet: is there ever a point where claiming to build for yourself becomes a cop-out, a facile retort to those who'd point out the knickers you left bare on that otherwise impeccably-dressed little emperor you fashioned? And having taken the question there, I'm gonna stop it dead at purely rhetorical. That's something only the individual modeler can answer truthfully for himself, if he even judges it worthy of consideration. And while you can see an edge in the work of those who do think it all the way through, I don't think there's a single right answer to suit everybody. This is why I'm very circumspect about commenting on another builder's work, except where I can offer honest praise. I know for sure there are areas I'd tweak in the monstrosity I just finished, had I world enough and time. This conversation has been extremely illuminating for me in another way, bringing to the forefront something I've long simmered on a back burner. 'Cause something like this notion of "rivet-counting" driving people out of the hobby comes up again. And I wonder how that's anybody's problem besides those who take it on themselves to get "driven out", because I'm used to considering "rivet-counting" from one angle: that of a kit itself, which fails to live up to its very purpose unless it's at least not blatantly incorrect. I see dreck like this waving red in the breeze - and I want to lower my horns and tear into it, drag it to the tool shed and beat it down rationally beyond any hope of recovering from its already vegetative state. All the fear and hysteria motivating the very response to kit criticism, and now, apparently, propaganda, too? Make no mistake, there's a nice, putrid whiff of that vintage National Socialist alright, and it AIN'T COMING FROM KIT CRITICS - except wait. Woops, lemme HOLD MY HORSES a second there... this wasn't about KIT criticism, was it? Okay. Gotta concede that from the perspective of builders being discouraged by nit-picky feedback on their personal work, "rivet-counting" takes on a different significance; this meme, though, only really makes sense in the context of the AFV modeling from which it likely sprang, rather than that of us auto modelers - who, in characterizing an entirely incorrect chassis or a roofline 10% too low as a "rivet-counting" consideration, only imply a considerable faction of us couldn't find our asses with both hands, a GPS, and a homing pigeon. Showing a finished piece is a double-edged proposition; those who see something that could be improved should be positive and tactful in pointing it out, and the presenter frankly shouldn't exhibit his model unless he's ready for that kind of feedback. But "rivet-counting" someone's finished piece - even if it ain't really rivet-counting - is inevitably a far more personal proposition than "rivet-counting" a manufacturer's latest problem child, where more objective standards are involved... and I just thought I'd point that out for the fair number of you who apparently fail to draw this distinction and wage holy jihad every time a legitimate problem is pointed out in the kits we do indeed pay for.

Not only do I like it, I think I might wanna copy it somewhere down the line...

^FUNNY^ I mean, isn't that always the way? Dual-carb supercharged?? woooooooooooooooooooooowww Where has that setup been all my life?

X2. On all counts. Anybody even bother to notice how thread discussions of the better models have much less fur flyin' in them? This '57 wagon ain't followin' in the footsteps of the Kit That Must Not Be Named. So far, it's lookin' reeeeal good, like a worthy successor to the '57 Custom Sedan - a kit far less controversial because there was far less obviously wrong with it. And anybody pretending there isn't a clear cause-and-effect relationship between kit problems and kit criticism only proves who the scat-stirrers really are.

Informational, maybe, but it's working for me so far. Nothing any too strange or off-looking just yet...

Riiight. This is a '61 wheel: and here's the model again: No point even bothering to comment.

x2

Well when you put it in absolute terms like that, Dean, it's easy to confuse you for judging any differing opinion subjugate to your own. You literally characterize that differing opinion as a shortfall in perspective, don't you? And pointing out apparent deviations does NOT automatically qualify one as "upset", btw. But hey, "I THINK things are a little too serious" is an entirely different animal, and if that's what you really mean, I'll take you at your word.

You really don't see why Roger gets the kudos and you don't? It's because even in accepting the debatable premise of models as toys, Roger allows that those toys may be more important to one hobbyist than the next. You, in stark contrast, hold that anybody who doesn't share your opinion of what that importance should be needs an adjustment in perspective. Who appointed you the final arbiter of how seriously we should all take our toys? But whoah, let's ACCEPT you as the final arbiter and your personal standard as hewn in stone. Where exactly, then, is it getting violated? 'Cause I'm still a little hard-pressed to find examples of people treating accurate models as a matter of survival.

Oh, there's no way they're going to line up perfectly. You can tell the model was approached from a different distance relative to scale than the blue 1:1, because the opposite-side daylight opening is smaller relative to the near one, where there's very little difference in size between the same two areas in the 1:1 shot. But both shots have the opposite side DLOs pretty neatly centered in the near one, indicating that both the model and 1:1 were shot at angles very close to one another. Exactly? No. Close enough to start circling around potential problem areas? I think so. There's nothing in perspective distortion to account for horizontal elements shifting relative to one another at the same vertical points in the lens field when the pics are this close. But as you say, we'll only only know when these hit the shelves, and I mean to experience at least two first-hand, regardless. For all we know, Dave M and crew may have seen all this and gotten on top of it already.