Force

You are right about that. There are much available on the aftermarket now and that's great, but it's the period correct stuff for the late 60's to early 80's truck kits (wich most of the AMT and ERTL truck kits are) I miss the most.

Very nice.

I have seen pictures of Grumpy's 68, 69 and 70½ Camaros with Pro designation with numbers 100, 101 and 777. Many of the cars in the first couple of years in the new Pro Stock class was basically Super Stock cars with more liberal engine rules, so they were not much different from a Super Stock except for the engine. Slicks size around 10½-11½ inches wide.

Most of them has this type of box but I don't know who makes them.

Great progress.

Nice project.

This is a former John Force Racing trailer, a 2006 Featherlite. Lounge over the fifth wheel with curbside slideout The slideout Lower level side door Work area, view towards the rear Back of the trailer with storage cabinets Front of the trailer with access to lounge Upper deck where the cars go Upper deck storage And here is a couple of good sites for this kind of trailers with lots of photos both inside and out. https://5150racetrailers.com/semitrailers.html https://www.competitiontrailers.com/vehicle-design/?album_id=2 https://www.featherlitespecialty.com/trailer-gallery/ click on car haulers at the top filter box on the left and you get four pages with pictures of racing haulers new and old. http://www.racetrailersales.com/racing_transporters.html here are some they have for sale now http://www.racetrailersales.com/sold.html in the sold gallery you find lots of haulers

Interesting, I have to follow this.

This AG 100 suspension is a bit intricate but not as bad as the torsion bars from the early versions of the KW K123 and W925 kits wich needs a lot of patience, but it looks like you got it right...looks good.

There are still a lot of differences between the 4270 and 4300, the engine, the rear suspension, the frame rails and the wheels are some differences. The IH V-800 and walking beam suspension was on most of the following kits as the 4300, the S-series and the Paystar 5000 series all have them.

I have plenty in my reference files but I can't show all here. But here are a few. An old John Force transporter. A newer transporter for John's daughter Brittany A couple of Bernstein's rigs Antron Brown Kalitta Garlits Cruz Pedregon Jack Beckman Tony Pedregon Eddie Hill Steve Torrence Tony Schumacher I have more but I'll stop here for now.

The 4070A disappeared from the catalog 1976 when the 4070B Transtar II came and was never present again after, so it's obvious that the tooling was changed. The 4300 came 1977 but the 4270 was still in the catalog 1977, 1978 and 1979, so they had either 4270 kits left in stock to be able to issue it three more years or they could do both the 4270 and the 4300 at the same time.

Nice rebuild.

I don't know if the Moebius chassis fits under the 64 Comet but the Fairlane Thunderbolt chassis is wrong for a Comet anyway wich is on the Falcon platform, the 62-65 Fairlane shares chassis with only the 61-63 Mercury Meteor. It would be easier to use a chassis from a Mustang or Cougar as they also are based on the Falcon platform.

Yes, totally different kits.

Mid to late June.

Yes they all have ten hole Alcoas but they are different from what the ERTL trucks have, the ten hole wheels on the AMT truck kits are tube tire type 20 or 22 inch wheels with separate lock rings...one exception, the KW K100 Aerodyne wich have tubeless tire style ten hole wheels but it's a much later kit than all the others as the K100 Aerodyne came 1979. The IH CO-4070B Transtar II Eagle from 1976 and IH Transtar Eagle 4300 from 1977 both have the tubeless type 22.5 inch one piece wheels at front (the 4300 has them on all positions and they are nice ones too) and I believe they were the first kits with that style wheels, as I mentioned the AMT KW K100 Aerodyne came a couple of years later 1979 and the Revell AG kits and Monogram now Revell 1:25 snap kits wich also have tubeless one piece wheels came 1982. The F-4270 and the 4300 are quite different, except for the wheels the engines are different, in the F-4270 is a Cummins V903 and a IH V-800 (aka the boat anchor) for the 4300, the rear suspension on the F-4270 is air ride and Walking Beam for the 4300, they might share the cab and some of the interior tho', I have not examined and compared the kits that closely. Speaking of old ERTL kits, I wonder if Round 2 has the tooling for the ERTL Peterbilt 359 kit and the Volvo N10 kit wich came about 1981-82, both have metal chassis but it might be possible to shoot plastic into the tooling for the metal parts too. The Peterbilt kit disappeared after the ERTL/AMT merge and I don't think the Volvo N10 has been out either.

Nothing here...my misstake.

The CO-4070A was available 1974-75 but disappeared from the catalog 1976 when the 4070B Transtar II "Eagle" came so the 4070A tooling was most likely modified to do the 4070B Transtar II, and as you say, the Transtar II was probably the first truck kit with tubeless Alcoa ten hole front wheels, I haven't seen any earlier kits with that, the wheels at the rear are five oblong hole wheels tho'. The Transtar Eagle 4300 came in 1977 and had the same ten hole front wheels as the Transtar II but the rears are also ten hole and not the same as the Transtar II, the F-4270 was still available after 1977 so it seems like they did a completely new tool for the Transtar Eagle 4300.

I can not do anything else than agree with everyone else, very nice build indeed.

As I said, it's only a model and it's up to the builder to do whatever he likes with it. Even the new owner of the real Papa Truck hasn't been true to what it looked like when Malone had it.

Interesting, this looks like the trailers for the "One More Pile" test vehicles they had here in northern Sweden for three years, 30 meters long (just under 100 feet) and 90 metric tons.

The first ERTL catalog I have access to is from 1974 and the last ERTL catalog is from 1982 and it's in there too, I also have pictures of a combined catalog for ERTL, ESCI and AMT from 1983 where some of the old ERTL truck kits are so 1982-83 seems to be the year for the AMT/ERTL merge.

I don't know for sure but I think the CO-4070B Transtar II Eagle must have been issued more than twice, I bought a couple of them new from our local hobby shop in 1980-81-ish with kit # 8017, unfortunately there are no copyright year anywhere on the box, instructions or decals so I'm not sure when it was made...but I know I bought it later than 1976 as my funds was very strained as I still was in 6th grade in school at that time. There was also two versions with the same 8017 kit number, the first one had the same air ride as the CO-4070A and F-4270 kits and the second version had walking beam and the ones I have has walking beam, the Transtar II Eagle kit was also continously in the ERTL catalog from 1976 to at least 1981...I don't have access to any later ERTL catalog. The Scalemates website lists the Transtar II Eagle kit as issued only 1976 and 1996 but I have found lots of questionable and faulty information regarding different kits on that site so I don't trust all information given there. The 1996 reissue of the CO-4070B Transtar II Eagle has kit # 6183 by the way.

No the Papa Truck transporter was originally a 1976 Bicentennial Edition so the chassis was gold as the Bicentennials was that color. The chassis on the Hideout Truck transporter was white and both the Super Boss and Bandag Bandit race trucks has light blue chassis. That's if you want to do correct replicas, but as these are models you can do whatever you like to them.