Carmak

Just for reference that funky topper was molded in clear.

Round2 opened up all of blocked gates on the most recent issue of the 69 Galaxie which included many parts for the 68 Galaxie. If you watch the HPIGUY review/build you can see there are extra suspension and interior parts in the 69 kit that were parts of the 68 kit. The seller was partially correct that they came from the 69 kit but your good eye spotted them for what they were.

I also saw something about laws enacted against squatted trucks. Kinda reminds me of the way laws were enforced against hot rods and muscle cars (loud ones) back in the day. The same car that would have gotten me pulled over when I was 20 now gets a friendly wave from the police when I rumble by .

I don't have a ton of vintage (pre 1980) unbuilt like some guys here have, I am mostly into rebuilding/restoring vintage builder annuals. I store those in these nice cardboard boxes I get from work. I have 2-4 models in each box. The stack of vintage boxes was just for fun to get an idea as to how well they would stack if I displayed them in another room (my wife said no ). Most of my modern stuff is in the ceiling. It is organized by make, model and year.

After I moved a couple years ago I looked at building new shelving but instead decided on these rolling 48x18x60 rolling shelf units. One 48x18x60 unit will hold 300 standard kit boxes. I have a few oversize boxes and I just turn them sideways. The key is the wheels. I can set these 3 shelving units is a 4'x5' space, they can hold up to 900 kits, and I can get to any one of those kits in seconds without moving any kits out of the way just by rolling the shelf out. I got these units for $120 each at Menards (similar to Lowes or Home Depot).

Then this happened.

Going down a rabbit hole ? Justin noted that for his business the sales of the Moebius Novas and Revell Mustang have exceeded sales of Round2 clone kits. I wonder if this is partially a function sales channel differences. The Moebius kits and some new release Revell kits are hobby shop/online hobby retailers only. Round2 has island/end cap displays at Walmart that often sell kits below the prices of hobby shop/online hobby retailers. For example: I bought my first Round2 68 Coronet convertible and Moebius Nova from a local hobby shop at retail price. Later I bought a couple more Novas from the hobby shop at retail price and a couple more Coronets at a non-hobby shop at less than retail price. For this my example my hobby shop will see sales of the Nova higher than the Coronet, yet Round2 and Moebius will experience equal sales. I will always try to support my LOCAL hobby shop for the first kit of a new release, but additional kits are bought at a lower price if possible. I personally buy almost all of my Moebius kits from hobby shop/online hobby retailers and less than half of my Round2 kits from hobby shop/online hobby retailers.

This is a good list of the kits everybody built during the first golden era of model cars. As a vintage survivor collector / restorer I am always looking for collections from the late 50's to the late 60's, there are always a few of these kits there in collections from this era. All I would add is: * Amt Model A (double kit) * Amt Model T (double kit)

Harts Parts makes a 72 grille.

I just saw some nice pictures of a 62 Impala with an opening hood.

If anyone has one of these, I would love to see pictures of the body, hood and chrome tree.

The 60 Buick is an interesting kit. It might be the only kit AMT with the cut-out hood. Remember the 60 Buick, Thunderbird, F100 and C-10 were the first AMT annual kits to have opening hoods, so AMT was new at this. The plastic between the hood and the body is hardly thicker than flash to it can be cut easily. In retrospect I suspect AMT was looking at a way to avoid the tooling change from promo to kit where the hood is removed from the body and molded as a separate piece.

1962 was the first year for the Nova and Fairlane which were both unibody cars with structural inner fenders that looked nothing like the typical inner fender of a body on frame car. Both the Nova and Fairlane had the structural inner fenders molded to the body. It is possible both Chevy and Ford wanted to use their promos to highlight the unibody design. I have also seen 62 Impala promos with opening hoods. This may have been done to allow a comparison between and unibody and a body on frame.

You will pay a premium for one that still has a hood I have only ever seen a couple with the hood not cut out.

The AMT 1960 El Camino and AMT 1960 Wagon. * Low parts count. * High demand. * Both kits can share the chrome tree, dash and chassis (2 kits from 1 1/2 molds).

As a young teen in the early 80's my interest was (and still is) annuals from 50's, 60's and 70's. I scoured local garage sales, flea markets and junk shops for these annuals and 90% of what I found was built. At that age I was not about survivors so I rebuilt everything I could find. Some all but fell apart and other were glue welded garbage. Over years I developed a feel for using sharp object to pry apart welded pieces and some tips and tricks. Some tricks and thoughts: *Start with a couple not special (common kits) glue bombs to develop your skills and test some of the methods below. *Tire burn/tire melt is always more difficult to repair than you think. The process that causes the tire burn also slightly softens the adjacent material and you might have to cut it all out to repair it properly. *Strip the paint once you get the chrome off you can save. Often painted parts are glued together, and this will work them loose. *Put the model in a zip lock bag, hold the model and bag upside down over a small pot on the boil (wear an oven mit!!!) and fill the bag with steam. Seal the bag and place in a deep freeze for a couple weeks. Repeat a few times. This method gets water into the very tiny gaps and when it freezes it pops the glue. *Late 60's/early 70's MPC kits molded in color are some of the worst to get apart. *Know what you have to save / similar common kits that are available. Years ago, I bought a ton of the MPC 74 Barracuda Snap fast kits (essentially un-assembled promos) to get glass and windshield posts for 70-72 MPC Cuda resto projects. I could easily cut the glass out of the rest projects since I know I had good glass waiting. *Be patient, I have resto projects that took decades to find parts for. Hope this helps

Very cool resto! Does the windshield from the new tool 68 Coronet convertible fit the original 69 MPC body?

Easy to get in and out. The joists are engineered I joists, 1 foot on center. I put 4" (3 1/2" actual) strips of wood on the bottom of the joists.

I am a builder and a collector. I collect faster than I build . Over 40 years I have amassed roughly 2000 unbuilt kits (800 in the ceiling of my basement model room) and built roughly 700 kits. I am lucky that my wife is very into vintage 1:1 cars and TOLERATES my models. Space and storage are always an issue.

In the early 90's I had a very early build 63 Thunderbird Landau bard find with a factory AM/FM radio and a rear speaker (not stereo, just front rear fade). I bought the car FOR the AM/FM radio, and I put it in my Rangoon red 63 Hard Hop. A good friend still has the red Hard Top with AM/FM radio still in it and still working. I currently have a 66 Chrysler Newport Custom 4drHT with an AM/FM radio. I am fairly sure 66 was not the first year for AM/FM in a Chrysler. The attached pic of the radio is not great, but you can see the line dividing FM (top) and AM (bottom).

Based on what we have to look at I would also speculate the pink car was made from a first tool. Possibly there was a sticking issue in the original mold so when a second mold was made (or the first mold was modified) it had more slide or lifters to better get the body out. I have a couple 57 T-bird promos but they are still packed. The best way to track tooling are the little tooling marks and errors typically on the inside or bottom of a given part, they are like tooling finger prints.

I would speculate the red car (which is an acetate promo) was molded straight and later warped. You can tell from the other pictures the red car has warp (less warp than typical but warp nonetheless).

Great pics Dave! From the rear the part lines (tool design) and the "1957" font in the bumper of the red promo and the craftsman kit sure looks to be from the same molds. I have attached a pic of the front of the craftsman so you can see the part lines.

In the last picture of your review, you show the blue 62/63? issue craftsman kit. Do I remember correctly that it does not share any tooling with the 3-in-1 kit?

This is a simple question with a very complicated answer. My answer is too long but is still way over simplified. It is my understanding that AMT didn't end so much as it evolved until AMT/ERTL ended kit production (2007/2008). After that Round2 leased, then acquired the AMT tooling and rights in 2012 (along with many other brands noted already). I do not know if any former AMT designers work for Round2 but it is possible. When AMT was purchased by Lesney and then again by ERTL some of the design staff stayed with the company and even moved to Iowa (home of ERTL) from Michigan. Over the decades of operation scores of kit designers and tool makers came and went. As a kit seller the basic business model changed from making promotional models that could be re-purposed into model kits (50's to mid 70's) into complete kits from scratch of both contemporary and vintage kits. Lots of evolution. For example, you could argue the last true AMT kit was made in 63-64 which is when George Toteff left AMT (to found MPC). George was pioneer in high quality one piece model car bodies while he worked at AMT and is considered one of the founding fathers of the model kit hobby. It's a complicated answer.