Force

Well a small block has four bolts holding the valve covers, two on top and two on the bottom...the kit covers looks to have three on the bottom...even that is wrong as a big block has four on the bottom and three on top. MPC hasn't been known to do absolutely correct kits and this one is not an exception.

Revell Germany did a couple race only truck kits from the European Truck Racing Series in the 90's. The Mercedes-Benz 1450 LS came in 1991, two kits with decals to do two versions #7536 S Parrish or G Mekle and #7535 Th Hegmann or J Krasznai. The MAN Phoenix came in 1992, same there, two kits with decals to do two versions each, #7544 G Körber or M Santos and #7540 C Göransson or R Schmitt. I don't think any of them were reissued but you might find one on ebay.

The 23 Model T looks interesting.

Yes, nice build of the Mk IV. LeMans Miniatures has nice wheels for most of the GT40 kits and I have bought a couple of sets for my kits.

I'm not even sure the kit engine is a 350 because all Chevy Generation 1 small block engines looks pretty much the same on the outside. This engine looks more like a 396-454 big block if you go by the evenly spaced exhaust ports and the valve covers, the intake manifold is not Chevy at all as the intake ports should be siamesed even on the big block, so it looks more like Ford or Mopar Hemi. Your engine choice looks a lot better and more correct and you did a good job.

As far as I know Molotow has replacement tips.

Nice.

Nice.

Looking good.

I have the original issues from 1997-98 and they were the blue and white kit# 8315, the blue street machine kit# 8319 and the yellow and white pro shop kit# 8455 and they came out pretty much at the same time within a year or so, all before RC2 bought AMT/ERTL. Except for the original issues of the new tool kits they haven't been out that often, I count to four for the regular kit and once for the kit with photo etch (the tin 100 year anniversary version), the street machine has maybe been re-issued once as I have seen it with different size boxes with the same boxart and kit number, while the original tooling from the early 60's has been out numerous times even after the new tool kits were released. If I remember right there were some issue with the tooling for these kits when everything was moved from Mexico to China. As for the Coca Cola stuff I don't mind at all...you are free to choose if you want to use it or not, I don't collect boxart nor collecting Coca Cola stuff so it doesn't matter to me...if it's a good kit I'll buy it.

The 57 Chevy is the latest tool from late 1990's, not the early tool from the 60's...so it's not that common as it hasn't been out that much. I have suspected that is the case for some time now....they are issuing almost everything with the Coca Cola brand lately, almost so much that it almost get's ridiculous. Coca Cola is one of the companies who spends the highest percentage of revenue for advertising so I don't find it unlikely. I don't care if the kits have Coca Cola decals and stuff, it's a free World so you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

Yes as far as I know it's a straight re-issue of the later 1100 cab version of the wrecker so it will have the Cummins NTC 6 cylinder and the later Air Trac suspension with the bigger air bags, so it's not the same as the recent re-issue of the California Hauler or the first version of the wrecker wich was based on the California Hauler. The "twin doghnut" air bag suspension was called Stabilaire originally made by Western Unit Suspension and was offered by Peterbilt from the factory from 1964, this suspension was in the original small window Unilite cab 359 and the 352 kits, but Peterbilt stopped using it after some years and went over to the Air Trac wich appearently gave a smoother ride than the Stabilaire did. After Peterbilt stopped using the Stabilaire Freightliner started to use it and called it Air Liner, and this suspension is in most of the Italeri US truck kits except for the Peterbilts.

I'm looking forward to see what you will do with this.

Yes I fully understand.

Futurattraction has these, CNC machined aluminum. And there are a couple 3D printed versions available at Shapeways.

Nice to see that you're at it again Rickard.

If the engine is mounted low this is a much better choice than a deep sump pan as it's not much deeper than a stock pan. I'm using one of these for my 390/445 stroker I'm putting together for my 63½ Galaxie right now, the car is so low that I don't dare using a deeper pan but with this I get the additional oil volume anyway as it holds 8 quarts. They are not that hard to scratch build.

Yep...you can't argue with that.

Except for the headlights I also have a hard time coming to terms with the look of the front fenders...they are a bit oversized and bulky for my taste and sits too high.

Yes it's a nice model...but haven't anyone noticed that this topic is over 12 years old and the guy haven't been on here since July 2015.

Looks perfect KJ, I like your work a lot.

Maybe it would look better if the lights were mounted lower.

Looks good. But I see one thing that bothers me...the fuel, speedometer and temp gauge faces are silver on a 1964 Fairlane and also the Thunderbolt, not black. I had a 64 Fairlane 500 Sports Coupe for 12 years but sold it 3 years ago when I bought the 1963½ Galaxie 500 XL I have now.

The CTM lights are very nice and they have them both in red and orange and a couple of styles, I have bought a couple of sets for future builds but haven't used them yet but I intend to on the right build. But it do add up if you want to do something like the truck above (we call them "cristmas trees" over here), I counted the ones I see on the side to 38 just on the tractor alone and I have for sure missed a couple, so that's at least 76-78 lights for both sides, 11-12 under the bumper, and god knows how many there are on the back wall of the sleeper as it looks to be more than a few if you look at the reflection on the front of the trailer, and then you have all the lights on the trailer on top of that. Lets say you need around 100 lights total (a nice round figure) to do a similar tractor-trailer combination, that's 65 bucks just on lights, 50 lights is half of that, you can of course use less lights but you don't get the "christmas tree" feeling if you use too few. The combination in your picture above certainly have a lot more than 100 lights and is as you say a bit overkill...but not that uncommon. So that's probably one reason, I think another reason is what style the build is as it decides what lights you use and how many, because old trucks from the late 60's and 70's as most of the kits we have now are doesn't have lots of accessory lights on them although there are exceptions.