niteowl7710

Mine showed up this morning from Tower Hobbies, and like everyone else that has one I am perplexed and flummuxed as to how all of this styrene fit in this box to begin with...I was even careful unpacking it to not get things out of order, but I'll be darned if it all fits back in though. All the "bashing" that was done to this one has resulted in Moebius' best effort thus far. If I look at the 2016 Moebius releases vs. what we know of Revell's (granted the 1Q only), and my limited interest in Round2's reissues, it certainly looks like the majority of my domestic hobby dollars will be flowing directly to Florida. With the '65 Comet the only new tool announced kit that hasn't seen it's first variation yet, is it too early to start demanding to know what's next? I know that there's the '54 Hudson, '61 Catalina, '65 Belvidere, and '71 Ford Custom Sport (Tower Hobbies has it listed for March *snkr*), along with the M.K. '70 Ford Custom, and Mopar Missile coming in 2016, with Sean teasing the Pontiac NASCAR parts a few weeks ago. I will gleefully absorb all of them short of the drag '65 & Pontiac NASCAR (sorry just not my genres of interest) into my Styrene Mountain, But those are all just variations of existing releases, come on what's NEW from Moebius in 2016/17

IMHO I think you really get what you pay for with the DS19, it's a fantastic kit of a car that I doubt any of us expected to ever see get tooled up as a new kit. The 2CV P/U is a nice kit, but Ebbro decided to make all of their own dirty bits and stop sourcing them out of Tamiya (like with the 2CV Fourgonnete), and in the process they made it a curbside...a choice that might have come down to $$$ as the hood is separate and it looks like it would have been tooled for an engine. It is pretty neat in the terms that it's a much earlier 2CV in terms of production year with the large pre-1960 grill and "ripple" hood. Still it's the most expensive curbside I think I own that wasn't a hard to find OOP kit.

Free shipping is within France... Also the DS19 is made by Ebbro - the makers of the 2CV Fourgonette, a completely different and separate 4L, 4 Fourgonnette, and 2CV "Slough" Pick-up...so you're in for a really long wait if you expect that to show up on Heller's website. Please take the nearest detour to your favorite Japanese retailer, although be aware Japan is on vacation until Monday. Oh and the Light Commercial version of Heller's 4L are a taxi, police car, and fire buggy.

Revell managed to drag in Subaru's licensing to do their diecast/plastic WRX that was part of the Tuner Series... Volkswagen was always supposedly impossible to work with, but Round2 has certainly figured out who they needed to deal with in recent years. Plus all the branded tires...heck if there's anyone I would trust could get a licensing deal done if it was financially viable for a project, it'd be the folks in South Bend.

Unless there's a cost involved that is higher than Round2 is comfortable paying I would have to think the Brat is either in the works for 2016, or the tooling is not in a condition conducive to reissuing it. Subaru licensing itself can't be THAT hard to obtain as Aoshima, Fujimi, Hasegawa, AND Tamiya are all licensees, with Aoshima & Fujimi releasing a number of reissues of their 90s & 00s kits in 2015.

I've yet to see a Heller Renault 4L come across eBay in the 6 months that the kit has been available, and only a few of the other newly boxed reissues have surfaced. Perhaps I need to search more broadly specifically by International Sellers or something...although I get all the Japan, Hong Kong, etc sellers otherwise...does no one realize there would be a resale market for Heller kits on eBay beyond the old original releases?

Appreciate the offer...in reality the costs of the shipping worked into the kit makes them like $35 a piece. Considering that when HLJ carries Heller products the tend to be $31-36 before shipping (for some reason the reissue of the 5CV Trefle for instance is $36, but the Dehayle, Bugatti and Hispano are all $31), and the local show vendor had the E-Type Jag reissues for $32 a piece...$35 without having to drive anywhere or wait the 6+ months behind that HLJ seems to run with Heller kits (they just NOW got in the Dehayle and Bugatti) doesn't really wind up being that outrageous.

Because I already spend several hours a week putting together a weekly YouTube Series that covers kit announcements, and new releases in-depth...and it was covered back in July when it came out. It's not my job to force people to watch it (it was in my signature line for months), nor is it my job to hand-hold the entire internet. Watch the series be informed, otherwise enjoy the blissful ignorance of what's going on. P.S. The Asuka/Ebbro 2CV Slough-based P/U came out in August, and the straight up Ebbro version came out in October. It's an entirely new tool sharing nothing but a few cab pieces with their 2CV Fourgonette. Overall a nice kit, but rather pricey for almost $50 US it's unsatisfactorily a curbside. Irony being the British Military version which has a few extra parts from Asuka is actually about $12 cheaper. Go figure...

Yes I know...it was more of a rhetorical question, as I'd like to just put in one mass order to try to spread out the shipping costs a bit. Two kits clock in at over $26 US in shipping charges alone. I can FedEx several somethings from Japan for that amount. Interesting if you translate it back into English - well their English version, it still says 4th Quarter 2015...They got 3 days, they can make it! I'm intrigued to see what they have up their sleeves at the Toy Faire in February.

Mine was straight as an arrow as well. Looks like someone sat on Christian's somewhere along the line.

I will be needed two, along with a Mehari. Now where's that farm tractor?

That bakery version of the Fourgonnette has been out since the beginning of July. Did everyone take a nap? Or did that model kit get banned to the Truck Basement since the Fourgonnettes are Light Commercial?

They also allegedly retooled the missing 5 spoke mag wheels from the 70s version of the kit.

If you come up with a total number of kits, be it 10 choices, or the multi-hundreds in your stash, you can go to the Random Integer Generator and instead of having it pick a number, you can have it spit out a list of randomized numbers thereby giving you a "build sheet" for your entire collection!

I just got my HLJ Purchase Request as well, the kit itself was $24.38. I didn't even pre order it right after HLJ went live with it, so I wasn't going to be surprised if I had to wait on a second "wave" of kits to get mine. But it's two days after 1999 got theirs in, which is about right on normal fulfillment schedule. Delivery of Tamiya products has been somewhat uneven at best at HLJ this year, hopefully this signals they're all playing nice again. One thing I have noticed about HLJ vs 1999 (Hobby Search) is that HLJ will not put listings up unless they have an estimated date the kit is going to be released on...whereas 1999 will add things to their Pre Order section with "No Fixed Date" as the expected delivery. If you really spend time in the 1999 basement looking for kit instructions and whatnot you'll notice it's littered with kits that have "Reservations Closed" beside the Release Date, meaning the kit was announced by a company (a lot of them seem to be Fujimi kits) and then for whatever reason were subsequently canceled and the kit was never released.

Point of order here...where is this "refuses to do a full engine detail kit anymore" hogwash come from? Was the Tamiya LaFerrari not full detail? How about the 300SL or Honda S600? Or the Skyline 2000 GT-R Street Custom? Or the R-32 GTR NiSMO Custom? That's FIVE full detail kits in the past 18 months from Tamiya, out of a total of SEVEN automotive releases. If you want to go beyond that they reissued the Toyota Land Cruiser 80 VX Limited, Land Cruiser 80 Sports Options, and Alfa Romeo 155 V6 TI kits in Jaegermeister and Alfa Corsa liveries - all of those are so full detail they practically ooze engine parts out the box seams. The only two kits released recently that were curbside are the Toyoda AA and this new MX-5. The Toyoda AA seems like someone's pet project, it's such an oddball subject matter. Tamiya's 1st Gen (NA) Miata and Eunos Roadster kits were curbside, setting the level of acceptance for what to expect out of their kit on this vehicle. In addition the MX-5 has an issue that prevents it from having an engine, that being the JDM Mazda Roadster, and the MX-5 that North America, Europe, and other countries get two separate engines. They're already putting 4 building options worth of parts and decals in the box, and while I could take or leave the driver figure, she's supposedly modeled off a long time Tamiya employee. I don't think it's also reasonable to expect them to tool up two sets of upper engine parts and accessories along with all of the various LHD vs. RHD engine compartment pieces on a $26 model kit. If it suddenly becomes a $37 model kit with the engine pieces, and slams into the U.S, LHS Shelves with a $59.99 MSRP are is anyone actually willing to shell out that extra $10 for a 2.0L 4cyl?

There's no such thing as free postage in the U.S...ever...to anywhere...unless you buy yourself a little Jeep, paint an Eagle on the side and go pickup the parcel yourself. People might offer Free Shipping, but they're just plowing the $6-14 charge into the actual item price. There are a number of Japan & H.K. based eBay retailers that will offer "Free Shipping" when sending kits to the U.S. because we don't have Customs/Import Duties on Model Kits here, but if you really know the prices of the kits, you know you're paying $10 or so too much for the kit itself. Although you might shave a buck or two off the price of buying the kit and paying the S&H charges separately when they combine it into the item's price on a BiN "auction". But much like when your sister bundles things together, buying in bulk anywhere makes the over shipping charge go down. Especially since the USPS charges by an odd weight & volume system where sometimes more items in the same size box can ride for the same price as shipping one item. The costs of shipping things to Europe has gone up over 40% compared to last year. There's more than a few eBayers out there that overcharge for shipping, but most people have simply adjusted to the increased costs being passed along by the Postal Service.

There is a '65 Belvidere I A-990ish inspired (as it's not an actual A-990 package) car coming from Moebius directly, that's separate from the Model King Drag specific release.

Nobody has mentioned the "super exciting" part of this kit - it's molded in PEARL ORANGE

Incidentally the two December kits (the Van and the Police Wagon) came into stock this morning.

I don't know if Tomytec is the new name, but they are indeed part of Tomy. This is what AMT could have been (quality-wise) if Tomy had maintained ownership, but I suppose people are just happy to have the same old kits with new box art shuffled off the dock.

The cost of this kit directly from Japan is less than $25. Something else to consider is the Cedric and Gloria while sisters, were separate car models. Plus as the tradition with most Japanese kits, they didn't de-content it between releases so you get three sets of wheels, two transmission choices, and multiple interior building choices. For less than $25...even scaled up to 1/24 I bet it's less than $30. It would actually be great if they would scale it up since there's already two series of Cedric/Gloria kits from Aoshima & Fujimi out there, and I'm sure a bunch of us would love to have the wagons (especially full detail ones) to add to the mix.

Yes Steve, but without them advertising that it has the grille it was lacking, and from the comments here that bothered more than just me, who beside the diehard forum regulars will ever know it's in there? Indy 500 stuff is aimed more at the collectors market (see all the Round2 Indy Corvettes that were repeatedly released), plus the added upcharge of the Linda Vaughn figure. The biggest selling point of this kit is the grill that lets you build the 4-4-2 you were denied in 2007, and it's not mentioned anywhere on the box, or in Revell literature about the release. If Bill hadn't asked for pictures, and Brett hadn't taken some, at what point would ANYONE have found out? Because I personally already own both of the earlier kits, so this one was not on my radar as I don't need a THIRD Cutlass Convertible with an Indy 500 tie-in and figure I'd never use. I DO however need a 4-4-2 grille...

Oh no Sir, Round2 has in fact tooled up several new kits, just Batmobile excluded they've all been SciFi. As a matter of fact in December they'll be releasing a 1/48 kit from Space:1999 that has over 400 parts and an MSRP of $108.99... Meanwhile the automotive hobby is battling the $30 ceiling because 79% of their customer base starts every conversation about kit purchases with "Back in MY day when Pactra Spray paint was a quarter and model its were a NICKEL!" Round2 has simply seen where they're investments will be most rewarded, with SciFi builders who are no strangers to spending money it's new kits. With El Cheapo car builders they get Mistalgia box art, a mini box, and maybe some pad printed tires and then slapped with the full new kit price tag. By and large this seems to tickle car modelers to death and why should Round2 stop bilking their customers for the same kit they already have 8 of that they will never build, when they can get a 9th with fancy box art that reminds them of their childhood, puppies and freshly mown grass? Back at the matter at hand, Moebius gets two well deserved thumbs up and another $24.50 of my cashola for listening to criticism over the wheels and body and correcting the problems. However I take issue with anyone that says these kits are the "Gold Standard" of anything until Moebius adopts the chrome runner attachment that are the SoP of Japanese kit manufacturers that attaches trim pieces, wheels, et al to the runner via a nub on the BOTTOM/BACK of the part rather than directly to the part. It's not actually 1961 anymore, and for this chrome destroying attachment points to still be considered acceptable is appalling. For anyone who got one of the Tamiya 300SLs go look at how the chrome trim is attached, then take another look at Tim's excellent photos and tell me which way you want your parts attached. I for one am thoroughly depressed at the though of trying to touch up, re-BMF, Alclad, or have parts re-chromed like this in 2016. I will happily pay $35 for this kit if I never have to see direct part attachment to trim rings, center caps, and bumpers ever again in my lifetime.

Because the first kit could be built as the Hurst Olds OR the 4-4-2. It shows a built 4-4-2 on the box and included the striping for it, but not the actual grille needed to make a 4-4-2. Perhaps it's not the wrong grille if you want to be technical, but omission of the OTHER grille that should have been included to build what the box art advertised.