horsepower

Nope. As an owner of a '56 Bel-Air sedan I'd have to disagree with you there, the exterior trim is just the cherry on top of a very great ice cream sundae with the fancy nuts and extra flavor abundant in the interior also.?

LOL!.that's so bad it shouldn't have even made it through the first proof reader. Even Ray Charles would have noticed that.??

I'd like to see the Monogram/Revell 1/8 scale motorcycles ALL reissued. BUT we know that's NEVER likely to happen. Even if all the molds still exist and are in usable condition.?

That's a fact, my wife tells me that even though I was retired 17years ago that if I started finishing a few of the to numerous to count kits I have started that if I gave up everything, even sleeping and eating it would probably be into the next century before I came anywhere near close to getting my stash down to where I NEEDED any NEW kits. Notice I said NEEDED, because we all know we WANT everything that strikes our imagination, either because it was something we built way back when, or it's something totally new, or just because we want it, and want it NOW!

I had a a '71 Pinto with Sanderson long tube headers and a 2 1/2" exhaust from the collector to out the back of the Turbo muffler, but to get it to the muffler it had to go under the rear end housing, needless to say that on a good day you had almost two inches of ground clearance. BUT it sure surprised a lot of local V-8 powered cars. Oh yeah, I forgot that it didn't help that the front tires were A50x13's B.F. Goodrich Comp T/A radials.The tire guys hated them because the sidewalls were so shallow and stiff they were almost impossible to mount because they wouldn't stretch.

We referred to that as the "San Juan Capistrano school of welding".

All of the early AMT kits used the same motor mounts and engine swaps were super busy. They were kinda patterned after the Ansen frame mounts that used flathead "biscuits" as the engine mount itself and an adapter for each engine, and one for each different chassis with the biscuit sandwiched between them. The 1971 - 1973 four cylinder Pinto's used almost the same style, and were even a little better since they had a restraining cable through them in case the rubber mount separated. But I digress there.

I was in high school when the "jacked up" , gasser look started and remember that one day during lunch a prior student who still had a girlfriend attending our school drove up in the front of the school to pick up his girl in his '66 Fairlane complete with a CAE straight axle and elliptical springs in front and a set of Firestone road racing rain tires out back and the car lifted high enough to clear the rear tires. What was the attention getter was when he walked around, opened the passenger door for his girl and dropped out a rope ladder so she could climb in in her mini skirt without flashing every boy who was looking.

That's probably not a thick thinner on top, but the clear in the formula that has separated from the color pigments.

Still nothing new about the Revell division of Hobbico?

Deuce!

The doors won't fit properly and the hinges will be fiddly to install and not able to support the open door enough to make it look right.

I haven't read every post in the thread, but the ones I have read haven't touched on a problem I have worried about. I really hope that one of their larger debts isn't owed to one of the molding companies in China, they have a record of seizing assets of companies that owe them money, and in at least one case the debt was in some doubt but they went forward with seizing all the tooling of a major diecast collectible company from the U.S. and refusing to deal with that company from that point forward and the result was that one of the better automotive diecast collectible companies was put out of the automotive part of their business and as I have seen the tooling sits in a Chinese warehouse rusting away and haven't been used since the disagreement that ended production. I really doubt that any interested company wants to also inherit Hobbico's debt owed for products they have no chance of getting any income from.

I worked in a muffler shop in the early '70s and we did quite a few of these where we would remove the cross flow muffler by cutting the pipe at the start of the bend into the muffler and in front of the chrome tip and making up a pipe to go between the two. This made a really aggressive sounding exhaust and unless you got a real intelligent officer you could even pass it off as factory stock, as is it was still quieter than the Boss Mustang's were and in California you could get away with stating that it was a Boss muffler replacement and they would pass it. Under the CHP testing standards at the time a Boss tested at 108db with the decibel meter 45 degrees from the exhaust outlet at 50 feet away, it was curious that their list had this system as the loudest production system available for any car. Even louder than the Corvettes with the big block side exhaust.

Just a question from my curious mind. But didn't Round2 buy out all the Aurora molds, giving them access to ANYTHING that might have been buried in inventory? I do know that they have, and plan on producing some of the Aurora aircraft, and a few other things that were released as both Aurora and Polar lights, (that Round2 does have possession of) and don't forget (even though I would like to) those kinda silly monsters that seem to pop up when we least expect (or want) them. Any reputable news or facts on any of this? Or even corrections to my fading memory would be welcomed. ??

Really looking good, and I like the "walnut" steering wheel. The only thing I might have done was some carpet on the floor, a lot of guys only use flock and swear by it, but after seeing a few guys on here that are using embossing powder I tried it and it works out really well. Especially when I discovered that you can use any color you want and put a couple of light coats of the color you want the carpet to be over the powder and it still has a carpet look without having a fuzzy texture that you sometimes end up with when using flock. And I can buy embossing powder in the color Michael's has on clearance for $1.99 and don't have to hunt around for the right shade and color of flocking. You're going to have to do a tutorial on how you do your paint work, it shows that you're a painter by trade.

IF you read the entire post I also said that there are several other cost factors involved, and since you quote the adjusted cost of a kit that was $1.99 at the time it was originally issued would be $14.99 now let's look at oil prices, the cost of a gallon of gasoline at the time that same kit was produced was around .25¢ a gallon, and is now over $2.50 a gallon, and the American wage then was less than $2.00 an hour for a good paying job, and for a good paying laborers job today you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 an hour. So all things considered the cost of an average model isn't that bad. But I also said that like crude oil prices are based on projected future demand and costs the prices of retail is susceptible to projected costs and if our fine president gets his wanted tariffs on items produced overseas by United States based companies it will take the extra costs to even break even, and if he does as threatened and halts ALL Chinese imports until they match the labor costs of American manufacturers, and match the import levels for American products imported into China to Chinese imports into America we won't have to worry about it because there won't be any companies left after that blow to OUR economy. So personally I'll buy the reissues I don't already have enough in my stash of, and keep hoping for the ones I want to be reissued. But what worries me are the people that have these older kits and only paid $1.49 for them and seem to think that when the manufacturer raises their prices that it's only fair they raise their prices to match. To me $150 for a Pinto sedan kit, or $200 for a '64 Chevelle kit isn't collector prices it's pure greed and no matter how bad I want one I refuse to pay that much for one, I'll go to building doll houses first??

I'm always confused by the statement that the AMT/Round2 stuff was paid for long ago. It is true that AMT, MPC, have paid for the tooling costs decades ago, but that was for the companies that owned the tooling back then. Each time they sell to a different owner the tooling has to be paid for again, true it's probably less than the original cost was but with inflation being what it is probably not as much as you'd think. Then there's those pesky little things like shipping and molding costs. Not to mention the fears of large tariffs that the current regime is considering tacking on to items built in China for domestic companies. But don't even get me started on that trail of tears?. And with the skyrocketing costs of crude oil in the past few months the plastic (and anything else associated with oil) is going to follow closely behind. So if you look at it from the view of a company that has (relatively speaking) just recently purchased the company no, that tooling hasn't been paid for long ago. And another expense that wasn't hardly considered when a lot of the older kits were tooled up is that companies now days don't give away licensing rights for a $1 a year any longer. In fact in some cases the licensing fees would probably exceed the reasonable costs of producing an item with a company name and logo on it.

Have you cleared over the paint from the chrome pens yet? I'm curious about what it does to the chrome finish, I know that Alclad and SpazStix have adverse reactions unless you use a specific clear. Next thing I want to try is using the ink/paint from a refill cartridge through an airbrush, if it stays as brilliant as the pens do I can see a ton of possibilities, especially for the aircraft guys, or doing our own bumpers.

Don't forget the little chrome strip that goes across the windshield wiper panel at the base of the windshield, there's also a tiny stainless piece that goes along the top of the doors, it's actually part of the window felt but it's there just the same. And like everyone else I love that color, its almost a match to a factory color in '69.

I'm contemplating putting that 430 MEL engine with the six twos into the Revell Custom Merc for an all Ford Motor Company car, and do the same thing using the supercharged version in the AMT '49 Merc' for a period version hot rod.

If you do a search for the Baldwin Motion Chevrolet Camaro, you'll find that they offered a two four setup as a streetable BUT extremely potent package. That should be sufficient to roast about any tire you can put on WITHOUT tubbing the thing.

In the days of the Chrysler Kit cars there were a few Challengers and' 'Cudas that were built, in fact Stock Car Racing Magazine had an article about them and they showed a Challenger that was being tested by Pete Hamilton on the asphalt and some newcomer named Dale Earnhardt on the dirt, that Earnhardt kid was kinda wild though and ended up wrinkling up the right front fender. It's been in my plans to make a model resembling that car, and now with the re-release of the Soapy Sales funny car kit it again gives me a body to use on one of the Chrysler Kit car models that are currently in production.

Two years ago they adopted new ride height rules and different suspension types, now as long as it doesn't drag the track (actually that's your business but it will definitely slow you down) they NOW use just enough spring to hold the car up off the ground, and bump stops that are basically rubber biscuits between the shock and the a arms they use shim packs to adjust ride heights enough to keep the front splitter from hitting the track in the corners. They do have minimum rear quarter panel heights so the spoilers aren't lowered so low they don't have any drag, after all it's a trade off between downforce and drag, but on the road courses and short tracks the downforce wins out every time.