oldcarfan

Wow! I emailed Monogram last night with a request for information on their late 70s series of easy to build exotic cars. Some of you may have seen my build of their Porsche 924. Well, I have since gotten the MB 450 and just ordered the BMW 635, the Ferrari 308 and the Porsche 911 Carrera. I am attempting to recapture my youth one model kit at a time. Lol.I like to try to find the history behind anything I do and this was no exception. I was hoping to get maybe a little information on these kits in order to do a post on the them.Anyway, I just opened my email and guess what I found? I want to thank Ed Sexton and Bob Johnson. These guys are amazing! Mr. Johnson wrote it so much better than I possibly could, so I have posted the email below for your enjoyment. If anyone has pictures of these kits they would like to post, feel free. I want to thank these great guys again! Hi Gary....I received your email from Ed..... This will require blowing the cobwebs out of brain, but, that cleaning is long overdue. I was hired in December of 1974 by Roger Harney.. he was a dedicated (and i do mean "DEDICATED" !!) Corvette guy... I was a "Ford guy" and drove a Porsche 914... Rog and I "jelled" quickly.... Monogram was known for classic and hot rods. The first project I worked on was the Mack Stake Truck with George Baskys.. He was the lead designer.. I was a "gearshift guy" as we referred to new designers..The next project was the 1934 734 Packard Speedster designed by Genevieve Grisetta. She was a GREAT classic car designer!! Mario Falconi was completing the rear-engine Snake / Mongoose dragsters... that was where Roger taught me a "trick""... make the engine larger by 5% - 10% so that they look "huge".. the blown "hemi" in that dragster (kits #7528 and 7529) are still SUPERB!! I used that "trick" designing the die-cast Revell Collection and Team Caliber Top Fuel dragsters in the 1990's.. We had a tooling budget of about $750K and big projects like the 1/48th B-17G, B-24D/J, and B-29 took about 1/3rd of that number each year in 1976, 1977, and 1978... Rog and I used to discuss about how we could get into the "regular car business" and compete with MPC and AMT. We simply could NOT do it with one highly-detailed 1/24th scale model. We HAD to develop a PRODUCT LINE that would appear to be a new category and be bought in large numbers by the mass merchants like K-Mart.... Roger collected promo models of Corvettes and had a nice silver 1964 Coupe sitting on his desk (he eventually had a "real one" just like it..) He and I were looking at it and we began to think about a model car with a really nice body, pan chassis, an simple interior.. one new 4-piece tire mold that would work on all models to hold down the cost.. no engine or multi-piece chassis.. and at least four model types...... we would add extra parts for a rally version and road race version... even if we had to create them in the design department.. We were just beginning to develop contacts in GM Design and Ford Design, plus MPC and AMT had the standard Mustang / Corvette / Camaro / Firebird models "covered"... we needed a new category that no competitor was working in... I had just bought a new 1976 Mercury (Ford) Capri II.. Bob Reder who was one of the Founders of Monogram had a Silver 450SL with a blue removable hardtop.... the Datsun 280Z had a real following and who could say "NO!" to a "G Series" Porsche 911 Coupe??? So, we had our four subjects.. add rally and road race parts and we had 12 releases from 4 mold sets all using one tire style.. Items were: 2101 Porsche 911 Carrera 2102 Mercedes 450 SL 2103 '76 Midnight Capri II 2014 Datsun 280S These were known as "2100-series cars" and I think the original wholesale price was $2.25 and that gave them a $5.00 retail price...You arrive at a selling price by what is called 50/10 pricing.. pick a retail, say, $5.00 and divide by 2.. take 90% of that sum and you have the "A" price or price that the manufacture charges a wholesale customer.. They get additional discounts of 1% - 12% (old days) and then sell to retail customers at a 15% markup.. Typical price to a mass market customer was SRP (suggested retail price) less 50%.. For years, a woman who was in charge of sales set the retail price in "nice numbers.. $4.50, $6.25) and multipled "up" to get stupid retails like $12.37... they still don't know how to do pricing so that it "works" at retail.. BTW, the Capre was molded in Black with gold stripes.. those wre the days when Black with Gold trim and shark's mouths would sell ANYTHING!! MPC and AMT (and Revell) had auto kit lines created in 1/25th scale... that scale came from AMT obtaining 1/10th scale four-view car drawings from the "Big 3" and them making a 1/10th scale pattern model. That would yield tooling casts in the same size taken from the1/10th pattern model.. set the reducing pantograph to "2.5" and you get "1/25th scale"... 1/24th is an engineering scale.. 1" = 24".... create a 1/12th scale model and reduce it by setting the pantograph at "2.0"... instant1/24th scale.. so, we created these in 1/24th scale... done right, it is hard to tel the difference between 1/24th and 1/25th... The initial four sold REALLY WELL!! the model car pundits bashed them for the "slim detail" before they bought into "curbside models"..The first year sales were 86K pieces for the 911, 63K for the 450SL,59K for the Capri, and 73K for the 280Z.. those numbers did not include assortments of all 4 in one carton.. I don't have those numbers.. That totals 281K kits at $632.25K.. at a 55% gross margin, that yielded $347.73K.... guessing that each mold set was about $50K, we had a profit of $147K on a $200K investment.... who needs multi-piece chassis and engine detail??? In the following year, 1977, we introduced four additional versions: #2107 Porsche Carrera RSR #2108 '76 Capri Group II #2109 Mercedes 450 Rally #2110 Datsun SCCA Rally We also created 2 new items; 2105, Triumph TR-7 and 2016, Porsche 924.. What else did we "learn"... our designers had to "learn" to capture the shapes of modern cars.. the contours of the TR-7 and 924 are much better than the first four bodies.. I photoed a 924 Coupe at Scala O'Brian Porsche in Chicago..(also known as "SOB Motors").. it had adent in the lower front air BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH... the fellow who carved the 2X pattern model, Joe Sojka, put the dent on the pattern.. because it was "in thepictures".. we had it filled in.. The 924 was done through noted Porsche Journalist and Author Bill Oursler who was working for Volkwagen of America at the time.. We also did a race version of each... #2111 for the TR-7 racerand #2112 for the Porsche 924 group 2... The 450SL, Capri, TR-7, and 924 are the only 1/24 / 1/25thscale models I know of for those subjects... So, say we produced 60K of the new TR-7 and 924 and 50K ofeach of the 6 race versions... that is another 320K kits at $2.25for a total of $720,000.... The two new items were about $50Keach, so the end result was a profit of $620K in year 2, or almost 80% of our annual tooling budget... That is how Monogram got started in the current model car business.. Bob Johnson

Update: I have found and ordered the BMW635, the Ferrari 308 and the Porsche 911 Carrera. I also have a mostly complete MB 450SL that I am planning to start soon. I hope to someday be able to build the whole series and I promise not to play with, (destroy) them as I did when I was young!

Love this!

Amazing!

That's a great paint job!

I like Foose's designs for the most part and Coddington's stuff was usually pretty good as well. My only real issue is the using of restored or in some cases really nice originals to start with. As much work as they are putting in, they could just as easily start with a beater. The same applies to those guys who find a nice low mile muscle car with original paint and interior in good shape and then turn around and have it stripped and redone. Save and protect the original iron. It is only original once.

I'm hoping that this will reinvigorate the industry. I love the old reissues because I like to build the kits I had and destroyed as a kid, but at the same time, I like to see new product hit the market as well. Could it be that they will come out with the Foose versions and later issue a stock kit kind of like they are doing with the 48 Ford and like they did with the chopped Mercurythat came back as a Woodie?

I looked at this one today and then put it back. The TD design looks great, but the Barris execution was a bit ham-handed, as were a lot of his jobs. I may go ahead and get one anyway because I like collecting TD's stuff.

I was wondering if it is possible to use the new wagon kit and the old Ranchero to come up with a correct Ranchero? I also would love to have a series of 1958 Fords. I have a 58 wagon promo somewhere, but it is so warped there isn't even enough to kit bash...

Looking good!

I really like this kit. Good job on on it! I would like to see this reissued. I would like to build one of these and also the one from Corvette Summer.

This may be an old topic, but I didn't find it in the search, so I will ask. I have two of the Revell Datsun 510s and one of the old 29 Model A truck that have the two piece vinyl tires. Has anyone got a method for permanently joining the two halves of these? I have tried all of the regular adhesives and they work, but not well. I am thinking of filing them with resin or epoxy.

I have been by the local B&N about once a week. I ask if they have gotten or ordered the magazine each time and they always act as though I hadn't asked the week before. They have 7 model train magazines, 8 RC Car magazines and a whole lot of military magazines, but they can't seem to manage a model car magazine?

How have I missed this all these years? This is cool.

I absolutely love this!

Cool trailer!

Also if you want something smaller, you might look into mold putty. Hobby Lobby sell this as well. It is a two part putty that you knead together and then press on a part to make a mold. It might work if the part is pretty small and only runs around $20.

I don't know how much you have used silicone, but Hobby Lobby sells some kits that are fairly good for a beginner. They have one that includes some silicone, casting resin and clay and I think mold release, too. It's a good one to use for small runs. It sells for, I think, about $60, but use the 40% coupon if you get it. I have used this kit once or twice and found the silicone pretty hard when set up, so use caution when casting. Anyway, it might be a good way to try.

I look forward to this. It's a stretch for me, but I'll have to get one or two of these. Hoping they'll decide to offer a passenger version at some point as well. Then maybe the 70-74 Econoline sometime down the line?

Beautiful work!

Definitely down for these. Wonder if they come with decals? Maybe if these sell well, it will cause a release of the Triumph as well?

These are the other pictures I took. I would love to have a real one like this.

I bought some India Red, and was going to go with that,but decided to save it for something else. Gonna have to start looking for more of this series. . I really like simpler kits these days and this series really had good proportions. I really want the 911 and the Ferrari 308. I got the MB 450 SLC along with another 924 on Ebay. May start it next I'm glad I got the Monogram 924 and not the Otaki one. That one just doesn't look right to my eye.

It is different, but still cool!

Really nice!