niteowl7710

As a frequent importer via HobbyLink Japan I can confirm what the others have said in regards to there being NO import customs or duty fees on plastic model kits. There also isn't much of a wholesale (as we in the States would expect it) market either. Depending on exactly what kits you're trying to get $30 a piece might be more than you would pay via HLJ or Hobby Search. I am all rah rah for HLJ because they offer FedEx shipping, and for the few extra bucks I get a live tracking number, and my order arrives damage-free in 3 days like clockwork (when things are in stock). If this is your first time buying direct from Japan, I'd stick to established retail vendors for an order or two to get your feet wet, and get an idea for how long EMS & SAL take to get to your door. I'm relatively sure SAL is actually done on camel-back along the ancient Orient Spice trade routes.

My LHS has the following kits in stock... AMT/Round 2 '55 '09 '10 Convertible '12 The last 3 are the new tooling "Craftsman" style aka curbside (no engine) Revell/Monogram '53 '63 (coupe & convertible -SnapTite) '68 Convertible Aerovette Show Car '99 '01 Z06 '05 '10 ZR-1 Revell also tooled '58 & '59 roadsters which are reasonably easy to find on eBay. There is an all new '62 Vette based on the 58/59 tool coming out later in 2012 (probably late summer/early fall). You'll also find that getting the old AMT/Ertl era kits of modern Vettes (ZR-1, 50th Anniversary, etc) are easy to find on eBay, just watch the prices, some people are now calling them "VINTAGE", or "RARE & HARD TO FIND", but in reality anything over $10-15 is too much.

Got this at my LHS last weekend, currently in contact with Revell to replace the body which had a pretty severe counter-clockwise warp. Left front and right rear were trying to meet each other. Revell said they had not had any other reports like mine, so I hope I just got a "Friday" kit so to speak.

All things being equal I fail to see how disturbing photos of you in a man onesie did anything to make this a better more enjoyable place.

I notice that Dave's chrome tree in the first post also sports the same "sine wave" warp to it that my kit does. Mine was packed on the very top of the box, bent around everything to get the lid on... I don't know if they're rushing things overseas or what, but this is something like the 6th or 7th recent Revell kit that had packing and subsequent (or prior to packing) warping damage. You should see the body on my Audi R8 Spyder, looks, like someone rung it out like a wash cloth.

Looking at my photos closer you're right that is a light gray, not beige. Still isn't the dark blue that's standard. I also think the difference between city cars and the state cars (both in Az, as well as Texas & FLA) is that the troopers are going to be on their squads for quite a longer duration, and there's no shade to speak of on the median of I-8. Back to the more recent question, yes they were tan/beige in those years as evidenced by this '81 Gran Fury

AZ DPS has, or at least had tan interiors.

TX DPS Impalas (of which there were only a handful) had tan interiors. If you put a blue (or God forbid black) interior in state where the temperature parks at, and stays over 100 for the majority of the summer the car and trooper will spontaneously combust!

The COPO kit is a direct reissue of the Yenko Nova except that is missing the hood, as well as the chrome trees which had the Yenko's wheels, and hood louvers. It featured newly tooled parts which included a bench seat, flat hood and steel wheels with center caps, as well as non-SS grille and tail panel (as Chuck mentioned). Both have a 427 in them. The SS kit sports a 350, along with all of the other non-engine specific parts from the Yenko (it was the first of the triplets) with the exception again of the Yenko's wheels. You get instead a set of ralleye wheels. In addition you get a lot of drag racing pieces. Engine gets a double carb intake, and header pipes, the chassis gets traction bars, interior gets a roll bar, and there's a set of what look like Weld Draglite wheels and rear slicks. It also comes with a cowl drag style hood. There are fender trim tags for 350 and 383 as well as drag racing specific decals. Lots of people yelled when the Yenko kit came out that it was missing a bunch of parts. Revell went on to include all these missing parts in the COPO release. This (my own two cents) was a cheap trick by Revell to force us to buy ANOTHER Nova just to fix the first release. I have a hard time buying with the amount of product development Revell has that they didn't intend that to happen the entire time. See also having to buy a separate '72 Olds if you want to build a Hurst with an up-top. Or the Open & Closed versions of the Ferrari California with separate wheel choices. I digress...the simplest solution is to take the hood, louvers and decals from the Yenko kit and swap them for the flat hood and decal sheet from the COPO kit. The COPO sheet (as mentioned in the review section here externally there's no difference between the 427) has fender tags for 396, so you can build a 396SS Nova which is a fun twist as their seems to be significantly lower number of 1:1 Nova SS's with that option.

To further muddy the waters, the '55 tooling from the mid-'90's was released as a convertible originally two ways, the HT has a 2004 logo. But now both the convertible and HT are out in Monogram labeled boxes, which considering the tooling for the Street Machine kit is originally Monogram's, it seems equally plausible to presume the new tool HT is actually from the original tooling from the '60's...

That's actually pretty clever and amusing, a few subtle movie references tossed in to boot. Just the thing Super Bowl ads are all about.

Well if you ever built the '50 Chevrolet 3100 kit back in the early '90's, that's all this is with a few newly tooled parts and decal sheet for the "Texaco Service Truck". For a 15-18 year old tool that's been issued as many times as it has everything in my kit is as crisp as the original issue I have. Can't help but think this might have been a few bucks cheaper if you weren't paying Chevron the licensing fees, and it had just been re-popped like the other kits of it's era that Round 2 has done ('70 1/2 Camaro , '66 442, '55 Chevrolet Cameo, etc.) But I see the big picture, much like the kits with the Coke connection, they will sell a pile to people with no intention of building it, but collect period service station memorabilia, and/or Texaco & Chevron collectibles.

I believe he was attempting miserably at alledging everything in Wal*Mart is made in China. The deal is for the July Daytona race as it coincides with Wal*Mart's 50th Anniversary. http://www.scenedaily.com/news/articles/sprintcupseries/Bill_Elliott_to_drive_Walmart-backed_Cup_car_at_Daytona_in_July.html

Hey I recognize that Camaro! That sure was an unexpected find at the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab back in '08. It is still in-service last I heard, being assigned to the HQ it is no doubt someone's "toy" and will no doubt "accidentally" be missed by Fleet Management for a few more years to come.

Another winner Zoli!

I know I'm picking nits here, but for the life of me I would have listed the new tooling '55 HT first and not listed it as an afterthought -- It is based off the rest of the Tri-5 tooling that started with the convertible version as being THE first piece of tooling that has spawned all the subsequent variations (including this new HT). Monogram throwback packaging non-withstanding you would really have to go out of your way to find the ancient old Revell "everything opens" kit that was feature in the Hot Rod series of kits.

It's on the Official November Release Schedule. When it gets to your LHS or wherever you purchase your kit from depends on what distributor they order their kits from and/or whether they're part of the Revell Preferred Retailer program...my LHS usually has new Revell kits by the middle of the month.

Currently there are 61,571 model kits for sale on eBay, with only 5,760 of them being NASCAR. 9% of the total is a "bigger selection"? The 5 auctions at the top of the listings right now are a '68 El Camino, VW T1 Samba "Bus", '59 Cadillac, and 1925 Ford Model T (AMT Tall T kit). There are two T-Birds (Model King '71 and recent reissued '62) and then it's a plethora of JDM Toyotas. Now if none of that is your cup of tea, so be it, but there's quite a variety of building subjects in the first 50 items on Page 1 and there are only 1232 more pages to go.

You might want to check back, they are rotating stock around the stores every so often. We didn't have anything but airplanes and the '48 Lincoln for months, then 2 weeks ago everything old left, and it's all Dodge Charger Super Bees, display cases, and the diecast stuff.

This is the same "fire" sale of Lindberg kits Ollies has been shuffling around their stores since this Spring.

Well maybe he can clear up his position, but he never said he didn't have sympathy for his friends and family. But what's the point of having sympathy for him, the 343 firefighters or anyone else for that matter. They're DEAD, they don't care one way or another, seeing as they have ceased to exist on this plane of reality. Funerals, Memorials, Remembrances, and all of that are for the living.

I'm sorry but I would rather die almost any way other than doing what I enjoy. I mean really, I'm enjoying it, I'm happy, why would I want to die THEN? I want to die when I'm having a miserable day at work so my last coherent thought can be "Well at least that's over"...

This one is on the Revell October Release set on their website...the internet extends beyond these digital walls ya know... http://www.revell.com/model-kits/trucks/85-4928.html