Brett Barrow

It will be a dual-quad with the batwing air cleaner. One of the options from a previous kit could always be a possibility. Convertibles had a totally different upholstery pattern than the 150 and 2-door BA (which both had unique upholstery patterns of their own, and they nailed both) they've done before, in addition to needing the doglegs for the top mechanism. Since they've gotten most everything spot-on with the 150 and 2-door post BA I'm going to trust that they get this one right, too. If I get any inside information specific to this kit, I'll pass it along, but I'm not expecting it until the summer anyway.

The overuse of the word "custom". And I've already had about 20 people ask me what's "custom" about Revell's new 57 Ford Custom. It was the name of the model and trim level. Just the name. Nobody ever asks why Chevy's Impala isn't an actual antelope, a Barracuda isn't a fish, or a Corvette isn't a small warship...

There will be a future NASCAR release that will have the full supercharger parts. Only the supercharger parts located on the chrome tree are in this version. The others will be on a new sprue. I just wish that there was a stock E-Code (dual carb) air cleaner in this version.

Realy fun kit to build. Cut off the tabs and fill in the notches for holding the hood down, they'll show on the finished model. Other than that, it's a great kit. Could use skinnier tires and shallower wheels up front, to give it a true period gasser look, but it'll still look good OOtB

Very nice! Where'd the tri-carb setup come from?

All the old Lindberg re-pops are (or should that read were?) still made in the US. This includes the 64 Dodges and Plymouths. The newer kits(since ca. 2000?) are done in China. These would include the Chargers, the Crown Vic police cars, the Ram monster trucks, and maybe a few others, this is just off the top of my head. I wished they could have gotten (or will get) the LAWMAN Belvedere out, the parts are all there between the Dodge and Plymouth kits, but the kits' different sprue layouts don't make it easy to add all the necessary Dodge kit parts to the Belvedere and fit it into a standard box. A 2-door post Belvedere body would open up some more possibilities as well, as would a Savoy. They(Lindberg management at the time) should have thought those kits through a little more during the design phase to make part swapping a little easier to do from a production standpoint. It's easy for us to do, all we have to do is buy both kits!

Looks like a re-box of ICM's kit out earlier this year. http://modelingmadne...s/icm/35471.htm There's been a slew of new-tool WWII-era 1/35 civilian/military cars the past couple of years - MiniArt's doing a Mercedes and Bronco has done several 1937 Opels, Tamiya did a Citroen...

Sorry folks, but there's only one Super Coupe in my mind -

Still on. Just remember that when Revell says November, they mean any day in November up to and including the 30th... Their stuff always comes out at the end of the month.

Message boards are in no way, shape, or form a representative cross section of the hobby. That's been a lesson that had to be learned the hard way. 10 guys on a message board do not extrapolate into 1000 or 10000 or whatever in the general population. At the end of the day they're just 10 guys. When somebody says "I'd buy 20", I say "Great, now how am I going to sell the other 9,980 pieces that it would take to break even on this deal?". I wish there were thousands of guys out ther who filled up entire garages and storage units and what have you with thousands of model kits, but there's not. I'd be making tons of money and this hobby and business that I love would be in much better shape, but it's just not reality. There are a lot of modelers out there, some industry studies put it into the millions in the US, but most only buy a handful of kits a year and then it's split up over the different genres of modeling, cars, planes, tanks, scifi, etc...

And how many times do guys wait until the swap meet/yard sale tables are full of these kits for $5 or less to buy those 5-10 pieces? As I said in an earlier post, lots of people say they'd buy this or that, but when it comes time to lay the cash on the barrel...

It varies due to costs and how much you want the kit to retail for, but 10,000 is pretty close to where you start to break even these days. I'd say with the higher priced kits from companies like Trumpeter and Moebius that know up front they're going to sell less kits because they're not as established in the model car world it's probably more like 5,000.

I don't disagree that some 70's stuff wouldn't make good choices for re-issue or a resin caster or a Juha Airio-type mainstreamer scratchbuilder, just that they wouldn't make good choices for an all-new tool plastic model kit with the situation the way it currently is. And yes, taken completely out of context of the era that immediately preceded it and viewed through squinted eyes behind rose-colored glasses shrouded in 30+ years of hazy memories, some 70’s cars could pass for something vaguely resembling something cool…

Not a model company, but a model distributor. Of course, I'm pretty low on the totem pole in the grand scheme of things... Now if we could finally convince the powers that be at Revell that the billet street rod era is over and traditional hot rods aren't just a passing fad I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it in plastic.

I think a Stude Coupe Express would make a viable kit subject these days. Wouldn't shock me if it happened. I've brought it up a time or two...

A 74 Monaco is a totally different car than a 73, and IMHO would be a 1000% better choice because of the Bluesmobile and Police Car potential.

No I mean that in a good way. If everyone who ever put X-Acto to styrene was like you the model car business would be thriving and I'd be making money hand-over-fist. But it is what it is for whatever reason. As I said, you dance with who brung you. You'll see more esoteric subjects in the future, I'm sure, but they'll still be within a certain genre, they're not going to go completely off the reservation. The 57 150 and 2-door post Bel Airs were great calls, they used a good deal of existing tooling and had a nice crossover/kitbashing potential (gassers, stock class dragsters, NASCAR, etc...) I'm sure the 57 Ford will do just fine in a similar vein. Same goes for the 50 Olds. I've got a feeling we'll see more nostalgic drag racers as well. This is the type of stuff that's gonna pay the bills for the foreseeable future. I think American car modeling has found it's niche inside of the existing hot rod/muscle car enthusiast crowd, I think they're more likely to make a new modeler out of someone who is already into these types of cars than to try to attract kids off the street who would rather be playing video games or texting on their iPhones, whatever it is they do these days (I'm 34 and I've never felt so old as when I typed that). Find the people who are into these types of cars, the types of cars you already make, and then get them into building models.

Really. I don't know if folks know what it takes just to amortize the cost of new-tooling, we're talking tens of thousands of units. And to bring up something like a 73 Monaco, which only sold about 30,000 units in real life, you think there's tens of thousands of people out there that would buy a model of one forty years later? I doubt there's ten. Would there be any potential for something like this to be a donor kit for other projects, No. Like I said earlier, I wouldn't advise a resin caster spend a couple hundred dollars to master one, much less a plastic company spend hundreds of thousands of dollars... Same goes for all that 70's stuff. It just ain't gonna happen. Revell's 77 Snap Monte - dog. Revell 80 Caddy - dog. MPC 76 Caprice - dog that only gets bought for the trailer, MPC 80(?) Monte - dog that only gets bought for the Honda chopper, Trumpeter 78 Monte - colossal dog, even by Trumpeter standards. Look, they've done stuff like this before, in a far more favorable market. These kits are tough sells nowadays. That's just the state of the market.

I wish there were a couple of thousand folks who were like you, the state of the hobby would be in a much different place. But, alas, it is what it is...

I wish there were a couple of thousand folks who were like you, the state of the hobby would be in a much different place. But, alas, it is what it is...

This guy gets it! How many of those 50 Olds will be sold just for that early OHV V-8, or the 57 Ford for the Y-Block?

There's been some good points made in this thread, but I think there's one thing that needs to be said. You have to, at one point, separate the hobbyist part of your brain from the businessman part of your brain. It's something I, and the other folks who work in the hobby industry, have to do on a daily basis. Would I personally go absolutely ape over a 1909 American Underslung, a 29 duPont, or a 1956 Facel Vega? Sure I would, but would I ever in a million years go up to someone from a mainstream plastic model kit company and suggest that they do one of these? No way. I still hold out hope for a new-tool Cobra Daytona Coupe and 289 Cobras, but that's looking more and more like a pipe dream now... So, next time I'm in a product development meeting, I'll bring up subjects like the '73 Dodge Monaco, '73 Pontiac LeMans, '71 Cadillac, '77 Caprice, '77 Continental Town Car, late-model pickup trucks, etc... I promise. But what do you want to bet I wouldn't be asked to take a "random" drug test the next day?

Speaking as someone who is employed inside of the hobby industry and earns a living selling this stuff, I'm trying to bring a little perspective into the discussion. Would mid-late 70's American cars make viable model kit subjects? No. Were they viable model kit subjects in the mid-to-late 70's? No. Would investing hundreds of thousands of dollars tooling-up all new kits of these cars at a time when the industry is just starting to find itself in this new marketplace suddenly open up some giant untapped market and bring in new modelers? No. An out-of-business model company isn't going to do anyone any good. So a handful of people think they're cool because of some personal connection, great, good for them, go scratchbuild one Juha Airio style or convince a resin guy to make it. Do I need to bring up what a colossal failure the Trumpeter 78 Monte Carlo was? And I'm not talking just about design or execution or price because it was a colossal failure when compared to the other Trumpeter kits that also suffered from the same issues. Same thing goes for late-model pickups, it's just not in the cards. They tried kits of those when they had all the factors working in their favor and they were unsuccessful. Here's the way it is - modelers will say they want all kinds of things, but when it comes time to lay the money on the barrel and pony up for these kits they get real tight all of the sudden. The industry has tried the "build what you drive/drove" approach in the past, when there was a much more favorable market and it failed then. A core group - Classics/Kustoms, Hot Rods, and Muscle Cars - of enthusiasts has stuck with American car modeling through the rough times, and that's what the companies are going to focus on, because that's what's going to pay the bills and keep the lights on.

Dead on! Power robbing emissions standards, the hideous 5-mph bumper, insurance regulations, and atrocious quality control changed the way Americans felt about post-1972 American cars even when those cars were still showroom new. We hated them then, because we felt like they were being forced on us because of these factors. Is a 73 Monaco kinda cool looking? Yeah, it is, but it's exactly what we hate about that era, that it's style-over-substance. From WWII to 1972 the "American car" meant something much different than what it means from 1973 onwards.

When Tom Lowe was at Polar Lights, they did a similar thing, but they had a hole in the bottom of the box so you could see inside. But this I don't get because they're aiming it towards collectors, but doesn't cutting the wrap off and opening the box destroy the collectors' value? So far I think they've been making good decisions at Round 2, but this one I don't get... I think the Manx and the Drag-u-la will do well enough on their own without this gimmick, so maybe they're just spitballing it...