Force

As far as I understand when Garlits raced Swamp Rat 14 (also called Swamp Rat 1-R) at the 1971 Winternationals wich was the first National Event for the car full side panels and nose was added, but it had no rear wing as it came later in 1971, he won the race by the way. He debuted the car earlier than that in December 1970 (later the same year he had the transmission explosion in SR13 at Lions Dragstrip)and at that point it had no side panels in front of the drivers compartment and the tank was at the right side of the driver as seen in the first picture above, later the tank was moved to the front of the car, most likely at the same time the side panels was added.

The Bad Man II and American Graffiti metal kits are kind of "phantom" kits, well at least the American Graffiti car. As the Chevy Mk IV Big Block engine wich are in the Two Lane Blacktop cars wasn't available in 1962 when the AG movie was supposed to take place and they never showed any engine in the movie car because of that, they had to come up with something that could have been realistic for the car and timeframe when they did the kit...and the Bad Man II is a spinoff of that kit. The movie car also have a fiberglass flip nose same as the TLB cars wich the kits don't have. I read somewhere that the sound of the car in the AG movie was from the TLB movie, and some of the sound was even used for the Trans Am in Smokey and the Bandit.

That was what I was trying to explain...I know how this setup works. Yes, the line must go under the car most likely to a catch tank of some sort, like you I don't believe it's a Vac-U-Pan system like some use in regular headers.

Really nice!! I love them 58 Impalas.

The seller can ask for what they want but an item is not worth more than what people are prepaired to pay for it, that's the real value...and just because it's rare doesn't automatically mean they fetch a high price.

The Ramchargers is quite short so you need a longer wheelbase kit like the Carl Casper Young American AA/FD, Don Garlits Wynns Charger AA/FD (SR 10), or the upcoming Tom McEwen 69 AA/FD, all from MPC.

Yes it has to do with length regulations...can't go over 25.25 meters total here in Sweden and in Europe it's even shorter. So most of the trucks in Europe are COE's as you get more payload on the allowed length.

Some say the Cleveland is a better engine but the Windsor was in production 18 years after the Cleveland was discontinued, Windsor was available 1961-2000 and 335 Family 1969-1974 for USA and Australia continued until 1982. The head design is better than the heads of the Windsor allthough the exhaust side needs to be modified to work well, but the oil system in the 335 engine is a disaster for high performance and has to be modified for higher RPM, the Windsor needs no modifications, and the later 351M and 400 are useless.

The seller has reduced the prices 10% for these but I doubt they will be sold even now...the seller has to come back to earth before that will happen, especially on the Van.

Nice build and great backstory.

The 90 degree family 351 Windsor and the 335 family 351 Cleveland are two completely different engines and don't share much except for bore spacing, bore and stroke, and bellhouse pattern (the taller deck 351M and 400 has the larger 429-460 bellhouse pattern), and they look different. The Cleveland has a dry intake manifold and the water outlet is at the front of the block, the Windsor has a wet intake manifold and the water outlet is at the front of the intake, and as allready mentioned, the heads are different. Cleveland engine block, Windsor engine block, in this case a 289-302, the 351 looks the same but has just over an inch taller deck. As for the Boss 302, it's a regular 90 degree Windsor engine block with four bolted mains and Cleveland style heads, but the Boss has a wet intake manifold like the Windsor.

I also like this forum, but I like to read analog printed magazines as well so I hope Model Cars Magazine will continue.

The engine in the AMT 59 Belvedere is not correct for either an A 318 or a B 350 as the heads and valve covers are wrong for an A engine and the distributor placement is wrong for a B engine, and if it was supposed to be a B family Fury 350 engine it would have had dual carburetors. There are in fact three Poly Head engines from Mopar, the early Chrysler 331-354 Hemi based Poly Head Crysler Spitfire and has three valve cover bolts, and the smaller early Dodge 241-325 Hemi based Poly Head Dodge Red Ram and Plymouth Hyfire has only two, DeSoto used both Chrysler and Dodge based Poly Head engines, both of these Hemi based Poly Head engines has valley covers. The A series 318 Poly Head engine has noting to do with the early Poly Head engines, the valve covers has shallower scallops and two bolts holding them down, and no valley cover.

I got new glass together with the new body, new decals and new instructions when I asked for the corrected parts, the plastic bag with the glass was even marked "revised".

Thank you.

One have to remember, they had several cars over the season and different cars for different tracks even then and they can be slightly different.

You can use whatever B or RB engine you like as they look basically the same, the difference is the deck hight and between the B and RB it's 0.745 inch wich will be 0.0298 inch or 0.7569 mm in 1:25th scale, and if you shave off that ammount from the deck under the heads on a RB 413-426-440 you get your B 383.

This is the only clue on the HSO box, no copyright date or anything else...and no mention of China what so ever.

Nice. Sox & Martin had two Superbirds, one for SS/E and one for C/MP, they are slightly different and I plan to do both.

Yes the intake manifold on the Hi-Riser is taller as it's a dual plane with straighter runners into the taller 1.34 x 2.72 rectangular ports on the Hi-Riser heads, Ford also did a single 4bbl intake manifold for NASCAR use. NASCAR banned the Hi-Riser soon after and it was only used for a short time and Ford developed the Medium Riser instead, the Hi-Riser was allowed in drag racing tho'.

What planet is this guy living on, you get a decent real Chevy Van for that kind of money. I looked at this sellers other stuff listed, mostly clothes, shoes and some games and these models. $81 for a current reissued model kit. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Car-Model-Plastic-Kit-1965-Ford-Galaxie-500XL-Stock-Car-Racing-Version/232944933177?hash=item363c999939:g:a-4AAOSwZl1brpQ2 $62 for another recent reissue. https://www.ebay.com/itm/MPC-WORLD-WAR-II-MILITARY-JEEP-1-25-SCALE-MODEL-KIT/232944956783?hash=item363c99f56f:g:t9YAAOSwo7ZbrpoO And $60 for a Tamiya F1 1:20 kit from 2007. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tamiya-1-20-scale-limited-series-McLaren-Mercedes-MP4-13-Model-Car-89718-F-S/232944953546?hash=item363c99e8ca:g:YXkAAOSweTlbrph8 The asking price for them are steep enough, but the van was exceptional. I don't think any one is stupid enough to pay that for a model kit.

As long as Testors didn't buy the tooling from Jo-Han/SeVille I can't see they have any right to them at all, the tooling may have leased to Testors for their runs but I don't think they were sold to them, if that's the case Lindberg and now Round 2 can't claim ownership to the tooling either. However, I think it's sad that the only tooling left that are usable from the Jo-Han era are gone and no one seems to know where it is.

I have some HSO kits and it says "Printed and Made in USA" on the bottom of the box...nothing about China mentioned anywhere...and nothing on the instructions. It says Model Master on the instructions and Testors on the box, I don't think Testors molded the kits themselves so they must have had someone to do it for them...they may have got so much of these kits from SeVille so it was enough to issue these HSO kits wich was the last seen of them. I bought a 71 'Cuda kit in a Pro Street box from Okey Spaulding after he had taken over so there must have been some kits over from the SeVille deal....but Testors was to reissue these kits after the HSO run but the molds was gone.

The twin plug D5 aluminum Hemi heads was developed in 1970 and after them came the D6, also aluminum and twin plug but with a more raised exhaust port. So no twin plug heads was available for the 1964 A864 or 1965 A990 Race Hemis at that time.

The MPC Daytona NASCAR kits are different, the #71 K&K Insurance car and the #22 Brooks car is not the same. The #22 Brooks Daytona kithttps://public.fotki.com/drasticplasticsmcc/mkiba-build-under-c/mpc-instructions/nascar/mpc-richard-brooks-/The #71 K&K Insurance Daytona kithttps://public.fotki.com/drasticplasticsmcc/mkiba-build-under-c/mpc-instructions/1-sort/mpc-dodge-charger-d/