niteowl7710

Hey look at least it's a separate piece! Also it's not sharing the uniform front engine/RWD chassis blank that most of the "Best Car Vintage" kits do. I assume you can feel the sarcasm, but it was a different era. I bought the version of this kit with a roof about 20 years ago because I wanted to build a homage to the one my parents owned, this kit was the only Beetle I could find back then and ironically - considering how much I import directly from Japan these days - really soured me towards import kits for a long time.

Ahh but the rub there (I don't know where I even have time to lay facts with all the libelling of Revell I have yet to accomplish today) is the '55 was done as the drop top, then the tool moved to the '56 Nomad which has a different chassis plate (which then underpinned the '57 kits) and as such there's no X-Brace to automatically run out of the molds for the '57 Convertible without running off several thousand of the '55s runner and clipping those parts off and tossing 'em in the '57 kit. I can accept with the rather circular kit provenance someone assumed the chassis plate and parts runners were identical...to err is to be human and all of that. But at the same time apparently no one in the test shot phases, or anyone who looked at the tooling "board" noticed until right before the kit shipped. It's sorta an even wash there. Shouldn't have happened, SOMEONE at Revell (if the person who knew retired already) needs to know the tooling history to know they needed to cut steel for that brace. But kudos to them for fixing it pre-release when someone did bring it to their attention. I still believe it was fixed as a preference in subject matter, ie '90 LX was too new to care about. Remember all those Ferraris are from Germany and prior to last summer that was a separate compsny.

Was I screaming bloody murder and "slandering" Revell when I said they had a great year of kits in 2012, or was it the part where I gave them credit for a strong finish (albeit with chrome issues - but that's easily corrected) in 2013? Or is it just the fact I have a problem with their mishappened LX, or their 7 point, compass pointed, 70's Disco Fender flared Cuda? Of course it's not slander at all, it would be LIBEL, since while reading the stuff you type does occasionally make me ask people "What is UP with this guy?", slander is the defamation of something via the spoken word, sign language or gestures. I guess in the rush to bash yet ANOTHER person on this forum it's better to be fast than right? Something you share with your beloved Revell. Aside from Chuck's assertions that I've seen more than enough photos of the LX, I actually have physically SEEN the kit, held it in my hand, and put it back in the box and said "NOPE!" Ya know Tom, more than 50% of my kit stash is invested in Revell kits, that works out to be round about $2,500 I have tied up in their kits. So I believe I have a dependable used car's worth of skin in the game. Thanks. But more over I love that slam, it comes up from you and several others in this thread. Ya know the one WELL SO AND SO PROBABLY HAS NEVER - Choose One or More EVEN SEEN THE KIT EVEN BUILT A MODEL KIT, THEY JUST BUY THEM REALIZED WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN A BUSINESS EVEN ATTEMPTED BUILDING A MODEL, THEY'RE JUST A KIT ASSEMBLER EVEN CONSIDERED IF WE DON'T PRAISE THE KIT MANUFACTURERS AS GODS THEY'LL ALL CLOSE AND WE'LL ALL DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!! I don't know who died and made you Pope of the Hobby. I also don't see why I, or anyone else here need to constantly prove ANYTHING to you. You already got egg on your face with that one once in these 8 pages, but fine...here ya go Somewhere in the mass of all of those decals I collected over the past couple of years ever since the LX rumors were solid are the decals to make all of the SSP Mustangs that the Revell kit would represent ('90-'93). I suppose I should just paint, decal, and equip them however the heck I want to then, since that'd be "Good Enough" for everyone else. Do I need to go dig through my e-mails to show the negotiations I had to buy THREE CASES of these kits before I saw the fetid lump of disappointment Revell decided to bestow upon all of us toy loving modelers? If you think I'm buying three cases of resin replacement bodies ON TOP of the model kits you sir, have officially lost your mind. If you think I'm going to spend several additional weeks fixing 33 roofs instead of expecting the thing to just - GASP - be correct to begin with...well I dunno what, you already lost your mind in the last statement. I thought the nearly $600 I'd invest in the kits would be sufficient skin for Revell's tastes, but I guess they'd rather hang onto those kits and sell them to people who don't care...oh wait once they sell them to the retailers and distributors they don't care if they move off the shelves or not. SALES SUCCESS! Maybe everyone who got a Revell Charger with that botched roof should send those corrected kits back to Revell and either fix their own roofs and or pony up for a resin replacement? The people I know, who are in your club, who know you personally keep telling me your a really nice guy in person, but online you come off like a raging megalomaniacal pompous jerk. Keep that in mind for future reference...I went to the NNL East in 2012, so I know what kind of Top Shelf event it is, but people who have never been just know that YOU are the defacto spokesperson with a bad online temper.

They were told back when the kit was shown in it's tooling shot format debut at the NNL in Toledo, so that's a good eight MONTHS in advance of when the kit came out. They had time to go back and fix the size of the previously GIANT out of scale 5.0 badge on the fender, but hey I suppose I should just be glad Revell's in business right? I'm not buying the resin kit, because I refuse to buy the actual KIT in the first place. I'm not going to financially support Revell's "Good enough for the girls we run with" attitude towards their kits. 2012 was a great year for them, and they managed to pull their collective heads out of their hind-ends for the last couple of releases of 2013, but their two big banner kits were dismal flops. I've talked to my LHS guy, they aren't moving nearly as many LXs and Cudas as you'd expect them to if 95% of the people simply didn't care what the kits looked like. But lets take a pause and think to what SHOULD have been released in 2013, but wasn't. The '57 Bel Air Convertible...anyone remember that one? The kit that got slammed into an 8 month delay because no one there realized the "X-Brace" was missing of the chassis until the last minute? So clearly if the subject matter is "worth it", they are more than willing to toss the budget and timeline right out the collective window to fix things.

There's one more kit in that set of announcements and that's the "blown-up to 1:24" version of the 1:35 Admiral Saloon, which is the metal roofed version of the two Admiral Cabriolet kits. For their first (I presume these are new tools) set of automotive kits, the Model T is an interesting choice. Now presuming the whole of the Ukraine doesn't implode in the coming weeks...

Lets see here I can pony up an extra $30 for a body to fix a nearly $30 model, that being a resin copy of something will require a defined amount of cleaning up and fiddling with no matter how good a copy it is, in addition to the fact that the roof was only part of the problems the LX has baked in. Oooooooooooor Revell can pony up the cash to fix the effing mold that they knew was incorrect (and everyone loves to just ignore -- THEY KNEW, THEY WERE TOLD!) before the model went into production in the first place. Weighing the option...weighing the options...yeah gonna have to go with Revell has to fix the mold.

I get this picture of George lying his basement floor going "VROOM VROOM VROOM" with his models. Because that's how it would be a TOY. But beyond that two things -- 1. Asian kits are NOT twice as expensive unless you choice to pay the U.S. Retail mark-up for them. Revell's new tool kits on their corporate website are the same - and in some case a few bucks MORE - than a comparable Aoshima or Fujimi kit via direct importation. By the way Revell/Round 2/Moebius kits costs twice as much as a domestic kit in Japan, so they ARE paying $40+ for that gem of a LX Mustang, imagine how they feel. 2. You get what you pay for, namely innovative use of technology, and attention to detail. Realize this video is mostly about 1/350 scale ship, but it give a little window into a company that isn't trying to make toy boats.

Come on Tom, you're better than resorting to the tired hack "show me proof" red herring subject change. You can disagree vehemently with the opinion, but that's no reason to attack the opinion holder themselves because they choose not to share the work here (of all places). You take offense to it? Man talk about priorities...

You had to redo the bumper because the bumper that's in the kit is the updated one from the 2013+ ProStars, you (and I alike) both drove earlier ones with the original bumper. Beyond including TWO bumpers in the kit, Moebius elected to make the newer truck over the older one. At least it's not the half old-half new bumper that it was in the last round of tooling shots before the kit was released. And this attitude is why we get $25 misshapen lumps that "look good enough for the shelf I run with", and the IPMS crowd gets $100, 667 part armored vehicles in a smaller scale with a ridiculously robust aftermarket support. Because automotive modelers are seen as over-grown temperamental children who play with their TOYS, whereas the IPMS crowd is trying to REPLICATE something. Priorities are important, blah blah blah, but acting like fixing a bunch of things that SHOULDN'T have been wrong with a kit had anyone taken 60 seconds just to glance at what was going on before punching the "MOLD" button is in any way, shape, or form "entertaining" is ridiculous. I accept there is an entry level amount of work to clean up the "flaws" that are inherent with injecting molding - mold lines, flash, seams, etc - but raising roofs, creating new glass because of that, having to file off exaggerated fender flares and reshape character lines...

I think the thing that's been overlooked in this discussion is the great unwashed masses - outside hyper fanatical model forums - is that the majority of people want to build a model of the hottest, most optioned muscle car they can get. They aren't building a case of '70 Cudas with every engine option, they are building one, and it's going to be the top of the line performance monster that is a Hemi Cuda. There's a reason we don't get 6 cyl 2010 Camaro and 2010 Mustang kits, all the Modern MOPAR kits are SRT8s and the like. 3n1 kits of yore may have had more than one engine option, but traditionally speaking they weren't more than one STOCK engine option. You got Factory Stock, Custom, and some form of racing, not F/S, down trim F/S, and bargain stripped economy F/S. I'm all for variety and all of that, but if you want to build a Malibu instead of a Chevelle, or a Tempest instead of a GTO that's on you as a builder and the aftermarket to supply. No one, regardless of kit manufacturer can focus on making the "every day" mid-trim car. Even Asian manufacturers and their seeming unending supply of run of the mill 4-door cars are simply the base for a series of mild to wild VIP and Tuner vehicles that come afterwards. Gotta toss a "bone" to the factory stock guys and all of that. Manufacturers have to focus on what will sell to the largest market and that the "Halo" dream cars - ala the auction cars. No one (well almost no one since I know SOMEONE will chime in that they would) watches a Barret Jackson TV telecast hoping to see that pristine no option Slant 6 '70 Charger roll across. Plus in reality all things - costs, insurance, storage, etc - can anyone here REALLY, HONESTLY claim they'd rather own a '70 Barracuda with a 318 over a '70 Hemi Cuda in 1:1?

Is the only place you can view the engine with the bonnet closed through the three hexagonal-shaped holes? The kit also has a pair of thin metal (real metal) parts to hold the engine cover open if you want to display it that way.

About 20 years ago when I did my "stint" as a cashier at a BP station our pumps were on during the day and Pre-Pay from 10pm-6am. You'd usually have 1 or 2 people a week try to drive off without paying, sometimes with the entire nozzle and hose still attached. Gas was about 89 cents a gallon back then... when you're broke and desperate and/or just a thief you're going to steal regardless of the time of day. Several states have implemented laws suspending one's license for fuel theft, but that's only effective against a fairly law abiding person. Otherwise I doubt they care much one way or the other if they have a valid license.

Would that Chinese company be "Lee"? If so it's even worse, it's a perfectly good Tamiya kit that's been "reverse engineered" so that every bit of Tamiya goodness has been erased and replaced by the mojo of illegal copying.

That would be the original late 90s issue, which Round 2 later reissued in 2008 with the blue & white car on the box.

Ooooor if you want the REAL idea of the American Hot Rod/Muscle Car scene in Japan without the bewildering side of xenophobia... http://www.borderskustom.com/Site/Welcome.html or http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/12/live-report-ttac-shows-you-all-the-american-cars-in-japan-gobs-and-gobs-of-whacky-pictures/

Well allow me to stand thoroughly corrected, I'm glad you finally dug up the numbers a month after the fact to assure you had the last word in the matter...glad I only paid $42 for my ProStar though.

I'll be interested to see if the pre-painted kits are somehow de-contented existing glue kits with some tweaked parts, or clean sheets using some of the existing patterns/tooling. The '13 Challenger SRT isn't that far removed from the existing '09. The ZL1 Camaro would require more work if they wanted to correctly represent the engine on the top side as well as obvious changes to the body, but it's not that far away from being workable from the existing '10 SS kit. Then that begs the obvious question of re-contenting the pre-painted kits to release them as full "in-white" glue kits if they're modified versions of the existing glue kits.

Tamiya's kits of "American" cars (with the exception of the Mustang) weren't North American model vehicles either, they were the Euro Spec export versions, which is why they tended to be trimmed "incorrectly".

I don't think Meng has been around long enough to do that, Other than increased distribution for Meng, I can't see the benefit as it wouldn't drop the price of the kit any for the end user, if anything it'd be more expensive, as seen with the Revell AG Moebius kits. With Revell AG now being owned by Hobbico, I'm not sure I can see them re-packaging this one downstream since that would make the folks there who've insisted there was no market for pick-up kits look like they were reading the tea leaves incorrectly.

I reserve to throw anti-Revell rant at a later date once we know what the two new pre-decorated glue kits are like. If they're Revell's attempt at the AMT Showroom Replica kits, I certainly hope they come with something more looking like a chassis than the crude promo blobs that are under the AMT kits. Something simplified in a glue kit in the vain of the Early 90's Snap-Tite full detail kits would be nice. There will be a way to strip the paint off the things, although it would be interesting to see how they'd be received in any kind of contest/display setting -- there are still people who believe the only '58 Edsel is the pre-painted one, and every time one comes up a fiery debate about "assembling a pre-painted kit and daring to enter it in a REAL model contest" comes up. I get the point of keeping the '15 Mustang to it's 6 part auto show configuration, albeit hopefully with something resembling the car's chassis rather than flat plastic plate that it comes with now. However that really does limit what any serious modeler can do with it if it's not even going to have headlight & tail lights, etc. One can only hope there's a glue kit, or one of these pre-painted glue kits coming as a more robust solution to that "problem".

MY posts continue to be negative? Holy Moses how to you carry those around with out a wheelbarrow? You being Mr. "I Refuse to Offer Anymore Help Without Being Thanked Profusely". This thread is about TESTORS HOBBY SHOP ONLY kits. It was a line of kits that has almost two dozen offerings, more than enough to discuss. Not kits offered by other hobby shops, not limited edition kits, not kits sold in limited quantities by specific retailers. Sir with all due respect you run around here demanding people use this forum exactly as YOU see fit (and no I'm not talking about that infamous WiP progress thread comment), and yet when there's a thread that has a specific topic, and has amazingly managed to stay on that topic, you came in offered off-topic content, and then got all bent out of shape - yes I consider telling a Mod that they're out to "dis you" after they simply made a request and even said please, being bent out of shape - when someone asked you to keep it on topic.

You of all people, who demand infinitely specific thread titles are now going to try to derail a thread which has "Testors" in the name of it because it doesn't fit what YOU want to talk about? Someone widen the door ways before you have to turn sideways...

Happens with real cars too, when I lived in Cleveland I used to attend a public auto auction every Friday morning, and watched two small BHPH lots get into a bidding war over a 2-3 year old F-150 Extended Cab 4x4 that by the time it was done with was priced at about $2,700 over KBB value. That doesn't factor in cleaning it up and doing any necessary repairs. I hope the guy who won it had a buyer already lined up for it since he was in it for more than he could ever dream of selling it for on a lot, usually cars there went for about 45-65% "retail".

When my grandfather passed 11 years ago, we were all sitting around the dining room table just howling with laughter at the things he did, or thing he said over the course of his 88 years. Then my aunt stomped out of a back bedroom and told us all that we needed to be quiet or take the conversation out onto the porch because she couldn't sleep with all that racket going on. Needless to say that really killed the mood... My aunt and I haven't been in good terms for a long time ever since that time, when after everything was over with for my grandfather's burial she came up to me and started trying to yell at me over something she thought I did and said that was "improper" - all while trying to get the type of painful arm grip you do to a small child when you're trying to intimidate them into silence. After I literally slapped her hand away (G. will know the sweep arm strike you make when you want someone to unhand you) and pointed out that she was going to make an express trip over the porch railing if she tried to touch me again, I explained the fact that at 25 years of age only my Mom has the ability to yell at me, and last I checked she wasn't my Mom. My Aunt did everything the way she wanted it done last week, right down to making sure I knew she didn't like me one little bit. Her words of consolation - the only time she actually spoke to me - was "I'm sorry for you", not my loss, not my grief, she was just sorry "for me"... I left the little luncheon after I saw the seating arrangements, and went and grabbed our kids and brought them back. Which quickly derailed her carefully choreographed afternoon of "ME CENTERED" attention mongering because who's going to pay attention to a bitter old lady when there's a super smiley 1 y/o boy, and attitude laden 2 y/o girl around? Turns out - NO ONE! My Uncle, Aunt and one female cousin all ended up leaving in a huff at the end of the afternoon without so much as even looking at me, let alone saying Goodbye. I really felt bad for my wife who got railroaded into no mans land because of my Aunt's simmering vendetta against me, because despite my insistence that my Aunt is a direct blood relation to the Anti-Christ has been nothing but superbly nice to that woman the entire 8 years we've been together.

The family member most at fault for being over-the-top offensive this time was a veritable pit of greed the last time she was involved with deaths in my family. Bald-faced, gimmie gimmie gimmie the money my husband is supposed to get in the will, etc. This time all she could do was bad-mouth me to other members of our family due to the fact that circumstances dictated I couldn't be in Ohio at the time of the passing. I was all but cut out of the funeral, fed ZERO information as to what was going on, was specifically excluded when it came to ordering flower arrangements, left completely out of all the eulogies she penned for her husband, and others to read, and as a last slap in the face at the luncheon after the church services my wife and I were forced to sit at a separate table BY OURSELVES. Who died...oh no one important just MY MOM! My poor Dad was just so overcome with grief he could barely function, and it was all I could do to just suffer through the indignity of a half-dozen people not even acknowledging I was standing in the funeral home to avoid physically punting her back across the Commonwealth into her perfect life in the Philly burbs where she spent 30+ years looking down her nose at my Mom and I. This time around the money involved doesn't flow towards her, and I'm pretty sure my dad, and I know for sure I would like to go back to last Thursday, or better yet before Christmas, as all the money in the world isn't going to bring my Mom back...