Carmak

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.

Wow. My original issue 69 RR is also green. Bummer is that mine has paint flaking off. One of the interesting details of the original issue is the "PLYMOUTH" trim on the trunk above the Road Runner trim. The PLYMOUTH is incorrect (not on the 1:1 car), and later issues did not have it. Tim Boyd documented this detail in his wonderful Collecting Muscle Car Model Kits book.

This is a great build so far!! What did you use for the door cove decals?

I agree with Tim that is probably TT-1 green. My convertible is FF-1, and it is much more of a silver frost green than TT-1. The picture of the underside of my trunk is the original FF-1 paint.

I will try to set aside my personal wants for clone kits and discuss the ones mentioned on this post so far. * We know Round2 is watching the various groups and e-bay to gauge sales demand. I know almost every vintage kit has a group of people that are very passionate about it, I am talking widespread demand (almost everybody wants one). * We also know Round2 is generally conservative with the cost of their tooling (craftsman kits and/or simplified chassis). Since we are talking about cloning, I will look at the least complicated original kit/promo design. Also note Round2 has stated they PERFER their clone kits to be all new (not a few parts from this kit and a few parts from that kit plus some new tooling) so I am assuming new clone kits will be from scratch (I know there are exceptions). Let's look at the demand and cost of the projects: Demand Cost Charger III Medium Medium 70 Cougar Medium Medium 66 Skylark High Low 71 Cyclone High Medium (stock only) 66 Barracuda Medium Low Based on this quick review I would say the 66 Skylark would be the best bet of this group. You can argue with my demand and cost ranking, but I suspect Round2 uses a process similar to this (albeit more detailed) when choosing projects.

Thanks Jim! I took her to prom in the 80's (yes, we were all idiots and sat on the car). The green top is original and was one year only. She is currently getting some poorly repaired accident damage repaired. I hope to have her done by 2025.

When the B-body lineup was updated in 1968 the 2drs and 4drs got all new exterior styling with a lowered windshield and new side and rear glass. The lower volume convertible and wagon bodies got the new exterior styling but retained their 66-67 B-body glass and roof design along with all of the convertible and wagon unique interior pieces. If you think about the 66-67 B-Bodies they were a quite square edged design. This picture below is my 68 Coronet convertible (in-process restoration), and you can see how squared off the side glass is compared to a hard hop.