Mr. Metallic

Engine mods While the kit supplied Weiland supercharger is really well done, it is not early 60's appropriate. Fortunately a readily available replacement can be found in the Revell Model A kits (the ones with the SBC, not the Nailhead) I was able to drop the blower intake right on the block from the 32 kit (as it should since they're both SBC's). I adapted the separate front cover from the A kit to fit over the molded in version in the 32. While mocking up the engine in the frame I noted that the blower belt gets really close to the front crossmember, so I shortened the snout on the blowers front cover about 1 scale inch, and sanded off the raised area on the backside of the bottom blower pulley so everything moves towards the engine to create clearance. I also removed the molded in oil pan from the 32 kit and replaced it with the separate item from the A kit. At this point you're probably thinking, why didn't I just transplant the entire SBC from the A kit. Well, that is certainly an option, but I hate messing around with motor mounts, so using the SBC from the 32 allowed the engine to still drop in. As you can see I also grabbed a manual trans from the parts box, because "real hot rods have three pedals"

First thing I needed to address was the rear height. For the initial mockup I simply flipped the axle over so the airbags were hanging down out of the way. Well apparently when I snapped the above pic the flanges for the shocks were still holding the frame artificially up in the air. Once I got into properly modifying the rear everything settled down where it belongs. See new mockup below For those of you wanting to keep things simple you can find a different way to go to backdate the rear suspension, or simply keep the airbags. Totally your call. I decided to steal the transverse buggy style spring from a Revell 30 Ford touring, and pinned it to the axle. Then I created a faux crossmember around the spring by adding a piece of .080 x .080 Evergreen strip between the frame rails. This has an added benefit of covering up the mounting holes for the kit airbags and shocks. Here's a quick summary of the minor mods I made to some of the front wheel components. To get the drum style brake to fit in the wheel without widening the track I had to remove the wheel boss from the wheel back. I also sanded off the outer edge to fit the narrower AMT tire. To get the cycle fender to fit the tire I had to remove the molded on brake disk, while retaining a portion of it to act as the bracket. I then thinned down the front side to help the bracket snug up tight against the tire. Lastly I sanded off the raised portion on the back of the Revell A sourced brake backing plate to allow it to set in the wheel assembly. If you do this take care not to sand too far because you could sand through (note how thin the plastic is in the finished piece) And now, the final stance with everything in it's true position with no supports underneath. Right where I want it. I also dug out the sweet chopped convertible top mastered by Dennis Lacy and offered by Drag City Casting. I did get some of the mods made to the engine (which will be shared later). It's sitting crooked because there is no trans crossmember yet.

Here's brief history of the 96/97 tooled Revell 32 Ford series. All of these versions are based on the same tooling. 3 window/ Dan Fink Speedwagon released near simultaneously in 1996. (Only engine option is a small block Ford) Roadster released within the next year. (Engine is still only SBF) Around 2007 they release the Special Edition sedan kit. still includes the SBF, but now also includes a flathead as well. (this kit REALLY needs to be reissued!) 2009 they release the 5 window. This version has ads a Hemi to the mix, but still also has the SBF The roadster and 3 window have seen straight reissues since their initial introduction with the only difference being decals and boxart. I'm pretty sure the 5w has not left the catalog since it's introduction in '09 In the mid 2010's Revell and Stacy David entered a partnership to produce a "replica" of the 32 roadster he was building on his TV show. Revell decided to take this opportunity to cut all new steel tooling since the original 96/97 tooling was getting "tired". All the geometry of this new tooling for the Rat Roaster was copied and enhanced from the 96/97 tooling design (especially the frame and suspensions) but with subtle improvements made, so just about every part from the older tooling kits will easily swap. However, and this has been confirmed by company reps, the RR tooling is ALL NEW. The new kit about to hit shelves is an enhancement of the RR tooling. I call it an enhancement because nearly everything from the RR tooling is still in the box, but Revell added a bunch of great new parts to the mix.

It's not on the shelves here locally either. My friend bought it online from Spotlight.

Didn't want to spend too much time trying to come up with a witty name for this one, hence the title. Anyway, thanks to my good friend Randfink, I now have the brand new release of the Revell 32 Ford roadster in my hands. This is the tooling that was released as the Stacy David Rat Roaster a few years ago. Kudos so Revell for taking the opportunity to get this kit back in the catalog now that the Stacy David licensing has expired. Double kudos to Revell for keeping all of the RR parts in the kit , rather than replacing them, they just tooled NEW trees of updated parts but still kept the RR parts in the box (with the exception of the porthole riddled hood and the glass for the chopped windshield glass). even the sweet electric guitar is still there. For those of you unfamiliar with the 1:1 RR, it is kind of a mish-mash of several different eras of hot rodding, and the end result is not everyone's taste. However, when Revell decided to partner with Stacy David to do the RR in scale, this was a boon to scale hot rodders (despite it not having the 1:1 front beam axle, but lets not go there). In order to use this tooling again Revell had to modify the look of the car to avoid copyright and royalty issues, and they took this opportunity to give us some really nice new parts. Specifically an all new traditionally styled interior, lakes style exhaust headers for the SBC, and a Duvall style windshield. Out of the box you can build a perfectly serviceable "newstalgia" style hot/street rod. But I wanted to take this opportunity to backdate it a bit to plant it firmly in the early 60's era of hot rodding. By doing some simple parts swapping from readily available sources I hope I can inspire someone else to try their hands at backdating this kit to more accurately fit one of the earlier eras of hot rodding. Lets get into it. First, here is a look at the new Duvall windshield. While observing the test shots and first box art build of this kit online I began to worry that they had designed the new windshield to be too upright. My taste (and the typical look) of a Duvall is to be raked back a bit. So, first thing I did when I opened the kit is test fir the windshield. Good news is that it looks much better than I had hoped. Not so great news is that it will be tricky to install in the optimal position since there are no positive locating points. There is a slight raised line on the cowl to show you WHERE it goes, but it is so fine that it doesn't give you a positive mounting surface. Anyway, here it is. I built this in my head over and over once I found out this kit was hitting distributors, so I had gathered a bunch of parts ahead of time. The parts included in this kit are most easily adaptable to an early to mid 60's hot rod. Of course it can go earlier or later depending on how deeply you want to swap parts. However, by the 60's Duvall style windshields had fallen out of style. Nice thing is that the chopped stock-style windshield is still in the box. I'll also be swapping out the beautifully molded, but too modern Weiland blower setup for a more era correct blower. I'll be swapping in the beam axle from the Revell Model A series. Not sure how extensive my mods into backdating the rear setup will go, but the airbags will definitely disappear. I went through a handful of wheel/tire combos. I wanted to try the beautiful new Round2 Firestone Supremes from the parts pack, but I couldn't find a good matching rear tire. The different width of the whitewall bothered me paired with these slicks. So, I swapped them out for the standard whitewall found in tons of Round2 AMT kits. Much better. And just for fun I tried some blackwall tires with the beautiful pad printed lettering giving it a definite McMullen Roadster vibe. But I decided to go with the thin whites. Then spent the rest of my evening properly modifying the tires and the 5 spoke wheels from the Revell 32 Ford series (not in the RR based tooling). The rear needs to come down a bit, but otherwise I'm definitely digging this.

FuturA Attractions- Very nice stuff. I've never ordered anything online but I have seen and purchased their products in person.

First I would take a protractor and make the angled reference lines from top to bottom so you have something to align your pleats to. You don't need to fill up the panel with lines or worry about spacing, you just need 2-3 lines as reference to help you eyeball the pleats as you install them. It will also allow you to make sure the pleats line up visually from the top of the panel to the bottom. Next cut your flat center section out of sheet Evergreen, in whatever thickness matches the thickness of the 1/2 round you are going to use. Glue that to your panel Start installing your pleats from one end, working towards the other. i only use thick super glue for tuck and roll because if you use plastic glue it will probably loosen up your previous work. Install one pleat at a time and allow a few minutes to dry between each piece. It takes a little while but is worth it.

Grills are essentially the same. I fit a first issue roadster (25 years old now ?) grill into the new shell, but I did have to make a swipe down each side with my sanding stick. Removing the chrome was enough to allow it to snuggle into the new shell. So that would mean the old shells are fractionally larger, which would allow a grill designed to fit the new shell to easily fit the old shells. If you need a new shell and/or old shell for scanning or whatever let me know.

I don't appear to be having the issue anymore

I know when we do new product launch (office furniture industry) we have a pre determined period of time that we have to perform 100% inspection of product going out the door. It used to be a step down process as production ramped up as long as they passed at a certain rate. But now they have to stay above a passing threshold for a certain number of consecutive weeks, and once they do the full inspection is removed. However, we are open to legal issues if there is anything wrong with our products because someone could get hurt using them if not built correctly. We do deal with the plastic industry quite a bit, and perform 100% incoming inspection on parts before they are used for production for a certain number of shipments.

This tooling actually started out as this in the early 60's It went through a couple renditions before Monogram made the savvy move of capitalizing on ZZ Tops resurgence in the early 80's by almost completely altering the tooling. Even though the engne is supposed to be a SBC you can still see the vestiges of the Pontiac black from the original kit. I built the ZZ car back when it was new, but i was still a brush painting, gluey fingered kid, so my recollection of how good the kit was is not really valid. i have however seen this kit turned into some pretty great street and hot rods over the years. I really need to pick up the new version of the ZZ car to try to build a replica of the 1:1

It's been released within the last 10 years, so the tooling is probably permanently stuck in China. Before the version Dave shared was released many were holding out hope that the previous owners of Revell would backdate the tooling to the Little T configuration like they did with the Blue Bandito (former Blue Beetle) but it's doubtful that will happen now, even though they sold out both runs of the Blue Bandito

Sure can, the bed dividers between the wood slats are Evergreen .060 x .040, but it could probably handle up to .100 thick.

I love this kit, built both the Lincoln and the T-Bird. The Lincoln ended up with one my first decent spray paint job, and it still sits on my shelf all these years later. The 'bird got torn apart for the pro street goodies. Your color combo is looking sharp. Here's a pic of the Matt Hay 'bird to show why the distributor is at a right angle. It wants to live right where the intake tubes from the blowers go.

The Rat Roaster (on which the new roadster is a modified reissue) was an all new tool when it came out. Designed to be compatible with the previous Revell 32 series kits, but some things were changed. 99% sure the grill parts should be the same dimensionally, but I want to confirm that for you first.

Never seen these before, but where is the scale listed?

I thought the point of this thread was to specifically discuss the "completely recreated tooling" kit that Round2 strongly hinted at? Your thread, your rules. But to this point 20 pages filled with speculation around this one release from Round2, now about to be opened to a free for all? ? Like I said, your thread, your rules. I'm just going by your very first post 20 pages ago.

Had to scroll up and refresh my memory to what you had going on. Glad to see this one back.

Hard to go wrong with a black 32 Ford. You're off to a good start. There are a few intake options for the small block Ford from the kit just in the 32 series alone, let alone all the 1st gen Mustang kits out there to steal from. Of course, a Y block would be cool.

Is the 5W still in the Revell catalog? I was thinking of fitting it to the about-to-hit-the-shelves 32 roadster out in Europe already). I'm assuming the 5-window grille (and all Revell tools before it since they are all the same tool) and the new roadster grille would be the same size, but I will verify that first. Hate to have to do two different versions, but if they are in fact different that would be your call. I'll try to get a comparison made tonight and let you know.

How about a Pines Winterfront grille for 32 Fords? Could be paired with a stock style 32 radiator as well (just a thought) I know those long bars could be problematic to print, but just thought I'd throw it out there. I'd gladly send a Revell 32 shell for you to scan

As long as one of those projects is the 27 T I'll let this slide ?

When they do clearance it is never advertised. It is different from the every-other-week 40% sale. And not all stores do their clearance markdowns at the same time. My local store always seems to be a couple weeks behind all the other stores that get mentioned in this thread. And typically I miss them because there is a guy that comes in and buys the clearance kits by the literal cartload. I watched it happen once and was confirmed to happen just about every time by employees.

You're welcome. I thought I had some in progress pics but couldn't find any

Not so much