Force

A great replica. I saw this car at the California Hot Rod Reunion at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield last year.

Well it may differ from mine but only doing mostly the same re-issues over and over isn't that fun for us who has been in the hobby for a long time, that started long before Round2 in this case as RC2 was doing the same thing with the difference that they didn't go that deep into the tooling bank, didn't fix up anything, had bad boxart and questionable quality. I thought if Round2 used the 1960 Starliner tooling they could base new 1963 and 1964 Galaxie kits on that with a smaller budget since the chassis, floorpan, engine and driveline can be used from the 1960 Starliner tooling, so they don't have to do a completely new kit. As for not worth tooling up new kits for 40-50-60 year old cars...well that's the car kits that sells and if you take a look at what new American car kits has been done over the last 20 years from the different makers most of them are from that era, the classic car business is huge right now and not many new cars have the same attraction for people whatever age. The Chevys are well covered and there are newer tooling kits available for mostly all classic years, the Tri-Five's and 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67 Impalas and lots of muscle cars has been done in the last 20-25 years from Revell, AMT and Lindberg. It's a lot worse for Fords where there are only a few new tooling kits made lately and most of them are from the 30's and 40's, a couple from the late 50's and a few from the 60's, no Galaxies at all from any manufacturer except for the AMT 1960 Starliner wich is a great kit IMHO. So most of the Galaxie kit tooling has 50 or more years on them with all that comes with it. ?

The market will for sure shrink even more if all we're going to get in the future is 40-50-60 years old kits reissued over and over and nothing new to tease us with...a new kit now and then doesn't hurt, just choose the right subject and it will sell. I think Round2 could do it with the great 1960 Starliner they have as a base for new 1963 and 1964 Galaxie kits...but they are probably more interested in doing new boxart, decals different colored glass and pad printed tires for old outdated kits and thinks that that's enough to keep the interest up, than putting out good model kits on the market. I don't think the issues are easy fixes, it involves lots of work to be able to do an accurate replica from this kit with all the flaws it has, so much that it's not worth it IMHO. As I own one it would have been nice to be able to do an accurate replica model of my car...but I'm sorry to say this kit doesn't make the cut.

Absolutely beautiful.

Yes it is. I' will probably buy both too even though I have two each of the original issues.

Nice model.

The AMT 1960 Starliner chassis works fine under both the 1963½ and 1964 Galaxies with some slight modifications, so it's not a huge problem to do that upgrade. But...this old kit has lots to desire, as I said, I own a real 1963½ Galaxie 500XL and there are much on the kit wich need attention. The interior for example is a XL with bucket seats and console...but the interior in the kit is from a convertible and is definately not right for a Fastback Coupe as the back seat is too narrow and the rear side panels are wrong, it's not exactly right for a convertible either as the speaker grille in the middle of the back seat is missing, the body in the kit has nice proportions but the details are crude and the GALAXIE letters are missing from the trunklid, the tail light bezels are way too thick, the tail lights themselves are wrong as the backup lights are missing and it should have a four pointed slim chromed star on the lens with the backup light in the middle, not the strange three pointed crude one without the backup lights you are supposed to use in the kit, the grille has the headlight lenses molded in and so on. So I think it's about time we get new kit of both the 1963½ and 1964 Galaxies and let the old ones leave the scene.

I have that body and it have the old style split front wings, i bit strange as nobody use that configuration anymore.

It looks nice with the corrections you have made ?, the kits itself is far from it as you know.

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.