Force

The "California Hauler" 359 is the first truck kit AMT did back in 1969 and it's the "small window" Unilite cab, it has a Detroit 8V-71, older style Stabilaire rear suspension and the first kit didn't have a sleeper in the kit but you could order one, the brown version wich originally came 1973 had the slepper included in the kit, the hood is a lift off and doesn't have any hinges. These kits has not been reissued until 2014 for the sleeper less version and 2022 for the kit with the sleeper. AMT did a wrecker version of the Unilite version in 1972 and has never been reissued after that. The "Cross Country Hauler" is a later 1100 series cab and it first came 1976 also with "California Hauler" on the box like the earlier Unilite version, this was later taken away and versions after that was called Peterbilt 359 and "Midnight Express" and has been reissued several times since then. This kit has a Cummins NTC 350, a newer style Air Leaf suspension, the 1100 series cab, a different style sleeper (if it has one) and the hood is hinged and tilts, this kit does not share any parts with the older Unilite cab version...other than maybe the wheels. One thing that bothers me on the new box, Round 2 had marked the transmission as a 12-speed Fuller...as far as I know there were no 12-speed Fuller transmissions back in the day, they were 10, 13, 15 and 18-speed, so most likely it's a 13-speed. AMT did offer a wrecker version of this kit in 1977 and the "Big Stick" wrecker body is the same as in the older Unilite kit wrecker, this kit was reissued last in 2019.

The engine looks great, these Detroit Diesel engines has a habit of leaking oil, often called "Detroit leakers", if there isn't oil under it it is no oil in it. ?

The Revell snap kits are a good starting point for your first truck build, they are not the most detailed but decent for what they are...and often cheap, and with some work they look good. The Revell Germany US trucks are also often decent kits and not that hard to put together, they sometimes has their issues but not that hard to overcome. Italeri has some decent US truck kits and are often not that hard to build, but they are 1:24th scale and they have multipiece cabs, a few of them are issued by AMT recently you can tell them appart from the AMT developed kits by the scale as all AMT developed kits are 1:25th scale, Italeri also have many European truck kits. The AMT truck kits are more challenging, first of all most of them are developed in the early to mid 70's and the first truck kit AMT did came 1969, they are not for the beginner but with some experience they are for sure buildable. The International Transtar CO-4070A in the above post is an exception, it's a remake of an old ERTL kit from 1973 and is all new tooling as the original tooling was altered to the later International Transtar II Eagle 1976, this kit goes together well. The ERTL truck kits are not that bad, the Mack DM 600/DM 800 kits are originally MPC kits and have their issues, but the other truck kits they had were developed by ERTL and are quite good, some were made with metal chassis tho'. The International Transtar CO-4070A was ERTL's first in house developed kit from 1973 and the AMT version in iamsuperdan's post above is a new and improved retool of that kit and came 2021.

I have no access to the Scalemates site. But here is one timeline I have noticed are wrong or incomplete so I did a more correct one in this thread, these kits are listed all over the place on Scalemates and in two different scales but they all are based on the same tooling and should be on the same timeline as they are basically the same kits except for some added parts and some parts deleted for the different versions. The same goes for the Revell Germany different versions of the Peterbilt 353, 359 and Marmon kits, they are all based on the same tooling and should be on the same timeline. And I'm sure there are many more examples, but these two comes to mind right now.

I have one of the T-500-500 kits, but mine don't have the green tinted windows, everything else is the same. I also have the following T-500 kit with the sleeper, and the T-522 Wrecker.

I often go there but I find it very disturbing when the facts are wrong, when you know some kit history yourself and it isn't in there it's anoying as you sometimes have to do several searches to get the complete history. I have been in this hobby since the mid 70's and have followed many of the US kits through the years so I often know the history of many kits, wich was the first one and what came after...but I definately don't know everything. Don't get me wrong, Scalemates is a good site but it could be even better with some additional work.

I found them on internet somewhere but it's mentioned in the book. Yes buy the book, it's a lot of information there. I have the books of Sox & Martin, Dick Landy and Grumpy's Toys among other interesting books of racers and teams, you can never get enough information.

Yes Revell took a kit they allready had and did the Can-Do Wrecker but it's not correct, the real Stepp's Can-Do wrecker is a 379 short hood (or maybe a 378) with a Cat 3406 engine, not a 359 with a Cummins NTC475 like the kit has, but the wrecker body is right and a nice piece. Revell used the original Peterbilt 359 tooling wich first came 1982 as the "Black Magic" truck for several kits, the not that accurate Marmon originally from 1986, the not that accurate 353's both 3 and 4 axles originally from 1985, the single drive Fire Truck originally from 1990, the Bill Signs truck originally from 1994. They also did a couple of kits based on the Kenworth K100 tooling, a flat top and a Aerodyne with both 3 and 4 axles, and also incorporated some parts from that tool in the T600 kits. They have taken som liberties with accuracy here and there. Yes please, allthough I allready have three, two Can-Do and one Will-Do, the original 359 kit has been reissued several times, last 2022. I would also like to see the "Bill Signs Trucking" 359 again. I have two of the original issues of the Revell Can-Do Wrecker, the boxes are not side opener folding boxes as stated on Scalemates, the boxes are two part boxes with top and bottom like most of the early issues of the truck kits, so just because they are Revell Germany kits they are not automatically the worthless flimsy side openers that would collapse if you stack anything on them the later Revell Germany kits have. My two original Can-Do Wrecker kits has copyright date 1992 on them, not 1993, and the Will-Do 2013. All information on Scalemates are not accurate all the time unfortunately, and some timelines are not correct and they miss some kits based on the same tooling that should be there. Revell Germany has had the habit of marking some kits with the wrong scale, kits from the same tooling can be marked as 1:25 scale and a later issue can be marked as 1:24th scale, these kits ARE made from the same tooling regardless of what the box say, but Scalemates doesn't have them in the same timeline wich they should be. Revell US designed many of the US truck kits but they were not manufactured there and they were all issued by Revell Germany. The 1:25 scale Kenworth W900 full detail kit wich originally came out 1992 is a scaled down copy of the Monogram 1:16 scale kit from 1981, so it was originally designed by Monogram well before the Revell-Monogram merge 1986, these kits are marked both as 1:25 and 1:24 scale depending on issue, but they are from the same tooling so they all are the same scale...Revell did not tool up kits of the same subject in two different scales so close to each other. Monogram also designed and originally issued the 1:25 scale Kenworth W900 Aerodyne and Peterbilt 359 Snap Kits 1982, now issued under the Revell brand.

Too bad, they have nice products. Hopefully someone will take over.

I have the Hot Rod Magazine issue with the Toy VIII and I've had it for ages, got it from my uncle back in the 70's. That hood is not a L88, it's the ZL2 hood, it was meant for the planned ZL2 Camaro but it never materialized...according to the Grumpy's Toys book. Here is pictures of the ZL2 hood without the "lump" scoop on it. And the L88 style hood used on the Baldwin Motion Camaro's...similar but not the same.

I believe they are painted with a fire resistant paint on the inside and most are black or dark grey. Although modern funny car bodies are carbon fiber and not fiberglass.

Bill Jenkins had a few different scoops on this car. Most of the pictures I have on "Grumpy's Toy" VIII it has the "Grump Lump". Here is No VIII with another version of the lump on a fiberglass copy of the rare ZL2 hood, the ZL2 Camaro wich was meant for 1970 but never happened. Jenkins built Toy VII with the ZL2 hood and a non RS grille but it did not see much action and the car was returned to the dealer Ammon R. Smith according to the Grumpy's Toys book. This was the first scoop on the No VIII from the Hot Rod article when it was newly built, looks also to be on the ZL2 hood. Here is a later version scoop he tried. Sometimes he experimented and taped off unwanted openings.

The front wheels in the MPC Grumpy's and Bruce Larson's Vega is not the best renderings of Cragar Super Tricks, they don't have the right look and are too wide. The best I have found so far is from Futureattraction https://www.futurattraction.com/wheels-resin The plastic cap over the spindle and lug nuts used are a problem tho', I have not found anything close to that.

Pavel Behensky has nice products.

Well you have to be precise in your question to get the answer you are after. When someone say truck I immediately think semi truck...semi truck pickup truck...huge difference.

I second that.

Mindblowing.

If it's semi truck kits you mean there are only two. The International LoneStar and the International ProStar. Two different box trailers, one 53 foot Great Dane Reefer trailer and one 53 foot smooth side trailer, and one 48 foot flatbed trailer. A couple of sets of truck and trailer wheels, dual mounts and super singles.

If you get aftermarket decals and sometimes in the kits themselves for the movie cars and trucks the license plates are included. I have bought several decals for movie trucks from Modeltruckin.som like the Movin' On truck (only have 1 plate wich is wrong and should have 6 plates from different states), Duel truck (has two sets of plates, one set clean and one set dirty), Smokey And The Bandit truck (has plates), BJ And The Bear truck (has plates), Convoy Rubber Duck and Pig Pen trucks (has plates), Highballin' Iron Duke truck (no plate) and Big Trouble In Little China Pork Chop Express (no plate). Modeltruckin.com is now gone but someone took over and sells most of the decals Jerry had, https://modeltruckers.com/ Otherwise you have acme license maker where you can do your own and print out.

Yes, that's the thing, 22 inch wheels with 11.00-22 tires fills up the fenders and looks more realistic for that era trucks. The 20 inch wheels on 10.00-20 tires looks too small. And many of the later trucks with tubeless tires and wheels back in the late 70's and 80's used 24.5 inch rims wich do the same thing.

I have to add a thing for this wish list. The truck wheels we can get from the aftermarket nowadays are mostly modern tubeless style wheels like 22.5 inch and some 24.5 inch 10 hole Alcoa's, 2 hole and 5 hole steel "budd" wheels and such, the thing is that almost all US truck kits available to us are old and developed in the late 60's early 70's and tubeless tires and wheels wasn't that common back then. Many of the AMT truck kits has tube style lock ring Alcoa's but first of all, most of them are 20 inch and just a few like in the White Freightliner kit are 22 inch, and after what I can see on pictures from the era a lot of trucks on the road back then had 22 inch wheels so it would be nice if someone did them. Another downside with the AMT Alcoa tube style lock ring wheels in their kits is that they doesn't look right because they have an edge and raised plateau where the lug nuts are...they shouldn't have that as the part from the rim to the center on the real wheels goes in a transition from curve to a flat part where the lug nuts are, no ridge or raised part at all, the curve just stops and goes into flat...so all the AMT kit wheels are wrong, not even the tubeless style wheels they have in the K100 Aerodyne kits looks right, the rim should have a dip in the middle wich they haven't. There are not much available when it comes to 2 hole and 5 hole tube style lock ring steel "budd" wheels either and there were many variations of them back then, 5 diamond shaped hole wheels are one example, it would be nice to be able to get them on 20 and 22 inches. And now since AITM and Keystone has disappeared from the market there are no source for the 5 hole Alcoa's anymore, so someone needs to take that up. In conclution, the modern style wheels are plentiful on the aftermarket but we need more old style wheels for old AMT truck kits.

The Foose version is a 1956 and has a modified body, so it's not possible to build stock.

It shouldn't be a problem, the 8V-92's available isn't much larger than the kits 8V-71, maybe the turbo on the engines from the AMT Kenworth K100 Aerodyne kits can be a bit high...but it should work one way or another. I have loose plans to put in a 12V-71T in one of my 352's, I have a double bunk cab wich just screems for it.

I got my copy of #225 here in Umea, Sweden the day before yesterday and I enjoyed it, and I also got #224 some time back. So hopefully the mailing issue is solved now as I got two in a row. But I'm still missing #222 and #223 wich never came...lost in cyberspace or somewhere else.

Yes Bond drove a truck with this livery in a couple of scenes in Licence To Kill.