Junkman

What a shame. A car must have character.

Yep. He even invented taxing air.

I'd rather buy five Studebaker Pickups than one of those early fifties hippos on wheels.

I started that ancient Lindberg T and I would say you could easily add a pickup bed. Out of the box Model T trucks have been made by Bandai long, long ago. I have a stakebed and a C-cab. There may have been others.

I am planning to have a go at casting a few small items for an upcoming project. I have never done this before, but read up on the basics. Now, the smallest batch of casting resin I can buy is half a litre. This is way more than I need now. The resin is not pre-mixed. Can the rest just be stored over a lengthy period of time, or does it become unuseable after a few weeks? And if it can be stored, what are the best storage conditions? Does it have to be kept in the Kelvinator?

Hey, look, model kit makers: They sell!

I have all the quirky Motor Max eighties Mopars (yes, the Horizon too) and Pintos, Vegas, Mavericks and yes, the Gremlin. Since the plastic kitters seemed to have all the time in the world for the re-release of the latter, and didn't bother about the other stuff at all, the zinc melters got my doh meanwhile. It happens awfully often lately. I only wonder why the diecasters can do it and the plastic kitters not. More examples: - The Presidential Series: Diecasters 1 - Plastic kitters NIL - The fire engines: Diecasters 1 - Plastic kitters NIL - 1937 Studebaker Coupe Express: Diecasters 1 - Plastic kitters NIL - A whole bunch of Ford BB and Chevy 1-ton Trucks with beautiful bodies: Diecasters 1 - Plastic kitters NIL - 1:24/25 Motorbikes: Diecasters 1 - Plastic kitters NIL I could go on, and on, and on, and on... The proportion of diecasts is getting ever bigger in my collection. Not because I really collect diecasts. Because the kit industry doesn't leave me an alternative.

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.