Casey

Sorry, I love a good story, no matter how many versions are retold. http://culttvman.com/main/aurora-faq-6-what-is-the-story-about-the-aurora-train-wreck/

I was wondering if that ever happened. Didn't hear nor see anything about it.

Good news. http://www.round2models.com/articles/new-lindberg

IIRC, I e-mailed them a few years ago when I stumbled upon the 'site, but never got a reply. I think it's just as you stated-- an attempt to rekindle the fire of what was once Aurora. My opinion? It looks like many or all of their planned or future releases were kits which have subsequently (since Aurora closed up shop in the late '70s) never been reproduced by anyone else, so perhaps the molds still exist. There was another topic here discussing Aurora, and what become of their tooling inventory, but not all of it was purchased by others from what I recall. Monogram acquired some, and even then, not all of it survived after it arrived in Morton Grove. I want to say the most "desirable" of Aurora's kits were purchased and taken away from their Long Island location, but I don't think I've ever read/heard what happened to the rest of Aurora's molds, and what remained at the end. Maybe it was mentioned in Thomas Graham's book? There must be some connection with Tom Lowe who previously owned Polar Lights and produced several originally-produced-by-Aurora kits in the late '90s and early '00s. I have to believe the molds for the "Frankenstein's Flivver", "Dracula's Dragster," etc. still existed, rather than being reverse engineered, so why not other molds from Aurora's inventory? Should we throw in Addar, too, to really complicate things? Just for kicks, here's the wiki on Aurora: "Aurora’s founders retired in the late 1960s and the company was sold to outside investors in 1969. After expanding into the toys and gamesmarket with limited success, the new owners sold the company to Nabisco in 1971. Nabisco in turn sold the model kit division in 1977 to Aurora’s one-time rival Monogram. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, toy and hobby company Playing Mantis created a division called Polar Lights (as a reference to aurora) which reissued some of Aurora’s most popular kits. Other companies following in Aurora's shoes have reissued earlier Aurora kits. These include Moebius, Atlantis and Monarch, which mostly have focused on the Aurora trend of sci-fi and horror TV and movie figures and scenes. For example, Moebius, started by a former distributor of Polar Lights models in Glenwood, Florida, has reissued the large kit of the submarine Seaview from the 1960s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV show and the old Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kit (Moebius Models website). Monarch models is based in London, Ontario, Canada - started by a doctor (Powell 2009; Monarch Models website 2011). Atlantis Models is based in East Northport, New York, and though also making sci-fi figures, has equal focus on animal dioramas (Atlantis Models website; Powell 2010). Polar Lights, Monarch and Moebius all use an oval logo very similar in shape to that of the original Aurora style. The Atlantis (see Zorro re-issue) logo uses a more abstract, though nostalgic, oval broken into six sections. In the 1990s, the family of Joseph Giammarino announced the return of Aurora Plastics Corporation as a manufacturer of hobby kits under the name LAPCO, or Lost Aurora Plastics Corporation, with a product line to include reverse engineered reissues of long gone kits. Nothing came of this. Again in 2007, Giammarino's family announced the return of Aurora, with their first offerings stated to include aircraft and figure kits from their original 1960s line (Giammarino 2007). Their web site lists products to be made available in May-June 2012, but as of September 2012 none are available to order."

I noticed that, too, but Steve Goldman mentioned the molding facility in the Lindberg topic in Gen Disc., so I think and suspect this is a case of Round2 repackaging old, already-produced Lindberg stock in a new box. Technically, they're correct, but it seems to be MitUSA more by default than of Round2's own choosing.

I can't wait 'til 2017 to bump his post and suggest you should black out the tail panel.

Looks like Michael's is carrying even more Round2 kits now:

Looks like 1/25 Lindberg Little Red Wagon is out. Saw one at Michael's today, in a nicely updated retro box. I hope Round2 also saw fit to include some of their recent drag slicks instead of the malformed Lindberg slicks.

Isn't his the kit with five-lug wheels up front and six-lug wheels out back?

Yes, two kits. One a stock '69, the second a Funny Car.

No, but we probably should start discussing that. Just finishing up the little odds and ends after Ron takes care of the BMF, "glass" installation, etc. Maybe I missed it, but I noticed the reissued kit has new, improved decals. Do we want to use those instead of the original stripes? I'm not exactly sure what has changed, but I think Tim Boyd mentioned something about the stripe's color transitions.

#

That's a fairly early 1970 model, the 2388th vehicle produced at that plant in September 1969. Have you posted this previously on the moparts.com forum? I swear I've seen it before...

How are we doing? Just want to make sure we're getting close to Ron getting involved, as he's next in the process. We still need someone to volunteer for the last step, too...anyone?

^^ He gets it. I doubt these kits are great sellers, as you can still buy the Royal Rail in the Autoworld store (i.e., direct from Round2) for $10.99, and that kit was reissued in 2009. Still, they keep bringing them back, so Round2 either must know something we don't, or they're willing to take a loss on a few select kits for their customers. Or maybe both.

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=74087

That's why the attached images no longer work. You'll need to re-upload them and delete the old images, or use a photohosting site like photobucket instead.

I wonder if Round2 is still planning to release the Touch Tone Terror kit, as shown (Nitro Neil's pic) at the 2013 NNL East?:

There were three other posts which were left behind, but now have now been moved into this topic.

I've always hoped Revell would backdate the '80/'79 into a '77, but I doubt that will ever happen. It's too bad they decided to do a '79 instead of a '77, but maybe with MPC having the S&tB licensing locked up for all those years it simply was doable back then.

Yes, it was part of Revell's SSP (Selected Subjects Program) which used to mean the kit was limited to a certain number (say 5,000), but not sure if that still applies to the SSP branded kits or not. It was around $70 or so when it was reissued in 2013, though, so $170 is quite a jump in less than two years.

If you don't need to be one of the first to lay eyes on every single thing they have set out, nor be the first through the door in search of that elusive Aurora Banana Splits ATV built up, it's not that bad. I can't say I ever felt I've "missed out" on anything there, and I don't arrive more than ten minutes before the doors open. After the first thirty minutes, the store clears out and you have plenty of room to browse. See you there.

The Revell '72 includes both auto and 4-speed manual transmisions.

Harry, can we please create a dedicated section here on the forum strictly for reference posts such as these? Maybe delete/modify the Trivia section since that seems to have run its course?