Don Sikora II

Has anybody in Wisconsin had experience with the new system yet? The idea sounds stupid beyond belief; the garage/mechanic/car dealer gets paid something like $2 to test the car and they are paid by a state contractor and not the state itself. The local paper had a story about great all the new testing places thought this new program would be and they were excited about all the business it would generate for them. Then a couple months later the same shops were complaining that the $2 they get paid doesn't cover all their costs. The old program seemed to run smoothly, so of course it had to be changed.

I would guess 1956. That's the copyright date on the second version box (the one shown above with the red hot rod and the house in the background) and the few unbuilt/started kits I've seen in that box have been styrene. I'm pretty sure the kit was first released in 1954, and the couple of those that I've seen in the smaller/simpler box were molded in acetate.

Pretty sure this is a ex-Revell small scale kit. The molds might have been actually owned by Adams instead of Revell....Life-Like reissued a bunch of ex-Adams kits at some point. Think I have a Roman Chariot and two or three late-50s vintage military kits in the Life-Like boxes. From what I understand, Adams was a mold shop in California that had some type of a partnership with Revell in the mid-1950s. At some point, that ended and Adams released kits under its own brand starting around 1958. Don't think Adams-brand kits were available for more than a couple years though. At least some of them were reissued by Athern at some point, and the Adams Saab Draken jet fighter was reissued by Lindberg at least twice. Revell-Venice reissued at least one ex-Adams 1/40-scale military kit in the early 1980s. Not sure who ended up owning these molds.

Early P2 Hot Rod kits were acetate, but it was later molded in styrene. It did form the basis for the PC-55 Dragstrip Hot Rod that was issued around 1959. That kit was reissued in an original-style box in the SSP program probably close to 20 years ago. This is a built P2 Hot Rod from my collection. It's styrene and all molded in blue plastic. I've seen others that have some parts molded in dark blue and other parts in off white. This is the Dragstrip Hot Rod that I built from the SSP kit when it came out.

Thanks for the link!

Come on Mark, they're Fun in a Box!

I'm actually kinda glad to see this one, mostly because I built it as a kid. I wouldn't mind seeing Round2 reissue some of the early 80s "generic" MPC funny cars too like the Firebirds and Dodge Omni/Charger. Have a "Burnout Bird" in my stash that I want to build one of these days...and hopefully do a better job of it than I did at age 12!

The one I bought is in the metallic orange. It is translucent, but the color looks great.

Is the reissue the '69 car or the flip-front '67? On Tower Hobbies, it says that the kit is the '67...the '69 was the one that originally had a clear body.

Thanks for posting this. I'll have to try the app. I've had a 4S for a few months and am still figuring out all it can do.

I'm in SE Wisconsin, but I've been to Scale Model Supplies twice and have to agree it's a great hobby shop. Pegasus in California is good too. Here in Wisconsin, Model Empire in West Allis and Greenfield News & Hobby are excellent Milwaukee-area shops.

Hmm. I don't have this kit so I'm going off your pictures. To me it looks like the top shot shows the mold parting line "crossing over." By that I mean the lower part of the windshield opening is formed in the mold's top cavity but the upper section of the opening is in the core (the side where the ejection pins are). There must have been a reason to do that, maybe because of an undercut of some kind at the top of the windshield. I agree those ribs on the core side of the body look really strange, but I would do some test fitting before sanding them away. I'd be surprised if they weren't taken into account when the patterns were made, so removing them might introduce some fit problems.

As far as I know, it only came in the '64 El Camino. It's pretty cool...still have one I fished out of a parts box at the first Milwaukee Miniature Motors show I went to in 1986 or '87.

The Bandit kit came out before the Thunderbolt One. Also, there is a second box for the AMT '69 Fleetside and MPC also issued a 1972 annual. The Racer's Wedge is MPC's '71 annual.

The original '62 Vette annual kit had an opening trunk. When it was reworked for the late '60s reissues, the opening trunk was eliminated.

I'm surprised the drag parts are missing from the '60s Sizzle kit, since they are in the 50th Anniversary issue from about 2002 or 2003. I built this unpainted one from a 50th Ann. kit a couple years ago to see how it would look. Think I added the tires, but everything else was in the kit. The open steel wheels that were in the original Sock It Too Me are in the 50th kit too, but they need holes drilled to fit the wire axles.

It is the same kit, but some of the parts were changed along the line so the reissue doesn't include all of the same exact parts as the original. The original bed cover is gone and the wheels are all different. Might be other deletions too. The MPC reissues include the camper parts that AMT added sometime in the Seventies.

Yeah, I also think everything for the Sock It To Me kit was in the last two reissues. I think the slots might have been retooled for the 50th Ann. kit, because it looked like the parting lines on the slots themselves had changed which would be an indication that they are from different inserts. I know the texture wasn't near as prominent either, but I wasn't sure if that was because of heavy undercoating under the vacuum metalizing. Glad to hear they are retexturing them either way....I agree with Tim that the originals are very nice vintage mags. I have an unbuilt original Sock It Too Me--and the other '60s Trophy Series issue of the '62--but I'm looking forward to this reissue too.

The slots (or retooled copies of them) were also in the 50th Anniversary series issue of the '62 Vette.

Also, the Revell '83 Berlinetta is actually a 1/16-scale kit. The 1/25 Revell '82 & '83 kits were Z28s.

I wouldn't mind seeing a stock reissue of the MPC '69-'72 Pontiac Grand Prix. It last appeared as the Sweat Hog's custom '72, so unless they found something in the warehouse it will need some work. A full-size '69 Chevy would be awful nice too.

I agree, I'd go with the MPC or AMT kits....with my personal preference going to the MPC. The Revell trails this pack, but it has some nice parts including a Cross-Fire air cleaner assembly that's much nicer than the one in the MPC kit.

I have the '72 Strip n' Surf drag van, and it too has the separate hood. I also have a bagged Chevy van kit that I think is from a Penske Race Team. It has the separate side panels and an open hood.

I have--someplace--a built MPC '33 Chevy panel van. It's stock and unpainted black plastic, and I probably bought it about 20 years ago. It's in a baseball card box. Remember where it was before I moved in 1999. Went missing for about a decade until it popped up one day when i was looking for something else. So of course, I left it where I found it. Now, I have NO clue where it is. Have looked for it a couple times since last summer with no luck. It's safely tucked away, and when I find it again it is coming out of that box and going into a clear display case!

Pretty sure the pic on the box is the real car from a Rodder's Journal photo shoot.