Force

I see the assembly line is full, nice progress.

That looks very nice, I would like to get hold of one for myself, Smokey and the Bandit in one of my favourite movies and I have seen it a gazillion times since I first watched it at the movies back when it was first released. Buford is really a great father figure.

The tooling must have been remade quick because I have never seen one as far as I remember and I have been in this hobby 45 years, I have seen many W925 kits with torsion bars tho'. The T-520 KW K123 kit came 1971 like the W925 did and the interesting thing is that if AMT issued the K123 first with the torsion bars the designation was wrong as *25 is the dual drive torsion bar designation for the KW chassis, the W925 was right when it had torsion bars but got wrong when they changed to walking beam as the designation for a chassis with dual drive walking beam or air ride is *23. The other chassis designations *21 is single drive any suspension, *22 is single drive with tag or push axle and *24 was heavy duty dual drive six rod suspension or similar.

Yes that's correct, it looks like it's a 289-302 (5.0) or 351 Windsor, because it's definately ot a FE. But a correct FE intake should have the water inlet on the same side as this one has, but it's a totally different engine than this one is.

That's pretty much it, and Cat is one of the companies protecting their brand and logos the hardest, I don't know the fee they want for a license to a kit with their logos on it but they are very protective and it's most likely quite an amount. So I can understand why Round2 and Revell aren't that interested to pay up as the revenue from each kit isn't that high and on a race car for example there are many companies that want money for licenses to use their logos. Then you have another aspect, one company you want to get a license from can have demands on what and what not you can put on a product with their name on it, this has happened very recent with the reissues of the Tyrone Malone Hideout Truck and Kenworth Custom Drag Truck (Bandag Bandit), Kenworth appearently stated if you are using Bandag, Detroit Diesel and Allison on the kits you can't get the Kenworth license to do the kit itself, that's after what I understand why all these markings are left out on the reissues because Bandag now owned by Bridgestone, Detroit Diesel and Allison didn't mind.

As I said, I don't know who manufactured the wheel itself but Malone most likely got them from Truck Mate as they were one of his sponsors, if Truck Mate did the chroming themselves or if they had them chromed for them I have no idea...it doesn't matter much as these are the wheels he used. Here is the original wheel on the Super Boss...all of his trucks had these in the beginning before he changed to two-hole Budds with tubeless tires on the transporters. Here is the wheel on the model kit, pretty much spot on if you ask me. Here are the wheels Ben Wicker has mastered sold by Jamie at Mo'luminum, Ben refers these as "Truck Mate wheels" and there's where I got it from.. This front hubcap used on the Bandag Bandit at one time even has the Truck Mate logo in the center.

Sorry, I missunderstood.

All these has been reissued several times with different numbers, but as far as I know these are the first. The Wilson Lifestock Trailer had T-594 at the initial release 1972 The Fruehauf Van Semi-Trailer had T-507 1971 The Fruehauf Tanker had T-506 1971 The Fruehauf Exterior Post Van had T-524 1972

No not much, some of the 406 and all of the 427 engine has the three middle mains cross bolted and screwed in core plugs, and of course the Side Oiler has an oil gallery down low on the drivers side of the engine block...otherwise they are pretty much the same. These things are not that visible, at least not on a model.

I don't know who did the wheels but the five hand holes are distinctly diamond shaped and I have not seen many budd wheels with that. The wheels was probably something Truck Mate sold, Truck Mate is still around today but they mostly have bumpers, grilles and grille guards, they also have a wheel category on the website but there are no wheels there. Malone had decals or scripts with "Chrome Goodies By Truck Mate" on his trucks.

Great model.

Nice progress.

Nice, I like it a lot, the Finnish license plates is a nice touch.

The old Monogram is not that good either, it's 1/24th scale and looks to be somewhat out of proportion. But the Revell Black Widow is a 150 so it's a base model so instead of the Black Widow kit I would go for either the recent Revell 1957 Convertible or 2-Door Sedan for the body, both are Bel Airs and you will get the correct side trim, and use the 1956 roof.

NASCAR has a hard time filling up the 40 car racing field for every race as it is now, it's often only 38-39 cars showing up, and the field used to be 43 cars until 2016...who knows if they will ever fill the fields after the changes...it may get too expensive for the smaller teams. Well it's enough ranting and it's time to move on.

It should be, the Holley 4500 Dominator was first used on the Boss 429 in NASCAR competition and that engine came 1969. Not 100% sure but could be in a compartment in front of the left rear wheel as it is now.

I agree.

Interesting project. As this car is supposed to be a GT500 the engine should be a FE 428 big block, small block cars were GT350, but I know some of the movie cars had 351 Windsor engines, this doesn't matter as the engine is never shown in the movie.

I have several AMT Kenworth W925 with walking beam suspension and I finally got me a kit with torsion bar suspension a couple of weeks ago...I have looked for for one for some time and one came up on an auction site for a fair price so I bought it. Now to find a K123 with torsion bars, I have never seen one but I have heard they are supposed to exist.

I got the Coke GMC the other day togerther with a Cke trailer, the Hideout Truck and Kenworth Custom Drag Truck "Bandag Bandit". I also got a Kenworth W900 at the same time but that was a Revell Germany kit.

Yes they did some more to the decal sheets that wasn't there before and the sheet for the "Bandit" is nearly a third larger than the original, the sheet for the Hideout truck is the same size as the original sheet but the colors are a lot better and more true than they were before, so the new decal sheets are better even tho' some markings are left out. The tires are the same as in the 2016 reissues of the Super Boss and Papa Truck with tampo printed markings and the Bandag names are there.

If they had planned for it when they did the tooling for this kit in the first place I don't think the cost would be that high...it is now tho'. I would most likely have bought the kit if it was a full detail but it's not that interesting to me without a detailed engine bay as it takes some of the fun out of the build.

As I finally got my reissued Hideout Truck and "Bandag Bandit" Custom Drag Truck kits the other day I thought I would give my review of the kits, so I opened the boxes and had a look. These kits are exactly the same as the early 1980's issues of the Hideout Truck and Bandag Bandit but as everyone know by now they are molded in black wich I really don't like that much. It's not like black paint doesn't cover well over white or gray because it does, but light colors needs several coats to cover on dark surfaces so that makes it more difficult than necessary when you're going to paint everything else than the body itself. The Hideout Truck was allways black and the first paint job on the "Bandit" was also black but had a blueish shine to it as it had blue pearl or something like that in the clear coat, so the highlights shine blue in the sun...and I don't know many who doesn't paint their models anyway so I don't really understand why Round 2 made that decision. We start with the Hideout Truck. The instructions tells us to paint the engine white wich is wrong for a 1978 Kenworth like the Hideout Truck is, Kenworth stopped with white engines 1975 and used manufacturers colors after that with a few exceptions, and in this case the engine should be silver and I have photo proof of that, they call out for aluminum for the Allison transmission and I don't know what color it should be...maybe aluminum is right...most likely it's the color it left the Allison Transmission Plant with. The instructions also tells us that the chassis should be black...but nooo that's not right...the chassis was white on the real truck and I also have photo proof of that, so mostly everything on the chassis except for engine and transmission should indeed be white. Further it tells us to sand several of the interior panels flat and paint them semi-gloss black...wrong again, on the real truck they were diamond tuft like they are in the kit so the panels don't need any work other than paint, and the interior color was speckled darker blue, not black. The decals looks nice but the gold isn't really gold, it's more like brown and as everyone knows all Bandag, Allison and Detroit Diesel markings are missing, I like that they included the Thermo King badges tho' so it's possible to do the early 1978 Thermo King version if you want to with some aftermarket decals for the missing scripts. Now for the "Bandag Bandit" Kenworth Custom Drag Truck. The color callouts in the instructions are mostly right except for a few things, the third member on the rear axle should most likely be black, the axle housing is light blue like the instructions say and I don't know if the third member has been changed out sometime but it is flat black on the real truck now. The interior is called out to be semi-gloss black and that's right for the Bandag Bandit as it is now wich is the fourth and final version and the version before that, but the version from the time period the kit is supposed to be with the decals included the interior was blue and white with yellow buttons and piping. The interior was changed to black after a fire at Malones shop, the "Bandit" was damaged in this fire and had to be repaired, reupholstered and repainted so the "Bandit" is slightly different after that, and it was repainted at least one more time before Malone donated the truck to Bandag. The "Bandit" did not have a roll cage like the Super Boss had (wich is in the kit), it had a chromed tube roll bar at the back of the cab over the seats. The decals are nice but the gold is more brown than gold and all Bandag, Allison, Detroit Diesel related stuff are gone like on the Hideout Truck decals, as well as the Bandag Bandit name, they included the Thermo King badges for the doors so you can do the first 1978 version with some aftermarket decals for the missing name decals. They also included the temporary "Driver Martin Carver" decals for the doors wich are for a later version of the truck when the Bandag Inc. CEO Martin Carver set the speed record at Bonneville in August 1988. A nice touch that wasn't in the 1980's issue is that they did "AMT Hobby Kits" scripts for the wing side plates this time, unfortunately they have "Tyrone Malone" instead of "Bandag Bandit" on there due to the same reason all Bandag, Detroit Diesel and Allison names are gone. So maybe Round 2 should have done their homework better and researched a bit more before they did the instructions for these kits.

From the Season 1 Episode 11 "High Roller" .

Yeah, they are "all business" and no show. I found one for a fair price a while ago so I do have one in my stash for a future build. It's not much different from the regular W925 kit, everything is still there and four small sprues with the Alaskan Hauler specific parts are added with the hood, radiator/grille, headache rack, front bumper, fenders, a large propane tank for the frame, a 16-speed Spicer transmission instead of the old 5 X 4 and a few other bits and pieces, and no chrome plating.