Darin Bastedo

Here's a few for ya... 1981 Buick Indy Pace Car... 17 years MPC Charger III show car 7.5 years Dodge Sidewinder 14 years... AMT Car Craft Dream Rod 1977 Corvette 7 years...

I'm not defending Revell or saying you can't express your opinions, but just as Harry said, I think you should tone down the rhetoric, get rid of the all caps, and calmly state specifically, directly to Revell, the changes you feel are necessary. Saying that they don't care or that people should be fired etc, doesn't make you seem like serious customers, it makes you look like raving lunatics working yourselves up into a frenzy over a toy car.

It is very much the same. It is called holding yourself to the same standard you hold others to. Day in and day out, we all do our best, and many days our best comes up short. Weather it's printing a magazine, designing a model kit, paving a street or flipping burgers, nobody is perfect, and every process has it's limitations. I never said the model was correct, but demonizing Revell and it's designers, doesn't help your case. Perhaps if there was a little less "there's no excuse for getting it wrong", and a little more "Can we humbly suggest some changes" you might get a more timely response from Revell..

The Bodywork at this point is only roughed in The trim will be reshaped and sanded before it is finished.

I'm still looking for just the right paint for it.

I'm no cheerleader, I'm a realist. The Japanese companies not only have larger budgets and a stronger home market, but they are also doing primarily new subject for which CAD data exists for making the job 100x easier. Tamiya makes enough off their R/C line to make model production a sideline.

I actually like the canted headlights, its what makes this car unique. I have though swapped out the grill and bumper for lighter elements to make the overall look of the car sleeker. (at least that is the intent)

This is true harry, and I think in this case you will find that the height, width, length, and wheelbase are pretty close to dead on, where this effort falls apart is execution of the fine details, the shape and height of the windows, the positioning of the wheel wells and the side trim.

You obviously have never engineered a model kit. Your statement is true if you are copying something 1:1. But things get tricky when you are doing it 1:25. There is a thing called tolerance stacking. The "sheet metal" in the body in 1:25 scale becomes an inch thick, the emblems if reproduced exactly to scale become lost in the paint. adjustments have to be made. The material is injection molded, and therefore has to be designed in such a way to be produced so that it's thick enough to be strong, but not so thick you get sink marks when it cools, and ejector pins need to be place so they are easily removed or hidden or don't deform the part when it ejects it. Those and many other engineering considerations and more have to be taken into account, all the while trying to make sure the part looks right. It's not just a simple matter of measuring the real car and making an exact scale replica of all the parts. I think if you were to have a chat with someone who actually does this for a living, you would have more respect for their craft.

My best purchase? When I spent my meager 6 year old allowance on this. It is what got me hooked...

Bradley, why do you take all of this so personally? We are not Jumping all over you for being a rivet counter. The fact is nobody noticed the roof until someone erroneous "measured" it and said it was chopped. Yes the window is off, but has been pointed out and ignored time and time again, the body as a whole is not shorter by 1.5-2". therefore the "rivet counters" are obviously counting the wrong rivets. How can we expect the model companies to correct errors that the LXperts can't even correctly identify. From my observation, it's not that the roof is that far off, but several other detail and proportions are slightly off culminating into making the roof look chopped. Having a design background I can tell you that most likely the start of the problem with this body is the too high wheel arches, and the belt line trim. If they based the relationship of the lower window edge to that feature, the side window would be too short regardless of the roof shape. I'd put real money on the possibility, that by the time they noticed that that dimension was off, it was too late in the development to fix it. At some point in the development, you hit a point of no return, where you have neither the budget to fix an issue, and too much invested to scrap it. To fix the issues with this kit they would have to start from scratch with a whole new body tooling, which is the most expensive part to do. Would it be great if it came out perfect? yup, but you have to realize that you are part of a small minority who will actually notice that it is wrong. To there main audience it looks OK, There is not a single 100% accurate kit on the market, and there never will be. why should this one be any different?

This is what I've been working on recently. I picked up this Rough Buick Invicta Built up at the MDA model show in Roanoke VA a few months ago. It had multiple thick coats of brush paint on it, and took about a month to strip. I'm building into a sixties style custom using the rear fenders, front and rear valences, and up-top from the Monogram 1959 Chevy impala, as well as the chassis, engine compartment, interior windshield and cowl from the Monogram 1959 Cadillac, I know the chassis is not accurate for this car, but my story is that the builder swapped chassis and floor boards so he could use the Cadillac air suspension.

Who am I? Nobody in particular. Other than being involved in the hobby for over 40 years, and having dealt with the model building public, as well as the manufacturers for about 10 of those years. Do I know everything, no but I know a lot. Revell didn't cut a new body for the 1969 Charger, they changed the portion of the tooling for the roof. Big difference. The only issue on the charger was the roof, On the Mustang LX the proportions of the body are wrong throughout the mold. Changing just the roof will not result in a better kit, it just will be wrong in a different way. Another major difference between the LX and the Charger is, with the Charger, they were trying launch a new upscale brand with Pro-Modeler. It was worth it to them to make it right because the brand depended on it. The LX is just another release in the regular line. This is a new Revell and different owners than back then. Do you see them rushing to fix the taillight panel on the 69 Nova? What makes you think if they didn't correct that they will be willing to cut a whole new body for the LX. I hope I'm wrong, I hope they correct all the flaws and give you the LX of your dreams. I'm not holding my breath until that happens though. Who am I? A realist.

You see, I agree it would be great to see a new body tooled for the kit, but the flaws are minute and widespread. Revell simply won't cut a whole new body. I'm a realist. It would cost too much and won't result in a significant increase in sales.

Now you see why Joe average doesn't see what you see. To them it looks basically like the car they remember. They don't see the small details that are off. That is the same reason the Last AAR 'cuda was built by many who really didn't see the flaws. It's the same reason non-airplane builders don't see the flaws in a P-51 kit, that are obvious to those of us with a book shelf dedicated to books on that plane.

Actually I don't believe that the roof is that low. Just because I have no affection for this car, doesn't mean I didn't spend a great deal of time measuring and photgraphing real ones. The fact that when compared to the AMT kit, the total height of the body is not 2 scale inches shorter. I agree the total height of the side window is too short, that is obvious, but has anybody bothered to compare the distance from the top of the belt line trim to the bottom of the window trim? I'd be willing to bet that that distance is off. From what I see it is probably a combination of factors that make the roof seem wonky, but at the same time if all else was equal, and the roof was "chopped" 2" the car would be two inches shorter. You want the body fixed? My suggestion is to measure carefully and make sure the flaws you want corrected are really there, and not a combination of other flaws.

I'm only saying that this roof is only about as far off as every other Fox mustang that has been produced, yet this car is being put through the ringer while others get a pass.I find it interesting that even though a photo of the painted and assembled test shots are on the 1st page, nobody thought to comment on the roof until page 17. If the roof is really that bad why did it take so long to notice?

So by your measurement, The LX roof is only 1/4mm further off, than any other Revell/Monogram Mustang. The 1/24 scale mustangs by my calculations are 1.24 scale inches off.

That is why I question the accuracy of the baseline. By his measurement the every monogram/revell fox body cobra should appear chopped, yet I heard no complaints against the 1/24 scale kits. I measure the 1979 pace car and the mustang Cobra. by his baseline the should appear to have a too low roof as well

Funny, The Revell 1993 cobra kit is 1/24, and measures .76 in that same area. 1/24 being being a larger scale the chopped top look should be even more pronounced, yet it looks OK, and nobody even mentioned it on that kit. Are you sure you measured correctly? If it were 1/25 it would still come up short by your measurement at 19.4 inches.

I just showed the finished pictures of the LX mustang that Revell had on display to my friend Jon. He is knowledgeable about cars, and is a car enthusiast in general. When I showed him the picture I asked him, "what is wrong with this car?" His answer was "the tires fill the fender openings more than the real thing but other than that I don't see much else wrong". Is he correct? possibly not, but this is the type of person that will be buying this kit in the mass market. The typical Hobby Lobby, Micheal's, Kmart occasional builder who likes cars. They won't ever notice the errors. Fixing those errors that "The LX-perts" see aren't notice by Joe average. I understand that it's your favorite car and you wanted it perfect, but Revell is into this to make a profit and making those changes won't increase the sales to the mass market. Every kit in my collection from every manufacturer has errors. many even more egregious than this.

My only wish is that someone does a hatch conversion for this, I won't be, as my previous foray into the Viper pit which is lx mustang enthusiasts left me with six years of harassment from people complaining about 1/2 mm discrepancies and other small errors. But I can see where this would be great fodder for those who would want to use the chassis and other parts to upgrade previous kits. I for one plan on digging up a Revell Capri kit, and seeing what I can make combining that with this kit.

I do see obvious accuracy issues in this kit. But 99.9% of them can be fixed by making it into the far more interesting (to me at least) convertible. That said I still think we should be thankful for how far the industry has come from when this was the only kit of my favorite car (at the time) "Wonky" would be an improvement.