Chuck Kourouklis

Cloudbursts? Shade when the sun gets too intense? Maybe the hardtop-mandated drag version some were hoping to build out of this kit, covered in some depth just a page or two back in this very thread? How about having a complete kit in 2012? Not that it matters much - considering what Revell pulled with the '72 Olds and that there appeared to be a rear window on the parts display at last year's iHobby, the NEXT version is apt to have an uptop.

Y'ain't gotta be an expert, Erik, and you're absolutely right. There may have been some reference to previous master patterns, but these new parts have nothing else in common either with the '58/'59 or the diecast '62. People complaining about the lack of an uptop might be going a bit far to call the kit garbage for that, but it's a legitimate issue (even if not a deal-breaker for me). The most serious deviation I've noticed is that the sides of the rear quarters bulge a little too much as they wrap into the taillight area, one of the few points where the diecast body has the edge - molding considerations might have forced this in the plastic body, and the shell might be thick enough in that area that you can file it down a bit leaner and flatter as per the 1:1.

**edit** - this situation is better resolved than it looks, so I'll just say I enjoy Jacen's content and leave it at that. The more global observation, however, I'm gonna leave up: There's a miserable little contingent of modelers who nit-pick everything to death, never find anything positive, and truly justify the term "rivet-counter". But there's an equally (if not MORE) miserable contingent who'd have you believe that there are WAAY many more of that first contingent than truly exist, who just mess themselves with sky-is-falling hysteria every time an imperfection is pointed out in a kit, or in a test shot that's obviously indicative of what's coming. And some of this crowd have slathered Bill with that broad "rivit-counter" (sic) brush, with an unfairness crossing clean over into farce. Irony is, that second group is also very fond of pointing out how critics have no skillz - and I ain't yet seen a one offer proof Geary couldn't MURDER him build-to-build.

Guys - and I'm talking generally, not jabbing specifically at Craig who seems quite affable and well-reasoned for the most part - ya might wanna watch that whole modeler/assembler false dichotomy, and its consequent implication that people who rightly point out things that shouldn't be missing only do so because their building skills are limited. First, there's a healthy number of us who criticize and then fix the problems, who've demonstrated the outright falsity of that premise time and time besides time over time again. But second, and of perhaps more interest to those using this argument, the whole modeler/assembler canard has an inevitable smugness about it, which might appear to result from a life so bereft of meaningful accomplishment that the user is desperate to be smug about something. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH in most cases, and I honestly don't believe it applies to Mr. Irwin at all. But the fact remains that even the most vaunted modelers ain't exactly curing cancer, so it's kind of a silly thing to express smugness about - intentional or not.

Jason! Good on you for that AMT street machine version - don't see many of those built, and it deserves its day in the sun. Had to do these OOB, so I'm not sure what they'll contribute for inspiration - maybe an idea or two for mixing and matching between new-tool AMT and Revell...

Yeah, figgered. It was a fun thought.

John (and Harry) are absolutely right on this one. It's not just a matter of the kinked-up side trim, but also that the top of the body sides echo the same mistakes - the top edge of the door should run gently upwards into the rear quarters, instead of downward as it does on the model. That, and like the Ala-Kart issued about the same time, the curvature of the sheet metal from the side surfaces to the top ones was too sharp in its radius. "Virtually unfixable" is a dead-on assessment. A pretty serious letdown after that very nice '57 300C. Now what would be cool is if Round2 took this opportunity to revise the body shell. Won't hold my breath on that - but they've done some other neat stuff lately...

Yup! I'll use it.

I was just stoked enough with the one my Dad's friend had, that the impression stuck with me. We also once rented a U-Haul that I recognized instantly as bumpside Ford cab even at six years old, and I was like, OOOOOOOOOOOOH...

Beer to you John. Glad I ain't the only one sees it.

Yessir. Depending on their opacity and surface conformity, the decals might be a more desirable approach than masking and laying on white paint, even with the steps you described. **edit** - Hey Harold, sorry about that - I just realized I was essentially repeating what you said...

Wow. Duff goes to all that trouble, with the photos and everything, and some o' you guys either ignore it outright or give him that same ancient, tired attack-his-MODELER-credentials scat.

Well thank you Daves Metzner, Van, and Burkett! Far as vehicles sticking with me from my youth, this one hits me far squarer than any colonnade or G-body. Meantime, I'll just whistle innocently and float a bug in y'all's ears about an early- to mid-sixties Ford styleside, maybe wonder aloud if "series" might encompass something like that...

I think the deal with the whitewalls is that there's some stretching and prodding required to get the tire over the wheel - nothing traumatic, but maybe a bit more than a tampo print would tolerate.

Well, I picked up the 7th one my local H-Town had, they put aside an eighth, and there's only the 9th left - of course, I didn't know I was shoppin' with Pryor Passorino. Heard tell he ordered and absconded with the first six...

I hear ya, Andy, and that's why I brought the two images closer together in size. It's arguably subtle, but fairly clear if you look close, that the radii are too tight even for scale. And I'm sorry, but there's no argument for perspective that can support Revell's deviations there. Fwiw, I went back out to the neighbor's car, and closely as I could without actually touching it, took a few tape measures. The easiest one was at top-of-bumper level, measuring a clean 9 inches from fender arch to the forward edge - and don'cha know, the Revell kit measures about 9mm at close to the same area. I tried a few other measurements too, but they were too problematic; the forward fender peak really interests me now. I may give 'er another go earlier in the day at some point.

Part of that length is exaggerated by the missing bumper on the model, and the upper arch taking too sharp a corner downward toward the front, too. The model's rear contour going down to rocker panel level seems to have the gentle curvature that the top border is supposed to have, and its top border is about as flat as the 1:1's rear contour. The general feeling is that Revell's arch is a little too "square", and they repeat an eccentricity of their '65 Impala in that the perimeter lip is a bit exaggerated and it doesn't fade gently into the bodywork as it goes to the rocker panel level. Also, the 1:1's upper arch is parallel with the character line just above it, and the model's is not. Like I said, more apparent to some than to others. I still love the kit, and I don't think it's too hard to get something closer with a bit of filing and filling.

This. ^ Well-put, Bill. It's not to discount the experience of people who have done some very good work. But I often wonder if many of the things we pick out as errors actually started out as compensatory tweaks.

And yet, what's the pattern we see ever more frequently with current releases? That a manufacturer's own offerings can vary from one another depending on the availability of the 1:1's CAD data. Revell's kits of contemporary subjects - presumably with factory-supplied files - are generally more accurate than their kits of vintage subjects lacking that data. The edge the Moebius Lonestar has over its Hudson and Chrysler kits is pretty stark, in pictures as well as in the 3D presence. And then we have the new Polar Lights '66 Batmobile which is documented as being developed from Mattel's 3D scan data. There are certainly details to nitpick in the kit, but the overall fidelity in proportion and contour is some of the best currently available, far as I can make out. Where Tamiya shows mastery is in figuring out how to tease their masters in a way that's flattering to the subject, and I've long maintained if the deviations don't offend the aesthetics of the 1:1, they're more likely not to be noticed. One of the clearer examples is their Ferrari F40. Look it over carefully, and you can see how the front end has been gently pulled out and the cowl has been tugged up a bit for a more voluptuous overall shape. The overall effect is more graceful and flowing than the actual car. But this numerical accuracy they describe is basically a comprehensive breakdown of a three-dimensional shape in many discreet one-dimensional measures - so all the linear dimensions may have scaled spot-on, but there may yet have been contours not perfectly reduced in scale, and perhaps THAT is why those masters didn't look right. A dice cube may be exactly 1/20 the scale of a bowling ball in length, width, and height - but there's clearly a vast difference in surface expression between the two. This is why I think the old Monogram 1/24 '69 Camaro, supposedly exact in every scale dimension, went so horribly awry. The necessity of a human touch goes without saying, far as I'm concerned. The sharpest 3D printers to date produce masters needing some refinement; and even when we get to a stage where originals are reproduced to near-duplicate quality, you'll still have a master that won't get anywhere without a human imagination to plan its breakdown as a kit. But as you have pointed out, 3D scanning brings an unprecedented advantage: it will not only scale every linear dimension, but every curve and contour. What I'm really talking about is a hyper-sophisticated pantograph here, and that's how I advocate its use. I'm not so sure how necessary interpretation of a shape will be once collecting reliably precise and accurate three-dimensional data from a scan becomes standard practice, but then, that could be because my frame of reference is different. My acid test is how easily a model can be confused, at least in proportions, for the 1:1 in a photograph. And I find that models which pass that test well reliably look more accurate in my hands.

Bill, ya had me all the way up to the part about skills possibly being not up to par - if your skills aren't up to par to correct a kit, there ain't much hope for anybody else on that kit, either. But what's really nice about your topic is that it allows me to address this issue semi-politely for once. Because there's an inevitable gulf between TooOld's type of rivet-counter - someone who claims the wiper motor on a national-caliber finished model doesn't have the correct number of speeds (still so risible after all these years) - and someone who simply observes that this does not entirely equal this: While the deviations may be more obvious to some than to others, this latter example doesn't sink to anything like the extremes of the former. And that's why "rivet-counter" - assuming you can even find it spelled correctly - is so off-base in these cases. Yeah, it's just a hobby. But it's a hobby predicated on a miniature resembling its full-size counterpart as closely as possible, and there's no getting around that. 3D scanning and rapid prototyping are out there, and we're already starting to see manufacturers using that technology gaining an advantage in accuracy over those who don't.

Yeah, well. I'm trying to use some restraint...

Terry, for a man who was called a "rivet-counter" for having the temerity, the audacity to point out that the fender arches on Revell's '62 Impala weren't 100% - from pictures, no less - you've got an equanimity on the subject I genuinely admire. I, on the other hand, have no patience for that kind of sandbox hysteria among supposed adults. And here's the thing: Revell's Impala was certainly no Trumpeter Falcon, its options and engineering were beautifully conceived, and in most respects it was a big improvement over the AMT bubble top. I have a couple myself, and I love 'em. But that fender arch problem made it onto the shelves, and it's just as visible in your hands as it is in the pictures, isn't it? You don't have to crave some mythical perfect kit to see that. You don't need to have a gallery of finished models posted online either. You DON'T always need the kit physically in front of you, and actually, you don't even particularly need to be a modeler to observe such things. All you need is a functioning pair of eyes.

**edit** - well, now that all the antecedents have been removed, this post as originally written is missing some context and it kinda sticks out. Suffice it to say that people continue to take kit critiques personally, and they continue to respond with personal attacks. For about the 48,752nd time, we saw the false dichotomy between real builders and those with a critical eye - surely, those nasty wags are too busy complaining to get anything built. Riiight.If Bill Geary is such a critic, SIGN ME RIGHT UP for that "inaction". Conversely, if you don't have a gallery of projects up for everyone to see, your impressions of a kit are instantly divested of any credibility. This makes about as much sense as demanding to see a Director's Guild membership card from anyone who claims Jaws 3D stank compared to the original film. Actually, it makes even LESS sense, because noticing a model's deviations from the 1:1 is a far more objective exercise than watching a movie. They're big boys over at Revell, folks. Anybody noticed how they haven't quit manufacturing new kits yet?

WOW... I hadn't heard of the new Firestone pack! If they're sellin' 'em, I need several. Hope they do the same with the new Polyglas tires too - much as I detest the notion of G$$$Y$$$ getting ANY licensing revenue, there's just too much muscle outta Dyersville and Des Plaines on totally unsuitable rubber.

Yup. That's what I got from HLJ. Think the Japanese kit is number 7 in the plain white box, where the international version is number 8 in the mostly green Italian flag-bordered package. Bear in mind that the "full engine" is still simplified, about 12 pieces with no representation of the sump or transmission; probably drops in where the one-piece insert goes in the international one. The exhaust manifolds and valve covers uncompromised by draft angle are probably the big selling points. Even with its body sink marks and its limited use of sliding molds, it's still got a decisive edge over that other Aventador kit. Factor in the price advantage, and Brand X pretty well gets murdered here.