Carmak

I spent about 15 years parting out 60's cars as a side gig in the 90's, 2000's. More than once I encountered burgundy cars with gold interiors. It really draws your eye to the interior and you don't have the issue many red on red cars have where the two reds just don't look good next to each other.

Doug, Where are the Camaro headers from?

Back in the 2000's I daily drove a very rusty 65 Star Cheif with a set of the Pontiac Deluxe A-body wheel covers. They had really good spring retainers and over 20,000+ miles I never lost one. The car is gone (parted to save a 65 GP) but I still have those wheel covers. I have a fuzzy memory that I saw a set of these wheel covers on a vintage car toy of Asian origin years ago at an antique shop. The toy was a "thingy" style race car and it was about 1/25 scale.

This is my oldest unbuilt 1/25 scale plastic model car kit. It is a 1955 AMT 3 car assembly kit (the Buick is missing). I also have 2 built cars from a 1954 AMT 3 car assembly kit. AMT first offered 3 car assembly kits in 53 and I think we have a member that has one. These are essentially un-assembled promos molded in Acetate plastic. in 1958 AMT introduced a series of 3-in-1 kits that were also essentially unassembled promos, sold individually with custom parts and molded in white Styrene plastic. The 1958 kits were really a sales hit and effectively started the golden age of model cars.

Thanks. I did find a Logghe chassis there!

These are two of the chassis types I am looking for: The chassis with no roll cage is from the MPC 71 Charger Hawaiian (Logghe?) and the broken chassis is from the 72 Cuda Dunn & Reath (Digger?). Thanks!

In their era (late 60's/early 70's) Some JoHan funny cars were more accurate than AMT and MPC. Many AMT and MPC funny kits used bone stock kit of promo bodies for their funny cars (Johan also did some of this but not at the same volume and AMT and MPC). The two JoHan funny cars you have shown are two of their best funny car kits. Be aware that JoHan kits of factory stock cars typically have very good body detail but often have very simplified and sometimes incorrect interiors and chassis. Today I feel there are many offerings that are on par or better than JoHan for late 60's/early 70's funny cars. Revell has two late 60's Charger funny cars that are verry accurate (and quite different from each other). Round 2/Polar lights did a great series of late 60's funny car kits (I really like these kits). There is a book by Tim Boyd called "Collecting Drag Racing Model Kits" that is a wonderful resource on this topic. Tim does a great job or describing the kits from an accuracy point of view and from the point of view as a top tier model builder. I hope this helps.

Over the year I have collected a fair number of late 60's/early 70's MPC funny car bodies (essentially promo bodies with tinwork). The chassis' are typically smashed and/or glue melted to death. I know there are a few different chassis types and lengths. Does anyone know of someone making any of these? Thanks

Can I take a step back, why are you looking at those specific kits? Is it because they are Johan? Are you looking to build early 70’s funny cars?

Starting in about 68 and lasting well into the 70's it was very common for MPC to release "Funny Car" kits using essentially stock kit or promo bodies typically with the screw posts removed on top of tube style funny car chassis. These should not be confused with the MPC "Street Funny" series of 71 which used essentially stock annual kit chassis rather than a tube style chassis.

I sent you a message. I think I have a spare set.

About 5 years ago when the exchange rate was good, I made an order of 7 or 8 kits from Plaza Japan. There was a sweet spot where the shipping was lowest per kit. They had some kits on clarence that were what I was looking for so that also lowered the total cost. The shipment took months to receive but was a great surprise when it arrived. Well packaged and no damage.

I just want to give you credit. Six years ago, you speculated the Mach Won tooling could still survive as it was reissued after the early 70's tooling purge and YOU NAILED IT! Well done. So glad you were right

This is great news. Hobby Lobby is hopefully going to get 8 new models!

Really good high detail scanners that are needed to scan a model car (to clearly render a grille pattern or emblem for example) are still fairly specialized and fairly expensive. My company makes medical devices of roughly the same size as model cars. We have a 2 year old mid range scanner ($30k) and it can not scan sharp inside corners like where a door handle meets the door, it puts in an inside round of 0.040"-0.060". Last fall a company did a demo scan for us using a higher range scanner ($250k) and the inside rounds got down to 0.020"-0.030". The actual inside round on the part scanned was 0.010". I think even the $250K scanner would would be challenged to correctly render a fine mesh grille of a model car grille. I suspect Round2 is using a fairly high quality scanner to get the basic shapes and is using a fair amount of CAD work to fix/repair the scan. A possible example of this is the fender mounted turn signal indicators on the 68 Coronet kits. I suspect these features did not scan clean and they were removed and added back using cad. If you compare and original issue and the modern clone the signal indicators are in different locations. I agree with many other that scanning and printing are at early stages of development. The goal of scanning and printing a model car probably will be reached but I am not sure we are quite there for people with real world budgets.

Very cool! Definitely captures the look. Realistically a 70 GTO with a 72 front clip is now a 72 (sheet metal wise everything behind the firewall is essentially the same 70-72). I do appreciate that you used the 70 Super Stocker body with a heavily modified stock 72 clip.

The option I would most prefer that may also most likely to make a business case would be a Round2 open hood promo clone using the chassis, interior and clears from the 73/74 Barracuda promo/easy build tooling (I can't remember if the upholstery close or not). This would get us a properly proportioned 1/25 scale body. The Revell 70 Cuda is typical of many recent Revell offerings - wonky. It huts to look at it. My concern is that the Monogram 71 Cuda has been around a long time so there is not the same kind of demand there was for a 68 Coronet or a 71 Demon.

I routinely cut around the perimeter of the floor and remove it when working on older tub style interiors. This is really helpful when building or restoring an early style kit with the front seat molded to the floor. This method gives me a little more flexibility to paint without having to get the sides back together correctly.

In the early 70's AMT scrapped many of its the molds were considered obsolete at the time. A high percentage of these molds were for annuals or promos. The molds for this were most likely scrapped during this purge. Round2 has found a few molds that were thought to be scrapped (like the Mach Won Mustang) but those are rare gems and not the norm.

I got these cool built survivors locally this weekend. I am typically into 60’s vintage annual models, but as a group these kits moved me. Some look like Group 5 or Group C cars (I don't really know). I am going to clean them up and display them together.

Cool find Kevin!

You are absolutely correct! Getting cars is easy, proper storage and working space is hard. My wife (also a car nut) and I have made life and housing decisions that were focused on car buildings for the 30+ years we have been married. The right property that is zoned correctly and without prohibitive covenants is hard to find unless you live in a fairly rural area. It took decades to finally get the right property to build a building to serve as storage and a workshop for my cars.

New addition to collection. 41 Buick Special, OHV straight 8 with twin carbs.

I just did a quick on-line review of period color pictures of the Landy Coronet, and the dark blue looks good.

Let’s take the “Way Back Machine” to the mid 70’s. I am somewhere around 8 and a model car nut with about 20 built models. I am building kits like: Monogram Custom Street Vette & Quicksilver, AMT 64 Impala & 56 Ford, MPC 67 Charger & Monza. A friend comes over to my house with a Revell 56 Chevy he got as a gift, he want’s some help building it. The end result was total failure, and he was no longer interested in model car kits. This encounter kept me away from Revell kits for years. I wonder how many kids left the hobby after dealing with a Revell Tri-5 kit.