Chuck Kourouklis

Thanks, Oscar! One hopes...

This thing: Ver-ry much a Pocher kit in the spirit of the diecast Ferraris, optimized in a fashion you might have expected if Pocher had continued for a decade, anyway, if not the last 15 years. If the F40's finish was a step up over the Testarossa's, then the diecast panels present maybe two steps over the F40. Glossy, orange peel relatively minimal. Some wash-away at the seams indicates either a dark primer or even unprimed metal under it, so the broader plastic parts, orange paint on orange plastic, are apt to be a dodgy match with the three pieces shot here, the engine cover, doors, spoiler and the bonnet - the rocker panel I tried didn't look too bad, but I have to reserve judgment for now. Unfortunately, there are some sinks in the metal panels and more texture in the painted plastic, so a serious build will want some refinishing. Crappy dogleg steering aside, the dirty bits promise a more rational and sharply-resolved approach than previously seen. The front and rear subframes and running gear are actually metal this time, so no more of this queasy sense of pot metal crunching down on fiber-reinforced nylon - even if the finished model appears to squat down up front just like its Ferrari forebears. The tires are of the exact same iron-durometer vinyl last seen in the Ferraris, with less wave across the tread this time. Parts pouches, numbering system, styrofoam-and-cardboard-box packing are very familiar, even if the box has all the mass of TWO Pocher Classic kits stacked atop one another this time. Multi-colored taillights are pre-painted; metal suspension arms, uprights, pushrods and bell cranks are vacuum-packed against cardboard as seen before. The plastic parts have about the typical mass and engraving for Pocher kits, perhaps with a bit more refinement this go around; there's heavier use of 3-axis molding on the crank case and cylinder heads. There are also 14 different varieties of fasteners this time, as opposed to the one-screw-fits-all approach of the Ferraris. That's a thumbnail, deeper delving as time allows...

Badness. Hope that portends some thawing on BMW licensing, 'cause we could really use a 1600/2002 and a classic CSL...

X2! Good, subtle work there, Brett.

The entire line of thought we're bending toward has been torn to shreds and mulched at the link in my signature. For months, now, culled from refutations I have used for years. You can just read the bold font on each item then skip to the first paragraph after number 10 and you'll get the gist. I have YET to see any response, let alone a decent rebuttal, to any of it. "Bandwagon"? What, like the bandwagon of True Believers waiting to descend on anyone who dares depict the latest plastic emperor's true state of dress? This is a MODEL KIT discussion, and there's a necessary corollary to that classic "perfect kit" misdirection that nobody seems to notice: If we imagine for a moment that "NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT KIT" is responsive to, well, anything, then an inevitable consequence of that observation is that all kits have flaws. In discussions of kits, mentions of their flaws will be topical - in a way that condescending to people who mention those flaws will NEVER be. You can not claim "there's no such thing as a perfect kit" without tacitly admitting this. By all means, if someone states a flaw from a mistaken basis, then point out that mistake. But attacking people for topical observations is where the real issues in these discussions start, and it's useless to pretend otherwise. The grand irony here? I find myself confronting this subject - a g a i n - over a mention of a kit that I think is Revell's blue chip best of the past several years. Maybe the bumper ain't placed bang-on, and it's an irrefutable fact that the splash pan needs work - IF you leave the front bumper off. Sorry, but I just ain't seein' the thickness of the spreader bar or the heaviness of the front end when the bumper's in place, not yet, at least not as compared to photos of the 1:1. If I'm gonna pick nits, I might add a wee bit of strip to beef the inner perimeters of the door frames and rear side windows - then again, after more research, maybe not - and the one obvious gaffe is the extra plastic between the fins and the deck. Otherwise, this thing is golden, far as I'm concerned.

Was wondering about that - maybe Moebius has decided based on previous patterns to hold the announcements till a little closer to release? Ford pickups look closer than the Hudson and 300s - hoping that trend continues, most especially with the Ventura...

Yup, and if I had commented on Revell's top kit of 2012, I'da probably gone with that '57 Ford. Just a couple notes, and these are really more my personal criteria than anything I think should be imposed on this discussion: The '57 Ford was announced for 2012 and the special edition version made it out with about a month to spare; the '50 Olds came out a month before that. The Rat Roaster was a 2012 listing that actually debuted in 2013. The '49 Merc Wagon makes a very strong bid for a top new kit - I'd say it's more accurate overall than the 'Cuda - but because it carries over a few parts from the custom (fewer than one might expect), it's technically not all-new. Same goes for Aoshima's 86/BR-Z derivatives, though I think the ones with engines give Tamiya's a right spanking. The Slingster's concept may be an old one, but it's still Revell-Monogram's most ambitious and best-executed of the year. Looking at the global offerings, I'd have to agree about Tamiya's LaFerrari among standard-scale cars - though their best motor vehicle kit of the year is their 1/6 Harley. That thing is just silly...

Yeah, the frame rails are finer than what we usually see, and the slicks are pretty small too - but there' s nothing shouting "under scale" at me just yet. Heck, I'm wondering if that Chrysler mill might make for a less laughable engine in AMT's new-tool Ala-Kart...

You absolutely did, Lee, and in fairness, it must be pointed out you were hardly the only one, or even the most lurid example. You just hit one of the tactics I describe in the link below, then expressed regret. There are others who covered almost half the list in one post and remain oblivious. Trust me, you are plainly the bigger man.

My thought was to see about popping a resin cap mold from the '67 GTX or '68-9 Charger hemis, say, and grafting it onto the 'Cuda's shaft...

Top man! If you don't mind, let me commend you on that, Lee!

My personal favorites of the year from Revell are the 'Cuda and the Merc Woody, but I'd argue that this rare new tooling for Monogram is really R/M's most successful of the year. It doesn't have to trouble itself so much with dialing in specific 1:1 prototypes, and as a tribute to an older kit optimized for scale, they just slam their objectives out of the park on this one. For only having a bit over 100 parts, the number of possible combinations is staggering - I lost count somewhere past 280. For a keen balance between fun and authenticity, this looks like Revell/Monogram's sleeper of 2013. If you're into the concept, I'm betting you could buy a case and not regret it.

I think this one is reeaally solid. It's a comprehensive leveraging of the Mercury custom, it goes further in the modifications than strictly necessary, the parts that do carry over make absolute sense considering the way many 1:1s are outfitted, and the body looks far and away the closest of anything Revell executed to a specific prototype in 2013. The imagination fairly reels at the cross-pollination prospects between this, Revell's custom, and AMT's '49 Merc.

As ever, thanks for that, Harry. I know I've sure posed that question time and time again to be met with deafening silence. Maybe you'll have better luck. I'm of a mind that you can see very plainly how passionately Revell invested itself in this kit from examining the parts. Thing is, as galling as the 7-point distributor must have been to them, that doesn't make it any less galling to me as a consumer. And I'm sorry, but if anyone is going to object to the snark headed Revell's way, then the only consistent thing to do is also to repudiate the far sharper, more frequent and personally directed variety of snark as Harry quoted above. Meantime, everybody continue moving along from the link below. Nothing to see there.

Well, for my part, I wasn't suggesting Brits change their pronunciation - just that the columnist in question shouldn't have been so smug as to insist the British pronunciation was the ONLY correct way. They wanna change their icon to something else but keep the name, they can redefine the pronunciation any way they like - that sort of "fictionalizing" would make it much more akin to a family name, where no one can challenge their role as the sole arbiter of how it's said correctly. But as long as it refers to a big cat, there'll be a pronunciation regional to the actual animal to conflict with their notions of how the brand should be pronounced. I'd be interested in the Italian slant on "Murcielago", personally. Authentic to the Spanish bull, I understand the "c" should be lisped slightly, and it's the "el" that should take the accent, as I believe you actually see in the spelling of the bull's name. But danm near everyone says "mur-see-eh-LA-go".

Thanks, Gregg! (my commentary was directed at the columnist, in case that wasn't clear - wonder if I can find that piece posted some place...)

Well I read one British columnist ridiculing the American "JAG-war" pronunciation, insisting that "JAG-yew-er" is the only correct way to say it... Uh, 'scuse me there, Nigel St Lime? You are aware that the car is named after a LATIN AMERICAN cat, aren't you? I've yet to hear a native Nicaraguan call his country "Nic-a-RAG-yew-a" as they do in Old Blighty...

Yup, and that might be a practical workaround for the Hazmat issue, too - assuming that polymer science makes no progress from here on out. A hand-held device with untold multiples of computing power over a 1952 UNIVAC would never happen - in the age of vacuum tubes. I have some difficulty with concepts like the absolute "never" (as opposed to maybe never). This thread is kind of making a mockery of absolute "never", in fact. And then there's that shell you've all kicked up on screen, which oddly enough looks exactly like a Porsche Cayman. Gee - anybody think they "fudged" it some? Little selective compression on the roof maybe? Don't see that they flattened the wheel arches any, so I guess that's out...

Yup. Boxcover looks like the big draw, and the new Polyglas tires are included along with the old compact Firestone skinnies as used in the stock '66 Nova. No new webbing to reinforce the windshield frame, but all looked to be in good order on a very cursory glance.

Yup, roger that by three. So Bernard (and anybody else with any interest), question for ya - we don't know the width yet, but otherwise, whatcha think of the possible applications of that beam axle for one of the Deuces?

Yeah, looks like poor ol' Harry was so-o far off - The print-it-yourself model hasn't arrived from a kit manufacturer, but from an actual car company. Yeah yeah yeah. It ain't a complete kit... YET. Mr P. might have the actual good taste not to crow a bit. But I sure wouldn't.

And did anybody see this one? http://wot.motortrend.com/1312_porsche_provides_3d_printer_blueprints_for_scale_model_cayman.html Yup, no way this tech'll ever catch on for car models in the foreseeable future. And I wonder what kind of "fudging" was necessary to get that one looking so accurate...

And btw, those ain't the Shelby tires. They look newly tooled.

Seems to be - an awful lot of the bellhousing visible there - but I'm not having an easy time finding the 1:1 shots to say fer sure one way or the other. Thing is, jacking with that stuff will also affect the alignment of the shaker scoop in the stock hemi, and that may ultimately prove more trouble than it's worth.

Two here too. Best I can make out, only chrome problems occur in one kit, along the sprue and not the actual parts. More me looky, more me likey. Getting ever more convinced the slight body deviations can be dispatched in pretty short order; only real headache'll be confirming the engine location and shoving it back against the cowl if necessary.