horsepower

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.

Close, BUT no cigar! BUT it COULD be a really nice reissue if they would just retool the chopped hardtop that WAS in the original release. I built my original if my mushy brain remembers correctly in 1963, and I DO remember that I used the chopped hardtop and that I painted it with the AMT candy blue lacquer over a silver base, but I wish I had used the gold because just to paint the top and get it the color I wanted it took one whole can of the blue. So since I was on a kids budget the car ended up a two tone with a dark blue roof and a light blue body. But I would REALLY like that top reissued. If they were able to do as much retooling as they did in the Gremlin reissue, then redoing one little top for this gem shouldn't be a problem at all.

Thanks for the clarification, I did do some research after I posted (yeah I know that I did it dead backwards) and did see that the Ala-Kart used the "baby Hemi" 241c.i. engine and it is smaller BUT not as small as the new kit would lead us to believe. Maybe they were confused and someone provided one of the REALLY little Daimler Hemi's for them to measure. If that's the case then it's out of scale again, but this time it's a bit on the large size. (Would be nice to have one of the Daimler engines in scale to put in one of the Revell Midget kits)

I was lucky enough to see this beautiful candy red car in person at the NHRA museum a few years back. The pictures don't do it justice, it's a beautiful piece of racing history.

There was a lot of modified production class Chevy II's running at different strips around the country, add some wider slicks two fours on a crossram intake to the 327 and you had a pretty fast little race car.

You're 100% correct, the early Chevy II's/Novas are so boring that the aftermarket people now produce a complete steel reproduction of the '66 '67 Nova hardtop for the 1:1 crowd. I don't know of any company producing repro parts of any kind for the truck guys. In fact I bet that the truck builders in the 1:1 world are probably outnumbered by around a 50 to 1 ratio. But me, I have a couple of truck builds in the works, after all I need something to pull my Sprint car and late model team trailers. See, even our beautiful show cars and race cars are hauled around by those unappreciated trucks.

I haven't measured them but I do know that the 331 in the real Ala Kart IS smaller than the 354, and 392 Hemi's that some think was the hemi in the Ala Kart. That's why the 331 got the nickname of "the baby hemi". There is virtually nothing that fits the other hemi engines that will interchange with the 331 parts wise, except possibly the transmission's.

You might get one of the AMT/MPC Connoisseur Classic 1932 Chevrolet roadsters, it has the same basic suspension but in a much closer to the proper scale than the big Chrysler and Plymouth roadsters.

Thanks to both of you for the news about the kit glass. It's been a couple of years since I've opened up the box, and I'd forgot what exactly WAS in the box.

I'd go for one of those! Since they built a new replica of the original used in the art work for the original kit, a new release of the original kit (with the up to date improvements) would only be right.

If your stash is anything like mine we could start building a kit every other day and couldn't get them all built in my lifetime.

I'm going to get one and using the body parts from the reissued early Hemi Under Glass kit to build a Barracuda. My only problem is what I'll do for that BIG ol' back glass., and I'd like to be able to put a little 273 in it instead of the engine this monster has in it.........guess I could just build it as a curbside and TELL people it has the 273 in it. ??

The story I heard, even in Stock Car Racing magazine at the time wasn't that Lee Petty complained about it being a Ford truck, but was a MoPar factory rep that complained about the Ford truck. Maybe it was a Lee, but not a Petty, but when did Iacocca leave Ford for MoPar? Maybe it was an Iacocca instead of a Petty that shot it down. -??

It's probably time for the Grant King Sprint Car to be released again, maybe it's one that's going to a dual kit with the Ford Hauler, or even the Pinto or Mustang II bodied modified kits, their wheelbase would fit the trucks built in wheel divits better than the sprint, and they'd look just about period perfect together. Especially if they had the Troyer decals with the Pinto again.

Did you look at the pictures posted above? Might help with your question, the dashes in these always looked to me like someone at the assembly plant forgot to put something in place on the dash.

If you search for images of 1970 Chargers you'll find pictures of that car.