Hawk312

Can-con, Certainly. I`ve probably built a dozen or so of them over the past 30 years. I still have 5 or 6 Cuda and Challenger kits with the old metal flake cover art. I was hoping some of the parts would be close enough to be compatible if needed. I will probably end up not using any of the old kit parts, unless I can get those decals to work.

And of course, probably many of you will want to see the AMT Polyglas tires with the wheels. These tires are from the AMT `68 Z/28 kit. The kit came with 8 tires, 4 big and 4 small!!!! I put the new rim as well as the old rims in for testing:

Now, I had this crazy idea to use the old wheels with the new tires, as I thought (from pics I had seen on the `net) that the new wheels looked to shallow. However, I think the old wheels look too deep, and stretch the tires just a little bit to where it looks like they be 16" or even 17" rims in scale. Here is the old wheel in the new tire, and the new wheel in the old tire.

Here are the new wheels and tires compared to the wheels and tires from the old Revell and Monogram Cuda and Challenger kits.

I mentioned this in the other thread, the stripe decals appear to have an arch on the rear fender, which seems incorrect. The 1:1 seems to be more angled then arched. I am going to attempt to modify the decals from the very first AAR kit from Revell, but they are almost a scale foot longer so we will see. Here is a comparison of the new decal sheet compared to the very first kit. As you can see, they got the angle right on the old kit, but there seems to be too few "strobes."

Obligatory comparisons. The purple is the Monogram 71 body. Much longer and much wider. Much more flash! Canopy is too tall. Front fenders are not high enough, and are too long and slender IMO. The white is the Johan. Almost identical in proportion and shape! Less detailed, more sink marks for sure. I would much, much rather work with the new body any day.

I finally got my hands on one, and will share some info here. First, here is the body. It is quite nice! Very little prep work needed other than scribing some lines and light sanding. Some of you may have seen the body inaccuracies and correction discussion in the Revell 2019 thread. I decided to let the wife and kids know I wouldn`t be going with them on our vacation week to Disney, and instead decided to stay home and work in paintbrush on this detailed image with corrections illustrated: I have made these changes to the body. The front fenders had about a scale 1" cut down or so, not much: The color is actually Krylon Mambo Pink from the can. I have a can of Testor`s Panther Pink, and they are *very* close in color. By the way, for you younger builders, *do not* follow my example for painting this body, as best practices we definitely not followed: No primer on the body. Just some light sanding, and then spraying the Krylon color directly on the bare plastic. KRYLON Followed by Rustoleum clear. The Krylon was not fully cured before the clear was sprayed. I am actually surprised it came out half decent.

For those that are wondering, here is the first gen AAR Cuda kit decals against the current release. As you can see, there is more of an "arch" to the current kit stripes as opposed to the old one. The old kit stripes are also much longer which I think we all expected, but they are a little over half an inch or so longer, or about a scale foot!

POSSIBLE MAJOR PLOT TWIST ON THE DECAL ISSUE: I was just looking at the box of the original Revell AAR Cuda, and it looks as though it might possibly have the correct shape decal. Now granted, they may be a little big for this kit, but if it is mainly in just the length, some strobes could be cut out and it might just work on this kit. And THAT would mean that the original AAR Cuda kit might actually be good for something!!

I think there are some good points made here. When I brought up the decal "curve" issue, I was trying to participate in the constructive work (IMO anyway) along with the others here pointing out some of the inaccuracies to be corrected if you wanted this model to be near perfect. I still plan on getting at least one of these, if not more, as overall it appears to be a great kit. And having built some horrendous kits in the 80`s and 90`s, I am really thankful with how far kits, like this one, have come.

I thought it might be good to highlight the problem areas, so instead of sleeping last night, I spent the last 12 hours in paint brush doing this: Thoughts?

I hope I didn`t ruin it for you guys. Maybe I shouldn`t have opened that can of worms. IIRC, I had similar issues with the second version of the AAR Cuda from Revell. I remember knocking down the rear fenders nearer the front to make them look flatter/straighter, and then modifying the decal to match the contour. I believe I cut a bunch of slits along the bottom of the strobe stripe decal while dry near the rear to allow me to bend the stripe to the line of the fender. Needless to say, the decals were very fragile after doing that though. I also may have cut out a strobe or two. That was with the previous kit, which also seemed to have curved strobe decals. Perhaps they are the same decals?

I am trying to tell if the body is that far off, or if it just looks that way from the shape of the decal which may be off? So who will be the first brave soul to mask and paint the strobe stripe.

I think the kit looks great, and I still plan to buy a couple of them, but am I the only one who thinks the strobe stripe decal is more rounded on the kit decal compared to the real 1:1 stripe? I drew green straight lines to try to emphasize what I mean:

Here was my attempt a looooonng time ago using the 2nd iteration kit. I believe my goal was the Ivy Green. I cant remember what the exact paint was that I used.

Matt and Robber, I believe there were two Amt 68 Camaro kits, one in blue with rallye wheels on the box, and one in red or orange with cragar sst wheels on the box. Do you remember which one you got?

Thanks AFX. Just my luck they are sold out everywhere. Does anyone know if these tires come in any kits? It looks like they may come in the AMT `68 Camaro kit? The Olds kit appears to have them, but only the small ones are in that kit.

That looks great AFX! Are these the tires that you used? https://www.hobbytown.com/amt-parts-pack-tbd-amtpp006/p250860

Thanks again guys! Yeah, I used Rustoleum clear, which works really well and hardens fast! The Heirloom White spray is actually a satin color. I found that you must either spray immediately or wait the full 48 hours after spraying color to spray the clear. Otherwise, the color coat gets a bunch of tiny "cracks" in it.

Thanks guys!

These? https://www.amazon.com/AMT-Goodyear-Polyglas-Tire-Parts/dp/B00B5DKYE8

I had this one sitting around and decided to throw it together between commissioned projects. First, this is a really great kit! Except for body portions that I prepped, I pretty much just cut parts off sprue, painted them, and put them together. Except for the body not sliding down completely (you can see in some of the pics), everything went together perfectly. Also, Revell really captured the proportions well. The pictures do not do it just justice. As I was building it, I kept finding myself looking back at my work space to take in the cool body lines from different angles. This is build box stock except for the ignition wires. The paint is actually Rustoleum Heirloom White, which appears to be an excellent substitution for Wimbledon White. I have a street rod built using Testor`s Lacquer Wimbledon White which is very, very close in color to this, but slightly darker. The interior is also Rustoleum (Sand). I am not a truck guy, but I could easily see myself building a few more of these.

Given that this is the third attempt at this subject for Revell, I really hope they nail it because I doubt we will get a fourth attempt. Looks good, and the box art is really nice! It is probably too much to ask to get staggered tire sizes from front to rear.

Am I the only one having trouble finding one of these kits? I`ve been out of the loop, and out of the market, for a little while, and I am aware of the shakeup and delays at Revell, but I am seeing some people asking crazy prices already.

The big 55 kit got my attention! Anyone know if that builds up nicely?