Brett Barrow

Both Model King and Stevens have been schelpping the G-70's for several years... albeit in plain packaging, ~$4 a set retail. I'll bet no one even knows... The power of a neat little red box with a big AMT logo in the corner cannot be underestimated...

I believe they also have to be kept at a certain temperature to cure the vinyl/rubber compounds. I think some of the newer hollow "thermoplastic" tires may be made on equipment more like how they "blow" plastic soda bottles. Anyhoo, I know the hollow ones are made differently than the solid ones, and hollow seems to be the way of the future, like them or hate them. I don't mind the hollow tires, I just don't like the wheels that are made to fit inside of them like what Revell's been doing. I like that putting the sprue gate on the extra "ring" that fits inside the tire keeps the lip of the rim from having chunks torn out of it, but they need to scale back on the size of some of those rings, they're tough to work with. They'll get it right, I hope - it's still a relatively new design for them.

That's basically correct, I'm sure they could probably take inserts out and place them in other base molds and maybe make up some sort of parts pack of motors, but they'd have to do more than one motor at a time... I'm sure that kind of forward thinking is built into the tooling nowadays (look at the Stacey David car, most of the motor related stuff is on its own small sprue) so that it might make some interchangability easier down the road. Precise CAD/CAM now makes the mold insert breaks pretty much invisble on the finished product, about the only way to tell is to look at how the parts are grouped on the tree if they're part of a larger tree, which is usually the case with chromed trees (since you want one big chrome tree to make it easier to plate. White trees you don't really care if they come out small.) Both the Revell and AMT parts pack motors were conceived more or less like a full kit with parts all being run at the same time from the same mold. Even though some were sold individually, they were produced in batches from one large mold. And yes, tires get molded completely differently on completely different equipment, often in different facilities. I've been told (I don't know if it's true or not) that a tire mold is the single most expensive piece of tooling in a model kit, which is why so many kits share tires, even if they're not prototypically correct.

Sinking their own ship?!? They're taking tires from kits and selling them in packs. No investment other than the little box and tray that holds them. It's genius if you ask me, and they've sold very well so far. You'll see more, plenty more... As for that nailhead...

There was/is? a company called "ScaleCard" that made/makes? credit card-sized scale reference cards with scale rulers, a human figure, etc... on them, you could keep them in your wallet and when you come across something on the toy aisle make a quick eyeball to see if it looks right. Outside of that you'll just have to take the word on scale on diecast stuff, but they're very often wrong (and our plastic models aren't always exactly right-on either). The ol' eyeball is about the only way to tell if something's right, if it looks right, it is right...

More like 25%... Post #80 adds something like another 4/5ths... Let's just say that 2013 will be a "good year" for gasser fans...

We talking just cutting steel, or we talking design, prototyping, manufacturing, boxes, decals, shipping etc... from first idea to kit on shelves? New technologies haven't really brought the costs down, they've just changed the names of who you make the checks out to... And how many checks you send out... And where you send them to.

I know what Parts Pack Five will have in it, but I'm not allowed to talk about it quite yet...

Learning Curve started in the 90's, made it big making the wooden "Thomas and Friends" trains, it was merged with Racing Champions/Ertl in 2003 to form RC2 Corporation. Round 2 now owns the model brands outright (as of Nov 2011) but still licenses the Ertl Collectibles and American Muscle brands from TOMY Int'l (what's left of RC2, including the Learning Curve brand)

"Laid-over" Strombergs from 53 Studebakers. Carter made a very similar laid-over carb for the 50 Olds as a replacement for the Rochester AA. If I didn't recognize the 1:1 this pic comes from I would have said they're Carters.

I'm cooking up something right now for weathered chassis and exhausts... will post photos when I get a chance. Involves techniques and products used by armor and aircraft modelers (Hint: AK Interactive). Keep an eye out, should have something posted by the end of the week (I'm ridiculously slow and a bit of a procrastinator )

It's a Caddy, like the others have said, I believe it's meant to represent the late '50's factory tri-power setup (3 2bbl Rochesters), at least that's what it looks like to me. Track down a Revell Parts Pack Caddy and you've got some cooler (IMHO) valve covers and more intake options.

Only a modeler would hide an unsightly water softener behind a Kreigsmarine war ensign...

Wow, I just went back and read this thread from the beginning now that it's been merged into one big Jo-Han thread. All those "some say" legends I brought up are all mentioned in earlier posts, including the Roswell theory!!!

To that point which I highlighted in the quote, that's pretty standard in wholesale sales, it just means that if you order something they're out of, they will not hold the order to wait for it, and it will not be automatically back ordered and you'll have to re-order it on the next purchase order. It means that they won't keep your purchase order open for an out of stock item, and then when it comes in, *blamo* guess what shows up at your door? Oh yeah, those kits you ordered months ago that they were out of and now you've totally forgot about and now have to pay for. Instead, you just close that PO and put it on the next PO if you still want it. Some companies will keep a PO open and fill out of stock items later, or will hold an order until all items are in stock. They're just explaining how they do things, as I said, some do it one way, some do it the other. And in case anybody wonders what "our terms are 2/10 EOM net 60 days" means in layman's terms, it means that you have 60 days after the invoice date to pay the bill, but if you pay within 10 days of the end of that month (or by the 10th of the next month if invoice date is later than the 25th) you'll get an extra 2% discount off the bill. Anyhoo, just thought I'd throw that in there in case anyone was wondering... And does anyone remember what these promos retailed for back then, if trade cost was $21 that would put retail in the $50 range at least. Were they really asking $50 for "new" old promos in the mid '90's??? I've never been much of a promo guy, I always thought they went for about what a kit went for, but I've never really been into them.

Bingo! I wish Revell would do this from time to time with their reissues as well. Just about a month or two back I was going though our hobby shop's shelves looking for discontinued dust collectors, and marking them down 50%, I find a Revell Chevy SSR, mark it down, then what comes in with our RPP shipment the very next day? Three brand new fresh reissues of the SSR!!! Yeah, we're going to have no problem moving those at regular price... And the half-price kit was still on the clearance shelf last time I looked...

I think just about every AMT 3 in 1 kit from the early sixties had Lucas headlights as a customizing part. Probably harder to find one that didn't have them. Some had the tri-bar style and others had the smooth lens with the reflector like you show. They put both styles in the Bumpers and Grilles parts pack. I remember reading a tip (it may be on here) to use googly eyes from the craft store for the lens part, just cut the back off and use the clear front. The post doesn't stick through, but it looks better than the off-center hole. I need to track down some that fit the Revell bezels to use on mine, I think they're a cool period custom touch, even though I don't understand why anyone would want to put a British-made electrical component on their car...

Only 58-60's had the chrome bezels. 61's and 62's were body color. You could put 58-60 bezels on a 61-62 if you wanted to "dress" them up a little. 62's didn't have the contrasting cove or the garnish molding around it. That green drag box-art car looks like a 60 with the cove "vents" and the rear end altered to look like a 62. 60's had a large round emblem and no "Corvette" lettering. 62's had a similiar round emblem, but it sat closer to the hood to fit the "Corvette" lettering between it and the grille. The "custom" headlights are the typical Lucas-style lights with the bulb reflector that AMT put in just about everything during that period. Problem with them is you can never get the "reflector" centered in the hole in the lens, it's always too big and off center. The AMT kit is a hot mess, it always has been, from day one. The Revell kit was sorely needed, I know everybody cries "not another 'Vette", but the 62 is rather unique and had never been done well by anybody.

These should be hitting shelves in about a month, RPP's just got March's stuff, so by this time next month it should be out. Kit #4053, MSRP $23.95.

I can't put my finger on it, but there's something that looks a little off about this one... Take that back, I can't put my finger on anything that looks right about this one!

There's only a handful of complete and viable molds left. There's a few more that would need restoration and/or new tooling to replace parts. A lot of the molds are missing inserts (the story goes that employees took them as souvenirs when JoHan closed shop, they were small enough to carry out by hand, while the main molds are so heavy you need a forklift), or have gotten their inserts lost or mixed up. There are supposedly a few molds that only need small parts like wheel backs to restore (parts that would have been on those inserts). The 59 Dodge is reportedly one of the molds that is a viable candidate for restoration. We know the 59 Rambler wagon, Chrysler Turbine, and 75 Olds are somewhat viable, since that's what the "new" IMC was planning to issue. As for what happened to all the tooling over the years, no one really knows. Some say they were sold for scrap, some say they're being held in hock until some debts are paid, some say they rusted away due to outside storage, some say they were made from a secret material taken from the alien crash site at Roswell and that one day the aliens returned to take back what was rightfully theirs... There's probably as many stories as there were actual kits...

"F- 1 in 1/20th scale ?" "Whats your reason for liking F1 in 1/20th scale ?" That's become the standard scale for F1 kits. Blame Tamiya, they picked it. Almost all of the resin, almost all of the aftermarket, is 1/20 scale. I built a lot of 20th scale Tamiya F1 kits growing up (those and Tamiya 1/12 scale GP bikes were the first automotive models I built) and believe it or not, it was my interest in F1 that led me into regular passenger car modeling through the Lindberg 20th scale kits, which I loved when they came out because they matched my F1 cars. I built a bunch of those Lindberg 20th scale kits, I loved them. But that said, now, as a businessman who has to sell these things, I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy, they're tough sells and pretty much guaranteed dust collectors on a hobby shop shelf. George Toteff was a genius and pretty much the man who's single-handedly responsible for the creation of the model car kit as we know it today, but his attempts at establishing 1/20 as a mainstream model scale were pretty much rejected every time he tried (and he tried several times).

I've been skeptical of this "fire" as well, Woodland Scenics had an exhaust blower catch on fire and it forced them to shut one building down for a day or two and did no real damage and the industry press as well as their local paper were full of stories about the fire almost immediately. However, there's never been any mention in the industry press of a fire involving either J. Lloyd/Lindberg or a Southern California distributor that would have had "$5,000,000 worth of Lindberg models" in stock as the Ollie's story claimed. It was a "fire sale" alright, but just not the kind that involve actual fire! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_sale

Quote The fact that they had issued a lot of old obscure kits with no rhyme or reason leads me to believe that's all the tooling that's currently viable Not Tom either, but the fact that they had Ernie Petit and his 50+ years of industry experience working for them during that time and that's all they could come up with. I think anything else is going to have to be restored or repaired. But that seems to be Round 2's thing, so who knows?

I just wonder if this sale involves the manufacturing facility in MI where the bulk of Hawk/Lindberg's models were made (pretty much everything tooled pre-J. Lloyd-era). Could this mean we could see production of AMT and MPC kits return to the US? Hmm...