niteowl7710

They were some of, if not the last of, the kits designed during the final years of the actual AMT/Ertl. The kits didn't get released until 2000 & 2001 and by then Racing Champions had owned AMT for a few years and was well on it's way to death spiraling the model business to the point of irrelevance. The way the tool is designed, it would appear that they probably at some point planned to the full bumper at the time but nobody knew in real time that there would never be the finances or wherewithal to pull it off for another 20 years.

The "problem" now is the most talented people to do this type of tooling are in China. They've been at it for over two decades now, and you'd almost have to reintroduce the "art form" back into the States. Clearly design and tooling can be done in the U.S., as Salvinos JR has proven (at a cost of $40/kit), but even then their various new tools and new tooling (on the old Monogram kits) has left reams to be desired in terms of proportions and accuracy. Because frankly the kits are only as good as the person doing the CAD work and the people putting their "QC" peepers on the test shots...oh and the available budget to fix things or being forced to let them roll as is. Things can and occasionally do go wrong with interpretation of the design into the tooling that's cut, but for the most part any of this type of work is producing what you're being given from the "designer".

Well the only two Revell US kits that were for sure 3D scanned were the two Foose "one off" kits of the F-100 and the Cadillac. Perhaps it's because there isn't enough experience with the 1:1s to be able to compare, but I'm not sure I've really heard any accuracy complaints about either of those - beyond the normal "Why didn't they make a factory stock version" stuff. The post Blitz Revell's first kit was scanned, the Land Rover, and other than some possible missteps as to which side of the tranny hump the stick things stick up on LHD vs RHD, I don't believe I've heard nary a peep about the body as a whole - and that's a heck of a thing to get out of a mold in that big of a piece like they did.

Keep in mind that when full on Lidar scanning of cars became a portable thing - as opposed to having to take the object to a fixed location - is pretty much the same time Hobbico was beginning to drain all the cash flow out of their subsidiaries to cover up their losses in R/C, which is ultimately what caused (along with a lawsuit from TraXXas) their bankruptcy and sale of the Revells. Lidar scanning costs money - which Revell had just enough of to keep the doors open at the end, and more over takes a little bit of forward thinking in terms commitment to the expenses involved.

It's not real, if you check the link provided it's part of a series of "What if" box art creations that were done several years ago.

Nobody releases information that far ahead except maybe Revell of Germany with their yearly New Year's Day announcement. If Moebius (and/or Pegasus) had any information they wanted to be public, they would do so. Their efforts were devoted to getting out the rest of the '65/'66 lineup, which was completed this month with the release of the 4x4. Then getting out the 48' flatbed trailer, which sounds like it should arrive in time for Halloween.

My personal favorite sub-genre of this phenomenon are the people who out and out flame war people for daring to point out inaccuracies and other issues as being irrelevant and we should all just be glad xyz is even in business anymore, and then proceed to turn around and birth a ranch's worth of cattle when the same company "totally messes up" a piece of subject matter that is near and dear to their respective hearts. Which quickly points out so much of what is true within the hobby in general and automotive kits specifically - Nobody cares about it, until the IT is something you care about.

In from UpScale Hobbies, nice to find a place in the U.S. with the new 6R4s with the prices of International Shipping and how much of a bath the U.S. money dollar takes converting to a Euro.

There was a week or two delay between when I ordered the Benz Flatbed and when it was shipped out. As I recall these guys are like most resin casters, a couple of people. If they're getting a lot of orders it's probably taking a few days to get them all sorted, packed and shipped out.

They are, or at least the '57 is because the Convertible and 150 were both added down the line after their Bel Air body was created which is the most contemporary of the Tri-Five kits. Plus part of the delay with the convertible's release was they forgot to include the chassis X-brace when they thought the kit was ready to run. They had to have the file from the '55 laying around so it would fit the chassis without modifications, and they certainly didn't gate off the '55's entire runner system to pop several thousand braces.

Avoid seller at all costs. Their entire shtick is to copy other people's decals and then sell low-rez reprints while claiming they're the originals.

With VW Group trying to increased their ownership stake in Navistar (makers of International) from 16% to majority owners, it's always possible they would consider importing or assembling some MAN products at the Navistar factories. VW Group for those that don't know owns Scania and MAN.

The simple reason is - all of the BOP Tri-Fives are different enough from each other and the existing Chevy tools that you'd have to almost create new kits for each of them other than carrying over things like frames and running gear. They're single use tooling when you consider not only the body differences, but the interiors, and engine modification between each. If you can get 5k of your closest friends to all put up $60 a kit, I'm sure someone would make one for you, otherwise there's no way the return on investment works out.

Well I mean beyond making the point to the group that this FB post was made (and then retracted) what IS the point of this thread at this juncture? Obviously we're getting a '71 Boss 351, anything beyond that (although it has to baked in from Day 1) is speculation, wish listing, griping about too many Mustangs in general, and so on and so forth. The kit most likely has at least 9 months to a year of lead time before it comes out as they go around and scan other '71-73 cars and their engines and all of that.

From more than one retail source I've been told it's already sold out at the wholesale level, (my LHS is rationing them out so people don't try to come in and buy them all) and it's going to be Late October/Early November before they can get another batch made and sent over. So if you want one and can't possibly wait, buy one - because there's likely going to be a small gap where they're not going to be available, rumors will of course fly - Round2 is bankrupt, the Chinese military overthrew the factory, blah_blah_blah, and the prices on eBay will rocket out of control for a month.

Well in 2020 numbers it probably would have been a nominally solid release in terms of sales. BUT we're talking about 1999 when models were still in Wal*Mart, K-Mart, Target, Toys R Us and there were a lot more hobby shops around. Kit runs were in the 5 digits, rather than 5k today, and anything less than 25-30k kits being sold per release was considered a flop.

They did, but neither are the 1991 season Hasemi Motorsports ran their GT-R with #50/#3 Reebok livery because of some registration error that took place and the Impul Calsonic wound up with the #1 instead of the #12 which forced Hasemi to run the one year odd numbers. Pretty sure Decalpool offers the 1990 Reebok car livery, along with the '89 season R31.

The Reebok livery driven by Hasemi to the 1991 Championship would be much appreciated. For some reason, other than a long out of print Studio27 sheet nobody has made decals for that car. I'd personally still like to see a Gr. A Supra too, the Tamiya one has never been reissued and the car ran at Spa and Macau on top of being in JTC for a few seasons.

I have to say I'm very leery of their choice to turn their Lancer into a rally car and kit the EXACT same 1982 Finland 1000 Lakes livery that NuNu is doing, and will have to market 2-3 months earlier. It seems like the potential to split customers and in the end not sell well for either company.

So Hasegawa in their continuing push to challenge the idea that 31 year old kits are better than new ones announced this morning an all new tool R-32 GT-R. Everyone's initial reaction seems to be befuddlement bordering on outrage, but if you're really fair in your considerations the Tamiya R32 is 31 years old (as is their Mk III Supra that Hasegawa announced a months or so that's coming in December), and beyond the fact that it does have a motor - well part of the motor anyways as it's never been completely plumbed in terms of the turbos - it's a pretty basic kit these days. One piece glass, upside down butter container for an interior and so forth.

Stopped by the LHS for a couple of the new releases. Also shipped over a small box of items that had been languishing at my Yahoo! Japan Auctions proxy bidder. Still no mail service between here and there and DHL is pretty pricey. Decals are some unobtanium OOP items.

The C1500s were discussed heavily in the truck review forum - which is just one down from this now, not stuck down in the basement anymore - and it was proven that the frame/chassis for the LWB street truck and the one under the Monster Truck are in fact different, and both existed at the same time. Being that they have the monster truck as a unified runnable tool, but have released neither the SWB trucks or the LWB street trucks it would seem it's more of a question of where (and what if stuff is missing) the tooling inserts have snuck off into the tooling mounds.

Received the other two decal sheets currently available from LB Production today. Some very cool AMG & Audi R8 GT3 liveries coming over the next few months. These are for the NuNu M6, which needs a few minor changes to reflect it's earlier use in GT LM, he does include a scale template for changing the winglet end plates which is a nice touch.

It's a presentation car from when Nissan introduced the R32 GT-R as a Group A race car for the Japanese Touring Championship to replace the R31 GTS-R (as kitted by Hasegawa in 2018).

Could have been the several hundred replies on FB telling them what huge idiots they are for doing another Mustang. It was a wonderful illustration of - People who'd bankrupt a model company within 6 months - with the angry wishlists and pitchforks gathered over there.