Brett Barrow

I knew that. But I know it all, so of course I knew that!

Since I know MrKnowEtAll (the E is very important) can I be "MrIKnowMrKnowEtAll"? I feel very honored to have achieved know it all status. The hardest part of being a know it all is, in fact, actually knowing it all. It's hard work!

Let's see, 10,000 members, even if all 200 posts were from 200 different members and they all shared your point of view, that'd make 98%. So I was off by 1.9%. Would that get me fired in your line of work? edit- yeah my math was off at first. Maybe I have a future as a Revell designer?

What do you want me to do? I know Ed Sexton at Revell, head of R&D, you want me to find out who was responsible for that error in the Magnum kit and see that they're properly flogged for the mistake? Seriously, you've got people in the business trying to explain the business side of things. Sorry if that's not good enough for you. I just sell these things for a living, sorry if the folks who actually are employed in the industry don't take it as seriously as you do. You want to point out that the emperor has no clothes? Go ahead. Just don't get pissed off when 99.9% of the rest of the board says "we know that and we don't care".

Sorry, but what percentage is "ALL"? Last time I checked it was 100%.

Here's how it works. They hire a designer, who makes a set of drawings. Those drawings are used to produce a pattern. That pattern is used to create the mold. If nothing looks odd along the way, there's no need to go back and double check or "proof" what the other individuals did along the way. You hire professionals to do the work and you trust those professionals to do the job. You don't go looking for problems, because you're sure to find a few and make a bunch of extra work for yourself. If they miss something, they miss something. If something's off they have to weigh the options of going back and fixing it. Will the mistake hurt sales? Would the fix help sales? They make a business decision. Put a little skin in the game. Think you can do better? Get some investors and start a model company. Make 100% dead-nuts accurate replicas. I'll help distribute them for you. Lindberg's up for sale, there you go, brand recognition right off the bat. See how your 100% dead-nuts accurate models do on the open market. I know some people in the biz, I can make a few calls. $250,000 is probably about all it would take. Put some skin in the game.

Find me one person who thinks Revell's 06+ Mustangs look "right". They are right. Wheels, tires, and ride height all scale out pretty close. Nobody has ever said they look right. They look awful. A good designer knows when and where to fudge it.

What if the project lead told you "make that engine bigger - it needs to fill up the engine bay"? Aesthetics often trumps accuracy. Measure 15" model wheels against a real 15" wheel, I'll guarantee you the best looking model wheels are bigger. Bigger wheels and bigger tires and lowered ride heights look "right" on a model. Sometimes you have to choose between what IS right and what LOOKS right.

It is disco'd. You can take that to the bank. Snatch em up while you can.

Now I'm a total tri-five nut, but I really love the looks of the low-level 57 Ford Custom. Lots of folks don't realize that Ford actually outsold Chevy in 57 (only the 2nd time after WWII). Chevy was on the third and final year of the tri-five platform, but the 57 Ford was all-new. But it's the 57 Chevy that's considered the iconic American car now (I think that the 57's legacy in 60's Junior Stock racing is as big a factor for that than the styling...) Both are great models and make for a really cool comparison.

When miltary modelers do that type of stuff it's considered "Sci-fi" modeling. Car modelers do it and it's "customizing", but it's still car modeling. I would also say that there are lots of folks, like Chuck mentioned, and I'm one too, that are just straight up model guys. I'll build pretty much anything, any subject, any scale, I just love model kits, especially well done, easy to build, well engineered model kits. Some guys like a kit that fights you, they get more enjoyment out of those. I would throw it against the wall. There are tons of aircraft modelers who love beating old Airfix and Frog kits into submission, there are whole forums dedicated to them. But I wouldn't build them. The "hobby" is many different things to different people. We all have our reasons for liking what we like and building what we build.

Well, In my case I'll preface it by stating that the hobby shop I work in is connected to the same wholesaler I work for and due to a handshake agreement with our wholesale customers we do not sell the products we distribute at reduced retail prices. So our store sells kits at straight up manufacturers' list price. I figure most of the organized hobby guys around here are buying at less than retail prices, either through online sources or other shops. Which is fine with us, since there's a good chance it came from us on the wholesale level anyway. The new tool kits do sell better to the club guys or the hardcore guys, especially since we get new kits first being further up the chain of distribution. But occasionally someone will come in and see something like the 50 Olds and go "Wow, they finally made a kit of this?" The reissues tend to sell better to the casual guys, especially stuff like Camaros and Chevelles and Grand Nationals, a lot of the old Monogram 1/24 stuff, I mean it's all new to a beginner, right? We'll sell a lot of snap kits to first-timers and younger modelers. In our case it's just sheer volume and foot traffic. Far more casual modelers or passers-by come into the shop than the club guys. I'd say on a Saturday, when I'm out there, it's probably 90%-10% maybe even 95/5. A lot of the casual modelers are older, around retirement age, I hope we can turn them into serious modelers. Maybe I'll see 1 club guy a weekend, sometimes none. When I do they just tend to @#$%@ about something (usually price, sometimes a misshapen fender opening or roofline or lack of an uptop in a convertible kit) and maybe buy a bottle of paint. They tend to come in more during the slow times during the week. But if I had to rely on them to eat I'd go hungry. But like I said, that could be due to the fact that they know we're going to be at full list and they can get it though other means at less than list. And we're lucky to have a good location and generate a lot of foot traffic, where some shops may be a little more off the beaten path and rely on local clubs and more organized modelers as a bigger part of their business. And when it comes to military subjects - tanks, planes, ships, figures, etc... - this pretty much gets flip-flopped completely the other way around. Car modeling is far more popular than any other genre with casual modelers. Sci-fi kits are about 50/50. I think the point I tried to make was to not judge the strength of the hobby on model club participation or swap meet/contest attendance or magazine subscription rates or message board membership. We (I'm one too!) really are the fringe - I wouldn't call it the "lunatic fringe" - but I think 1% is probably about right.

I was lucky enough to miss out on the whole donut-box fiasco for the most part. I would have been in my late teens and early 20's at that time and I was far more into girls and golf at the time... Then when I got back into modeling I went on more of a Tamiya 1/24 car and 1/12 motorcycle kick for the first couple years. By the time I was buying Revellogram kits again they were back to the normal boxes. The only one I can think of I got was the first run of the 49 Merc, I know that was in a big flat box, and I do recall it being a donut box, it was at the very least a very flimsy box. My cat laid down in it while I was scoping out the contents and it split open at the corners. I ended up storing the kit in a large freezer bag. I think it might have been the last of the donut boxes, it and the "Uptown" kits have since been redone in standard boxes.

I think there's definitly a place for promo-style or curbside kits in the future of American car modeling. I think that's how models of new cars should be done. They could get them out faster and sell for a lower price than a full detail kit. Strike while the 1:1 is still hot and beat the restyle that's sure to come in a couple years. AMT's Showroom series or whatever they call them - the Challenger, Camaro and Corvette unassembled Chinese promos - do alright and they had a good year head start on the Revell full-detail kits. Concentrate on the body proportions and don't worry about the engine and suspension, not very many modelers seem to be using late-model full-detail kits to create scale "resto-mod" builds like we see in the 1:1 world. Now when it comes to classic hot rods and muscle cars, yes, go the full mile and do the engine and chassis full detail. Get back to the 60's mentality of simple kits of current cars and detailed kits of classics.

No firm date, but I've seen pics of the built-up that will be used for the box top illustrations, but haven't seen the box-top artwork yet. That at least means it's close. Remember, too, that it's a 6-week boat ride from China to get production kits to the US. They may very well be on the water right now.

Shoot, in a survey conducted by Clambake, er, I mean Kalmbach a few years ago price was the #1 factor for car modelers in why they bought a particular kit, more important than scale, accuracy, or even subject matter!!!!

Funny you bring that particular kit up, as the rivet coun.... er... um... the "mechanical fastener enumerators" over on the Large Scale Planes forum (and other aircraft forums, but LSP especially) pretty much tore that kit to shreds over inaccuracies when it was released. Read at your own peril, remember - ignorance is bliss... And also know that the only surviving B-model Stuka which hangs from the ceiling at the Chicago Museum of Sceince and Industry not only took a nose-dive when it crash landed during WWII, but also took another nose dive when it fell from the ceiling back in the 70's. So there's no surviving WWII perfectly intact Stuka B nose for anybody to measure or scan or whatever, so I cut them a little slack in the nose department. http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=41786&hl= trumpeter stuka http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=39625&hl=%2Btrumpeter+%2Bstuka http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=42798&hl=%2Btrumpeter+%2Bstuka http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=40139&hl=%2Btrumpeter+%2Bstuka http://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=8054 It might look like I posted the same link 3 or 4 times, but they're different threads.

No, I didn't really mean it like that, like military modelers are dying off, but that the "older, more discerning enthusiast" element is shifting the military genres towards the uber-kits. New tooling drives military and aircraft modeling, since you're pretty much selling to the same crowd, you have to give them something new. Reissues don't work on them the way they work on car modelers. Although, I gotta say, the recent Renwal resurrections by Revell, especially the Atomic Cannon, are selling like hotcakes, and more to the nostalgic crowd, not as much to the serious military guys. But the Atomic Cannon was pretty much an uber-kit in its day. And IMHO, the HK 1/32 B-17 would have been much more awesome had it been 1/48. We need a new-tool 1/48 B-17. At 1/32 it's just a little too much awesomeness for most folks to afford, or to even have the display space for. I've seen plenty of folks pass on the newer Revell 1/32 German twins just simply because they lack the space for them, and they're dirt cheap kits compared to most current 1/32 stuff. I'm just happy we're finally getting an accurate (I hope!) 1/48 Spit IX from Eduard. That's as awesome as anything outside of the car world to me.

Aha! So the pace car wasn't the first issue, but I was pretty sure there was a Monogram-boxed one. Probably one of those stinkin' donut boxes, too, I bet...

I like the looks of that. Revell went with a little more of what I would call a "hot rod chop" for the roofline, that kit seems to work better when built that way. When built as a custom it looks a little funky and needs to be fixed. But to me it works on a hot rod. So do the Centerlines. And nothing says bad*** better than a DeSoto grille.

I might be wrong on this, but I think the very first issue of the new-tool '55 Chevy (convertible w/ Indy 500 pace car decals) was labeled as Monogram. I know for sure it was labeled as a Revell-Monogram during the few years they used both names, but I think the very first run was branded Monogram. It is weird to see the Revell-Monogram-era 55's labeled as Monogram while the Tom Daniel Badman-based 55 Street Machine is labeled as Revell. What it is is that they have 3 lines - "Car Show", "Classic Cruiser", and "Dream Rides" that are going to be branded Monogram regardless of the kit's origins. This Willys is part of the "Car Show" line. And the upcoming re-release of the Revell Willys Pickup will be part of the "Car Show" line and branded Monogram as well. I think the Monogram name gives people more of a warm and fuzzy reaction than the Revell name does.

I have a regular customer now, a middle to high school age kid who has bought at least 3 of the Revell Willys Gassers since it was re-issued with the KS Pittman decals a couple months ago. He bought a Rat Roaster a couple weeks ago. Somebody gave him a gift certificate to our store for Christmas and now he's hooked on models and is in every weekend with his mom. That's all it takes, just get one kid hooked every now and then. Could be a son, nephew, neighbor kid down the street (heck - even nieces and daughters can get into models, I have a few female customers!) maybe give them a kit and some tools, or just a gift certificate to the LHS if you're lucky enough to still have one. Lots of younger kids find all this nostalgic stuff cool, too. They see Hot Rod Deluxe, Old Skool Rods, TRaK, and similar magazines on the shelves and think that stuff's cool. Muscle Cars are still cool, too. Nostalgia works on kids of all ages - from 8 to 88!!!

I think they're trying to see which name gets a better response. I personally wish they'd gone with Monogram after the merger... When people think "Revell", especially older modelers, they tend to think of fiddly kits like the Orange Crate and Roth stuff. Monogram makes them think of simpler kits like Tom Daniel stuff and the 1/24 muscle cars. I've seen first-hand as some older modelers talk younger modelers (sometimes dads and sons or grandads and grandsons, but sometimes even total random strangers) out of buying newer-tool post merger Revell kits because they had a bad experience back in the 60's with an Orange Crate or something like that. I can't say I recall ever seeing it go the other way around, though, the Monogram brand seems to have more of an easier-to-build reputation. Of course, anything done since the mid 80's could have been branded whatever they wanted, they were the same company.

Well, speaking about the 50 Oldsmobile in particular it was mainly because the late Bill Lastovich at Revell pushed for it for at least 10 years! It was his pet project. I really don't know what it takes to amortize the cost of new tooling these days. But you're more likely to see a reissue of a kit that's sold well than you are of one that didn't pan out and hasn't amortized its cost yet. You can't get blood from a stone. Use the popular reissues to make the money, which is then invested into new tooling. If you bring out a dud, you chalk it up to experience, try to learn some lessons from it, and move on. As to who makes the decision as to what to make, it really comes down to whoever is the CC&BW at the company. The other employees pitch their ideas and they have meetings on potential subjects, but it ends up being one man's (or woman's) decision, and that's whoever holds the purse strings...

Variations of "Headers by Doug" and "Stahl Headers" and the big "Prepared by Jenkins Performance Berwyn, PA" door stickers would be great. Also things like "National Record Holder" "National Champion" various years through the 60's, all in the same size and sign-painters' font so we could mix and match them to say things like "1965 National Champion" and smaller "NHRA Record Holder", typical stuff that was painted on the quarter panels of various gassers and junior stockers. I'd say just spend a little bit digging through Vince Putt's Fotki albums of gassers and junior stockers and look for reoccuring themes or styles. I think the little small hand painted lists of all the speed parts on the car are pretty cool, would be nice to have a bunch of those manufacturers in the same font to mix and match as well. I think there's tons of inspiration in just the tri-five Chevys in these two albums- I say go more for the stuff you see on the junior stockers. http://public.fotki.com/VincePutt/archive/drag-racing/super-stock/ http://public.fotki.com/VincePutt/drag_racing/gassers/