Force

Well my original T522 kit has Good Years and the box side reads "10 Brand Name Vinyl Tires", they don't specify wich brand tho'. I also have the T500-500 and it has Good Years and a Good Year sticker, same for my T500 with the sleeper, but no Good Year sticker there

This is the truck section so please take the car talk to the car section where there is a similar thread.

I agree with that.

Well Round 2 and AMT is the same as Round 2 is the owner of the AMT MPC, Polar Lights brands since 2011 and they produce the kits and brands them accordingly. Even if the tires in question is new tool they sure look like the old Good Year Hi-Miler, they still have the Good Year diamonds on the sides and the same tread pattern as the old Good Year tires. I don't have any of the Peterbilt 359 1100 cab Wrecker issues but I have a couple of the 1100 cab tractors and I have the original T522 Unilite small window cab wrecker and all have the Good Year tires. AMT used Good Year in most of their truck kits but have also had Uniroyal in some and Bandag for the Tyrone Malone kits...I don't remember any Firestone but that could also have been used. I looked in some of my newly aquired truck kits, amongst them the recent re-issues of the Mack R685ST and Kenworth W925 and they still have Good Year tires, the recent Freightliner and Autocar has Uniroyals...so why they decided to do the Firestone on the wrecker I do not know. But I think the licensing thing has blown out of proportion, haven't they heard of free advertising and product placement...they do it all the time in movies and TV productions, they make movies and TV shows to make money don't they...so what's different with model kits. I don't mind the Coca Cola thing at all allthough it's becoming a bit boring when they use it all the time and on everything, so to me it doesn't matter if they include the decals or not, if I want the kit I buy it regardless and you don't have to use the decals if you don't want to...I wouldn't be surprised if Coca Cola pay Round 2 to use their logos instead of the other way around as their advertising budget is one of the highest percentage of revenue compared to all companies in the world.

Maybe it was a victim of the California wildfires last year.

Yes, Round 2 doesn't have the rights to the ERTL brand name and have never had it, and some of the tooling like the farm equipment and some other things are still ERTL, that's probably the reason to use the AMT name on the kits originally issued by ERTL wich they have in their possession. This is nothing new and has happened all the time, back when ERTL owned the AMT and MPC brands they used AMT/ERTL on everything, Revell and Monogram merged in 1986 and the Revell and Monogram names was used on respective kits for some time, later both names was on all kits, then Monogram disappeared and only the Revell name was used, and finally they used the Monogram name on kits that originally wasn't Monogram at all.

Licensing was the main reason Revell stopped with tire markings altogether in their kits, Good Year wanted too much for them to use the name on the tires Caterpillar is the same and Round 2 omitted the name from the bulldozer kit even though it really is a Cat....sad but true...maybe they could mold it in red and call it Coca Cola Bulldozer instead.

Yeah it has to be the reason. Unfortunately for them Malone didn't have Coca Cola as a sponsor so the logo doesn't fit anywhere. I think Coca Cola Company pays Round 2 to put the logo on everything instead of the other way around, because why would they do it otherwise, I don't think the kits sell better because of it and most modelers doesn't care if the kits have it or not, but Coca Cola wants exposure and one of the target groups is young modelers so I don't find it unlikely...who haven't heard of "product placement". Coca Cola is one of the companies in the world who spends the highest precentage of their revenue on advertising with around 4 billion US Dollars per year.

Very nice.

Interesting, this I will follow.

Well that maybe a reason for real trucks but for a model the maintenance issue doesn't matter much and retool a new suspension for the kits costs money. I think it had to be something else maybe like the air ride was too complicated to put together and get right and the walking beam was easier like with the AMT Kenworth K123/W925 kits where the torsion bar suspension the kits originally had was hard to put together and get right and was replaced with walking beam in the later kits...I don't know but it's a possibility.

Well the Bandag Bandit and Hideout Truck kits have been in the works for a while now and was mentioned to be up for re-issue when the Super Boss and Papa Truck was re-issued back in 2016...but I didn't think it would take so long for them to do it. The Hideout Truck is an easy re-issue as it's exactly the same as the Papa Truck except for the decals. The Bandag Bandit and Super Boss kits share some things like the basic engine (except for some bits), gearbox, chassis, wheels, cab and some other things, but there are many parts that are specific for the Bandit and they had to find the tooling for them before they could do the Bandit kit again.

A while ago I bought a 4270 kit on ebay wich was in a 4300 box, the original box was bad but included too, the other day I took it out and had a look in it as it had came up in another topic. I noticed that the 4300 box has the same pictures on the sides describing the features in the kit as the 4270 had, a picture of a red Cummins V903, spoked Dayton style wheels and so forth...the hood in the pictures even has the same paint scheme as the 4270 kit had on the boxart...but the 4300 has 10 hole Alcoas in all positions and a IH V-800 and is yellow on the boxart. One can also wonder why ERTL decided to change the air ride in the earlier kits to the stiffer walking beam in the later kits, air ride would have been more for highway trucks and walking beam should be more for construction and other heavy duty purposes and both the Transtar 4300 Eagle and the Transtar II looks to be more of the highway type.

My point exactly and it was what I meant with "look no further than the Revell '67 Plymouth GTX", swap the 9-3/4 for the Dana 60 and build both cars.

I hope you wasn't offended, I meant to put a after the "not that long ago...just 19 years" but I got a fault message so I had to take it away for the post to work.

Well I woun't loose any sleep over it, I'm just glad we get a decent AAR 'Cuda with more correct proportions than the last two tries Revell did.

The body shapes are not bad but the rest has lots to desire. The '64 we have now has no opening hood as it is an unassmbled promo and as a consequense of that no detailing there, the more detailed one they did was converted to a modified Stocker race car, the tail light area on the '63 is very wrong with oversize bezels and wrong tail lights, some crude detailing here and there and it's not that good under the hood, both these also has a convertible interiors...so the kits show the age as they are developed in the early 60's. So in my opinion we do need better kits of those. The '60 Ford Starliner was one of the last kits AMT/ERTL issued before Racing Champions bought the company and was originally issued back in 2000...that's not that long ago...just 19 years. After Round2 took over they combined the originally two kits into one 2 'n 1 kit wich it wasn't meant to be from the beginning as the stock version and the custom version was separate kits, that's why you get two engines. The last kits AMT/ERTL developed in the late 90's to early 2000's was pretty good.

The main thing for me is that the model have the correct look and that the main AAR specific parts are right, a part like a rear end is an easy fix as a 8-3/4 rear is not that hard to find, look no further than the Revell 67 Plymouth GTX. It's unfortunate that they missed that but it looks to be a nice kit overall.

It's easy to forget as I have never looked at them...too new for me. Maybe a present generation Camaro was not the right subject to expect to sell in large volumes...they would most likely have done better if they did a good first generation Camaro...yes they allready have a 67 and 68 and the dreadful old MPC 69 but they are definately not of todays standard. One thing they could do if they don't want to do completely new tooling is to further develop existing tools and do other kits from that tooling, for example do new 1961 Starliner, 1962, 1963½ and 1964 Ford Galaxie kits based on the very nice 1960 Starliner tooling, tool up new bodys, chrome, seats, console and interior sides and you are done and have new kits I believe would sell quite well, at least the 61, 63½ and 64...the old "Annual" and "Craftsman" kits we have now wich aren't that correct and somewhat crude detailwise and has passed the "expiration date" a long time ago. They have other tooling that could be devloped the same way. I think I have bought 90% of the Revell new tooling kits released the last 10-15 years and I'm not alone, so they must have done something right when developing new kits, and the kits I have bought are mostly hot rods and classic cars and I think it's where the market is. So they have to "feel the market" and put out what people want and the kits will sell.

I don't mind if they repop old kits, they all do and have to to make money out of the tooling, so it's fine by me, especially when they reissue old rarely issued kits. But how many of the same kit can you buy...or want to buy...even if they have new tampo printed tires, Coca Cola and other decals, nice boxart or whatever, it's still basically the same kits they put out over and over. I have enough kits in my stash to last me a couple of lifetimes but a new kit now and then isn't a bad thing and keeps the interest up for us old geezers who have been around forever.

I thought we would see at least a coupe new tooling automotive kits from them by now, it's around 10 years since Round 2 took over and have almost exclusively done reissues, wich is fine by me but an all new kit now and then wouldn't hurt. Especially now when Revell is under new ownership and no one knows if they are planning any new kits as everything they have released so far was allready in the works before the new owners came in...then we only have Moebius.

Of course it is...when was the last time you saw an all new tooling car kit from Round 2.

On 4-speed manual cars, automatics often came with 8 3/4 inch. Dana 60 rear end, a heavy beast originally intended for trucks. 8-3/4 inch rear end, these pictures are taken of AAR 'Cudas...am I wrong or do I see torque boxes in front of the leaf spring mounts.

Well Revell may have wanted to squeeze out some money from the F&F licensing too.