niteowl7710

Truck kits are expensive to produce as their at least 2x and sometimes 3x as many parts as a normal car kit, not to mention having the obviously large main body tooling parts. Post-Covid you're talking about an investment of at *least* a half million dollars. The reason the ProStar & LoneStar exist is because other than the hoods/grille/front end and some specific trim items they're the same kit so the tooling amortization worked out better. There really aren't any other trucks made by any other company that share that much content across two models of trucks. The W900/990 might work, but I'm not sure how many "Aero 900s" you'd move and while the Pete 379/389 (etc) is the other PACCAR long nose, beyond the chassis and drivetrain they don't have a lot of shared parts. So you're looking at separate body tools and interiors plus all the associated trim pieces. Italeri can pull of the new tool Euro Trucks because they put out each truck in what seems like at least 3 sleeper variations, and then several show truck "decal variant" releases. Again while the W900 comes in at least 3 sleeper variations I'm not sure you'd sell enough of each of them after the Studio Sleeper to make the investment workout. A flattop W9 would be popular for flatbedding and custom trucks I guess. As far as the Moebius sales it took them a significant amount of time to sell out of their run of ProStars. Changing the LoneStar into the later model truck and/or converting the ProStar to any of the later LT versions could have both been done with minor additional part inserts, but are clearly not worth that investment in their opinion.

It'll be at least July, it's not part of the June distribution list at all, and some of the July kits have already been added "on top" of the June releases (meaning it won't be a last minute addition for this month).

Round2 has confirmed several times that they don't have any of the tooling for the farm equipment. That tooling stayed with Tomy via their continued use of the Ertl brand. I'm not sure about the J-D construction equipment, but I suspect the licensing there is cost prohibitive several times over.

That's a yes and no for me. Yes I'd like an engine, but no I don't want to pay Model Factory Hiro prices for them.

Not necessarily. The engine in all three are the same, with the intakes and air boxes being different.

Minor point of order the Porsche 911 GT3 and the Porsche 911 RSR are two different cars that race in two different classes and series. The RSR is visually larger in dimensions and was more powerful in terms of it's performance vs. it's GT3 cousin.

Nissan raced the "Hakosuka" GT-R in several Japanese Racing Series (1969-1972) most famously the Japanese Grand Prix when that was still a Touring Car race, not an F1 event. In 1972 the Skyline flipped to the next generation (Ken & Mary colloquially) and in 1973 the 2nd Gen GT-R debuted...directly into the Oil Crisis. Only 197 of the factory street cars were made and Nissan pulled out of racing without ever building the car as a racing platform. They did however build a one off Racing Concept Car for the 1972 Tokyo Auto Show with the #73 on it, an indicator of a future that never arrived. In 2007 NiSMO completely restored the original concept car as part of Nissan's Heritage Collection.

Unless they've tossed some P/E at that Lancia it's the same kit that's been available since 1977. Nothing on the little placard says anything about new parts and the Alitalia livery is how the kit was done originally. It was reissued in 2018 with a metal plated body as a limited edition, now it's back with the decals (which I suspect will be missing the tire logos and any other pesky expensive licensing).

Racing "tribute" version. There was no 1973 GT-R race car due to the oil crisis. Nissan built one up as a "what-if" but it never actually ran on track.

The indent is too stark maybe? Hard to judge that sort of detail on a rapid prototype.

Other than new decals I don't believe there's anything *new* about it, just a reissue if the Protar item. It's been out for a few months.

A look at the parts from the Tamiya T.50 Also the parts from the upcoming Belkits Opel Ascona 400

KA Models Mazda Familia Presto sees the light of day again.

As the old joke goes...coming soon...so is Christmas. Which judging by the placard there is actually when this kit will finally come out.

Monthly allotment from HLJ. Not shown the P/E Set for the Volvo. First up some new decals by SMC to create some of the Heritage Edition Ford GTs (Tamiya). There are also wheels to go along with these but of course they didn't show up until the day after I shipped this stuff... Kits

Yeah they were closed for a good while during Covid and then owing to Singapore's stringent regulations on outsides entering the Island there was no mail service for an even longer time. But with HLJ in another one of their spats with Studio27 they aren't carrying the Z Carbon or the reissued TA64 Logo Sheet. 1999 wanted $30+ to DHL me those two decal sheets (which cost less than $30 to begin with) and the shipping from Media Mix was less than $10. They had the 3 ST165 filler sheets in stock too so I took a flyer on putting in the order. They only ship out once a week (on Mondays), but once it was shipped I got it in a week. Happy to be able to add them back into the rotation.

First order back into one of my previous favorite vendor pre-pandemic. Media Mix Hobbies out of Singapore provided these. They are the 3 ST165 Celicas (89/90/91) and the Safari Rally version of the TA64 Celica which are early Beemax kits. These fill in the missing Marlboro logos on those 4 kits (this was before BeeMaNuNu started putting those items into the Detail Up Sets). Also lurking in the back is the Carbon Fiber for the Tamiya 2022 Nissan Z.

Not the most accurate example since the OBS kits are being cloned off the promos and those were done 3rd Party for AMT back then and they didn't have access to the tooling to just re-release them otherwise. There's also the inherent problems even with cloning a 90s era tool parts into a 60/70s era long gone body of making everything play nice and fit together. See Full Bumper 70.5 Camaro, See retooling of the stock front end of the AMC Gremlin. Etc.

Interesting choice on that design. The 5th wheel is in the closed and locked position which would be accurate if you can fit the trailer's king pin down inside the space provided. But if you don't have a trailer hooked you might want to consider taking it in for servicing since it should close/lock on it's own volition.

Isn't it just the Daisy Dukes Jeep minus the verboten branding? I've honestly never seen the inside of the Daisy Jeep to know if the "up top" was part of that kit or not, but it's back in this one - along with the 1981 box art.