Ron Hamilton

Bill, It's Harold Bradford's work. We missed you. Ron

I saw this car today, and it is drop dead gorgeous.

I was working on the Revell '56 Ford Pickup, and I decided to glue th doors shut. The fit was horrible when I sat the doors in their frames. Maybe one day, I'll find this one and finish it to my satisfaction.

Mike, I had one of the MPC Fastbacks back in 1967. Even though the kit was not as well proprtioned as the AMT kit (which I had too), it had a lot of character. I liked it so much that I found an unbuilt one, which I intend to paint like the one I did back in 1967 (Light Yellow with a Black Interior), using only the kit parts, and no extra detailing other than Bare Metal Foil. Your resurrection may get my juices flowing to do this one. Ron

Mike, I love the fact that you have the knack to bring such derelicts back from the grave. A lot of your builds give me the inspiration to get to work. I really like the Ventura and the Mustang . RH

You're always welcome at my house, but not the model room. rh

A few models come to mind for me: 1) Larry Boothe's '57 Thunderbird 2) Bill Geary's '58 Impala Convertible 3) Lyle Willits' '66 Chevelle Convertible 4) Irv Arter's '56 Mercury 5) Matt Guiffoyle's '59 Dodge Custom Royal Convertible Ron Hamilton

I told you to run!!!

Truly remarkable, Lyle. Sorry I couldn't make the meeting.

I've been lucky. AFX has always gotten my orders out in a timely manner, and yes, I have one of those '71 Demon bodies, and no, I will not sell it now.

I built one from an original MPC '70 'cuda as a 440 car, utilizing a shortened AMT '71 Charger R/T Chassis and underhood structure like I did the GTX. Even though that one was not "perfect" either, it is better than the "new" Revell Body. Now it looks to me that this one may be offered by a certain resin caster in the future, you have to ask yourself two questions. 1) What will be the quality of the resin body you get, as I have gotten a few that has needed a lot of work, just to prepare it for paint. If the master, mould, or quality of resin is not right, then money will be thrown away. 2) The cost factor. Around $50, plus a donor kit, plus other incidentals such as chroming, wheels/tires/detail parts. I was fortunate enough to find an unpainted, white one to work with. The chassis was junk, but the '71 Charger bits worked fine, and I was happy with the result. I'm sorry that I am not able to download the photo of the finished model to this forum, as my photo hosting site is not compatible. I did try.

Not to start a flame war, remember, No model car is perfect out of the box. Even in this world of CAD drawings, a lot of them are still off. They all need a little "massaging". Especially a lot of the newer releases. I am willing to bet that I could "pick apart" most of the new releases by the model manufacturers on subjects I am familiar with. Granted this one needs more than most. I'm waiting for one of us brilliant modelers to correct this kit instead of complaining about it. The wonderful thing about the marketplace is, if you don't like it, don't buy it. I'm not completely satisfied by the resultant kit either, but all of us have seen worse, even by the so-called "premier" model car companies. I am no means a "rivet counter", but I know what looks good, and this kit holds much more promise than any currently available kit of this subject on the market. Perfect? No. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Revell apologist, as there have been some decisions made by this company I will never agree with, and a better job could have been done with this offering, but I do not see this one as being such a dog as some other kits I have seen of other subjects. A lot of the criticism is being leveled at this kit by those who are relying on photographs and word of mouth. Some of these people have not had their hands on the actual kit, nor have they seen one built by an "accomplished" modeler in person. Let's reserve judgement until we see some of these on the tables at the club meetings, NNL's, contests, and on the message boards. Personally, I will take great joy in "straightening" out this one to the best of my ability, and showing my work off. Go for it.

Hey Bill, While I concur with you concerning the faults of the kit, does the real car look all that good? A lot of what we see is in the first dimension such as photographs. I tend to think a little more in 3-d like you. We do have a good eye for proportion, angles, so forth and so on. This thing is fixable without a lot of effort or expense, just a little skill. Truthfully, this one may be our last shot at a decent '70 Cuda, as AMT/Ertl has pulled the plug on theirs, and no other manufacturer has made such an attempt. My days of spending mega bucks on a model car is over. I can work this boy over to even satisfy you. I have already planned the fixes based on our conversations about the shortcomings of this kit. Remember, the effort we put forth to build a replica stock car is a lot more than most put into customs or race cars. By the way the sail panels are short on the real thing too. I have looked at hundreds of these cars trying to figure out how to correct the '71, and this one is easier. By the way, you're right about the bean counters.

1970 Plymouth AAR Cuda Revell Kit # 2875 ½4 Scale Modified Reissue I have been building model cars about 45 years, and I have never seen a kit so maligned before it was released for sale as this one. With the advent of the internet, there were a lot of negative opinions vented on the various model message boards, as well as word of mouth at several model club meetings around the world. A lot of the opinions were based on a test shot of the kit at the NNL East this past March, which was displayed with other upcoming kits from this manufacturer. Revell promised us a “newly tooled†body for this kit, and we were waiting with baited breath. Revell did do a new body for this kit, but they did not take the route that most of us had hoped they would. I did not see the model in person until I bought this kit, but I did see photos taken at the NNL East. From the various photos I saw, I too thought this kit looked a little “cartoonishâ€, as compared to the real car. Part of my bias came from the first iteration of this kit from this manufacturer. We were promised a state of the art new tool of this automobile, and what we got was..., well, needless to say I was quite disappointed in what I saw when I opened this kit. It was one of the few kits I bought, that I gave away soon after I bought it, it was that bad. One of modelers who was present at the NNL East had a conversation with one of the officials from Revell, who told him, and I am paraphrasing what I read, basically, what you see here, is what you’re going to get in the new kit. Honestly, I was not expecting much from this kit, but I thought I would give it a fair shot in a review. First of all, I took the body out of the box, and made comparisons of it with a couple of other ‘70 Cudas I have in scale. The first is an original MPC ‘70 Cuda that I have, as well as a Franklin Mint ’70 Cuda Convertible. I am basing my opinions using the two aforementioned models as a guide, as well as several photographs of the real car from the book “Challenger and Cuda- Mopar’s Factory Muscle Carsâ€, by Robert Genat. This is the best book about these cars I have ever seen, and is a valuable resource material for researching these cars. In looking this kit over, it is not too bad proportion wise. While there are some problems with the rear quarter panels, this one is far better than the previous ‘70 Plymouth AAR Cuda offering from this manufacturer, and it looks better to me that any of the ‘71 Cuda iterations from this manufacturer. In my opinion, there is too much of an arch on the upper rear quarter panel and the bottom looks to be about 1/8" too short. Along with that, the sail panels looks a little shallow, effectively shortening the roof . These three items make the car have a “hiked up†look in the back end, as well as making the deck area look too long. While these aspects of the body proportioning is unacceptable to some modelers, it will not deter other modelers from building an outstanding example from this kit. I did not compare this model with the Monogram ‘71 Cuda, because in my opinion, that kit has its own issues with certain proportions in its body, which affects it’s appearance. It is obvious that Revell based this kit on the ‘70 Challenger T/A tool, instead of the ‘71 Cuda tool, so some proportion problems would obviously be evident. First of all the Challenger has a wheelbase 2" longer on the real car, but about 1/16" in ½4 scale. Looks to me that the extra wheelbase was hidden, as the wheelbase on this car matches my Franklin Mint model perfectly. The wheel openings are a little larger on the kit than the Franklin Mint, and the rear fender issues were based on the comparison with the same car. Other than that, the car looks spot-on to me. These cars had short roofs, and the narrow sail panels really accentuate that fact, so the kit may not be off too much in that respect. Now Revell did make one glaring omission in this kit, that can be easily corrected. The ‘70 Challenger T/A and the “70 AAR Cuda and tires on the rear of the car that was two sizes larger than the fronts, and this feature was omitted from my kit. My Challenger T/A kit had the staggered tires, but not this kit. I looked the rest of the kit over, and it should go together quite easily. I’m a little picky, so I am going to correct the rear quarters to what I think they should be, get the right rear tires from my parts box, and build my interpretation of a ‘70 AAR Cuda from this kit. I will be buying more to build other variations of a ‘70 Plymouth Barracuda, with a little kitbashing, parts box raiding, and scratch-building skills. I’m sure the aftermarket will make items for this kit, as a lot of the Model Car Garage’s’71 Hemi Cuda PHOTO ETCH Set will work with this kit. Have an open mind about this kit.. No model kit is perfect, and this one came out as a pleasant surprise. I recommend it. Ron Hamilton

I will have an extensive review of this kit in a few days after I look it over.

I'm old enough to remember a lot of the JoHan kits when they were new, and I have built quite a few of them. I have even been fortunate enough to amass a nice collection of unbuilt Johan kits to build in my old age. While I agree that JoHan had some of the most beautiful bodies with the crispest detail, they did take quite a few short cuts over the years, such as the short interior tubs up until 1964, and short, long cars, such as the early 60's Cadillacs and Chryslers. Towards the end of the line on the mid to late '70's, the detail started going away, especially with the interiors. Even with that, my JoHan collection is among the most prized items in my collection. Beware of old Johan model kits and promos, in that the plastic is very brittle, and will crack very easy. I found that out when polishing out a couple of them. While I applaud Okey Spaulding's efforts to revitalize the JoHan brand, it seems to me that there were some unforseen obstacles, as well as some unfortunate happenings what went on during the transfer of ownership, not counting the unusable and missing tools. I wish he could have brought back more of the kits, as I bought a few of the kits from "the new JoHan". Fortunately some reputable resin casters have repopped some of the old JoHan kits, that would otherwise be gone forever. I may never build my Johans, as they are steadilly appreciating in value. NOT! I bought them to build, and some day I will build my '70 Cadillac Coupe De Ville, my '66 Olds Toronado, and my '68 Plymouth Fury Convertible, among others.

My absolute favorite car!!! In the words of Franco, "What's behind me is not important!"

Those are excellent!!!! Once you're up and running, I will be a good customer. RH

Hey Bill, Come on down! I have a couple of SRT8 Chargers that you can get all the engine detail shots you want. I may let you drive one!!! Ron

Saturday, I got a semi-painted, but unbuilt VW Scirocco. I hate the red plastic, but I will seal it, after I strip off the paint.

That is one beautiful model James. I love that black, with the red stripe and white with plaid interior. I'm glad I built my Lucerne Blue one, as it is prominitely one of the stars of my collection (thanks for the insapirational picture). I bought up a bunch of the '71 Charger kits, as they are wonderful basis kits for just about any Mopar from that era. I have a mint, unbuilt '73 Charger, that may be combined with the '71 to do a '73 SE with a 440 engine in triple black, with a sunroof. I also have one of the elusive AAR '70 Chrysler 300 resin kits. I figure that I can stretch and widen the chassis and underhood area to make a detailed 300. (Would you believe I just thought of this project as I wrote this?) One of these days. One of these days.

Roll on Yellow Camaro!!!

I remember seeing a blue one when I was in High School. I was in an Exotic car showroom, and it was in the shop. Until I stepped back from it I didn't realize I was looking at one of my all time favorites. I built a yellow Fujimi kit of this car, and I still have 3 more to go (2 spyders, and 1 more coupe from Fujimi). A red Spyder is in my future plans.

I have some. The black undercoat must be perfect for it to work.

I built this one from the Model Car World Resin Transkit for the Revell 1965 Impala SS, as a Street Machine with Cragar SS mags, Dark Green Lacquer, a Model Car Garage steering wheel column mounted Sun Tach, and various photetch pieces finish the car.