niteowl7710

If you didn't already pre-order this kit in the first days it was available, you're still not going to get one, but it has finally come into stock at your favorite reputable direct from Japan online retailer. I'm sure some will pop up on eBay at a premium, but the initial run of kits was already sold out before they ever got on the "shelves" at it were.

Yeah the top right half (square lights) are the Cedric specific clear parts. Looks like everything is just run on one clear runner, than trying to break it up into a glass runner and small light runner.

Round 2's website says November.

Notice - the hood is not molded in even though it is a curbside - there is NO ENGINE. The hood is molded separately because the Cedric uses a slightly different one. That allowed them to get two cars out of the same body mold. Brilliance all the way around, by actually planning out the kits properly they were able to issue two trim levels of the vehicle at the same time simply by molding the variances in the trim separately and not requiring an entirely separate body tool for the Cedric.

That's because their license was up, and they decided to work on other projects right now rather than renew it at the current fee Ferrari was asking for...it's not like they were illegally making Ferrari models and got caught selling the copies (to make your Napster analogy work).

Well considering these kits were made in that free wheeling time where Revell made a Capri and Mustang out of the same kit, and a late 2nd Gen Camaro & Firebird out of the same kit with just the nose and tail being different between the each set of "twins", it's wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. For as much as we sometimes lament a lack of accuracy these days, the 80's were another ball of wax entirely.

You'd have to find a really well stocked LHS that does a brisk business in Asian kits to find most Fujimi models. They export a few things directly, but their main focus is their domestic market. You can easily find them on eBay (usually a few are from U.S. auctions), and of course the usual suspects in direct retailers (Hobby Search, Hobby Link Japan).

MPC didn't do an annual of the Turbo Firebird Pace Car per se, but when MPC was purchased by Ertl (owners of AMT) they got all of the tooling. So things like the Beretta, Silverado, Corvette, Camaro & Firebird annuals were just rolled right out the next year (in 1989-1990 form) by AMT. MPCs last Firebird annual was in 1988, but AMT/Ertl ran it back out in 1989 as the GTA and the 20th Anniversary Turbo Firebird Pace Car. The tooling then kept trotting along through the new noise and rear end in 1991 & 1992 before the tooling was parked when the car was completely redesigned in the 4th Generation in 1993. Incidentally all of the lower body cladding are separate pieces - it's the bottom runner that's peeking up beside the tires. Now if you in 2014 reissue the KITT kit, the tooling is parked somewhere between 1989 and 1992 -- I presume the pre-1991 nose, interior and rear pieces still exist on a runner tool somewhere, as do the KITT specific parts. But it will be interesting to see if they clean up the duplications, or if they'll just pour plastic into the molds and you'll get two hoods, and all the GTA/Street Machine cladding as well. Actually a LOT of the MPC tooling that was halfway decent was immediately reissued as AMT kits shortly after the "merger". The '69 Olds 442 & W-30 kits are one of the last MPC tools cut and released in 1988, but they were pretty quickly given new AMT boxes in the early 1990's. Then of course the 442 was just reissued here recently in the Round 2 Retro AMT Box Art. Ya know MPC did tool a 1982 Camaro as the Pace Car for that year. The bodies on the Camaro & Firebird are close enough that back in the free-wheeling barely making days of the early 80's it's not beyond the realm of possibilities that the Camaro & Firebird were birthed from the same body tool pattern and no one noticed/cared that they left the Indy logo on the Firebird.

Attached is the kit layout for the 1987 Firebird Annual, and you can see it also has two hoods. 1986 was the end of the Knight Rider (at least in terms of new episodes, it ran in syndication for what seems like forever afterwards). I don't know that the kit of KITT (HA!) was reissued in 1986 or not, but the actual 1:1 was a 1982 which is part of the problem. This is how things roll here in the States, cash in on the popularity of a TV show or Movie by tossing a few pieces into an already existing kit, no one will ever notice. It'll be interesting to see exactly what this looks like when Round 2 reissues it next year since afterwards the tooling would have gotten used up into 1989 to make the GTA Annual and it's sister kit the Turbo Firebird Indy Car -- which if memory serves me didn't actually include any Turbo or anything else, just a different set of decals.

No based on the eBay ID History it's Matt Conte resurfacing out of the mire once again. Aka DENCON Scale Resin Specialties...already got a negative feedback for not delivering product just today, so Matt is being Matt again.

HLJ has the box art. Hobby Search has photos of all the runners, decals, masks, and metal transfers. As mentioned by Ben, the 18 page instruction novella is scanned there too. Looks like this is about ready to go.

So who's the super-secret mystery resin caster? I'm sure they'd like a little acknowledgement for all the work they did to get decade plus old molds and masters back in a condition so they could be used again.

Aoshima only included the LHD/Lexus markings in the kit you have and the VLENE VIP car. The Celsior while the same car, is a RHD Japan Domestic Market car. Granted the Fujimi IS and LS kits are RHD, but I'm trying to have a car dealership worth of Lexus kits and the LS 430 is the only one I miss out whenever the stock version pops up. I'd like to get the Tamiya LS because it has the engine, but they pop up regularly and push comes to shove I have the Aoshima New Trend USA kit - which is what was re-packaged and sold here by AMT/Ertl. Not trying to sob story you into getting rid of it, but sometimes people buy a "lot" of kits to get something they want, and flip the rest. I was just checking for that in this case.

Bummer I can find the Vlene VIP version of that LS 430 all over, but the flat stock ones are always showing up when I'm not paying attention to eBay. Maybe Aoshima will eventually do a spot run of it again at some point.

The Tamiya LS 400 and Aoshima LS 430...you wish to send them to me *stares hypnotically at the screen* Serious if your interested in getting ridding of them, especially the LS 430 let me know.

Well there are a couple of new Camaro kits out. The ones from AMT are curbside (no engine) but are available as a Convertible and in ZL-1 configurations. Revell also offers a Camaro SS kit that has an engine and higher part content.

Along with the up-top version of the Typ G4, they've clearly attended the Revell School of Convertible Production.

So this makes a great stock looking sleeper, wish this type of option was available for the addition of the supercharger in the '57 Ford.

Their previous 1/24 offering of the Typ G4 was available here through a few channels, the cheapest was eBay. Look to spend $40-55 depending...

Commodities Relocation Specialist. Truck Driver to you civilians...

Glanced at this while I was out at the LHS picking up the AMT Ford LN8000 Race Car Hauler, and it clearly says "Parts Molded in Black Unless Otherwise Indicated" on the box bottom square in the middle of the part's runner layout. So someone needed to convey that information ahead of time to people, although since this kit doesn't even exist on the Round 2 website, who knows if that was a last minute decision or what.

The body is arguably more accurate than Revell's since it's based on factory data for the promo model, but the lump of a chassis leaves tons to be desired for it to ever be more than a nice looking display shelf model.

Well what you have there is a '90/'91 AMT Firebird GTA with the hood and nose piece off the '92 Monogram Firebird Formula.

This was never going to be anything other than a re-hash of the existing curbside Camaro kit. But it's sad to see yet another cartoon lightbar, and the total lack of any type of police gear (radio, radar, et al) for the interior. Because I'm not exactly sure what Round 2 feels is the market for these kits. They're borderline Snap-Tite kits, but they sell at the adult-end of the kit price spectrum. It's just a push bumper and "lightbar" slapped in an existing kit as an after thought...tsk tsk tsk.