Force

Very nice Rickard, I'm looking forward to more updates.

It's a huge missunderstanding that all Ford engines should be blue, I see it all the time on both model cars and real cars...yes they were blue for a long time but as said before in this thread they started painting the engines blue for the 1966 model year so late 1965, between 1959 and 1965 the engines were black with different colored valve covers and air cleaners depending on engine version, gold, yellow, blue, red, chrome etc, before 1959 the engines were different colors like gray, green, red, copper/bronze, yellow, blue so that's a bit more difficult as you have to know wich specific engine and year it is from.

If they do the kits this way the prices on the original issues will for sure stay up.

I don't know but I think it's about time to do a new 1963½ Galaxie Fastback model kit, I own a real 1963½ 500XL Fastback and this old kit has much to desire as it has many flaws and incorrect things. This old kit is promo based, has a boring one piece chassis, interior from a convertible and crude details. Round2 could easily base a new kit on the 1960 Galaxie Starliner kit, use the chassis and driveline from that as those parts are excellent and do a new correct interior, body, glass and chrome....while they're at it the could do the same with a 1964 Galaxie as the kits we have now are not up to todays standard.

I believe the engine in the Elite "Mustang" is the same GM 500 as in Jeg's and Erica's cars, the Ford and Mopar engines haven't been competitive since they introduced the fuel injection and rev limiter. I write "Mustang" because it doesn't look even close to a street driven Mustang. And why they took away the scoop when they introduced the FI system I don't understand...a hood scoop make the car look racier and many street cars have added scoops so the car would look more like a race car...the lack of hood scoop doesn't make the car look any more like the street car when all proportions of the body are wrong...strange decision by NHRA.

Yes they could, but it still need some Bandag and Detroit Diesel scripts to be correct...and the Bandag Bandit was called Bandag Bandit even then .

Yes, and some engine parts.

One think they would have solved the licensing issues with both the Malone family and Bridgestone (who owns the Bandag name) when they did the Super Boss and Papa Truck reissues 3 years ago, they allready knew back then that they would do the Bandag Bandit and Hideout Truck when the tooling was ready to use. The tooling for the Hideout truck is exactly the same as for the Papa Truck so that was not an issue but the Bandag Bandit has several things different from the Super Boss and they had to find the tooling for these parts.

Very nice.

I did. Funny Cars gained more speed when they angeled the exhaust pipes further backwards so except for down the expanding exhaust gasses also pushed the car forward more, much like a jet engine do, the downside is when they loose a cylinder or two in the engine the car pushes over to the side the cylinders are out...so it gets more unstable. NHRA limited the angle they could do...but they still go even faster today.

NHRA Pro Stock is a dying class and the Factory Stock and Factory Super Stock classes with modern cars are growing rapidly...I wonder why... With the rule package they have now the Pro Stock class gets less and less interest both from the public and the teams, they use bodys that doesn't by far resemble the car they are supposed to be, you can use what engine manufacturer you want in any of the car bodys allowed as long as it follow the engine rules for Pro Stock, so it doesn't have to follow brand, it's very expensive and they have even cut down the race schedule from 24 to 18 for the Pro Stock class....so in my opinion this class is slowly dying if they continue on without doing anything. Going to Mountain Motor Pro Stock with engines close to or over 1000 cui is not the way to save the class either as I see it as it's at least as expensive as the regular 500 cui Pro Stock class, no they have to get more drastic than that. Go back more to the basics like the Pro Stock class was from the beginning in the early 70's when the cars were Super Stock cars with looser rules, so I think they should start with a clean sheet and do an all new Pro Stock class based on the Factory Super Stocks they race today where you can have a bit more freedom by the rules than in the FSS cars, the cars will look more like the showroom cars at the dealers and maybe then you can get the manufacturers interest back to the class, because Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge are all over the Factory Stock and Factory Super Stock classes allready...and the cars look like cars you can buy but with 15 inch wheels...get the hint. (I even like the look of a newer Camaro, Mustang or Challenger with 15 inch racing wheels a lot better than what they come with from the factory) Give up on the 500 cui rule as big block engines not has been available in any cars for a looong time and go to something more like what's in the performance cars today...maybe 358 or 427 cui or something like that could be the limit, and base the racing engines on regular production engines opposed to what they use today wich is all aftermarket. Because what we have now has gone too far for it to be interesting. Why there are 426 based Hemi's in Chevy, Ford and Toyota Funny Cars...well they have to use them as nothing else is allowed by the rules. According to the NHRA rules you can't use engines with other specifications than the Mopar Generation 2 (426) Hemi with 500 cui max displacement and it's a long time since you could use any engine you wanted, so 392 based Hemi's, Chevy Big Block, Ford 429, McGee and other engines are not allowed in the Nitro classes anymore. So all manufacturers like BAE, AJPE, DART, TFX has to make the engine blocks and cylinder heads to the same specs, John Force Racing developed their own engine ans called it Boss 500 when he was sponsored by Ford, this engine is also based on the 426 by the rules and it also looks like one...there are just small internal differences in the JFR 500 engine.

There should also be Bandag scripts on the tires wich also looks to be missing.

Yeah that's strange. The recent reissue of the Papa Truck and Super Boss has the Bandag badges and the Papa Truck kit is exactly the same as the Hideout Truck except for the decals and boxart. So why would they reissue it as the Hideout Truck if they wasn't planning to do the Bandag Bandit too...maybe they might call it only Bandit and leave the Bandag badges off...who knows...but it seems very strange to me as they must have had the licensing when they did Super Boss and Papa Truck back in 2016. Well there are aftermarket decals available for both the Bandag Bandit and Hideout Truck so it's not a huge problem.

I wish they would sell the 11.00-22 tires and rims from the White-Freightliner as a parts pack, the 10.00-20 looks too small on many trucks.

Nice.

I'm envious. Malone were in Sweden under his first European Tour back in 1981 but the Malone "Circus" didn't go anywhere near where I live in the northern parts so I never saw the trucks live.

Of course I am. ? Just kidding...but seriously, I have done a lot of research on "Tyrone" Malone's trucks and that's what I have found out about the color on the Bandit.

Black. The version the model kit is from the late 70's early 80's had a blue tint in the clear coat over the black so it shines a bit in blue in direct sunlight, the later versions are straight black.

The Revell Germany Kenworth W900 glue kit came a year or two after the T600 kits and the W900 and T600 kits share no parts. Revell Germany issued the Kenworth T600 kits 1990 and 1991 and they are partly based on their K100 kit from 1982, you cut off and use the back half of the chassis from the K100 kit together with other front frame rails and front suspension, the engine and the rest of the drive train is also used from the K100 kit so the T600 kits has a Cummins NTC 475 engine and not the Caterpillar 3408 the W900 kit has.

It's allready here, at the end of stage1 and 2, in my opinion not needed and it would be more interesting if it stayed green through the stage ends so the race continues. As it is now you allready know the yellow flag will fly at the stage ends and it's boooring. And I don't like the larger rims, it looks like it could be any race car except a NASCAR car, 15 inch steel wheels has been synonymous with NASCAR since the beginning, and the wheel size decides how large brakes you can have. What's next...carbon brakes...center nut wheels...air jacks...pressurized fuel rig...in that case it's like any other racing series and not NASCAR anymore...not the right way to regain interest for the sport.

This trailer was sold as a combo kit with a Peterbilt 359 back in the day but will fit any truck in 1:25th scale.

A modified reissue is better than nothing, but how many of the same basic kit do one want...a new tool kit now and then keeps the interest up at least for me and if there were only reissues available in the future my buying will for sure drop to nearly zero like it has with AMT/MPC, I only buy what I wanted but missed the last times the kits were out and it gets less and less.? The problem with deminishing sales at hobby shops and other retailers today is that we customers are too lazy to go there and buy what we need, we do our shopping online instead because it's easier as we don't have to get out of the house to do it, that's one big reason to why retailers stop carrying model kits and supplies, they woun't carry merchandise that don't sell and lies on the shelves for months and months, we complain but don't do anything about it until it's too late, another reason is that kids today have little interest of building models, they prefer computer games and such. Where I live there is only one shop that carry model kits, it's a toy store and they have only a small selection, the sales volume are so small so I'm afraid they will stop carrying model kits alltogether...then we don't have any other choice than to get everything online or mailorder. Back in the 70's and 80's, well before the digital era, many stores carried model kits and I think we had at least ten shops and stores we could go to and get kits and supplies in my town...now we have one...not a good omen. So we can't blame any other than ourselves. Even if it's a brand new tool it could have been in the works before the new owners bought Revell. So time will tell how many new tool kits they will do in the future, I hope they will.

Here is a paintjob a friend of mine did on his 61 Oldsmobile, he did everything himself in his garage at his house.

Again...it's only four years since the last time it was reissued.

In my book a "new kit" is a kit made from all new tooling and we haven't seen many of those lately, at least of US cars. The Revell 57 Ford Sedan Gasser above is just another version combined of allready existing tooling and that's not what I call a new kit even tho' it hasn't been out on the market in that way before, a model like that could easily have been built from recently issued kits of the different Revell 57 Ford versions. Most of what Revell has issued the last months are kits developed before the company was sold and I don't believe the new owners has done many new developed kits yet, but time will tell. I really hope Revell doesn't end up like Round 2 and only do reissues of older car and truck kits. ?