niteowl7710

The C8 GT3.R if it were made would be it's own model kit. The only two things a C8 and the racing car share is the name and the general silhouette of a Corvette. You couldn't build a Mercedes AMG GT3 out of a Revell AMG GT any easier. Even when Fujimi did an AMG SLS street car and SLS AMG GT3 car the two kits only shared the window glass piece (it's a 1 piece "tub" that covers all the window glass) which gives the race car the stupid problem of having sun visors, the central overhead storage bin/garage door opener and rear window defoggers. Also historical sales figures of previous modern Corvettes wouldn't indicate that the market couldn't handle (or want) 7 other versions of the C8 in factory production guise.

Test shots are just that - test runs of the tooling to see what needs to be fixed, so nothing would be chromed in that process. On the Camaro the sprue with wheels would be chromed, and the Blazer it's the sprue with the mirrors, bumpers, lightbar vase, etc that will be chromed.

Why on earth do I want to swap mediocre old junk into a brand new kit for? Maybe if this was 1985. But if I'm swapping into a brand new 2024 kit, then I'm using nice minty fresh, super accurate 3D printed items. No yoloing into 80s MPC tooling or 80s Monogram/Revell tooling either.

C8 has been shown 2 or 3 times around here already. It's the same display from NNL East. It's going to be in stores literally any day now so it's kind of old news at this point.

It's going to come in a North America box and a RoG box, so ours should be a regular price release.

Close ups of the Camaro sprues.

Just the box.

The T3 tooling is a Revell Germany item from the early 1980s when that van was new, I'm not sure I'd classify it as anything near "falling together" if you've ever built Revell Germany tooling from that era. It's been reissued multiple times, most recently last year. This version just has the S.T. specific parts added.

Pete (Atlantis' owner) was part of a "Industy Prospective" panel at the IPMS Nats (along with people from ICM, Eduard, etc) and he said that over the years since 2018 they've come to realize that Germany ended up with several items that were supposed to go to Atlantis and vice-versa so the two have been working on swapping tooling back and forth. One of the things that Pete wants back is the rest of the Tom Daniel stuff so that it makes a complete "set". It doesn't sound like Revell isn't amenable to that, it's just a matter of bartering back and forth. Atlantis apparently got over 600 pieces of tooling (across multiple genres of subject matter) in their acquisition and have only opened around 240 of them so far.

Then of course the cut the grass. The new K5 Blazer.

On the soon to be reissued front there were boxes for the upcoming '70 Shelby. Also for the '70 Charger which I don't remember seeing announced as a reissue, but certainly something that's been due to be repopped. The other items of note were the test shots for the Stranger Things kits. First up the Camaro, which has a new top mold insert created for the body to get rid of the T-Tops from the venerable Monogram kit. All the other parts appear to be the same as the past releases of the 3n1. Then the VW Type 3, which has one new insert created for the roof sign, and stock NA bumpers and the lower radiator grille which isn't in the original tooling.

I have pictures, I'll get around to posting them later tonight. On the news front the C8 Corvettes should be in stores in a matter of days. The Stranger Things kits (all 3) are looking like late Q4 releases.

Couple more Alpha kits for the pile.

The E31 Bimmer is just the RevellAG kit reboxed with a better set of tires & instructions. The 1st Gen NSX is still in the active Tamiya catalog, I just picked one up at HLJ for $15.13. The Acura boxing was something done back when the car was new and was a specific kit for the North American market (via TamiyaUSA). But the current Honda NSX boxing comes with the LHD parts and Acura decals.

Now I'll grant you aside from the one Build n Play and the Tamiya GT4 there's been a Darth of new body style Mustangs. But you can't say there are "few and far between" from 2005. Revell made '06 Mustang G5 '06 Mustang GT-H '07 Shelby GT500 '08 Bullit '09 Shelby GT500KR '10 GT '10 Shelby GT500 '13 Boss 302 '14 GT w/Coyote That doesn't count the '10 Mustang GT Convertible as it falls under the easy SnapTite delineation. All of those Mustangs is probably why there isn't a current one, they flooded the market in a short time with a lot of kits (7 in a span of 4 years) that they probably eventually all sold poorly and there's nothing more a model company loves to use to justify not doing something (or to do something for that matter) and that's historical sales data.

Honda N360 (while dated 1969 it was sold into the early 70s) Isuzu Bellet (again dated 1969 but sold until 1973) First Gen Honda Civic - 3 civilian, 3 race, 2 "custom" releases Upcoming Nissan Silvia S110 is a 1979 1st Gen RX-7 - initial SA22C boxing is a 1978

Ya know...some people would suggest you take these "slow months" and actually build the stuff you bought during the "heavy months"...otherwise it comes off a little "whiny hoarder". ??

The July Releases are - Multi Maverick '92 Ford F-150 Flareside '71 Dodge Charger w/selected parts from the Street Machine (Stage V Hemi, Exhaust Tips, Grabber Hood) August Releases are - 1960 Chevrolet Apache P/U Street Machine Best of luck to Chad & Taylor.

The Special Edition is only available in that gray...a "regular" NiSMO "R35" is available in the white and red as shown, along with the venerable Silver and Black Pearl. Every inch of the black stuff shown in the CAD is Carbon Fiber on the real car. The only interior choice is black with red seat inserts, and the red exterior trim is mandatory regardless of which of the 5 colors you pick. The only options are locking wheel nuts, carbon fiber trimmed floor mats, and a hard wired USB cable. All yours for the low low price of $221,000 (U.S.). Kit is supposed to come with mylar stickers and water slide decals. Be interesting to see how much (if any) of the mandated carbon exterior parts - the hood, roof, trunk, bumpers and spoiler are made out of the stuff rather than it being a wrap - will be included in the decals.

Couple of accessory orders. SpotModel garners several sheets of decals and a set of KMP resin wheels to correct the wheels in a Hasegawa Impreza. From HobbyEasy a bunch of 3D decals from Quinta Studio

October release, so it'll be a hot minute before you need to worry about that. Although most places like HLJ have it available for pre-order.

Honestly, I thought that kit was older than it is...from back when they made the 328s.

Which are 1964s...the kits in question are not yet released 1965s.

Can't be that long gone...

No there was already an Argosy, but it was a 2nd Gen (2011-2020) model which has a different front end on it. Despite it being a "U.S. Spec" kit, not a whole lot of 2nd Gen Argosys actually stayed Stateside, most got exported to countries where COEs are still popular. https://an-modeltrucks.com/shop/us-argosy-conversion-kit-scale-1-24/