Don Sikora II

The '70 kit was only released as a "Motor City Stocker" which had no engine or optional parts like the '71 kit did. I don't have a '70 to check, but think there may have been a difference in the front turn signals between the two years.

Pretty sure the bottom part of the sheet is from a 1969 (or thereabouts) reissue. The '69 box and decals served as the basis for the Stevens International issue of the '37 coupe about 10 years ago.

Man, that's awesome.

MPC made a '77 hatchback too. They did not make a 1980 Pinto. MPC also made 1977, 1978, and 1979 Pinto wagons. The only '79 is the wagon.

Any idea for a good source for this kit in the States? Looked at HLJ but didn't see anything.

A year or two ago my sister needed to throw away an old appliance. Think it was a microwave, but really doesn't matter. I went to buy the sticker the city makes you apply so they will dispose of it. The lady told me to put the thing on the curb without the sticker the night before. She said if it's still there in the morning, put the sticker on it. Her prediction was that it someone would take it and then I could bring the sticker back for a refund. She was right, it was gone before bedtime! My favorite story happened about 15 years ago though. We cleaned out my dad's house and held a seemingly never-ending series of garage sales. At the end, we called for a bulk pickup of the true garbage. We put it put the night before, and went back in the house to lock things up. By time I got back to my car a guy had nosed into the curb in front of me and was digging through the pile. He was holding an old VCR under his arm and cheerfully asked me if I knew where the remote was!

It's been a couple years, but I've traveled domestically with unbuilt kits in my carry-on with no problems. Was in Germany about a year and a half ago and brought home a couple 1:43 diecasts and some 1:87 Wiking cars in my carry-on. Again, no problems.

Yesterday morning we had several inches of lake-effect snow, and with temps in the low teens it was very, very slippery. All that made it even more surprising to see a '58 or '59 Chevy pickup sitting at a stoplight.

I bought three GTI kits and one cabriolet, all at the same time from Tower. Two GTIs and the Cabrio were fine. The third GTI had a Cabrio parts bag.

The molded-in-white version of this kit is out. It does have the Boss 302 engine and 4-speed. Haven't compared it to other issues, but it looks like the same parts as the circa-1991 AMT/Ertl Eliminator with the yellow car on the box...but the chrome tree also has the four baldy caps from the original annual now too. The side of the box shows the Ram Air air cleaner from the CJ428 kit, but it's not in my kit or on the instructions....all those messed-up RC2 issues from 10 years ago still causing confusion? Tires are four of the F60-15 Goodyear Polyglas GTs with tampo lettering, and there's a new (or at least heavily revised) decal sheet with Eliminator stripes in white and black, engine compartment markings, gauge faces, several sets of license plates, and two small AMT logos.

It's out, got one today. Never have even looked at one of these kits before, but it's pretty cool and has more parts than I would have guessed. The 12-page booklet has nice pictures of a few different full-size Piranhas, but I really like the tires. Haven't compared them to anything else yet, but they look like a classic AMT compact car tire (like in the recent Ohio George '60 Ranchero). One side has a printed redline, and the other has a blue line and white Goodyear Speedway Blue Streak lettering.

I have the kit, and they do appear to be the same L60-15 tire with new printing in a yellowish/beige/gold color. And yes, there is a stripe in the same color on the sidewall too.

I was lucky and bought a mint boxed unibody promo back in the '80s..when they were going for $20 at full-size AMC shows. That's a long time ago--and with new kits in the $30 range--$63 for something 55 years old doesn't sound too bad to me. In the past year, I saw a unibody promo at an antique mall. Can't remember the price, but it was reasonable enough that I gave the car a good look and it turned out to be a resin one, so somebody cast it. I think Okey had a resin unibody at a Toledo show when it was still in Maumee at the fairgrounds. Maybe 10-15 years ago?

I haven't measured it, but the Jo-Han '59 Rambler does appear to have the longer Ambassador wheelbase (the '60 promo is noticeably shorter than the '59). When Okey issued the kit, he included decals for the Ambassador side trim and emblems. That's how I built mine, removed the engraved side trim, converted the grille, and added trim on the tailgate.

Man am I happy to see that they are including both sizes. Have a project in mind that needs big n' little redlines, so will definitely get this set.

Not to copy the other blade thread, but it's a good question that got me thinking. What's your favorite #11-style blade? I'd say the original X-Acto #11 is easily my favorite, but I don't mind using the Testors Model Master blade either. I've had some off-brand stinkers though. Anyone else make a great blade?

Did Chevy offer a soft top for the Blazer? Don't ever remember seeing one, but I kinda like it. Maybe 10 years ago I drove from LA to Las Vegas on a Sunday and remember seeing an awesome first-gen Blazer in traffic. It was very clean, lowered on large-diameter wheels, and completely topless.

The Union version came a few years before the 1996 SSP kit. Might be from 1991 or '92.

Great tips, thanks.

I'm 99% sure it's the Snapfast kit. If you google "AMT 1996 Corvette" and look at the image search you can see what the promo looked like. It came in a black window box, had paint detailing, and a red interior. Same parts as your model, just decorated and assembled at the factory.

Think that actually might be the AMT Snapfast Plus '96 Corvette Collector Edition kit. I have one someplace and remember it being molded in a very uninspiring shade of gray. It was basically an unassembled promo without any of the paint detailing that was becoming more common as promo production moved to China.

Tim, thanks for the insight. Figured it had to do with saving on material cost, but that was only an assumption on my part. I remember AMT's two-piece tires well, because some of my earliest kits were '76 and '77 annuals and those impossible-to-glue-with-Testors tires were way beyond the skills of the 8-year-old me. Very frustrating, and I remember a conversation with the kid across the street about which '77 Pinto kit he should get. We decided MPC because of the tires! A lot of decals were lousy in those days too and would explode into a zillion little slivers as soon as they hit the water. Looking at them now, some of the two-piece tires were unique and not a copy of an earlier AMT one-piece tire. I think some of them have pretty nice shapes and sidewall details. The tread is a different story but I actually want use some on a build, almost just to finally beat the darn things. A few weeks ago, tried to glue a set of the big 'n little Rally GTs together and it's still hard to as an adult using super glue! Too bad they weren't just molded in black styrene. At least that would have eliminated the glue problems.

Most 1976 and '77 AMT annual kits had two-piece tires made out a hard plastic that seems nearly impossible to glue. Only exception I can think of is the '77 Pacer wagon which came with Firestone Supremes.

Yes, all new tooling.

No, that MPC '69 Cougar is a completely different kit. MPC updated it to a '70 and offered hardtop and convertible annuals. It then was revised into the '71 Cougar and was tweaked again for the 1972 and '73 annuals. Of the MPC Cougar kits, only the 1973 version has been reissued. First by MPC in the mid 1980s (black car with gold decals called "The Cat") and then most recently as an AMT/Ertl kit maybe ten years ago. In between the reissues, the MPC kit's 428 big-block engine inserts were removed from the mold (or possibly copied) and used in the AMT '69 Cougar for the CJ428 version kit in the early 1990s.