Chuck Kourouklis

Fools and their money. I'm still on board.

Good questions. More I pore this over, more I gotta have it in plastic. Halfway wondering about a mash-up of the Big Deuce and Big T for a similar-style eighth-scaler, too. Think one of the Lindberg Ts had about that style of nose...

Werd. 'f it's fo' figgaz, I may just hafta deal, long as it looks JUST LIKE THAT...

I think it's simply exquisite, unlocking the kind of beauty you'd never suspect of a Model T. No Malmsteen-style wankery here; it's Cray or Clapton, not putting a single note wrong. Love the color, love everything about it.

Uh, any o' y'all checked the site yet? It's this: More here: http://www.pocher.com

Will there come a day I no longer have to repeat this stuff so frequently? One can dream... If a manufacturer doesn't generate new product, we're gonna run out of reasons to make new purchases. New tooling is not something we're lucky to get, it's what a manufacturer had better generate if it wants to stay in business. And while they'll never produce the perfect kit (that once again, nobody is asking for in the first place), it'd be helpful if they got the more obvious stuff down. The tooling for this kit is 100% virgin steel, nothing in common with the '96 deuces except basic master patterns for the body and running gear. While they were going to the trouble to cut an entirely new tool, Revell could have made this more accurate to the subject AND enhanced its desirability to the trad crowd simply by making a front beam axle. If they're pinching pennies on new master patterns, surely the BIg Deuce's axle could have been used as a rough master? We'll just set aside the rear axle that has airbags even though it is a new, wider piece, the rear suspension arms and frame reinforcement that don't quite match, and the lack of external door hinges - you don't really see the former and you can scratch up that last in about 90 seconds with scrap plastic. Heck, you've even got a decent start at the hood sides in the previous high boy kit. The beam axle is the chief gripe, and you don't need a caliper to see it. It's a prominent inaccuracy for the Roaster and a desirable piece denied to many who would have gladly bought this kit for it. To dare to discuss this omission is not to harp on minutiae, it's not counting rivets, it's not the same as calling every mainstream offering "so horrible" or any other slope that grinds to a quick halt no matter how much anyone pretends it's slippery. Y'know, despite all the criticism to date, manufacturers keep doing obvious things like this to invite more criticism. That fact alone should make it remedially clear that kit criticism has nowhere near as much effect on a company's bottom line as say, swings in the economy, the fickleness of big-box retailers, and the occasional DOA subject choice.

Yup! REAALLLLY gorgeous. That gloss is just mind-bending.

I can see why some would pass. Seeing as how Revell cut entirely new steel for this, I think they blew an opportunity not only to nail the subject but to create some really compelling parts fodder when they went wide of the mark on the axles. The wheel and tire package alone sells it to me, but I gotta wonder if a proper beam axle up front would have been a tipping point the other way for some who'll skip it.

Yup. I think they could do a one-piece upper, closed on the front half, open and flaring out on the back half (as the GT350 piece didn't particularly do) to accept a separate sump pan - but it seems like that would call for a pretty convoluted mold, likely too much so at this price point.

Hmm. Actually, that does bring up an interesting question - bearing in mind the oil pan pretty much has to be done as two pieces, and the simplest way is probably the same longitudinal split you see in the one molded to the block, what would you have preferred? A separate two-piece oil pan? Or molded to the block as it is? Anybody pipe in who wants, I'm just too lazy to make a poll.

That got my attention too, but because of the deep-sump shape and a factor called "draft angle" in molding - the capacity for a part to be removed from a mold without damage or distortion - it looks as if there's no economical way to do that oil pan as a single separate piece. It would need to be split, molded to the block or not. Doesn't look as if filling the seam will be all that difficult...

Hmm. If they'da just done the correct suspension, presto, more reasons to snap it up and bash it with other Revell deuces. Oh well. Guess I'll have to express my disappointment by getting two or three.

Duly noted and fully agreed, which is why I did an auction-to-auction comparison - even if I did mention some common-sense factors that should have worked to the Viper's comparative advantage. Viper #001 was also a charity auction, with proceeds benefitting the Austin Hatcher Foundation for Pediatric Cancer, fwiw.

Meantime, 2013 Viper #001 - a car over which precisely nobody has puled "IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A VIIII-PERRR" - was also auctioned at a Barrett-Jackson event. Almost 200 more horsepower, about double the retail. After a hiatus, no less. For under 1/3 what the first C7 brought in. Yeah. Some "failure", this new 'Vette.

I do wonder, though, if Round2 is watching and timing some of their releases to take advantage of the interest some Revell kits might drum up; the '62 'Vette has a hardtop that might interest owners of the Revell kit, for example, and the Revell Ford Custom might make one think of AMT's '57 500 and wonder how it compares - particularly if he hasn't had one around for a while.

96%. Crossed the '52 and '54 Mercs. 40s here. Had no idea about the hood ornaments 'cept the one I've seen a million times - but you could study them and begin to reason which belonged to which...

I was impressed enough by this thing as the street machine, and that kit was eviscerated, relatively, compared to this one. Can't wait, and the decision to skip the clear plastic on the body is sitting better and better with me, more I think about it.

Well, Revell Venice had that old 47-or-whatever-window VW bus years ago, and Revell AG tooled up a new one in 1/24. Believe it says "neue form" about the Beetle in the listings, too. I heard a rumor that injection molding was supposed to give way to vacuum forming. In 1986.

Yeah, the boxcover car is absolutely the restored 1:1 as shot by TRJ. Sorry, but the wiper bumps on the windshield frame and the bumps on the front grille area are absent as before. This is essentially the kit as you have known it, but cleaned up, restored, and optimized just as Brett described very nicely above. The boxing, the restored parts and new tires, and the booklet are just about worth it all in themselves, imho.

I don't hate the concept at all, woulda been plenty happy with a productionized version, actually. But it is un. de. NIABLY retro. And the C7 crew said they were very purposefully against that. Prob'ly why they didn't go with it in the end.

Oh, did you nail the be-jabbers out of that or what? Dave Hill was rightly proud of the new standard in performance and structural dynamics created with that car, the blueprint of which carries through the C7. He was also rightly defensive about the styling, which was pure RX-7 pablum with a basket handle and a billboard butt, and not nearly as pretty as any of its antecedents. Thing I appreciated best about about the C6 is that I thought it had the styling and dimensions the C5 should have had all along. Of course, the C5 wasn't the first time a 'Vette had been derivative. The '56 gained a lot of presence over the '53-'55 by adopting Italianesque side coves and the hood ribs and forward-thrusting headlights from the Mercedes SL. The C4 may still hold the standard for pure, uncluttered beauty, and it had the Ferrari 308 horizontal break line. The Corvettes that were most purely their own cars were the C2 (the ultimate for me) and the C3 (for a more, ahem, debatable effect). For the C7 to have actively copped the F12 would have been quite the hat trick, seeing as how Jalopnik was leaking the basically locked C7 form months before the F12 broke cover - and even absent that, to suppose that GM could have ripped off styling cues and applied them to a model less than a year off debut is to betray an incomplete understanding of the time frames involved in vehicle development. As for reaction to the C7, count me among the yay-sayers, most especially the taillights. The assumption that all those vents were tacked on for styling cues is patently mistaken; each one has a function, derived from the C6 racing program. The way this new one amps up the precision, the passion, and the drama is all winner-winner-filet-dinner for me; it's got eye-yanking presence in the photos, so I can only imagine its magnetism in the actual carbon and SMC. The fact that it's a little off-putting at first only portends the best for its boldness and impact, far as I'm concerned.

Yup. There weren't many of these late '80s-'00 AMT kits that fully rose to the level of crispness you'd see in a typical Revell/Monogram, but this is one of 'em. Unlike the '67 Chevelle or the '70 Corvette which pale in comparison to their R/M counterparts, this kit doesn't have to run and hide in the presence of a Revell '69 Charger.

Like I said at NNL West, you're a mad genius, Ira...

Well, seems to me that if you felt up to it, maybe you could offer two versions, the functional one you've already developed, and maybe the static one with all the details in scale. Of course, the more enterprising builders probably won't have much trouble working up things like their own fixed springs or suspension arm mounts, so you arguably have a fine base model just as it stands. As for the argument on how the eye perceives scale, and why a perfect reduction doesn't look right (except for all the ones that DO, yours notably among them), I think what you're seeing is really more an aggregate reaction to a number of forums in which this subject comes up. 'Round here, I guess, you're more likely to find it when new kits are discussed and proportion problems come up. The Revell '70 'Cuda discussion in "Kit Reviews" doesn't hit on it dead-center, but kind of runs closely parallel.

Well, Norm, there are proportioning problems in many off-the-shelf plastic car model kits, and there are those of us who've maintained that it's way beyond time for the manufacturers of said kits to start adopting the 3D scanning techniques they so obviously are not using at the mastering stage. And then there are those who insist that 3D scanning is not the answer, that a proportionally precise reduction won't really look like the 1:1 subject. Except that every time we see an example, it kind of... um... DOES. (main point being, it's nothing like a slam on your work - and what's more, thank you!)