niteowl7710

The Tools 2 & 3 are just remixed versions of the original "Tools" and "Tools & Garage" sets with some extra random odds and ends from other kits. The mountain bike can be found in a couple of their SUV kits from the 90s, as can the camping gear. None of it was being used anymore in the car/truck they were originally created for, so they were added to "freshen up" the 80s Era "tools" sets.

You can have all the gas in the world, but if you don't have anyone to get it from the rack to the station it's pretty useless. There's never really an overall driver shortage, it's a where are they driving shortage. As mentioned a lot of drivers in petroleum, and especially food services were laid off. Those who weren't old enough to retire went to work in other sectors of the industry. Now with travel resuming and restrictions lifting people are using more gas and going out to eat (more or finally depending on where you live) and there's a lack of qualified drivers around to support it. Gas tankers obviously require a Hazmat which most of us who don't need it, dropped it years ago because of the every 4yr song and dance to keep it, and food service is a very physical job tossing 20k lbs of freight every day. The local food service places are in a thermonuclear war with each other to snag what people they can with starting wages substantially higher than other sectors, huge sign on bonuses (which are climbing as high as $10k), Day 1 Benefits, etc.

I'd have to look at the kit again to remember which engine they put in. Having owned a LoneStar and driven about a half dozen ProStar/LTs I can't unsee the differences between the kits and real life.. But the LoneStar they made was a complete top of the line truck show demonstrator that had the Rosewood Hardwood floor interior with the full fold down couch. I've never personally seen that interior combination on a 1:1 truck outside that one I sat in at MATS in Louisville. It was something like a $20k upgrade over the base price.

The original ProStar demonstrator had the longer cowl/hood combination to fix the big 13L MaxxForce engine. In the end they decided not to offer that engine in a primarily fleet application truck, and a lot of buyers chose to put Cummins power in as well which also didn't need the extra space. The MaxxForce was such a hot mess of an engine platform there was a class action lawsuit that International "lost" (that famous we're paying a pile of money, but admit no wrongdoing thing). The original ProStar test shots also had the prototype front bumper setup, and that was a fun little debate between truck modelers (particularly those of us actually driving 1:1 ProStars) and Moebius, since obviously they had factory plans and all of that - but that ProStar they were making wasn't an actual production version. Fixing the cowl/hood would have required a bunch of retooling that wouldn't have been feasible to the body, not to mention tooling up the slightly smaller 11L block.

If anything it should be a little longer than a normal ProStar because it's based on a prototype setup with a longer cowl/hood configuration that never existed in real life, plus it shares 85% of the contents with the LoneStar kit and that's a 262" WB.

I presuming you mean LHD? The kit already is RHD. The metal transfers would have to be at least partially redone to reflect the Datsun 240Z name rather than the JDM Fairlady designation. From the looks of it, other than the standard nose parts, you'd just need a dash, center console and the wipers in order to do the flip, along with a new firewall to move the master brake cylinder, and steering shaft to the LHD position. You'd probably need a new steering rack part for the chassis too.

The LHD dash from the U.S. Spec Datsun 240Zs that Hasegawa did last year might fit depending on how Tamiya goes about creating their interior. The kits do still come with RHD parts so you could conceivably take out what you need and pass the kit along as technically still complete.

A standard ProStar (or LT) 6x4 72" Sleeper is a 252" WB.

And molded in "authentic Mint Green" no less...

It'll be out in Europe first being a RevellAG kit, so it'll be Summer at least,before we see it here.

Personally I'd rather see a non-G nosed LHD kit. The biggest add-ons on the 1/12 "Street Custom" kit were racing seats, a rear hoop bar, a strut brace, ITB or side-draft carbs (can't remember off the top of my head) and the Watanabes. Most of that stuff can be sourced out of other 240Z kits that already exist. The Watanabes out of a Hasegawa kit will even be male mount so you don't have to muck around with the whole wheel fitting nonsense.

HobbyEasy out of Hong Kong is taking pre-orders @$43 for 5/30 delivery.

Go on Amazon and look up "Graduated Mixing Cups", you can buy them by the gross. I got 400 2oz ones for like $11. Another good solution for mixing small quantities is tattoo ink cups, those come by the thousand count again for about $10-15.

Yes but the 72, 73-76, and the 77-79 all have different bodies. The LTD based Ranchero are also 5" longer. Aside from a side argument that you'd have a lot of trouble selling that many effectively identical cars (there's no box length difference, or 4x4, etc). You're talking about at least 3 different body tools for those 8 proposed kits, which isn't going to fly even if they share the same dirty bits. Those F Series succeed because all 5 64/65 kits share the same cabs, and common bed pieces, PLUS all the rest of the mechanicals from the first (later model year) kits. All 6 of the 67-72 kits share the same cab and common pieces as well. Personally I'd love to see a '72 Ranchero, and I'd be willing to pay the $45-50 it would cost to get a single year, basically single use kit to market. But I'm not sure how many others would support that price point.

Just tossing this out there for anyone out there who's interested in the esoteric. You may recall back in 2019 KA Models did a kit of the little 3 wheeled "truck" trike Mazda K360, for those of us who got one several parts runners were labeled "360/T600" - included several of us who got the entirely wrong rear chassis/suspension parts, and never have been able to get KA to replace them. They're still blaming the pandemic a year later as to why they can't mail out the parts, even though they've reissued the kit in 2021. ? So now we're getting the T600, which is the long wheel base version of the K360. Other than the longer frame/suspension components, and the longer bed theyshould be identical in contents, it's just amusing to see it now coming out with an Academy box. The kit is available now if you want to source it out of South Korea via eBay, and I suspect it'll get a larger release over the summer (as the trend has been with the recent Academy Hyundai kits).

I think if you really talked to "serious" military builders they'd argue Revell isn't very competitive in that space either. I'm not sure I know anyone who'd suggest a Revell kit instead of, or over pretty much anything other than maybe Smer if there's more than just the Revell kit to choose from...they're definitely seen as the subpar "budget" kit maker.

Show me the series of 11 Rancheros that can be made all using the same chassis, suspension, and drive train components and then you might be onto something. That's the thing about the F-Series series. Underneath the body and interior (which are shared amongst the individual year groups) all 11 kits are identical (other than frame length for the two bed lengths).

Sure, but that problem is twofold. First being other than maybe Salvinos being more transparent every U.S. manufacturer does the -Announce a Project (quiet) Show a test shot (quiet) Kit Magically Appears!!! - song and dance. Secondly I doubt Revell considers any of the Asian companies (or Belkits), or even Round2 or Moebius to be direct competition. Based on the subject matter, it's not like they're wrong. What else are you going to spend your "71-73 Mustang Dollars" on? The same janky 40yr old MPC kit in new box?

Hasegawa makes a perfectly good 240Z kit, but it's curbside. The Tamiya one will include an engine...and be...well Tamiya.

Box art released today. Should be a late June/early July release depending on your part of the globe.

Project is chugging along. You won't hear anything about it until Revell wants you to hear something about it. I highly doubt they'll ever be ones to show off CAD images and rapid prototypes like some companies do. They've long been a "Top Secret Eyes Only" organization - which makes some sense I guess considering most people can't keep from blabbing all over the place if they know something - and those habits die hard.

Pete is full detail with opening doors and other bells and whistles with 302 parts. The SnapTite kits are originally Monogram kits from right around the same time period, which is several years before they merged. EDIT - I see this was already answered, but I was replying from the notification. ?

That's the '85 1/24 Monogram kit, the Revell ones were done in 1982 and were 1/25.

The F-bodies were turned into a Street Machine and a Pro Street (Camaro/Firebird), and they've never been reissued in a stock boxing - not sure if they were permanently mutated into the "customs" or those were 2n1s as they're a little before my time. But they've never been reissued in any form since the late 80s, and might be part of Atlantis at this point. Either way given what RevellAG would probably price the box set of just the truck and trailer at, it's at least as economical to buy the two separately and then fill it with cars you already own. The trailer was just reissued last month.

As usual the releases dates mean nothing, I'm still waiting on kits from last year's Shizouka "Show". The 2004 Spec 320 is amusing since that's the actual first version of that kit that was shown around, and somehow it wound up being produced as the earlier 2001-2003 spec 320 first. If the Italya/Grozzy 935 has the right fenders added then I'm in for a couple as the same rear fender set up was also used on the Apple & Sachs Le Mans 935s, but a straight reissue with new decals would be incorrect and otherwise I already have two sets of decals for that specific car. There's probably 3 or 4 different rear fender height/vent/spoiler combinations that were used on those cars through the years they ran depending on the race/team/chassis number, and you can get resin "replacement" ones though Classic Racing Resins.