niteowl7710

The Aoshima SnapTite I'm guessing? That's 1/32. The Fujimi Hustler is 1/24.

Are you so offended by a Hasegawa themed anime connection you had to scribble her out of existence? Pretty sure everyone here has seen a blonde in a bikini before...

ICM blew their 1/35 kit up to 1/24 a few years ago. It was their first kit in that scale. There are two versions of it floating around one with an up-top and one with just a convertible style body.

When Suzuki started making this little thing (it qualifies as a Kei car) it quickly became the fastest selling vehicle in it's brand segment. Aoshima did a 1/32 SnapTite version, so clearly this thing has a following in Japan.

Those special Edseliacs...(Pontidsels?) must be for celebrating the 50 Year Anniversary...

They announced today they signed a multi-year, multi-car licensing agreement with GM, and showed the box art for the first kit. If the final CAD for the body tool was done around October (when they posted it to FB) it would put this kit in development for close to a year by the time it comes out. The convention wisdom was an 18 month cycle, maybe you can shave a few months off by getting everything done in the U.S. and skipping that whole next day, other language, two to three week shipping of test shots back and forth.

The defroster decal goes on from the inside, the glue is on the top, not the bottom like a traditional decal. As for the separate taillights and other parts they allow you to build the car as either a pre-facelight 1986 or post-facelift 1988. Amusingly the box calls it a 1988, but the car actually depicted is the '86. In addition to the various part swaps, the '88 car also has side-repeaters for the front fenders which are clearly AWOL on that drawing.

Well THIS car specifically was not offered outside of Japan. We got the I-Mark and a rebadged as a Chevy vehicle, which wouldn't be buildable from the parts contained within this kit.

The Irmsher Turbo have that bitty more door pushing 190HP (consider the time period), which was enough to have better 0-60 & 1/4 mile times than the IROCs and whatnot. Of course over here we just got the 85 HP econobox.

It should be the next new tool kit out the door this summer. The JTCC Toyota Corona just got released and the next release is a modified reissue of the BMW M3 in rally spec next month.

Two tech points first. Only Photobucket doesn't "work" anymore (unless you pay for the 3rd Party Hotlink). Because of that there are no longer photo storage limits on the forum. Beyond that Profil24's stuff always seems pretty nice, I'd like to get the Aston Martin GT car. But the inclusion of an engine (especially combined with building a resin kit) isn't enough to get me to pay $80+ over the upcoming Beemax kit.

One would also have to take in account all of that advertising from the 1960s involved NEW products that didn't exist prior to that moment in time. At this point those same model kits are 50-60 years old, and you folks oughta know what's in them by the 10th reissue of the item. Casey has done a good job of posting up the Round2 flyers of products when they get released, which will always mention if parts are re-tooled or added back in to make the kit a former version of it's "glorious" past. If it just says something like "new decals and pad printed tires", then it's the same dubious box of plastic you bought 6 copies of it the last time it was reissued. Round2 ESPECIALLY isn't selling to kids - at least that's not their market aim - they're selling to adult collectors (TV/Movie/Coke tie-ins) and adult modelers who are riding that Nostalgia train all the way to the end station.

If you want to know what kits are coming out in a specific month, you have to go to the Auto World website and look under Future Releases. It's usually 30-60 days in advance in which case you'll see the two models I mentioned are listed for March. The lack of time-specific accuracy had been a problem since Round2 started these videos.

The two automotive kits for March are the '69 Olds 442 & '86 El Camino SS, which of course were featured in the last video...which again points out that while it's nice they make an effort to communicate new products to customers, it's by no means an accurate one in terms of - "Things in this video = Available this Month."

I'm pretty sure the earlier body style Mustangs that Monogram did ended being parked at the '85 SVO which was reissued about 5 years ago or so.

They're pretty much what you see is what you get. They're basically giant slabs of riveted styrene sheets with ends caps, a roof, and a chassis. The interiors are pretty spartan and showing them with the roof off requires sanding a battalion of ejector pins - unless that sorta thing doesn't bother you. There is no engraving on the inner side walls, but the floor is cast with a diamond plate pattern. The gooseneck has options for landing gear raised or lowered, and the smaller trailers allow for the tongue dolly wheel to be raised or stowed. The goosenecks have an engine hoist that you can mount coming out of the side door which is designed to be functional along with the rear door. The axles are just more or less straight beam axles (styrene) that glue onto the bottom of the floor, there's no other suspension represented. All of the marker lights are molded in, there is no chrome plating, and the decal sheets include the DOT tape for the sides and rear along with a slew of different plates, Galaxie Limited logos, a couple of shop logos, and NOT FOR HIRE, et al.

The changes to this version is enough to sell one to me as it solves several problems I had with the original. Namely the flares take your eyes away from the fact the body is slab-sides and doesn't roll under at the bottom, and the wheel & tire combo looks decent enough. Cause ya know for all that work they did with that Bronco graveyard to be uber-super accurate then churn out wheels that are several inches too small... Pepper in a few Fireball pieces as others have suggested and I think it's eminently workable.

I'd consider getting this just for the fresh decals (and alright maybe tires) and then selling off my old 199x AMT/Ertl boxing that I searched high and low for about 3 years ago to find it at something that wasn't the cost of my monthly electric bill.

I believe it's an Italeri kit, at least I can't find an older boxing of it from their original offering in the 1980s. It was reboxed as the easier to find Testors kits, and RevellAG did a boxing of it during the 80s as well. Here's a build of the Revell boxing - in what Google Translate tells me is Finnish http://www.pienoismallit.net/galleria/malli_7246/

Their "discount" price (before the additional 40% off) is still MORE than the U.S. MSRP of that kit (which is $54.99). I loathe places like Sprue Brothers and Squadron who make up phony ridiculously marked up prices, and then "discount" them down to around the ACTUAL MSRP and pretend you're getting a deal. $33 is a nice U.S. price for that kit, but I again I wouldn't support a bunch of borderline frauds in the first place.

Don't forget replacement decals for both BTCC Volvos exist from Shunko Models & S.K. Decal, so finding a mint one with "good" decals (if any of them have good decals 25 yrs later regardless as to how they were stored) isn't a necessity. I haunted Yahoo! Japan Auctions for my kits and I might have $60 including all the fees and shipping in both Volvo kits plus another $30 in S.K. replacement sheets.

While I appreciate when people reply to a reply, quoting something out of context from 4 months ago is sorta odd. The point I was making in my post is Japanese kit manufacturers somehow manage to reissue kits that are nearly, if not actually CHEAPER than the original issue of the kit, especially when adjusted for inflation. Consider the follow examples... The Fujimi Enthusiast Series BMW M635CSi kit was released with an original Yen MSRP of 1500 in 1986. That works out to about $13.xx US more or less as it was after the Plaza Accord was signed and the value of the Yen to USD had flipped doubling the value of the Yen, and is slightly more than the present exchange rate of 105 to $1. (At 100Y to $1 you would just put a decimal into the price). The last time the kit was reissued was 2007 at that time the MSRP was raised to 3200 Yen, and when it was just reissued LAST MONTH (11 years later) it's price is again 3200 Yen. When you adjust 1986 dollars for inflation it works out the kit should cost $31 - which is effectively EXACTLY what the kit now costs. Plus if you were to buy it directly from Japan the sales price is around $25 making it cheaper than inflation dollars. Consider they had to get fresh brand new 2018 BMW Licensing for the kit, new box art, all the 2018 molding costs, et al. There is also the likely factor that you as an American couldn't have found a Fujimi BMW in 1986 unless you had a superbly stocked LHS who could order things from overseas as I don't think most Americans were exposed to the kit until Testors reboxed it, plus it was competing against the Monogram Exotics Series kit which was selling at relatively normal U.S. pricing at the time, which would have made the Fujimi priced Bimmer at $20-25 (figuring for export costs, LHS overhead etc) out of this world expensive by comparison Now lets look at the AMT old school tooling of the 1957 Chevy. That kit cost $1.99 in the 1960s, has been reissued a bajillion times by every company that has subsequently owned AMT (as opposed to three reissues of the above BMW), and in it's most recent "Pepper Shaker" reissue has an MSRP of $31.95. That $2 adjusted for inflation is $14. Are you SERIOUSLY going to tell me the reason that kit is priced at DOUBLE the inflation costs is because the value of the tooling - which has been paid for by AMT, Lesney, Ertl, Racing Champions, Tomika, and Round2 has DOUBLED? I mean let's be realistic here, the value of that tooling is basically whatever the price of scrapping steel would be at this point. After 4 intervening ownerships regimes since it was created (and undoubtedly paid off back in the Troy, MI days) there is no tangible value to that physical asset, or most of the rest of the tooling catalog at AMT/MPC. Of the purchase price maybe 35% (and I feel I'm being generous) was the cost of those hunks of steel, the rest of it was for buying the name & trademarks of AMT/MPC. Much like Revell, which if were to be sold tomorrow in Hobbico's bankruptcy, would be less about the model kits and more about owning the Revell/Monogram name. If you were to win the lottery and buy either, and then rename it Horsepower Models - your sales would be an incredible uphill battle to convince people the new name was something that could be trusted. Look at the fiasco Oakey went through over JoHan, and that is almost SOLEY about the name of the company since there isn't even tooling to speak of involved in that sale. What it boils down to is that the cost of reissuing a kit, is nominal per kit. When you buy 6k identical boxes, 6k identical decal sheets, 6k identical instruction brochures (which at Round2 aren't even being done fresh in terms of hiring someone to make new ones) you're talking a couple of bucks per kit in costs. I can sell you 26 tons of plastic pellets for around $40k delivered to your front door, which means the value of the plastic per kit is maybe...ehh a quarter. There's a reason that reissues are considered to be "printing money".

Tooling money usage - A+. But it seemed most people here wanted custom 1957 Chevy parts, not some generic seats and lake pipes. Not sure the entire combination is worth $15 - which is the Auto World Store price - the actual MSRP is $17. At that price you're creeping up towards what the entire '57 Ford costs if you attack it with a 40% of coupon ($19.17)...

This sorta makes this reissue of the '72 Vettes sort of a given...

Somehow I don't think this is exactly what you guys were expecting with this...(March Release) AMTPP018/24 57 Fantasy Parts Pack The Kats from AMT introduce the 57 Fantasy Parts Pack. It features specialized, gleaming chrome parts and pad-printed tires for customizing almost any 1/25 scale 1950s car model: side pipes, bumperettes, baby moon wheel caps, rolled rear pan, custom shift lever and diamond-tuft quilted quad seats. Best of all, a set of four Firestone Supreme tires with an exclusive pre-decorated white and gold pinstripe design are included! Features: • 1/25 scale, skill 2 • chrome plated customizing parts • add style to almost any 1950s model car • set of four Firestone Supreme tires with special white and gold pinstriping