Chuck Kourouklis

Gentlemen, I'm also primarily a factory stock builder, and I have to say, we're starting to come across like this: Seriously. Where else can this discussion go? The premise has been offered that it would have been nice if Revell had stock variations of these '32 kits. Mmm-hmm. Does anybody DISAGREE? And if nobody's disagreeing, then what's left to do with that premise but pout? Far as I can tell, nobody's saying it would have been terrible if Revell did a stock variation. Of course, to compare the tooling costs for rod variations to tooling costs for a stock variation leaves one hugely important variable out of the analysis: how many of us would there have been to help Revell AMORTIZE that tooling in the same way those rod variations apparently were? Past IS prologue on that one, and far as I can tell, we can either accept it, or we can ignore all the realities and exigencies of Revell's product planning, drop to one knee, and bawl like little girl scouts robbed of their cookie sales.

If we're talking that nickel-on-top-of-copper plating Trumpeter first corrected their Bonnevilles with, I'm not sure we'll see that here. That stuff is actually cool to the touch, whereas the plating on the Monte Carlo and ALF didn't have that characteristic, nor did it seem as even and robust.

Kool! Not too surprised at that. I see what's giving some of you guys problems about this kit from the pics, and I hope the seats and fanbelt are among the bits SMS might look at. It certainly isn't a case like Fujimi's 250 GTO, which pretty much bludgeoned any halfway-observant modeler with its superiority right from the first shots of the resin prototype. But I'm gonna take a risk - considering Trumpeter's record, a pretty big one - and suggest that the actual kit may be more impressive than the pics lead us to believe. We see the plastic parts, and yeah, the simplification/pre-painting of the engine in particular seems strange for this kind of kit - but it appears there's also a bunch of bagged goodies we don't get much of a look at. I take SMS's tacit endorsement as a VERY positive sign...

Yowza. Based on 'em website pics, 'fI was with SMS, I'd be cracking on the drafts right now. There are some wtf elements, like the honking steel girder fanbelt and the featureless seats - but all told, this looks like a perfect canvas for Scale Motorsport; a solid foundation to build on, with plenty of room to add all sorts of kool SMS-type whiz-bang. Make one, boys, and I will buy...

Bitchin' tub, jb! Might just take two m'self. Cain't he'p noticing the details on that selfsame website about the '72 Olds - evidently we get a choice of rear axles, induction setups, and transmissions in that kit...

Well, since one of the most embarrassing gaffes ever published concerned the notion of Revell-Monogram reissuing an MPC tool, I went back and had a closer look at the kit description - 'cause while Polar Lights definitely pays tribute to Aurora, fact is, it's a Round2 property and Revell/Monogram owns all the Aurora tooling. I bet that's why Polar Lights says theirs is a REPRODUCTION - not a reissue - of the Aurora kit. And as such, there may be some improvements...

Honestly, an SS396 Nova suits me just fine! Since the factory small block engine bits aren't entirely stock, I like that kit better for its drag options, anyway - so it won't be needing its rally wheels!

Oh sure! Aesthetically, this sucker looks meaner and meaner the lower it goes. And yup, Tamiya's really is that low - to a point just this side of clearance problems with the inner fender wells. I was mainly evaluating it from the stock ride height as a reference, and even with the apparent +1 sizing of the rims, Fujimi's is far and away the closest to a factory 1:1.

Howdy, jb, and thanks! I mention the ride height not in reference to any build I did (although my test-fitting shows the same results), but to all of the Tamiya builds I've seen, in person or online - to a single car, the tires practically bump against the wheel arches. You can just about see it in Tamiya's own press photo, in fact: As for the tailpipes, they're cut at an angle as you see, and I've positioned the tailpipes so that those angles point straight down, as they do in most conventional setups. Literally minutes after the epoxy cured, I saw in my reference photos that those bevels described by the tailipipes actually point out more toward the rear corners of the car, instead of straight down at the pavement - such that I'd need to turn each pair about 45 degrees outward from the car's center line to get them aimed right.

Well, Hobbysearch has just gotten pictures up, so it's not likely much longer: http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10084193n3/40/3 While the pieces are designed to augment a curbside chassis, the instruction sheet shows that this is far and away the most detailed effort of the three - and maybe the most accurate.

I know I'm stoked! Cain't have too many vintage hemis, far as I'm concerned. OR steelies with trim rings! What's interesting is that Revell did up an entirely new set of wide-white rubber and steel wheels for the most recent '31 Ford sedan and '29 Ford pickup reissues - I believe these were also included in a t-bucket rat rod kit. Those wheels and tires would look great on this deuce (or any of the others), but I think Revell would have had to re-engineer the axle bosses to accept them. Hmeh, well. BRING IT!

Well, now that I've gotten a few things figured out, perhaps I can offer some proof: These two 3/4 shots show that Fujimi's kit has the best stance right out of the box; Tamiya slams it a bit too low, and Aoshima's rather-too-small rolling stock ruins the effect. This model is also pimping bits from the KA/Fujimi upgrade kit, most notably the spun exhaust tips (incorrectly pointed here), the photoetched rotor surfaces, the metal transfer crests for the wheels, and the "GT-R" photoetched plates which just scream with some simple paint detailing and highlight-scraping. You don't have to squish the wheels in as far as they did on the prototype on Fujimi's website. And you can see here that once you finesse it, the window unit snaps in much more decisively than Fujimi's display model would lead you to believe. And here, we see far and away the best undercarriage treatment. The interfaces between the chassis plate and the rocker panels, air dam, and rear diffuser are much more convincing in this kit, with none of the gaps that Tamiya's kit has or the oversimplification that characterizes the Aoshima kit. There's no conspicuous split in the exhaust system, and the transaxle engraving and suspension detail blow the other two clean away. We're pretty much at a stalemate right now, even with Fujimi's curbside disadvantage. If there's a decent engine in the upcoming version, fuggeddabouddit. Game over.

Stump, forgive me, but it's silly to qualify your post with "just my opinion". This is a message board, most of us are purportedly adults, and one thing that should be OBVIOUS to all participants is that opinions are central to the premise of any forum such as this. Frankly, you have a point: these molded-in mills Tamiya's been doing with the McLaren SLR and this GT-R are clearly phone-in efforts compared to the complete engines they used to do. And I will also respectfully submit that any thorough examination will actually put Fujimi's kit in the running for the BEST of the R35 GT-R's. Their body shell is only marginally behind Tamiya's in accuracy (the Aoshima body is a more distant 3rd place). Fujimi's wheels and tires are decisively better than Tamiya's, and Aoshima's rolling stock isn't even close. Fujimi's kit is the ONLY one of the three that makes a serious attempt at reproducing the actual suspension as it appears in the R35. The separate rear undertray/rocker panels/front spoiler all save you some masking relative to the other two models. Fujimi's "detail-up" photoetch kit pretty much has its dirty little prison-style way with its counterpart from Tamiya. And for what it's worth, Fujimi's parts count is far and away the highest, even without an engine - and the parts all fit together quite well. Yup, the ONLY drawback is that Fujimi's kit lacks an engine. And oh, lookie what Fujimi has coming at the end of the month: http://www.hlj.com/product/FUJ03794 When that one arrives, there won't be any doubt.

Well, here's something I noticed: the door panel and seat patterns for this kit apparently do not match those in the American Dreams '68 kit. Doezzat mean Revell's mixed up the interior bits from the GT500 after all? I'll be checking into over the next day or two...

I'm pretty sure the GT500 came out later, Bob. There was a lot of carry-over from the Bullitt, but the body shell, though still a little slab-sided, was much improved in things like the fender arches and greenhouse/b-pillar blend. The American Dreams '68, which is the basis for this plastic model, then came out after the GT500, recycling the Bullitt shell. And I wouldn't sweat the straight-through front axles, fellas. Like Zoomie said above, those are purely an artifact of the earlier Revell diecast kits; the m. o. for the latest Revell tooling seems to be axle pins up front. Even the diecast-based '58 Impala had 'em. And as for them new parts, all I gotsta say is SERVE 'EM UP! Woo-hoo! My AMT '68 CJ conversion is comin' togetha! There's my air cleaner, there's my hood scoop, that might even work as my hood...

HIGH FIVE, Baby! Just what I was thinkin'...

I don't like to pile on, but yeah - it's not as if we haven't had one precedent after another from Revell in converted diecast kits to show you exactly what to expect in the case of the '68 Mustangs. I would have hoped Revell refined the funky greenhouse and fixed the wheel arches reversed front and rear as they did with the '67 GT350, but my expectation has always been that we'd see the exact same kit shot in plastic. If anyone's expecting any great shakes out of Revell's upcoming '70 Challenger, then allow me to forewarn you right now: you'll probably want to stick with the AMT kit. I'm really looking forward to the 2-in-1 '68 GT to follow. That sucker'll have newly added drag parts, and if past is prologue, those parts will be way cool. I've also long pondered a '68 1/2 CJ conversion for an AMT '67, and it looks like that kit will give me much of what I need in one convenient box. STOKED about that '62 Corvette, as well! It'll be so cool to finally have a decent ducktail C1 in plastic.

Yeah man! All this, a bag of chips, and WHITE PLASTIC, too! I'm looking forward to snatching the first one I see, and it's a flippin' reissue! That really says something for the thought Round 2 is putting into all this. Now with any luck, we'll buy enough reissues that maybe some new tooling will become feasible again - preferably with guys like John Mueller and Tom Montgomery at the design helm. Really diggin' the Trophy Series tie-in, too; 'cause when you pack all the tooling versions together in one box, these kits become very much a Trophy Series for this day and age! I'd love to see the '62 Bel Air get this kind of treatment. '66 Riv'd be cool, too. Hell, anything from AMT's great '98 - '00 romp would be sweet, and the '50 Chevy pickup would be pretty trick, too...

Fair 'nough. There's my opinion about the opinion. **edit** - oh, and btw, Harry - the mag's graphics are pretty slammin' these days. Nice work.

Hmeh, nits 'n picks, they're inevitable with any new kit. I'll tell you what was completely unnecessary: The letter in the current issue from "that Bohach guy". So let me get this straight. Kit reviewers ain't "doing their jobs" unless they spend hours crawling with a tape measure over the nearest example of a subject from an entire generation ago? 'Scuse me there, J Robert, but what if the reviewer's neighborhood AIN'T EXACTLY CRAWLING WITH 40-YEAR-OLD NOVAS? Oh, so YOU have one? Well BULLY FOR YOU. Try your own hand at a review, then. Of course, anyone who claims Larry and Bill are blind - within sight of a sentence proclaiming the OBVIOUS SUPERIORITY OF THE OLD AMT KIT, no less - brings his own credibility to a level just below male enhancement spam. There's a bit more to the whole analysis than matching measurements. Of course, one has to actually review a few kits to realize that. Seems to me letters and attitudes like these have far higher use as forcefully self-administered colonic treatments than they do wasting ink and bytes.

Yup. All they gotsta do is massage it like they been doin' their military, lately, and we should be good to go. And I'druther have it right in 2010 than half-a$$ in a few months...

Well, Blaque, I was gonna congratulatcha on yer use of "if'n", my favorite grammatical construction ever, outside of "on account of" - but then you got me ###### near p---in' m'self in the middle of this here coffee shop witcher story! I like tha way yew post. Mmmm-hmm.

Well, I tend to eschew the whole baggin'-on-NASCAR turkey shoot; but hellyez, I'll take GT-R ugly over COyoTe-ugly any day of the week. Just one question, 9-5: why's yer link say "R34"?

Ah, man... Sign me up. YESTERDAY.

Yeah, that makes sense. Guess anyone who feels that strongly about it is the type to make the conversion anyway...