Junkman

I only hope the Revell A-bone still packs the track roadster nose. I'm out of them

In my imagination: A Peterbilt with a scratchbuilt car transporter trailer carrying all six variants of AMT 55/57 Chevies... And yes, I would want those Revell 1:16 street rod series kits back, too. All two of them.

I see it like you do. Each variant allows you to build a distinctly different car even under the skin and pretty much all eras of hot rodding are covered when you have them all, save for the billet one. It was revell who once sold an A-woody wagon with a Tudor body thrown in. I never got the point, since in essence you had to buy the kit twice anyway and then were left with two spare bodies and all their trimmings for the bin. I felt more 'pulled over' then, then I do with their current concept of releasing each body in a separate kit with different goodies to boot.

But the '73 is so much better looking. And yes, I'd buy a bunch of 74s too just because of the BB connection. Then we need the Murph and the Magic Tones Caddy, a Pinto wagon, a late 70s Ford wagon, a '76 Pontiac whatever, a Winnebago, an F-Series Ford PU reissue with a newly tooled camper shell, and an "early released this year" '80 Oldsmobile...

IIRC there were a few late Eighties Camaros and Trans Ams made by Revell, also a Jeep CJ in various guises and a K-Series Chevy Silverado pick up I once made into a crew cab dually. I wonder whether the molds are with the AG atm.?

Yes, it's a crying shame, but you are right. I honestly had no idea how pettifogging the management of the American model kit industry really is. Too bad, since more money will go to the diecast makers.

I'm not going to ask what nature the great memories you have in association with those vans might be... We were looking at America's vans with envy in those days and then crawled into the backs of our 2CV or Renault 4 vans.

We are the same age, so it figures... Btw. I had a 78 Caprice with a 350-4bbl/350 and a 2.41 export/police rear axle. The car was anything but slow, ask a few Mercedes 560SEL drivers having been blitzed by it on German Autobahns throughout the Nineties. The italianesque design of the late Seventies Impala/Caprice has aged extremely well and a model would have great potential for lowrider, donk, euronizer and police car chappies.

I think the good news about Lindberg reissuing the superb 1:16 Bullhorn T and Minicraft reissuing the ex-Gakken/Entex/Academy A-Models including the hot rod versions, got a bit trampled in the newly tooled 50s cars stampede. Oh wait, Revellogram announced the 1:16 Peterbilt, hopefully priced a good bit south of the debtors prison. The T and As deliver potential for some excellent kitbashing, nay? I wish round2 would dig deeper into their 1:16 molds too after they gave us the General and announced the Petty Charger, and will give us back the AMT birds and stangs and tri Chevies and the MPC vettes and Trans-Ams. Most of the latter included hop up parts which could again be used to rod the T and As (IIRC, the 55 T-bird contained a superb set of chromed Kelsey Hayes wires). Not sure whether you've heard of it yet, but the AG released three 1:16 scale kits for the 125 Years of the Automobile celebration - the splitty Beetle, the 1934 Rolls Royce Phantom II Continental and the old IMAI Model-T that must have ended up with them in a deal I don't even want to know about. Not sure how many big boys are out there, but there is a lot for me to buy over the next 14 or so months. I still hope we'll see another batch of the Revell 1:16 dragsters and funnycars soon. They seem to have sold well and prices are already stiffening.

The latter two we get from Japan and Germany, thank you very much. Only the American kit industry refuses to release models of newer cars, because the Americans are 'ashamed' of them and want to forget them, I read elsewhere in this forum.

See, most British cars of the Seventies didn't have any quality problems. They weren't built at all.

Because they can? Of course it is completely unneccessary, but why not?

Car model kit building and collecting never was that strong in Europe. Plastic model kits were always more associated with airplane, ship, and military modelling. This explains why there are so few shows in Europe for model cars only. Most modelling shows are 95% non-automotive subjects and even the small automotive section is at least 50% trucks (I mean, big trucks, like semis and heavy haulage stuff). Few people know that even this isn't the real picture, since the biggest plastic kit market in Europe is buildings for model railway layouts, a millions of Euros business, and they are also exported in huge numbers to the rest of the world. The car model enthusiast in Europe has traditionally been catered for predominantly with ready-made diecasts, and predominantly in 1:43 scale. In addition, the European car model enthusiast has been spoiled with 1:18 models over the past quarter century, so for most there never really was a need to build model cars from kits. If you mention "building model cars" in Europe, most people have an imaginary picture of an RC-model in front their eyes. For many Europeans who do so, the interest in building plastic car model kits is often triggered by their love for American subjects. There are of course others, like people who like bigger scales than 1:43, or even 1:18, the aforementioned heavy trucks, classics, modern supercars, formula 1 Grand Prix (or other motorsports), you name it. What I'm trying to get at though, is that in no other industry whatsoever, the USA has a bigger market share in Europe proportion-wise, than in automotive plastic kits. It's probably closely followed by railway models, but the proportion they own of that market is smaller. This is in such stark contrast to the nonchalance the American model kit companies demonstrate towards this fact, that it is downright irritating. They predominantly leave the distribution (or rather the lack of it) of their products to dubious email account companies and therefore the kits are seldom found in any shops, other than the ones, who import them directly from the USA themselves, like US-Car Models Schenkenberger in Frankfurt, USA Modellautos in Adlikon, Switzerland, or Polarbears3kitscatcat, a bizarre model kit and teddy bear shop in Poole, Dorset, run by a couple that could even by the demanding standards set by British intellectuals be classified as outstandingly eccentric (needless to say that I just love the place). This is a huge mistake in a time and age where products must be shoved into people's arrr... errr... faces for them to realize that they actually are available for purchase. So car modelling (as we understand it here in this forum) never was as strong in Europe than it was in the States. It became smaller over the past 20 years by a smimilar proportion and for similar reasons as elsewhere in the world (except maybe Japan, where it appears to have made a surge). All of the European plastic model kit manufactureres have folded at some stage, with Revell AG being the notable exception. What came out of the ashes of the likes of Heller, Airfix, or Italeri, car model kit wise, is pretty dismal, as you all might know. There haven't been any new developments in the past 20 or so years either (except for - you guessed it - Revell AG), and if it appeared to be, it was merely repacking and marketing a Japanese kit. I don't really know what the reason for this is, but it might have to do with the fact that most of the reincarnated model kit manufactureres in Europe are now owned by model railway companies. Non automotive subjects are going strong as ever, but automotive is treated as the stepchild (did I mentioned already, that the notable exception is Revell AG?). Hence, plastic car model building and collecting is currently a "pull" system in Europe, with which I mean, that the builders and collectors must make an active effort to obtain the objects of their desire, unless it's trucks, or whatever the AG in Germany has to offer. Before I forget: There is another thing in Europe which contributes to car model kit sales - slot car racing. After being pronounced dead during the Seventies, it re-emerged in the Eighties as a fully fledged recreational sport for adults, believe it or not. There are countless clubs and there are sanctioned racing series on regional, national and international levels. In their "stock" (I.e. kit-based) formulas, those guys have a tremendous consumption of model kits.

When I mentioned late Fifties and early Sixties cars back in the mid eighties, I was told the exact same thing about them.

My .02 worth: I keep reading about these "oversized slow and boring cars". If there are oversized, slow, and boring cars, I suggest it's 53 Hudsons, 50 Oldsmobiles, and 57 Ford Customs. Any car I mentioned in my post can outperform those in every single aspect. But that's completely beside the point I was trying to make. The point I was actually trying to make seems to have not been understood, so I try again. In a response to a post somebody made where he rightfully pointed out that the 'younger' modellers are being left out in the current round of newly tooled kits, I wrote that I would appreciate if the model kit industry would pick up where it left in the early to mid Seventies, an age, where we 40somethings just about started to get 'into' cars. The cars I mentioned are just examples of the cars we grew up with. For us, they aren't boring, or slow, or oversized. They are 'our' cars. They are the cars we've seen on the roads, the cars we drove and the cars that were used in the movies we watched. And I want model kits of them. That's all. American automotive history hasn't stopped in 1972, you know. The model kit industry pretty much has, though.

Obviously the 77 T-bird The 65 GTO is iconic for which age group? My initial post was in response to someone pointing out that the 'younger' modellers are left out, and I have to agree. A 65 GTO does nothing for me other than me having seen one in an extremely stupid movie. Those muscle cars were well before my time, which started pretty much when the American model kit industry left off in the Seventies. The diecast manufactureres don't seem to have this fear. They release stuff nobody would have even thought about and it sells surprisingly well. However, I will stand corrected if the 53 Hudson, 50 Olds and 57 baseline Ford will sell well, I wish they do, but they won't get my custom for one. What has been said is that today's technology makes it a lot easier to tool up new kits, so there is the chance to do some oddballs as well. I said what I want and I will keep saying it. Who knows... Oh, and please no new 65 GTO. Not as long as there is paint left I can watch dry.

Time to adjust the viewpoint? I can clearly remember the time when I was told just what you wrote when we wanted 59 Chevies and Cadillacs and finned Mopars. We brought real ones over in droves because they were seen as worthless junk and a serious low point in America's automotive history by Americans throughout the Eighties. Which iconic American classics, muscle cars and sports cars from the Seventies onwards haven't been released as kits yet? Oh, true, Chrysler Cordobas and '77 Thunderbirds and Cougars.

Yeah, I am a repeat customer.

You are not only completely right, I can hardly believe to what degree you are right! I'm a 'second generation' modeller myself. I started in the Seventies, exactly when the whole hobby entered what must be it's darkest period in America so far. New kit development practically stopped altogether, once the real car industry stopped commissioning promos. Yes, we then got our share of ponycars, sportscars, vans and trucks, but there are hardly any 'ordinary' American cars in kit form, with the notable exception of the Johan Cadillacs and the lone Oldsmobile. Just to put this into perspective, there is no shortage of Japanese car kits from the period, lots of which quite recently tooled. And yes, despite I like old cars, early Fifties Hudsons, Oldsmobiles and a baseline 57 Ford are certainly not anywhere near even the middle of my 'want' list. The reissues of the Vans and the Jo-Hans by IMC are more my cup of tea by lightyears. I wish the industry would start picking up where it left off in the early Seventies. But this is how it goes: The industry tools up this Fifties stuff because people shouted loud enough. We have to learn the lesson. If we want something, we must shout. So hey, kit industry, if you read this. Where is my '73 Dodge Monaco, '73 Pontiac LeMans, '71 Cadillac, '77 Caprice and '77 Continental Town Car?

there is no such thing as a 'good' Trabant...

What we need to do much more in future is say what we want and say it loud and clear. They do listen. You can see they listen.

I say it again. It could yield quite a few parts for a Milner Deuce build.

Spotting a swallow doesn't mean it's Summer, as we say in Austria. But: What is clearly noticeable is that the model companies seem to 'listen', i.e. reflect on what is discussed in the 'scene', among other on forums such as this one here (I mean you guys!). They had to do something, since they must have realized by now that their target market hitherto - kids or at least younger people - aren't really buying model kits. I daresay the model kit has generally not made it into this millenium as a mainstream recreation-oriented product. What the 'industry' is starting to realize is that model kits can only be sold if they target them to 'niche' markets. And what can be clearly seen in what has been announced for immediate and near future release, is that they probe various 'niches'. I would say, they have started to fight for each and every customer, which is a good thing. This strategy is probably the only one which will ultimately lead to success. Let's face it, it is a difficult road to take and certainly not easy money. But the times for easy money are over, or at least suspended for the time being. This can be felt in all industries, not only the hobby sector. There are a few not so obvious factors, which could work in favour of the kit industry for the time being: - Increased labour costs and tremendously improving social conditions in China led to an unproportionally high increase in prices for good quality diecasts over a very short period of time. At the same time, there is a decrease in spendable income in large parts of the population. You can read all about this on every diecast forum, or just check your bank account balance. Also, the diecast industry moans openly about dwindling sales figures, which in turn will again hike prices, a vicious circle. This will drive a lot of people who had left the model kit scene in favour of collecting good diecast models to return to building model kits. - Many people are looking for cheaper recreational activities. The times where everybody could afford to go to the pub 3 nights a week and spend the weekend away are over. Just fill her up at the petrol station and you know what I mean. Recreational activities will more and more return to the confines of one's home and it is not unlikely that a few people who once were into modelling will take it up again. - There is a sort of renaissance of family activities. For one thing, the novelty factor of the game consoles has worn off to a degree,and many games became very expensive. Another thing is that people start to realize that each member spending the evening in front of a different screen does not constitute a family life. Quite a few people told me they feel they have lost contact to their children to a large degree. I kept telling them to try to introduce them to modelling, something they can do toghether. And I was surprised how often they reverted back to me after a while and told me how well it worked. Last Sunday was the largest toy and train fair in the North West of England. I had booked a table there (after more than twenty years of not attending such a fair) to sell a few kits which are truly surplus to my requirements. It turned out that there were only two other model kit vendors and I was the only one offering car model kits. The rest of the fair was the usual array of toy trains, vintage Corgi/Dinky and other diecasts and toys clearly made for adults to collect, i.e. exactly teh same stuff I saw there last time over twenty years ago. However, I was surprised how many people stopped at my table and spent considerable time looking through my kits and starting to chat about them. Most of them were not unfamiliar with them, but hadn't tackled one in ages. Quite a few left with one or two under their arms. When the event turned to a close, most sellers complained about not selling much and blamed 'the crisis' to a large degree. I told them, that I cannot share this view. Yes, comparatively little money had changed hands at my table, but there was constant custom throughout the event. A guy who had two tables full of very high end diecasts next to me said, sales are terrible compared with what they were like just three years ago. Which made me think again. Spending 150 quid on a diecast car to do exactly what with it? I can buy ten model kits for that kind of money and do whatever I can imagine in my twisted mind with them. Plus I can get my kids involved in building them. Aaaaaay! The model kit isn't dead. The market has changed, that's all. But there is a small, loyal and devoted group of people out there, who will put their money where their heart is. This group may even slightly increase in numbers. If the kit industry plays it smart, we could face a very good future.

Since the Revell folks seem to be reading this forum, I just say it... We will need the EMPI Imp next so we can put it next to the Meyers Manx Round2 is releasing!

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